Boston Jazz Venues

With the help of a bunch of other people,  I compiled a list of venues in Boston that had live jazz, at least for a while. The list covers some ground, but is far from complete. Our good friend Dick Vacca has sent a new batch of entries, which you will see below my list. Be sure to check out his blog The Troy Street Observer

Izzy Ort's bar and Grill

1369 Club,

Accurate Records Loft, 
Ahmed's,

Arbor House, 

Ark of the Covenant, 

Back Bay Hilton,  
Backstreet,

Beantown Jazz Festival, 

Bebop, 

Beehive, 

Bella Luna, 

Berklee, 

Betty's Rolls Royce, 
Boston Arts Festival

Boston Conservatory at Berklee. 

Boston Globe Jazz Festival, 

BPL, 

Brothers in Brookline, 

CasaBlanca, 

CCP Studios, 

Charles St. Playhouse, 

Choppin Blok, 
Club 47

Club Zircon, 

Connelly's, 

Copley Plaza Bar, 

Costello's, 

Cronins, 

Darryl’s Corner Bar & Kitchen, 

Debbie's, 

Doyle's, 

Elbow Room, 

Ellis Room, 

Essex Hotel bar, 

Estelle's, 

Fairmount Grille, 

Friends of Great Black Music loft, 

Gallery East, 

Goodlife, 

Greene St Grill Cambridge,) Green St,( JP), 

Hasty Pudding, 

Hi Lo Lounge, 
Hotel Avery,

Hyde Park Jazz Festival, 

Inn Square Men's Bar. 

Izzy Ort's

Jazz Workshop/Pall's Mall, 

Joes, 

Johnny D's, 

Jonathan Swift's, 
Kresge Auditorium

Lennie's on the Turnpike, 

Les Zygomates, 

Lilypad,

Lizard Lounge, 

lue Parrot, 

Lulu White's, 

Magnolia Loft. 

Merry Go Round at the Copley Plaza, 

Michael's, 

Middle East Corner, 

Midway, 

Modern Theater, 

Most of the strip clubs had Hammond Trios, 

NEC, 

Nightstage, 

OCBC, 

Outpost 186,

Oxford Ale house, 

Paine Hall, 

Paris 25, 

Parker House, 

Performance Center in the Garage, 

Playground Series at the loft on Harrison Ave, 
Playland,

Plough and Stars, 

Pooh's Pub, 

Ramsey/Toy VFW Post, Dorchester, 

Real Deal jazz club at the Cambridge Multicultural Center, 

Regattabar, 

Rise Club
Ryles, 

Sandy's, 

Satch's, 

Savoy

Scotch and Sirloin, 

Sculler's, 

Slades, 

Space, 

Speakeasy, 

Starlite Roof, 

Stone Soup, 

Storyville,

Streetfood, 

Studio Red Top, 

Sunflower Cafe, 

Swifts, 

the (old)Winery, 

Thelonius Monkfish, 

Third Life Studio, 

Top of the Hub, 

various churches and libraries.

Village Smokehouse in Brookline, 
Vouros Bakery

Wally's, 
WBUR,

Wendy's

Western Front, 

WGBH, 

Willow, 

Wurst Haus, 
Your Father's Moustache

Zeitgeist Gallery 

From Dick:

These are mainly Boston jazz venues, or suburban spots inside Route 495, in operation from 1972 onward, but there are a few from the 1960s. Individual schools and churches are not included. And there were rock rooms like the Channel and the Paradise that had jazz on occasion, but not often enough to make the list.

Downtown Crossing/State St/Quincy Mkt
Bay Tower Room
Cafe Fleuri, Meridien Hotel
Chez Freddie
City Hall Plaza
Concerts on the Common
Cricket's
Gallagher's
Lily's
Michael's Waterfront
Sir Harry's

Theatre District
1-2-3 Lounge
Bradford Hotel Grand Ballroom
Caribe Lounge
Four Corners
Stuart Manor
The Vagabond
Tic Toc
Varty's Jazz Room

Park Square
Number 3 Lounge
Playboy Club
Saxony
The Other Side

Back Bay
Danny's
Darbury Room, became The Point After
Hatch Shell
Hotel Eliot Lounge
ICA Theatre
Jason's
Lenox Hotel
My Apartment Lounge
Office Lounge
Turner Fisheries

Huntington Ave
Club Symphony
Gardner Museum
Museum of Fine Arts
Zachary's

Roxbury/South End
Desert Lounge
Handy's Grill
Juice and Jazz
Piano Factory
Pioneer Club
Rainbow Lounge
Savoy on the Hill
The Station
Tinker's

