When Jazz is Alive (not dead)

One early winter Sunday morning when I was a kid, my father, sporting a slightly crazy look on his face and carrying an overstuffed canvas bank bag, walked through the front door of our home.

He was wearing his trademark blue parka with a bright orange lining and fake fur collar. As he closed the door behind him and stomped the snow off his boots, a rush of cold air rolled across the blue shag living room carpet where I sat, watching him curiously, as he pulled several large stacks of bills from the bag, threw them wildly into the air and yelled with a exuberant smile, “It’s time to play ‘Pick up money!’”

My father owned a jazz nightclub on Rush Street in Chicago in the 1970s so much of this made sense. Around this time, legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis is rumored to have declared jazz was dead, but to my father it had actually given him a new life.

At the age of 30, Robert E. Hackett, Sr. ditched his 9-year career selling insurance, got a loan and bought The Backroom for $20,000 from a man named Goodie Singh. For the better part of the decade, he managed to support his wife and three children on cash from cover charges, two-drink minimums and last calls  from customers who frequented the tiny club six nights a week, often until the 5 a.m. close.

The Backroom drew musicians like Eddie Higgins, Monty Alexander, Ramsey Lewis, Judy Roberts, Eldee Young, Red Holt, Kim Martell, Shelly Torres and others.  I know he loved it because I talked to him about it years later. He loved being the boss. He loved the music and the night-life scene, where judges, crooks, celebrities (some local, some national) and average Joes sat shoulder to shoulder at the bar.

He said it was like throwing a party every night. Being called “boss” gave him the feeling of respect that he longed for and also – as I look back – a chance to re-live his 20s that he missed being a young husband and then father of three boys starting at the age of 21.

 My father died in July 2011 at the age of 68. It was unexpected to all of us, but I don’t think to him. He was sick – cancer in both of his lungs. Knowing him, the stubborn lifelong smoker, he very likely just didn’t want to tell anyone so he could go out on his own terms. That’s just how he was. He loathed hospitals, having lost his wife (my mother) to cancer 24 years earlier.

The crappy thing for all of us certainly was not being able to say goodbye, thank you or anything for that matter. And in the four years I’ve spent reflecting on how I feel about this, I’ve thought about a lot of things, but I’ve also found myself listening to more and more jazz.

My favorite right now is Bill Evans, widely considered one of jazz’s most influential piano players. He played on 5 of the 6 tracks of Miles Davis’ landmark “Kind of Blue” album in 1958. He broke from Davis a year later, and in 1961, The Bill Evans Trio – featuring bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian – recorded “Sunday at the Village Vanguard,” which is routinely ranked as one of the best live jazz recordings of all time.  

The Bill Evans Trio at the Village Vanguard - 1961

Last week, I was in New York for work and decided somewhat spontaneously to hop a cab from Midtown to Greenwich Village and catch a late set at the Vanguard.  From what I can tell from old pictures, the dank basement space of the Vanguard, which is celebrating its 80^th anniversary this year, does not look like it’s changed much over the years.

As I nursed my drink and listened to the 75-minute set, I thought of the great artists who have played on the tiny stage – Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Stan Getz and, of course, Bill Evans. Pictures of many of these artists are on the walls. As I stood to leave, I saw a picture of Evans high up on the wall and snapped a picture.

1970 photo of Evans on the wall of the Village Vanguard

After I paid cash for my $13 drink and $30 cover charge, I walked up the narrow stairway leading to Seventh Avenue South and found myself thinking of that Sunday when my father showered our living room with nightclub money and how my brother and I grabbed at the fluttering bills at first, then dropped to our hands and knees to frantically collect them all.

I found myself as well thinking of Bill Evans leaving this very building on the night of June 25, 1961. He and his bass player, Scott LaFaro probably said a reasonably mundane goodbye, likely shaking hands as they went their separate ways, not knowing that they would never see each other again.  

LaFaro, a brilliant 25-year-old musician who Evans had grown close to, was killed 10 days later in a car crash. “Sunday at the Village Vanguard” captured their final performance together. Evans was devastated. He did not record or perform again in public for many months. As I stood on the street, looking up at the red neon “Vanguard” sign, I knew how Evans must have felt. He was crushed. He had no idea it was coming. And he never got to say goodbye.

Crowd outside the Village Vanguard

If I’m honest, I know my decision to listen to jazz that night was not exactly spontaneous. I know it was and continues to be my way of conjuring up the past. For me, hearing the beauty of the music is my way of breathing life into my father’s memory.

I like to picture his stout frame behind the bar of The Backroom. Jazz music would be reverberating off the brick walls of the cramped room. He’d no doubt be smoking and more than likely having a drink…or two. And he’d certainly be proud to be the boss, keeping track through the night as the till rang – dollar after dollar – filling that canvas bank bag with bills to bring home to his family.