Joe Pitts’ Musical Bar was located in his “hostelry,” the Pitts Hotel. Joe Pitts’ and Watts’ Zanzibar were mentioned in the August 24, 1946 issue of Billboard.
From Jazz.com:
Ray Bryant and [Benny] Golson played regularly in late 1946 with bassist Gordon “Bass” Ashford. They performed one night a week at Joe Pitt’s Musical Bar, and weekends at the Caravan Republican Club, for as long as six months at a stretch.
Jazz clarinetist Billy Krechmer opened his eponymous jazz club on November 3, 1938.
Located in Center City, over the course of its nearly 30-year history (it closed in 1966), the tiny club was also known as Billy Krechmer’s Music City and the Jam Session.
In a piece for Hidden City Philadelphia, jazz historian and archivist Jack McCarthy wrote:
Krechmer’s club was known as a swing room in the early years. It was a place where big name jazz stars, regardless of color, would come to jam between sets or after their gigs at the major venues in town. Though, as the Dixieland revival took hold in the 1950s–and jazz began moving in directions that were less appealing to mainstream audiences–Krechmer’s became a bulwark of Dixieland. If you wanted to hear the latest in jazz from Dizzy Gillespie or Miles Davis, you had to go to clubs like Pep’s or the Showboat. If you wanted to hear Dixieland, you went to Billy Krechmer’s.
The original Krechmer’s was quite small–11 1/2 feet wide by 52 feet long, with a capacity of about 50 people. It was not a fancy place. In 1959, Krechmer purchased the adjacent property and broke through the walls, doubling the club’s size. He also added balcony seating. The club was very popular in the 1950s and early 1960s, often filled to capacity and attracting well-known players and fans of Dixieland.
The Latin Casino opened in 1951. Its expansive lower level seated 500 people and hosted a constellation of stars, including Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Richard Pryor, Jerry Lewis, Milton Berle, Lena Horne, Pearl Bailey, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Mathis and Joey Bishop. At the time, it was Center City’s most sophisticated nightspot
In 1960, owners David Dushoff and Daniel “Dallas” Gerson moved the Latin Casino to Cherry Hill, New Jersey in response to customers’ complaints about parking and Philadelphia’s “blue” laws which banned the sale of alcohol after midnight Saturday.
Philadelphia Tribune columnist Alonzo Kittrels recalled:
Even if you never attended a show at the Latin Casino, I know its name brings to mind images of live entertainment. There were appearances by people such as Richard Pryor, the Temptations, Frank Sinatra and other members of the Rat Pack, Tom Jones, the Supremes and many other stars who made our evenings at this popular venue. The great R&B singer Jackie Wilson will always be associated with the Latin Casino because that was where he was stricken with a massive heart attack during a Dick Clark show. This happened while he was singing “Lonely Teardrops” and he never performed again.
The Rendezvous Room was located on the first floor of the Hotel Senator. It was operated by Irvin Wolf from 1947 to 1955.
In a piece for the Tri-state Jazz Society, Rabbi Lou Kaplan wrote:
Located at 915 Walnut Street in the Hotel Senator, the Rendezvous was owned by jazz enthusiast Lee Guber. It opened January 22, 1947. After entering, one saw a long U-shaped bar on the right, behind which the bandstand was situated. To the left were tables for customers. More tables were available in the back of the room than in the narrow front section. A large photomural blowup of Pablo Picasso’s Three Musicians painting dominated a corner wall.
Many singers who later became big names made their first or an early start in the Rendezvous: Rosemary Clooney, Eydie Gorme, Joni James, Patti Page, to list a few. Later came such well-known vocalists as Thelma Carpenter, Ella Fitzgerald, Ella Mae Morse, Maxine Sullivan, Sarah Vaughan, and Lee Wiley. (I recall marveling one night at how Billie Holiday’s relaxed, syncopated phrasing reshaped each number.) Booked, too, were folk singers Harry Belafonte, Burl Ives, and Josh White; actor John Carradine; musicians Earl Hines, Gene Krupa, Meade Lux Lewis, Charlie Parker, and Artie Shaw; and many other “greats.”
While the Rendezvous engaged various types of entertainment, most prominent was Dixieland jazz. The number one jazz attraction was Bechet, who, for instance, was featured four times in one 12- month period, each for a minimum of two weeks. Actress Tallulah Bankhead, a Bechet devotee and friend, came to the club whenever possible if he was playing. One night she asked Guber, “Would you like to sell twice as much whiskey?” After the owner’s obvious reply, Bankhead, in her husky baritone voice, laughingly advised, “Well, try filling up the glasses!”
