Week after week, month after month of absolutely stacked, bonkers lineups.
I do love how even with all the heavy hitters listed Ornette Coleman stands above them all. He is the only one with the additional "special attraction" tagline.
I used to wait tables at Spring Street Natural Restaurant. It was owned by Robert Schoenholt (former co-owner of Slugs'). He was a quiet, peaceful man, and it was a great place to work. Many musicians would come there regularly (from Michael Stipe to James Blood Ulmer), and I met several people there who would go on to shape my life/career as a musician (most notably, Greg Tate).
I believe that the first ad for Slugs' Saloon in the far east Bar and Restaurant appeared in the Village Voice July 30 1964 page 14. The address and telephone number was in this ad, which did not use the Old-English style typeface. The VV ad August 6 1964 page 14 was similar, with no apostrophe and no mention of Bar and Restaurant. The VV ad August 13 1964 page 10 was the first to use the Old-English style typeface, and announced the Grand Opening Party Buffet Thurs. Aug. 13, 9 P. M. The first ad to mention musicians was in the VV September 3 1964 page 9: The Paul Bley Deux, Thurs., Fri. Sat. Nite. Although the VV ad September 24 1964 page 14 did not mention musicians, it was the first to include: Italian Kitchen Open Lunch & Dinner. Ads with names of musicians were more frequent in the final three months of 1964.
Although Slugs' will always be associated with jazz, owner Jerry Schultz took out an ad in Back Stage September 4 1964 page 13: "Unusual Talent Sought For New Showcase Cabaret Theatre." The text stated that "Talent must have strong comedy-dramatic improvisational ability. Girls 18-28, Boys 18-30. Apply Mon. thru Fri. at Slugs', 2-7 P.M." It's unclear whether there were any such events at Slugs'.
Thank you, Ethan, for letting us learn of Slugs' (with its appropriate use of an apostrophe), and thank you, Mr. DiMatteo, for sharing your lived experience and memory of Robert Schoenholt (former co-owner of Slugs'). Separately, my mother's youngest sister (who lived in Haight-Ashbury from 1968-1971) has an analogous collection of handbills from Fillmore West. I feel nostalgia for offline, tangible media-- handbills, film, books-- and the vast shared learning of humanmade art & culture, science & technology that tangible media archive for us and generations to come.
The less-than-straightforward process, Ethan, is letting contemporary archivists assemble 21st-century public archives and accessible private collections of tangible media, as contemporary artists and scientists discover and co-create, so that today's preschoolers can have lived experiences that we never dreamed of.
Hey Ethan, thanks for sharing! As Phil says, absolutely stacked and bonkers! Can you tell us what time period these hail from? I'm guessing late 60s-early 70s?
What a time to have been a jazz fan in New York - the beginning of the jazz-rock fusion, the avant-garde and the straight-ahead jazz that was pushing the boundaries (I'm one of those people who call it "post-bop"!). Glad some of this music was recorded and commercially released.
Slugs' didn't just draw musicians, college students, etc., but also a few high school students; I know, because I was one of them. We were not supposed to be there, but a friend and I looked like we were in our mid-twenties at least, he was dating one of the waitresses, and I had a deep bass voice and a starter beard. The drinking age was 18 at the time, and I never saw anyone get carded, at least at Slugs'. A rough neighborhood in that period--in my case ca. 1969-71--and walking to Slugs' from the Astor Street subway stop and worse still heading home was unwise, but there were 2 of us.
I was drawn to Slugs' partly by the Pharoah Sanders album Karma, which featured the ululations of Leon Thomas, the main thing was "The Creator Has a Master Plan," a perfect gateway drug for rock n' roll-loving teenage aspiring hippies. Looking up that album today, I can't believe the talent on those sessions: Reggie Workman, Richard Davis, and Ron Carter alternating on bass !!! And of course the great Billy Hart, who I saw last year, he's even better 55 years later. Today I look back at Karma as an anachronism, and I completely lost my taste for L. Thomas. The Charles Lloyd hippie-friendly records of that period have aged better.
There was a lot of truly great music at Slugs', one of my favorite memories being of the Sam Rivers Big Band, which I sat too close to to take in the full visual sweep, but I remember the wonderful Bob Stewart, the first jazz tubist I ever experienced.
I don't know if that was a golden era of jazz, more likely one of a few. Things were relatively loose: one of my older brothers got to see the classic John Coltrane Quartet when he was 16, again, smuggled in by personal contacts. Through him I learned about Coltrane, Mose Allison, the MJQ, Dolphy, and most of all Miles (who I also saw when I was 16). I think of the end of the '50s-beginning of the '60s as a golden age, the aforementioned, Art Blakey's Moanin', some of best Mingus and Rollins, and most of all Sketches of Spain and Kind of Blue.
