Philadelphia’s longest active jazz club, Chris’ Jazz Café produces over 500 live shows a year. They present shows Monday through Saturday (closed Sunday). Student discounts for cover charges are available. You can buy tickets online.
For more information, visit Chris’ Jazz Café.
The Bijou Cafe opened on October 4, 1972. The club was in the former location of the legendary Showboat. The Bijou hosted luminaries including Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Bill Evans, Jon Lucien, Phoebe Snow, Gil Scott-Heron, Deniece Williams, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Bobby Womack, Ramsey Lewis, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Billy Paul, Sun Ra, Richard Pryor, Dick Gregory, Horace Silver, and Herbie Hancock.
Grover Washington, Jr. recorded “Live at the Bijou” in May 1977.
In the 1970s and early ‘80s, the Bijou was Philadelphia’s premier showcase for up-and-coming artists, including Barry Manilow, Angela Bofill and U2.
Longtime radio personality T. Morgan recalled:
The jazz lineups were nothing short of spectacular and the comedy was even better! The National Lampoon Show with future superstars John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner and Lorraine Newman all appeared together. Another comedy troupe, Firesign Theater also appeared. Billy Crystal was an opening act four times and a headliners three times. His impersonation of Muhammad Ali was a big crowd favorite. Albert Brooks, Richard Pryor, Martin Mull and his Fabulous Furniture, Steve Martin, Jerry Seinfeld and Dick Gregory all keep the audiences amused.
Ciro’s was one of a string of nightclubs owned by Frank Palumbo, a restaurateur, humanitarian, and power broker.
In 1948, Louis Armstrong’s All Stars — featuring Barney Bigard, Sid Catlett, Earl Hines, Velma Middleton and Jack Teagarden — recorded a series of radio broadcasts at Ciro’s.
Opened from 1978 to 1995, the Chestnut Cabaret was located in West Philly. The music venue was later named The Blockley.
The club played host to jazz, blues, soul and funk greats, including Koko Taylor, Albert Collins, Albert King, Average White Band, Dizzy Gillespie, John Lee Hooker, Gil Scott-Heron, Parliament-Funkadelic, Stanley Clarke, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells.
The Sun Arkestra performed here on October 29, 1984.
The Charlie Parker Quintet with Little Benny Harris (trumpet), Charlie Parker (alto sax), Walter Bishop Jr. (piano), Teddy Kotick (bass) and Roy Haynes (drums) performed here in June 1951.
In John Coltrane: His Life and Music, Lewis Porter writes:
The Club 421 on Wyalusing Avenue also became one of the leading venues for jazz. Rice recalls: “I was the first band in [421 Club]. That was right around the corner from me. That place used to be a restaurant at first. We used to hang around there—it was called the Coffee Pot. Then a guy bought it and made a nightclub there—a gentleman named Mr. Roach. So they decided to have music, and I had the first band in there with [saxophonist] Vance Wilson, [William] “Reds” [later known as “Red”] Garland [on piano; 1923-84], [bassist] Bob Bushnell, and a good trumpet player, Johnny Hughes, who passed on some time ago.”
Rice is legendary drummer Charlie Rice who led the first house band at Club 421.
Club 421 closed circa 1952.
Marcus Shelby is a perennial Bay Area jazz favorite who’s compositions explore the African American experience. Shelby finds deeper meaning for his work sharing the music he loves and its history with young people in schools and juvenile halls. Learn more about Marcus Shelby.
In a new book, “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs,” Johann Hari writes how Billie Holiday was targeted by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics after she refused to be silent about racism:
One night, in 1939, Billie Holiday stood on stage in New York City and sang a song that was unlike anything anyone had heard before. ‘Strange Fruit’ was a musical lament against lynching. It imagined black bodies hanging from trees as a dark fruit native to the South. Here was a black woman, before a mixed audience, grieving for the racist murders in the United States. Immediately after, Billie Holiday received her first threat from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
Harry had heard whispers that she was using heroin, and—after she flatly refused to be silent about racism—he assigned an agent named Jimmy Fletcher to track her every move. Harry hated to hire black agents, but if he sent white guys into Harlem and Baltimore, they stood out straight away. Jimmy Fletcher was the answer. His job was to bust his own people, but Anslinger was insistent that no black man in his Bureau could ever become a white man’s boss. Jimmy was allowed through the door at the Bureau, but never up the stairs. He was and would remain an “archive man”—a street agent whose job was to figure out who was selling, who was supplying and who should be busted. He would carry large amounts of drugs with him, and he was allowed to deal drugs himself so he could gain the confidence of the people he was secretly plotting to arrest.
Established in 1986, the Walk of Fame is the creation of the Philadelphia Music Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Philadelphia’s rich musical legacy, supporting the current music scene, and mentoring the next generation of music makers.
One of the finest R&B vocal groups of the ’50s, Lee Andrews & the Hearts specialized in smooth ballads and were influenced by similar vocal acts like the Moonglows, the Orioles, the Drifters, the 5 Royales, the Five Keys, the Midnighters, and the Ravens, while lead vocalist Lee Andrews’ influences were mostly solo artists like Bing Crosby, Frankie Laine, Frank Sinatra, and especially Nat King Cole. These two key influences — a harmonizing four-part vocal base with a strong but tender tenor voice leading the way — was the foundation of the Hearts’ hard-to-beat sound.
The daughter of a preacher, Pearl Bailey began singing at the age of three (her brother, Bill Bailey, also taught her a few dance steps). She was performing professionally by her early teenage years and after touring as a dancer for several years, she featured both as a singer and dancer with jazz bands led by Noble Sissle, Cootie Williams and Edgar Hayes. She began performing as a solo act in 1944, and wooed nightclub audiences with her relaxed stage presence and humorous asides. After briefly replacing Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Cab Calloway’s Orchestra during the mid-’40s, she debuted on Broadway during 1946 in the musical St. Louis Woman. Bailey earned an award for most promising newcomer, and made her first film, Variety Girl, in 1947.