Dorchester
Playhouse in the Park (Elma Lewis, Franklin Park)
Strand Theatre

Kenmore Square
Kix
Cafe Yana

East Boston
Airport Hilton
P.J.'s Lounge

Brookline/Brighton
Kismet Lounge
Papillon
Walters

Cambridge/Somerville
Atrium Lounge
Cantares
Lai-Lai
Spinnaker Lounge (Hyatt)
Springfields
Turtle Cafe

West of Boston
Bonfire, Westborough
Colonial Inn, Concord
Cottage Crest, Waltham
Decordova Museum, Lincoln
Ephriam's, Sudbury
Finally Michael's, Framingham
Matrix, Natick
Piety Corner Gardens, Waltham
Sticky Wicket, Hopkinton

North of Boston
Buddy's, Revere
Cafe Beaujolais, Gloucester
Club Caravan, Revere
Ebb Tide, Revere Beach
Lakeside, Topsfield
Oceanside Jazz and Big Band Festival, Winthrop
Romie's, Danvers
Stouffer's Bedford Glen Hotel, Bedford
The Surf, Revere Beach
Wagon Wheels, West Peabody

South of Boston
Boston Jazz Society's Jazz BBQ
Joseph's, Braintree
Great Woods Performance Center

Water Music's Jazz Boat

And you could always call the Jazzline at 262-1300

Herman's First Herd Radio Show

On the Duplex Mystery Jazz Hour, wzbc.org, 90.3 fm,  01/14/2016, we heard music from Woody Herman's First Herd. Great soloists include, Bill Harris, Flip Phillips, Pete Candoli, Margie Hyams, Dave Tough, Red Norvo, Shorty Rogers, with vocals by Woody and Francis Wayne.

LISTEN HERE 

PLAYLIST

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Apple Honey" (Jazz, 1945) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Let it Snow" (Jazz, 1945) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Laura" (Jazz, 1945) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Back Talk" (Jazz, 1946) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Caledonia"  (Jazz, 1945) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Sidewalks of Cuba" Jazz, 1946) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe" (1942) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Fan It" (Jazz, 1946) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Goosey Gander" (Jazz, 1945) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Non Alcoholic" (Jazz, 1946) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "I Wonder" Jazz, 1945) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Lady Mcgowan's Dream (Pt. I & II)" (Jazz, 1946) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Northwest Passage" (Jazz, 1945) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Summer Sequence, pts 1-2"  (Jazz, 1946) on Columbia 

Woody Herman and The First Herd "Woodchopper's Ball" (Jazz, 1946) on Columbia 

Boston Piano Players

Jaki Byard

On the April 3, 2014 edition of the Duplex Mystery Hour on WZBC, guest Dick Vacca, author of the Boston Jazz Chronicles and I take a look at some piano players with a Boston connection.

Listen to the show.

Playlist:

Sid Reinherz "The Boston Trot" 1923 on Gennett 

Jaki Byard "Spanish Tinge No 1" 1989 on Candid 

Sabby Lewis Orch "Boston Bounce" 1946 on Continental 

Dave McKenna "You Stepped Out of a Dream" 1991 on Concord Jazz 

Ran Blake and Sera Serpa "When Sunny Get Blue" 2010 on Inner Circle 

Joanne Brackeen "Dr. Chu Chow" 1990 on Concord Jazz 

Nat Pierce Septet "Gale Boogie" 1949 on Crystal-Tone 

James Williams "Love Letters" 1987 on Emarcy 

Dominique Eade and Jed Wilson "Never Let Me Go" 2006 on Jazz Project 

Dick Twardzik "A Crutch for the Crab" 1955 on Pacific Jazz 

Chick Corea "Pannonica" 2002 on Blue Note 

Ray Santisi "Pendulums"  2005) on Rasan 

Boston Connections Radio Show

Here's the playlist from yesterday's Duplex Mystery Jazz Hour. You can hear the music here, along with occasional DJ riffing by me. Note: on next week's show, you will hear live music, with guitar player Jeff Platz, John McClellan on drums and myself sitting in on trumpet. You can catch their show at the Outpost 186 today, Friday, August 9. 

And don't forget to download the JazzBird app-gives you many choices for jazz programming 24 hours a day.

Sonny Stitt “Wee”
from Newport Tribute to Bird (Bluebird 1964)

TIger Okoshi “Yesterdays”
from 2 SIdes (JVC 1994)

Bobby Hackett “Everybody Loves My Baby”
from Jazz Ultimate (Capital 1957)

Joe Lovano “EMperor Jones”
from Symphonica (WDR 2008)

Herb Pomeroy “Porta Desks and Tuxedos”
from and His Stablemates (Freshsounds 1955)

Terri Lynn Carrington “Mosaic Triad”
from Mosaic (Concord 2011)

Serge Chaloff “Everything Happens To Me”
from BOston 1950 (Uptown 1950)

Orange then Blue “Orange was the color of her dress”
from Live (GM 1987)

Ruby Braff “They Can't Take That Away”
from Plays Gershwin (Concord 1974)

Chick COrea & Gary Burton “Can't We Be Friends”
from Hot House (Concord 2012)

Tweaking the Jazz Stream

Jazz radio doesn't stand a chance unless DJ/programmers can attract listeners in the new mobile-device-dominated listening environment. 

