Jazz Landmarks

Union Local 274

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African Americans were barred from joining the American Federation of Musicians. So across the country, Black musicians formed their own local.

Union Local 274 , the second largest black American Federation of Musicians local, was chartered in 1935.  Members included James Adams, Bill “Mr. C” Carney, Trudy Pitts, Duke Ellington, Benny Golson, Count Basie, Jimmy Smith, Sonny Stitt, Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughan, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Shirley Scott, Philly Joe Jones, Jimmy and Percy Heath, Jimmy Oliver, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan, Bill Doggett, Jimmy McGriff and Nina Simone.

According to Local 274 member Wes Norton, union members were “Clef Club members by default.” The Clef Club was Local 274’s social arm. It was the place for weekend jam sessions. The bar and performance space were open to jazz musicians and the public.

In his autobiography, I Was Not Asked, noted educator and music scholar Dr. George E. Allen wrote:

Many Philadelphia African American jazz musicians attributed their success to the atmosphere and fellowship at Black Local 274. For aspiring musicians, the Local was a training ground for developing their reputation and experimenting with new musical concepts. Local 274 was also a place where African American musicians sought refuge from racial prejudice and discrimination. In the union club during the jam sessions, musicians were encouraged to pursue musical careers through the applause of grassroots Philadelphia African Americans who loved and respected them and the visiting jazz musicians who were playing in the local clubs. Many members of Local 274 joined because of these benefits. The atmosphere inspired both African American and white musicians. They learned by listening to the music performed at the Union and socializing with the many musicians who congregated there.

Local 274 resisted forced amalgamation, or integration, with Local 77. As a result, the American Federation of Musicians cancelled its charter in 1971. But the story didn’t end there. Historian and archivist Diane Turner wrote her dissertation on Local 274. In an interview with ExplorePA.com, Dr. Turner said:

Local 274 saw what was happening to other black Locals and refused to join 77. But she says Jimmy Adams…the local’s president at the time…realized a merger might be unavoidable:

Do we want 77 to have control over what we built? It took us years to build through dues, our property and so forth. So he came up with the idea to start a cultural wing of Local 274 and incorporate it, and transfer all of their assets and property into the Philadelphia Clef Club.

In 1966, Adams incorporated the Philadelphia Clef Club. All Union Local 274 assets, including the union hall, were transferred to the Philadelphia Clef Club for $1.00.

Union Local 274 Headquarters

The Philadelphia Clef Club for Jazz and the Performing Arts celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2016.

Advocacy

From Bebop to Hip-hop

Hip-hop artists are influenced by that which came before. Like beboppers, they have created their own language and culture. Beboppers improvised. Hip-hop artists freestyle.

In an interview with West Philadelphia Music, a project of the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Science, jazz drummer Lucky Thompson said:

Uhh, yeah! Yeah, because it’s all improvisation. Like what they do, they call a rap, a rap is nothing new. Rappers, well, they was doing that back in the forties. That’s not, you know, that’s not new, that’s not new. That used to be a hip talk back then. You know, skeealeebop skeetaleebop babop la-deh-da, you know, that’s old. That’s not—that’s new to them, you know, but it’s not nothing new. It’s been out—it’s been here for a while, and they just called it scatting or talking jive—they would call it talking jive. So that’s, you know, and then cuz like, you can use it—they like now, you see, they using a lot of—they go to Europe, they take a lot of the traditional jazz music and put hip hop beats and everything right over the top of it. And they dance to it, you know, I was really—I was really shocked when I heard it when I went to Europe I was like, “Wow, they playing [Col]trane?” And they got them dancing you know, but it had like a hip hop—a hip hop beat, you know. But it was deep, it was deep, I swear it was deep.

Still, for some jazz purists, the only thing bebop and hip-hop have in common is “they rhyme.” While their heads are stuck in rarified air, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson dropped some knowledge in the liner notes for “Droppin’ Science: Greatest Samples From The Blue Note Lab”:

The one that makes me the proudest, of course, is my hometown champ (and the greatest, funkiest, and most precise DJ ever!), DJ Jazzy Jeff, who lived up to his name in 1986 with a ditty called “A Touch of Jazz,” a compiled cram session of ’70s funk/jazz trivia looped and scratched to perfection. It was the “DJ cut” — remember those? — on his debut album, Rock the House (along with an MC I haven’t heard from in eons? Any locale for a Will Smith? Anyone? . . . lol).

[…]

Enter Idris Muhammad, a crucial general in the Blue Note army that was key to crossing the prestigious jazz label over to the soul side of thangs. That was how I got sucked into Bluebreaks. Same jazz outlook, just a lil’ funkier, to reach the corners of the ghetto that an otherwise (still worthy) Jackie McLean or a Horace Silver couldn’t penetrate. Idris’s drums had equal influence on me just as strong as if he were playing the role of John “Jabo” Starks or Clyde Stubblefield in the James Brown band.

In an interview with the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History project, NEA Jazz Master and Philly native Percy Heath said:

Anyhow, they [hip-hop artists] take little pieces of some things that were written in the bebop era, post-bebop era, and they make little licks out of it and they use it. That’s good that some people, they listen to hip-hop. So, hip-hop is like bebop was back then, revolutionary movement. This business of rapping, I used to do that in the schoolyard when I was twelve years old.

