The Village Vanguard, easily the most hallowed spot in the jazz world, celebrates its 75th birthday this evening with a party for friends of the club. (I was, unexpectedly and delightfully, invited last week.) The club has chosen to celebrate the big day on February 22nd, but befitting a basement venue that came of age in Greenwich Village's most bohemian days, its age and DOB are the subject of some dispute.
The Contenders:
February 26, 1934: In his memoir, Live at the Village Vanguard, Max Gordon, the club's founding eminence, gives February 26, 1934 as the date on which he started the venue. That date corresponds to the opening of the short-lived first Village Vanguard, a basement room on Charles Street that had only one exit and thus failed New York's requirements for a cabaret license. Gordon writes that he moved the club a year later to the Vanguard's current address, 178 Seventh Avenue South, in five truckloads over the course of a single night, but he doesn't specify an exact date.
February 21, 1935: The Wall Street Journal's 2005 article on the Vanguard's 70th birthday gives the club's DOB as February 21st, although I haven't seen that date anywhere and doubt that it was the result of thorough investigation.
February 23, 1935: The Vanguard's website is currently trumpeting February 23rd as the club's founding date, but the club's owner, Lorraine Gordon, told me she thinks February 22nd is more likely.
February 26, 1935: This date appears in Lorraine Gordon's memoir, Alive at the Village Vanguard, but appears to be an error: confusing Max Gordon's Charles Street founding date with the beginning of the current location in 1935.
February 22, 1935: Who knows if this date is actually correct, but it has a number of important things going for it: 1) Lorraine Gordon gives this as the founding date and says Max told her that the phone bills at the club started then, 2) the anniversary celebration is tonight so future generation's will probably date the founding thus (although one should note the big day also happens to fall on a Monday, the club's least popular night and the one on which it's least damaging to close to the public), 3) Wikipedia gives February 22nd as the date, and, well, that counts for something. (Although it should also be noted that the Wikipedia article say erroneously that the club went to an all-jazz format in 1957. Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce both performed at the club afterward.)
For a less speculative, insider-y take, I've written up an annotated timeline of the Vanguard's 75 years that should appear on nymag.com sometime this week. I'll also post some observations from tonight's event in the coming days...