A group of Boston jazz people have organized to try and snag this growing audience by developing the JazzBird app. I'll be one of the "curators," tasked with trying to set and maintain some standard of quality (which does not involve trying to define "jazz"). 

Jazz DJ/programmers who cut their teeth on "old" radio can't assume their approach will work on smart phones, Androids, etc. They may want to look closely at how people, especially young people and tech savvy elders, now listen to music.

For 70 or so years, bulk/mass was associated with a higher quality of sound, and portability with mere convenience.

                  

Over the last c. 40 years, technology changed all that, delivering hi-fi in small packages. 

At this point, sound in digital form, usually MP3 files, dominates. This is part of a process that's given people access to millions of songs. At the same time, these files come with much less information than LP's or CD's; both musical information (because of compression) and historical information (no liner notes). 

How does radio stand in relation to this? 

I know from experience that the vast majority of young people who do listen to music on the radio tune to a small number of commercial stations, where almost all the talking they hear is ads and other "load," not information about the music. DJ's speak very little, if at all. So, people who have grown up in the digital sound era can either accept a de-contextualized listening experience or go to fan web sites to find out the details they want to know.

Jazz radio generally plays out in a very different way. Jazz DJ's are likely to program several tunes in a row, often long ones, and talk for at least a couple of minutes between sets, telling listeners who all the members of a group are and providing deeper context for the music.

This begs the question: Do DJ's/programmers need to change their approach to keep the streaming audience tuned in on their mobile devices? How much talking should DJ's do and what information should they deliver? 

There's no right answer, of course. People spin jazz because they're emotionally invested in the music and its history. They also tend to be vaguely monomaniacal, with a trace of the didact (mea culpa). Catering to decreased attention spans or dumbing down the music is a non-starter. BUT:

• You can bear in mind the channels of communication that the mobile audience uses: Twitter, Facebook, etc.. Use them to promote your show and announce your social network handles often to allow listeners easy, quick feedback.
• As part of this, you can use more "blindfold" tests and ticket offers-this also helps support live music.
• If the technology really does make it easier for people to find jazz, there will probably be increasingly disparate audiences with varying degrees of familiarity with the music. Finessing that will be tough, but bear in mind that some people snap to when they hear "Jug," while others need to hear the name Gene Ammons. Try to find a balance that doesn't bore one audience and mystify another.
• Have a web site or find space on the station's web site where you can share supplementary material and links with your listeners.
• Make sure your program is archived. You may want to edit it after the fact to eliminate dated material (along with your mistakes).
• Make sure your station's technology allows listeners to choose a bit rate stream that works for them. Paying to make sure you have a wide range of choices is probably worth it.

Readers with ideas about establishing parameters for jazz presentation on mobile platforms, please feel free to share. 

I hope we can make this work.

Make sure to have a nice photo of yourself that people can relate to

A Salute to Musicians in the Community

As everyone knows, this was a dismal week here in Boston. The denouement could have been much worse, and we should be grateful for that, but the reverberations will continue for a long time. Bostonians are putting up a brave front, but something like this can't help but linger in our collective psyche. 

There are also ways to rebound from an event like this-lingering tete a tetes over tea or whiskey, bedroom escapades, bowling a couple of strings... Or my favorite: playing or listening to music in the street. 

We had already planned as a band to play on Saturday and we walked onto what was an odd stage, in its way. People had been shut in their houses-under siege, really-for several days. There was still a skittish quality to people's attention. Traffic helicopters drew more than the usual casual glances. Unexpected sudden movements startled more. But, after we finished, we heard how much people had gotten from our music and from our rough, spontaneous choreography and I'm confident that we had helped replenish a vital force that had been drained out of our city.

So too does the music of musicians who go into the streets, the parks, the projects, the nursing homes, the schools-anywhere their communities can access what they have to share. Your work is incredibly important and I dedicate this post to you.

Excellent Turnout-What Next?

About 125 people turned out last night looking for ways to improve jazz radio in Boston. Reps from the major Mass. jazz organizations were in the house, as were a lot of musicians, dj's, promoters, producers, bookers, just plain listeners and the two guys who are in the center of this whole thing-constrained WGBH jazz host Eric Jackson and ex-WGBH jazz host Steve Schwartz. 


No matter what arises in the wake of the meeting, it felt great to be a part of that wizened, caring community. 


It was a lightly moderated forum, with no serious mic hogging. There was a certain amount of sheer venting as well as a lot of concrete ideas. I assume jazzboston.org, organizers of the event, will post what was discussed. I also know that Dick Vacca is writing it up for the JJA. Find details at those sites. My comments will be general. 