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Jazz Venues

Jazz in Philadelphia!

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Directed by Steven Berry, the documentary “Jazz in Philadelphia” came about as a result of conversations Berry had with WRTI Jazz Host Harrison “Yes Indeedy” Ridley, Jr.

A jazz educator and historian, Ridley had a lifelong dedication to what he called “the positive music.” He hosted a Sunday night show on WRTI for more than 30 years. Jazz in Philadelphia? Yes indeedy!

Jazz Venues

Blue Note

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Open from 1949 to 1956, the Blue Note was located at 15th Street and Ridge Avenue. The house band, led by Ray Bryant, backed, among others, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck, Clifford Brown, Mary Lou Williams, Buddy Rich, Chico Hamilton and Oscar Peterson.

Owner Jack Fields brought in Billie Holiday three or four times a year. Fields said, “She packed them in just to look at her.”

The Miles Davis Quintet, featuring John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums), appeared at the Blue Note on December 3-8, 1956.

The performance was broadcast live on Mutual Network’s Bandstand USA. In his closing remarks, the announcer, Guy Wallace, said:

A great sound — the great sound by Miles Davis and his horn, from Lou Church’s Blue Note, 15th and Ridge Avenue down in Philadelphia. A truly fine place to go if you’re driving around down in that Philadelphia area and you want to hear some real cool jazz.

Miles Davis is the boy that can do it, because he’s one of the real great exponents of that cool sound in cool jazz. I don’t know, uh, as an observer (and more than just interested observer), I find it a pretty controversial thing to talk about cool jazz and other types of jazz, because those of you who are listening who like the clinical sound of cool jazz, really like it, and when we make any comment about it, we’re usually deluged with letters.

We hope you liked it, however, and we hope that you continue to listen to our Bandstand here on Saturday nights on Mutual as we present all types of jazz, from New Orleans to Chicago to Kansas City to the cool clinical sound of modern jazz. You’re listening to Bandstand USA on Mutual Network.

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Jazz Venues

Mama Rosa’s

Located in the space now occupied by the LaRose Jazz Club, Mama Rosa was a popular neighborhood joint in the early 1970s. The weekly jam sessions were organized by multi-instrumentalist Byard Lancaster.

Jazz Landmarks

Foo Foo’s Steak House

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After a night out on “the Strip,” folks would stop by Foo Foo’s Steak House to pick up a Mammer Jammer sandwich to eat on the way home.

In his autobiography, You Only Rock Once, Jerry Blavat, “the Geator with the Heater,” shared memories of Sammy Davis Jr.:

I remembered how he would call me every time he appeared at the Latin [Casino] and ask if I would go to Foo-Foo’s in West Philadelphia and get his “mammajamma” sandwiches.

James “Foo Foo” Ragan, a numbers banker (illegal street lottery) and nightlife king, opened his eponymous restaurant in 1963. Foo Foo was featured on Gilbey’s Gin billboards in Philadelphia.

From Black Brothers Inc.: The Violent Rise and Fall of Philadelphia’s Black Mafia:

Notwithstanding Ragan’s criminal history, he soon found himself as an extension of the Black Mafia’s racket. “The older heads like [Gus] Lacy and Ragan were given a choice: come in out of the rain or stay out there in the cold,” said one informer. “They hadn’t salted any money away and they were too old to take on the opposition, so they fell into line. The old saying used to be, “You can’t fight City Hall.” Now the saying is, “You can’t buck the system, and this is the system.”

This page from the “Black Mafia notebook” confiscated by the Philadelphia Police Department Organized Crime Unit shows Foo Foo was being shaken down for a weekly “street tax.”

Foo Foo Ragan's Soliciation

Source: American Gangster – The Philly Black Mafia

Jazz Venues

LaRose Jazz Club

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The LaRose Jazz Club presents a weekly Sunday Open Jam Session for seasoned performers and young lions. All instrumental musicians, vocalists, spoken word and jazz poets are welcome. The house band provided by Rob Henderson features a different bassist and pianist each week. Henderson supplies the drums, but musicians are encouraged to sit in throughout the night.

The Sessions run from 6-10 p.m. Admission is $5.00; food and drink are available.

There’s live jazz on Mondays, from 6-9 p.m. with legendary alto saxophonist Tony Williams. For more information, call (215) 844-5818.

2018 UPDATE:

Tony Williams and the Giants of Jazz now take the stage every Monday night and it is a communal affair. They never turn away a willing performer, whether a youngster from the community, a walk-in looking for fun or even someone with a now-questionable reputation in Bill Cosby.

Club LaRose, which is often referred to as LaRose Jazz Club, was in the news after Cosby’s performance there on January 19. But behind the protests, reporters and cameras that evening sat a loyal audience, one that proudly visits the club every week.

“You find people of every stripe, of every dot, every color, every age, every variance that you can think of is in this place and it’s just so warm and wonderful,” said Toni Rose, a Germantown resident who does not miss a Monday show.

Read more at Philadelphia Neighborhoods.

Jazz Venues

Located in Center City, Just Jazz hosted jazz and blues greats, including George Benson, McCoy Tyner, Morgana King, Bobbi Humphrey, Esther Phillips, Arthur Prysock, Les McCann, Lou Rawls, Jimmy Smith and Al Grey.

Miles Davis performed here on May 17, 1975.