Inverted Garden

POW!: Jenny Scheinman - Mischief & Mayhem

Jenny Scheinman -
Mischief & Mayhem

The Village Vanguard
Through July 18, 9 p.m., 11 p.m.

The Village Vanguard is the only club in the world that can shift the meaning of "mainstream" in jazz. Befitting its history and reputation, the Vanguard books a lot of traditional acts; but every so often, a group of adventurous young musicians arrives unexpectedly, and the week of gigs makes seismic ripples. When the then little-known Bad Plus played the Vanguard for the first time in 2002, a Columbia Records rep scouted them and quickly signed them. No band of the last ten years has been as widely influential as the Bad Plus (jazz musician friends of mine in Buenos Aires know their records chapter and verse); and the Vanguard's endorsement played no small part in their early rise.

This week's appearance by Jenny Scheinman - Mischief & Mayhem has the whiff of that Bad Plus show—the Vanguard taking a risk and displaying its best instincts. The violinst/fiddler/composer Scheinman has played the club before, but this band—with Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, longtime Ani DiFranco bassist Todd Sickafoose, and mad-cap drummer Jim Black—sounds especially promising: four virtuosos equally comfortable in and out of the jazz idiom who can't help but drive the music in new directions. I gave the show at critic's pick in New York magazine and can't wait to check it out...

NYMag: Village Vanguard Tales

My annotated slide-show, "A Brief and Colorful History of the Village Vanguard", is now up on nymag.com. It chronicles 13 events from the club's 75 years, from its beginnings as a hangout for lefty booze-hound poets to its present as jazz's most prestigious venue (with some Charles Mingus history/folklore and an account of Bill Evans's famous Sunday thrown in for good measure).

Happy 75th Birthday, Village Vanguard!

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...