Photograph by Kevin Roberts
Pianist Peter Martin with Jazz St. Louis' Gene Dobbs Bradford
My fiancée has never had any real contact with jazz, or really any music, since her high school years. When we began dating, I started taking her to jazz events with some trepidation, because I didn’t want to lose the relationship. Our first dates were at Jazz At the Bistro, one of the jewels of the arts scene in St. Louis. For someone who had never experienced jazz, the up-close and personal experience of seeing great musicians playing their hearts out really changed her idea of what great music could be.
Since I began taking her to Jazz at the Bistro, we have been able to enjoy Kurt Elling (by far the best jazz singer working today and possibly of all time), and saxophonists James Carter, Joshua Redman and Chris Potter, arguably three of the best current players on tenor sax. The list of the great jazz artists we have seen in the last 16 months is amazing. One of my hypotheses is that anyone can enjoy jazz if they have both an open mind and emotions, and are exposed to its great artists in live performance. Listening to recordings will not have the same impact.
Unfortunately, some jazz enthusiasts adopt a “hipper-than-thou” attitude that turns people off. In the past, many jazz clubs were dark, smoky toilets run by some unsavory characters that could be off-putting to the uninitiated. I remember spending time in one club in particular, when I was a teenage jazz fan. You could not see the band clearly from the back of the room, because of the smoke. Jazz at the Bistro is not like that. It is a place that is light, smoke-free and run by a friendly, helpful staff. My fiancée has not fallen in love with every group (she said that she’d rather be waterboarded during one performance), but she looks forward, every two weeks during the season, to hearing and seeing great musicians in the family-like atmosphere of the Bistro.
The history of Jazz at the Bistro begins with Barbara Rose, known as the “jazz mom,” who started a concert series called “Just Jazz” at the Hotel Majestic. Barbara literally took care of the musicians who worked for her, often cooking for them in her own apartment. When the Majestic changed ownership in 1995, Barbara moved the series to the present location at 3536 Washington Ave, East of the Fox Theater. She also did something very important: she took Jazz at the Bistro non-profit. Because of her foresight, an evening at JATB will not break your bank account. Tickets are in the $30 to $40 range with a one-drink minimum. To see and hear the same talent in New York, Chicago or Boston, you would be paying much more than $100 per ticket. Jazz at the Bistro is one of the few non-profit jazz clubs in the world.
After Barbara Rose succumbed to breast cancer in 2003, Gene Dobbs Bradford, formerly the Operations Director of the St. Louis Symphony, became executive director of Jazz at the Bistro. Bradford expanded the outreach and educational mission of the organization. Eventually, JATB became Jazz St. Louis with the Bistro concert series being part of their outreach. All of the Jazz St. Louis staff is committed to furthering the cause of jazz. Wynton Marsalis called Jazz at the Bistro one of the top five jazz clubs in the country.
I have a minivan, and I usually drive the musicians to their educational performances and clinics.The musicians, to a person, have felt well cared for by the staff. Unlike some jazz clubs even today, the money is always straight. Contracts are honored by Jazz St. Louis. The musicians love to come to St. Louis and play at the Bistro. Their performances reflect that love, family feeling and respect.
When you go to the Bistro, you are expected to listen during the performance. It is not a neighborhood bar. One evening several years ago, someone took a call on their cell phone. People giving dirty looks and making shushing gestures did not get through to the oblivious caller, so several threw napkins. This got the caller to angrily stomp out of the club.
In an earlier blog, I mentioned that for some reason, St. Louis citizens seem to ignore and sometimes even denigrate their great institutions and artists (the “civic inferiority complex”). Twice, in its history, St. Louis has been a center that has influenced music on a national scale, but this is not well-known because of our focus on the 1904 World’s Fair, the Cardinals and Gaslight Square as our only cultural history.
In our conservatism, St. Louisans seem to need the tried and true. I remember a Lester Bowie engagement at Jazz at the Bistro in the 1990s. Lester is from St. Louis. His Brass Fantasy and his work with the Art Ensemble of Chicago were both known quantities and drew good crowds when they performed in St. Louis. Barbara Rose booked Lester’s New York Organ Ensemble, an unknown quantity, for the Bistro. The radio station that was welcoming all the shows at the Bistro did not even mention the group or play its recordings. The engagement did not draw flies, even though the group had a number of great musicians.
Jazz at the Bistro deserves to be a part of our cultural history, like the Symphony, the Zoo, Shaw’s Garden, Forest Park, the Muny, the Fox, the Sheldon Concert Hall, the Cardinals, the Rams, the Blues, Washington University, the Rep and other world-class cultural institutions. As a community, St. Louis needs to stop looking back to what was and to look forward to what we could be. Jazz at the Bistro, like the forward-looking music it promotes, can be the starting point. We need to recognize and support all of our great institutions.
Make a visit to Jazz at the Bistro and enjoy the amazing performances that seem to occur at every engagement. Try something different and do not be afraid that you will feel out of place there. Our jazz family needs more members.
This weekend, Jazz at the Bistro welcomes world-renowned jazz fusion group, Yellowjackets. Click here for show information.
Dennis Owsley has broadcast a weekly jazz show for St. Louis Public Radio (KWMU-FM) continuously since April, 1983. His current show, “Jazz Unlimited,” is heard every Sunday night from 9 p.m. to midnight. He is the author of the award-winning first book on St. Louis jazz history, City of Gabriels: The History of Jazz in St. Louis, 1985–1973 (Reedy Press, 2006).
