Sunset Cafe
The Sunset Cafe , later Grand Terrace Cafe, was a jazz club in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Sunset Cafe is one of the most important American jazz clubs of the past century. In addition, among the numerous clubs in Chicago such as the Apex Club , Dreamland , the Plantation Cafe or Lincoln Gardens, it was one of the few places of entertainment in Chicago where there was no segregation ( Black and Tan Club). Afro-Americans and Euro-Americans could meet here without fear of repression.
The club building was at 315 E 35th St in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood. The building, which was originally built as a car garage in 1909, was converted into a jazz club in 1921 and opened by Edward Fox and Sam Rivas on August 3rd of that year. It was later owned by Joe Glaser, who later became Louis Armstrong's manager . Bands such as Arthur Sims, Sammy Stuart or Carroll Dickerson performed in the Sunset Cafe, but soon also more important musicians in jazz history , since Chicago was a center of jazz innovations until 1928. African American artists such as Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway Johnny Dodds and Earl "Fatha" Hines performed there; white musicians like Bix Beiderbecke , Jimmy Dorsey , Benny Goodman or Gene Krupa jammed along. They used the club for their national careers. For example, Armstrong's Hot Five recordings were only made around the time he started playing at the Sunset Cafe .
The career of the twenty-year-old Cab Calloways began under Louis Armstrong ; From 1928 on, Earl Hines, then 25, stayed for twelve years until the club, "controlled" by Al Capone , was renamed The Grand Terrace Cafe (or Grand Terrace Ballroom) in 1937 . The club also performed sophisticated revues , such as Rhapsody in Black, based on Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue .
Under Earl Hines as band leader in the Sunset Cafe , Charlie Parker , Dizzy Gillespie , Sarah Vaughan , Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstine also performed there, as did the dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson . The Hines Band's performances at the Grand Terrace Cafe were broadcast across America at the time.
In 1950 the club closed forever. In contrast to the New York Cotton Club , with which the club was compared and which fell victim to urban renewal years later, the outer walls of the building of the historic Sunset Cafe / Grand Terrace Cafe are still standing . Since then, the structure has served other uses, including an administrative building, received the status of a major Chicago landmark in 1998 and was included in the 1998 urban List of Chicago Landmarks . Today there is a hardware store there, but some of the wall paintings of the Sunset have been preserved.
Another club called the Sunset Cafe existed in Kansas City in the 1930s . Meanwhile, the name is also used for radio broadcasts (e.g. jazz broadcast on University Radio Aachen ).
literature
- William Howland Kenney: Chicago Jazz: A Cultural History, 1904-1930 Oxford University Press, New York 1993. ISBN 0-19-506453-4
Notes and individual references
- ↑ See Burton W. Peretti The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and Culture in Urban America Chicago 1994, p. 185, and WH Kenney Chicago Jazz
- ^ WH Kenney Chicago Jazz , p. 21
- ↑ In a lengthy interview with Hines about this period, the pianist said in a TV documentary for ATV, England in 1975: “Al came in there one night, called the whole band and show together and said, 'We want you to be in our position knows. We ask you to be the three monkeys; you hear nothing, you see nothing and you say nothing '. "Cf. also WH Kenney Chicago Jazz , p. 30
- ^ WH Kenney Chicago Jazz , p. 43
- ↑ Earl "Fatha" Hines, television documentary for ATV, 1975
- ↑ Cf. Burton W. Peretti The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and Culture in Urban America p. 185 as well as Cab Calloway Timeline ( memento of the original from August 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Sunset Cafe ( Memento of the original from December 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. as well as Chicago Landmarks ( Memento of the original from August 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ Chicago Jazz History Revealed at Meyers Ace Hardware, Stephanie Barto, November 3, 2013
