The Village Vanguard is a jazz club at Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. Originally, the club presented folk music and beat poetry, but it became primarily a jazz music venue in 1957. It has hosted many highly renowned jazz musicians since then, and today is the oldest operating jazz club in New York City.
Max Gordon opened the Village Vanguard in 1934 on Charles Street and Greenwich Avenue. He intended it to be a forum for poets and artists as well as a site for musical performances. Due to insufficient facilities, Gordon was refused a cabaret license from the police department and was unable to create the club that he envisioned. In his autobiography he wrote, "I knew if I was ever to get anywhere in the nightclub business, I'd have to find another place with two johns, two exits, two hundred feet away from a church or synagogue or school, and with the rent under $100 a month." [1] In 1934, he moved his business and purchased the Golden Triangle, a speakeasy at 178 Seventh Avenue South.
The Golden Triangle opened its doors in 1935. [2] The Golden Triangle's basement facility structure resembled that of an isosceles triangle. After purchasing the property, Gordon changed the name of the club to the Village Vanguard. [3]
Like its prototype on Charles Street, the Vanguard was dedicated to poetry readings and folk music. During the 1930s and 1940s, visitors to the club heard poetry read by Maxwell Bodenheim and Harry Kemp, blues and folk music by Lead Belly, and Caribbean calypso by the Duke of Iron. [2] Painters discussed the Spanish Civil War between walls dotted by political posters. [4] Comedians such as Phil Leeds performed stand-up routines. [5]
Lorraine Gordon, Max Gordon's wife, wrote, "The biggest reason my pals and I went to the Vanguard, though, was because there were jazz jam sessions in the afternoons on Sundays. You could go hear Lester Young, Ben Webster, all the greatest jazz musicians for fifty cents at the door, or something like that." [5] Although jazz was not yet the main attraction at the club, the Vanguard was a haven for small, swing groups. [6] In the 1930s and 1940s, Sidney Bechet, Una Mae Carlisle, Art Hodes, and Mary Lou Williams performed at the Vanguard. According to Lorraine Gordon, "in time, Max began to book acts, often three a night. Many proved to be high-caliber jazzmen." [7] In 1940, Roy Eldridge performed at the Vanguard. His performance and his dedicated fans raised the possibility that jazz could be the main attraction. [8] As modern jazz developed in the 1940s, small groups began to dominate the Vanguard. College students and artists in Greenwich Village took an interest in jazz. [9] In 1940, a resident trio was formed by Eddie Heywood, Zutty Singleton, and Jimmy Hamilton. [10]
By 1957, one commentator writes, "Gordon reversed his policy, putting jazz at the top of the bill and letting the folknicks…and the comics…fill it out. Thus the Vanguard booked Miles Davis, Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Jimmy Giuffre, Sonny Rollins, Anita O'Day, Charlie Mingus, Bill Evans (a regular), Stan Getz, Carmen McRae." [11]
The booking of Monk demonstrated the Vanguard's ability to take a relatively unknown musician and help launch their career. The story began with the first ever encounter between Max and Lorraine, who met in the Bluebell Bakery, a "homey little Fire Island joint." [12] After Lorraine walked in and spotted Max (who she knew to be the Vanguard's owner), she proposed that he showcase Monk at the club for a week. Max agreed and on September 14, 1948, Monk opened at the Vanguard. The reception was not ideal. "[N]obody came. None of the so-called jazz critics. None of the so-called cognoscenti. Zilch." [12] But Lorraine continued to sponsor Monk as a genius and through her persistence, helped him grow into the pillar of jazz he became.