I was listening to Jerry Blavat’s show on WXPN when he mentioned The Wedge. It never ceases to amaze me how many jazz clubs there were in Philly in the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and into the ’80s. While everyone knows about the legendary Pep’s, Showboat and Blue Note, those spots were the tip of the iceberg.
Located on Ridge Avenue in North Philly, Bull Moose Jackson, a saxophonist and rhythm and blues singer, performed here.
Located across from Philadelphia International Records, the Fantasy Lounge was a popular hangout for PIR recording artists, songwriters and producers; movers and shakers; actors and actresses appearing in nearby theaters; and the rich and famous including Teddy Pendergrass, Lou Rawls and Diana Ross.
The Kimmel Center is in the footprint of the Fantasy Lounge.
While at the unveiling of Billie Holiday’s Walk of Fame plaque, I confirmed the location of the club with legendary DJ Jerry Blavat.
From a 1999 news story reporting on the death of Lauretta Tucker Adams, the owner of the Fantasy Lounge:
Among the most famous of her businesses was the Fantasy Lounge, a supper club at Broad and Spruce Streets in Philadelphia, where just about anyone could mingle with famous musicians, politicians and professional athletes. It was the spot where fabulous theater parties were tossed by performing casts, and Diana Ross boogied until the wee hours at a birthday party in her honor, according to a 1985 Daily News story lamenting the lounge’s closing to make room for expansion of the Philadelphia College of Art.
Walk of Fame inductee Kenny Gamble recounted:
She was a role model and mentor to many of us. She promoted us everywhere. She did things because she really cared. She didn’t care about material things, and she would help anybody who really needed help with no strings attached . . . and she was very smart in business.
Frank Palumbo was a South Philly-based restaurateur and philanthropist. He owned a number of night clubs, including the legendary Palumbo’s in South Philly and Center City’s Click Club, where Louis Armstrong recorded a live album in 1948.
In a 2005 interview with West Philadelphia Music, a project of the School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania, jazz vocalist George Townes recalled:
And then on the corner at 16th and Market there was a club, they had a revolving stage upstairs, that’s no more there either. Big bands used to go in there too. They called it “The Click.”
Owned and operated by Manny Rubin in the 1960s, the 2nd Fret was located in the heart of the Rittenhouse Square coffeehouse scene. The building is still there.
What happened behind the then-red door was magical. Jamil Overton knows. He was there and used to perform at the folk club:
There were poets and folk singers. It was the spot. Jazz was the center of everything that happened there. It was a transition from beatniks to hippies.
Philly’s premier folk club, the 2nd Fret played host to folk singers and jazz artists who went on to greatness. Musicians like Arlo Guthrie, Norman Connors, Alfie Pollit, Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry, and Richie Havens. A former habitué said artists returned to the small club over and over because they wanted to make sure it survived.
Joni Mitchell performed there many times, recording live at the 2nd Fret in 1967. Joni’s legacy includes collaborations with Herbie Hancock and Weather Report whose members included Philly natives Alphonso Johnson and Victor Bailey. This month she will be presented the SFJAZZ Lifetime Achievement Award by Wayne Shorter:
Ms. Mitchell’s extensive collaborations with jazz artists are a hallmark of her far ranging vision and iconic sensibilities. In the final project before his death, bassist Charles Mingus wrote six pieces for Joni Mitchell. Those compositions featuring lyrics by Ms. Mitchell are captured on the 1979 classic Mingus featuring jazz legends Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock (both previous recipients of the SFJAZZ Lifetime Achievement Award). Her work with other groundbreaking artists including Jaco Pastorius, Tom Scott, Tony Williams, Pat Metheny, and Michael Brecker has led to a legacy that transcends pop and jazz music.
Joni is recovering from an undisclosed medical condition. For updates, follow #ThankYouJoni on Twitter.
SCOOP USA Publisher Sonny Driver, owner of the First Nighter, says he first saw Miles Davis at this West Philly jazz spot owned by Tubby Northington.
Like a lot of black entrepreneurs, Northington raised money for the Civil Rights Movement.
South Philly native Jamil Overton, a former vocalist and sax player, recalls that Chester’s Fun Spot was where Grover Washington Jr. “built up his chops when he first got here from Buffalo” in 1967.
Washington had a regular gig playing Thursday to Sunday. Nate Murray held it down Monday to Wednesday.
All That Philly Jazz 