Sweet Basil

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Sweet Basil was a New York jazz club that existed from the 1970s through 2001.

Doc Cheatham

history

The Sweet Basil Jazz Club was located in the New York borough of Manhattan in Greenwich Village (88 Seventh Avenue South). At that time it was one of the most famous jazz clubs in New York, along with the Village Vanguard . The club opened as a restaurant in 1974 and soon established itself as a well-known jazz venue in the district. Trumpeter and singer Doc Cheatham performed there from the start and then had a regular Sunday engagement that lasted 17 years until Cheatham died in 1997. The pianist Chuck Folds recorded with the Sweet Basil Friends (including Spanky Davis and Irvin Stokes ) a souvenir album of Cheatham's Sweet Basil appearances. In the late 1980s to early 1990s, the Sweet Basil Trio consisted of Cedar Walton , Ron Carter and Billy Higgins , whose 1991 performance was recorded on Evidence for the album St. Thomas .

From 1981 to 1992 the club belonged to Phyllis Litoff (1938–2002) and her husband Mel Litoff, as well as the German-born artist and impresario Horst Liepolt (* 1927), who organized the bookings and also ran the Lush Life club . In Sweet Basil many concerts was recorded and there was a series of jazz albums, some of which were co-produced by Horst Liepolt how Lover, Come Back to Me (1981) singer Chris Connor , the tribute album Eric Dolphy & Booker Little Remembered Live at Sweet Basil (1986) or Live at Sweet Basil (1989) by pianist McCoy Tyner .

The Sweet Basil also gained fame through the regular appearances of Gil Evans' Monday Night Orchestra from 1983. The club inspired Dollar Brand to write the composition Sweet Basil Blues on his album Blues for a Hip King (1976), as did Emil Viklický for Bazalicka (Sweet Basil)

In the last few years of its existence, the Sweet Basil did not belong to active owners there, but to various Japanese holdings. The club closed on April 30, 2001 when the previous co-owner James Browne, a New York DJ and music promoter, bought the building to remodel it and open a new club, Sweet Rhythm, under new management. Browne tried to keep the club going with a mixed program of jazz, blues, Afro-Caribbean music or soul singers; He also cooperated with the New School's jazz program to give student bands professional performance opportunities. Finally, in 2009, the Sweet Rhythm finally closed its doors.

McCoy Tyner (1973)
Ron Carter

Discographic notes

The recordings are sorted according to the date they were recorded.

Sweet Basil
Sweet rhythm
  • 2003 - Richard Sussman: Live at Sweet Rhythm (origin, 2003, with Tom Harrell , Jerry Bergonzi , Mike Richmond , Jeff Williams )
  • 2005 - Judi Silvano: Women's Work - Live at Sweet Rhythm NYC (JSL)
  • 2009 - Craig Bailey-Tim Armacost Brooklyn Big Band: Live at Sweet Rhythm (Candid)
  • 2009 - Sonny Fortune : Last Night at Sweet Rhythm

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Sweet Basil to Close This Month; New Club Planned at Site (April 7, 2001) in The New York Times
  2. ↑ Ken Dryden: Album Liner Notes
  3. ↑ Jazz at Sweet Basil (1988) in The New York Times
  4. ↑ Allyson Paul: Sylvia Levine talks with Allyson Paul, a waitress at Bradley's, Sweet Basil, Vanguard and Dizzy's Club Coca Cola in JazzTimes
  5. ↑ with Mal Waldron , Donald Harrison , Terence Blanchard , Richard Davis , Ed Blackwell
  6. ↑ Entry on Discogs
  7. ↑ Stephanie Stein Crease: Gil Evans: Out of the Cool - His life and music . (2001, A Cappella Books, 384 pp., En), p. 303
  8. ↑ Discogs
  9. ↑ "BAZALICKA" (SWEET BASIL): SCOTT ROBINSON and EMIL VIKLICKY in CONCERT (Jan. 5, 2011)
  10. ^ Jazz clubs in New York
  11. ^ Howard Mandel: Sweet Rhythm quietly ends run as Village jazz stage in Jazz Beyond Jazz
  12. ↑ Notes from Discogs , Allmusic or Cook / Morton: Penguin Guide to Jazz