So is that the goldenest golden era? What about 52nd Street from the late 1930s to the early '50s, when at various times you had to choose between Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and many others. (The musicians who worked in that scene are mostly gone, but Bill Crow worked there with Marian McPartland in 1953).
There was also Harlem, but for traditionalists, Greenwich Village was the place. My mother lived upstairs from the Pied Piper during WWII, and she also went to Cafe Society. Frequenting the Pied Piper, she became close friends with James P. Johnson, Willie the Lion Smith, Wilbur and Sidney De Paris, Max Kaminsky, and she and her fellow young nurses even held rent parties in their apartment, with either Johnson or Smith at the battered upright piano. That's right, it wasn't only in Harlem. She also knew Fats Waller, and once bought a drink for Billie Holiday, who liked babies and held my oldest brother on her lap between sets. Also not a bad era.
I was gobsmacked by this pictorial reminder of how lucky jazz lovers were half a century ago, this however took the cake: "EVERY MON. Nite IN JUNE JAM SESSION HOSTED BY ART BLAKEY" .
In the comments to the first post, I saw you mention that "post-bop" isn't really a term the musicians use, which I found surprising somehow. The other generic "all of this being played today that isn't free jazz" term I use is "straight ahead" - do actual musicians use that one? I've also seen critics write "mainstream," sometimes "modern mainstream" but those feel more like words musicians wouldn't use.
The utility of "post-bop" to me conceptually is making the point that in many ways the music (mostly) still functions like bebop, or at least more like bebop than it does like New Orleans trad, big band swing, the various approaches of free jazz, etc. Small group, song forms, head - lots of solos - head, etc., but with a broader spectrum of materials poured into that bucket. Of course it's a huge bucket that doesn't tell you a lot about what a specific performance will sound like. When I encounter modern [whatever] that seems to me to be in the spirit of what you describe as the Slugs' scene, I tend to mentally shorthand it as "Joe Henderson quartet" music.
Sidebar, in your experience do musicians hit on the significance of "hard bop" vs. "bebop"? And what of "cool"? To me I basically think of it all as bebop ... I recognize there were critical volleys about this at the time, and probably sociological significance, but looking back and focused on the sound, the borders are pretty murky to me outside of maybe a few definitive records.
we definitely use "straight ahead." But the music covered in my article is not straight ahead, it is too experimental. I read somewhere that Stanley Dance came up with "mainstream." While I don't think I heard a musician use mainstream, it's not a bad word, at least I know what it means.
I hear bebop more than hard bop in rehearsals, but that's also because hard bop is a rare reference these days. Hard bop really requires the blues, gospel, and the shuffle.
Interestingly Lee Konitz didn't like the word "cool" for his jazz, although I personally would say he was cool. Of course he was a Tristanoite first, but he fit in with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan like a glove. There's less blues and absolutely no gospel in cool jazz, it can be contrapuntal and harmonically complex. And it is Caucasian, of course lol
Just fabulous. Thanks for saving this history. In the 70s the Smiling Dog Saloon in Cleveland had big acts like some of these from Tuesdays to Sundays too. Glad I caught some of them.
The first handbill (with Charles Mingus playing Tuesday Dec 16 - Sunday Dec 21) is from 1969. I deduced this from looking at a website where you can display old calendars.
This is amazing.
Week after week, month after month of absolutely stacked, bonkers lineups.
I do love how even with all the heavy hitters listed Ornette Coleman stands above them all. He is the only one with the additional "special attraction" tagline.
I used to wait tables at Spring Street Natural Restaurant. It was owned by Robert Schoenholt (former co-owner of Slugs'). He was a quiet, peaceful man, and it was a great place to work. Many musicians would come there regularly (from Michael Stipe to James Blood Ulmer), and I met several people there who would go on to shape my life/career as a musician (most notably, Greg Tate).
incredible Jason! I was at Spring Street Natural but didn't know that connection
I believe that the first ad for Slugs' Saloon in the far east Bar and Restaurant appeared in the Village Voice July 30 1964 page 14. The address and telephone number was in this ad, which did not use the Old-English style typeface. The VV ad August 6 1964 page 14 was similar, with no apostrophe and no mention of Bar and Restaurant. The VV ad August 13 1964 page 10 was the first to use the Old-English style typeface, and announced the Grand Opening Party Buffet Thurs. Aug. 13, 9 P. M. The first ad to mention musicians was in the VV September 3 1964 page 9: The Paul Bley Deux, Thurs., Fri. Sat. Nite. Although the VV ad September 24 1964 page 14 did not mention musicians, it was the first to include: Italian Kitchen Open Lunch & Dinner. Ads with names of musicians were more frequent in the final three months of 1964.
Although Slugs' will always be associated with jazz, owner Jerry Schultz took out an ad in Back Stage September 4 1964 page 13: "Unusual Talent Sought For New Showcase Cabaret Theatre." The text stated that "Talent must have strong comedy-dramatic improvisational ability. Girls 18-28, Boys 18-30. Apply Mon. thru Fri. at Slugs', 2-7 P.M." It's unclear whether there were any such events at Slugs'.
amazing!