Alan Dawson

There were some younger people there last night, including a 19-year-old who said "My generation doesn't listen to the radio." A sobering thought, although not quite accurate. They do listen: to KISS, JAMN WBOS, WERS at night and maybe a few other high wattage stations; not to jazz. As noted last night, education is an important part of growing an audience. The difference between stumbling across a disembodied track by Herbie Hancock that you like and having a knowledgeable DJ put it into historical/cultural context for you is huge.


This is just to say that any strategy undertaken to satisfy the current jazz audience and to grow a new one has to utilize both old and new technologies. There was a lot of energy to try and force redress from WGBH or to approach WBUR, but the current diminished size of the jazz audience means that no high-powered station in Boston with a big monthly nut will take a chance on jazz. Let's concentrate on utilizing those college and smaller non-commercial stations that have the flexibility to be supportive. 


In terms of newer technology, a Boston Jazz Stream would not be free, but with all the knowledge we hold, it's almost a no-brainer. In terms of social media, we have a long way to go. Last night, someone asked how many people in attendance blogged, Facebooked and tweeted about the meeting and I was shocked that so few of us raised our hands. C'mon people. I know you got the smart phones. That's what they're for.

[Ed. note: In the next week or two, I'll be posting an interview with Steve Schwartz.].

There's a Meetin' Here Tonight

Tonight's the night of the jazz radio meeting at the Boston Copley Sq. BPL. No, the whole world is not watching, but interested jazz and blues fans in other cities will take note if creative solutions are advanced and consensus reached.


As a guy who's tried to get community action going on media (specifically, LPFM), I believe the trick is to keep the chaos at a minimum and to get volunteers to do things before they leave the room. Gotta get names and emails on lists, not let folks say "I'll sign up later online." 


Should be interesting. I'll follow up tomorrow.

 The  The 

Boston Jazz Radio Consortium?

The college radio stations I listed in my last post would have to be approached in different ways. Some are tightly formatted, fully scheduled and already have some jazz. 

For the stations with some or no jazz but with time on the schedule, jazz DJ's (who seem plentiful among our ranks) could be recruited to take those slots. 

It will be challenging to try to place shows such that jazz will be available somewhere on the Boston dial 24-7, but that should be a goal. I do think WHRB programmers should be asked whether they would consider moving their long jazz block to a time that is more propitious for the jazz audience.

All these stations would be asked to affiliate with some kind of jazz radio consortium. 

I doubt any content coordination among these shows is possible although if someone does an interview with a musician, promoter, etc., they could make it available as an upload for another DJ in the consortium to play during his or her show. 

In any case, stations would be agreeing that their jazz shows would have a dual identification-affiliated with a particular station and also with the consortium. On-air ID's would say something like "You're listening to Crepuscule Jazz on wwww, 80.1 FM, Brighton, Mass, an affiliated member of the Boston Jazz Radio Consortium (or something with a better acronym)." 

Other publicity, like print ads, stickers, etc, would be able to list these shows and DJ's would be encouraged to cross-promote programs. 

Or words to that effect.

"Grace Kelly and Walt Kelly" By Steve Provizer

Maybe I should don the churl's mantle for this.

19-year-old saxophonist Grace Kelly has been voted Best Boston Jazz musician for the 4th year in a row.  As I have often said, there are no Golden Ages and that includes a Golden Age of jazz audiences.  However-and I hope the talented and charming Ms. Kelly doesn't take it personally-this development bespeaks an Age marked by a baser metal.

Boston voters have made their priorities clear: Entertainment over artistic challenge; standards sung and played, audience by-play and mini-skirts. Believe me, I'm a long-time advocate of relating to the audience, love standards and have absolutely nothing against mini-skirts, but the fact that these have been "privileged" over musical originality and daring by Boston jazz audiences for the last 4 years is not heartening.

It feels to me like the cuddly prodigy phenomenon in full swing, deftly promoted. Good grief, Grace has been getting significant ink and showing up on Youtube for years, with the likes of Frank Morgan, Phil Woods and Russell Malone, playing at all the major festivals.

This isn't quite the hoary "selling out" discussion that follows Chris Botti or, say, early-versus-late George Benson. Nor is Grace, in her sylph-like fashion, a 900-pound jazz guerilla, as she is not really displacing other young musicians-and that's part of the problem. Lacking her demographic appeal and effective promotion, no other musician is likely to contend for her spot-on the bandstand or in the polls.

Maybe this is wolf's elitism in sheep's clothing. No one's being swindled here. This isn't the Hunt brothers cornering the silver market. But there are so many great (albeit admittedly scrufulous) jazz musicians in Boston, that it just doesn't pass the smell test.