From the 1950s on, the Vanguard was the leading small venue for jazz, launching many celebrated careers and sustaining others that were already aloft. [9] The Thad Jones–Mel Lewis Orchestra that eventually became the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra played on Monday nights between 1966 and 1990. [13]
Max Gordon died in 1989. The day after, Lorraine closed the Vanguard; the following day, she reopened it and continued to run the place. On June 9, 2018, Lorraine Gordon died of a stroke at age 95. [14]
The Vanguard helped start many careers and has hosted many recordings that are regarded as masterpieces in its basement, making it now a club of international renown. On 3 November 1957, during some of the first recording sessions at the club, Sonny Rollins, a tenor sax player, recorded three LPs. [15] These recordings were at the forefront of the hard-bop movement. The LPs documented two different saxophone-bass-drums trios. Rollins had shown an interest in smaller ensembles as early as 1955; in Paradox, he exchanged four-measure phrases with drummer Max Roach, with no other instrument taking part. In the Vanguard recordings we hear similar styles in arrangements. [16] In the song "Old Devil Moon", Rollins is accompanied only by a bassist and a drummer. Musically, this song set the standard for the piano-less trio. [17] Following Rollins, recordings continued; The Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band performed and recorded there in December 1960 after returning from a European Tour. [18] Then there was John Coltrane's and Bill Evans's Vanguard titles, both from 1961 (Evans was extensively recorded at the Village Vanguard just three months before his death in 1980). Coltrane's album was five titles taken from 22 recorded songs over four nights at the Vanguard. [19] In 1962 The Cannonball Adderley Sextet in New York was released. The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra performed every Monday Night beginning in 1965, recording several times, [20] and in 1976 hosted Dexter Gordon's "Homecoming" performance with Woody Shaw. [21] Rahsaan Roland Kirk performed several shows at the Vanguard in May 1970 that were compiled for his album Rahsaan Rahsaan . During the same year and only four months apart, Pat Patrick and Thelonious Monk played together at the Village Vanguard. [22]
Other recordings include Art Pepper's Thursday Night at the Village Vanguard (1977), Tommy Flanagan's Nights at the Vanguard (1986), and Wynton Marsalis's seven-disc Live at the Vanguard (1999). "The words 'Live at the Village Vanguard' do have a direct and positive influence on an album's sales", said Bruce Lundvall, president of Blue Note, a jazz label with more than a dozen "Live at the Vanguard" titles in its catalog. [15]
In 2013, Ravi Coltrane, the son of John Coltrane, performed at the Village Vanguard. [23]
Singer Cécile McLorin Salvant recorded many of the songs from her album Dreams and Daggers live at the Vanguard. The album won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2018. [24]
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington.
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and actor. He was among the most influential early bebop musicians, which included other greats such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell. Gordon's height was 6 feet 6 inches (198 cm), so he was also known as "Long Tall Dexter" and "Sophisticated Giant". His studio and performance career spanned more than 40 years.
Gerald Joseph Mulligan, also known as Jeru, was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though primarily known as one of the leading jazz baritone saxophonists—playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz—Mulligan was also a significant arranger working with Claude Thornhill, Miles Davis, Stan Kenton, and others. His piano-less quartet of the early 1950s with trumpeter Chet Baker is still regarded as one of the best cool jazz groups. Mulligan was also a skilled pianist and played several other reed instruments. Several of his compositions including "Walkin' Shoes" and "Five Brothers", have become standards.
Elvin Ray Jones was an American jazz drummer of the post-bop era.
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The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra was a jazz big band formed by trumpeter Thad Jones and drummer Mel Lewis in New York in 1965. The band performed for twelve years in its original incarnation, including a 1972 tour of the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. The collaboration ended in 1978 with Jones suddenly moving to Copenhagen, Denmark, after which the band became the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Since the death of Lewis in 1990 it has been known as the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. They have maintained a Monday-night residency at the Village Vanguard jazz club in New York for five decades. The band won Grammy Awards for the album Live in Munich in 1978 and for the album Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard in 2009.
Thaddeus Joseph Jones was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader who has been called "one of the all-time greatest jazz trumpet soloists".
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Max Gordon was a jazz promoter and founder of the Village Vanguard jazz club in New York City.
Ted Rosenthal is an American jazz pianist. He was featured on David Sanborn's series Night Music, and has performed worldwide, both as a leader and as a sideman with many jazz greats, including Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer, Phil Woods, Bob Brookmeyer, and Jon Faddis. Rosenthal has released 15 CDs as a leader, which include Great American Songbook standards, jazz classical compositions, and Rosenthal's own original compositions. In addition to his career as a performing artist, Rosenthal holds faculty positions at the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and The New School.
The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings is a box set of recordings by jazz musician John Coltrane, issued posthumously in 1997 by Impulse! Records, catalogue IMPD4-232. It collects all existing recordings from performances by the John Coltrane Quintet at the Village Vanguard in early November, 1961. Five selections had been issued during Coltrane's lifetime on the albums Live! at the Village Vanguard and Impressions. Additional tracks had been issued posthumously on the albums The Other Village Vanguard Tapes, Trane's Modes and From the Original Master Tapes.
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Richard Gene Williams was an American jazz trumpeter.
Live at the Village Vanguard may refer to:
"Everything Happens to Me" (1940) is a pop standard written by Tom Adair (lyrics) and Matt Dennis (music). It was first recorded by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra featuring Frank Sinatra. Unusually, the song focused on Sinatra's vocal, with no trombone solo by Dorsey. Years later, Sinatra rerecorded the song with the Hollywood String Quartet; this version was featured on his 1957 album Close to You.
The following is the discography of American jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk (1917–1982).
Lorraine Gordon was an American jazz music advocate, the owner of the Village Vanguard jazz club in Greenwich Village, New York City, and the author of a memoir on jazz music.
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