Intriguing to think that's how the VV started too: lots of cabaret and some folk, before it evolved into jazz-only.
Max Gordon's own account of HIS VV (the Village Vanguard) is (I think?) still the best account of early years at the Vanguard.
VV in my comment = Village Voice
You made that clear in context! I however did not! My bad, your good! Haha
Thank you, Ethan, for letting us learn of Slugs' (with its appropriate use of an apostrophe), and thank you, Mr. DiMatteo, for sharing your lived experience and memory of Robert Schoenholt (former co-owner of Slugs'). Separately, my mother's youngest sister (who lived in Haight-Ashbury from 1968-1971) has an analogous collection of handbills from Fillmore West. I feel nostalgia for offline, tangible media-- handbills, film, books-- and the vast shared learning of humanmade art & culture, science & technology that tangible media archive for us and generations to come.
I feel the same nostalgia!
The less-than-straightforward process, Ethan, is letting contemporary archivists assemble 21st-century public archives and accessible private collections of tangible media, as contemporary artists and scientists discover and co-create, so that today's preschoolers can have lived experiences that we never dreamed of.
WOWEE amazing
What musical DNA music in those handbills!!
Hey Ethan, thanks for sharing! As Phil says, absolutely stacked and bonkers! Can you tell us what time period these hail from? I'm guessing late 60s-early 70s?
Steve started going to the club in 1967, and the club closed in early 1972 after Morgan's murder.
What a time to have been a jazz fan in New York - the beginning of the jazz-rock fusion, the avant-garde and the straight-ahead jazz that was pushing the boundaries (I'm one of those people who call it "post-bop"!). Glad some of this music was recorded and commercially released.
Slugs' didn't just draw musicians, college students, etc., but also a few high school students; I know, because I was one of them. We were not supposed to be there, but a friend and I looked like we were in our mid-twenties at least, he was dating one of the waitresses, and I had a deep bass voice and a starter beard. The drinking age was 18 at the time, and I never saw anyone get carded, at least at Slugs'. A rough neighborhood in that period--in my case ca. 1969-71--and walking to Slugs' from the Astor Street subway stop and worse still heading home was unwise, but there were 2 of us.
I was drawn to Slugs' partly by the Pharoah Sanders album Karma, which featured the ululations of Leon Thomas, the main thing was "The Creator Has a Master Plan," a perfect gateway drug for rock n' roll-loving teenage aspiring hippies. Looking up that album today, I can't believe the talent on those sessions: Reggie Workman, Richard Davis, and Ron Carter alternating on bass !!! And of course the great Billy Hart, who I saw last year, he's even better 55 years later. Today I look back at Karma as an anachronism, and I completely lost my taste for L. Thomas. The Charles Lloyd hippie-friendly records of that period have aged better.
There was a lot of truly great music at Slugs', one of my favorite memories being of the Sam Rivers Big Band, which I sat too close to to take in the full visual sweep, but I remember the wonderful Bob Stewart, the first jazz tubist I ever experienced.
I don't know if that was a golden era of jazz, more likely one of a few. Things were relatively loose: one of my older brothers got to see the classic John Coltrane Quartet when he was 16, again, smuggled in by personal contacts. Through him I learned about Coltrane, Mose Allison, the MJQ, Dolphy, and most of all Miles (who I also saw when I was 16). I think of the end of the '50s-beginning of the '60s as a golden age, the aforementioned, Art Blakey's Moanin', some of best Mingus and Rollins, and most of all Sketches of Spain and Kind of Blue.
So is that the goldenest golden era? What about 52nd Street from the late 1930s to the early '50s, when at various times you had to choose between Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and many others. (The musicians who worked in that scene are mostly gone, but Bill Crow worked there with Marian McPartland in 1953).
There was also Harlem, but for traditionalists, Greenwich Village was the place. My mother lived upstairs from the Pied Piper during WWII, and she also went to Cafe Society. Frequenting the Pied Piper, she became close friends with James P. Johnson, Willie the Lion Smith, Wilbur and Sidney De Paris, Max Kaminsky, and she and her fellow young nurses even held rent parties in their apartment, with either Johnson or Smith at the battered upright piano. That's right, it wasn't only in Harlem. She also knew Fats Waller, and once bought a drink for Billie Holiday, who liked babies and held my oldest brother on her lap between sets. Also not a bad era.
I was gobsmacked by this pictorial reminder of how lucky jazz lovers were half a century ago, this however took the cake: "EVERY MON. Nite IN JUNE JAM SESSION HOSTED BY ART BLAKEY" .
In the comments to the first post, I saw you mention that "post-bop" isn't really a term the musicians use, which I found surprising somehow. The other generic "all of this being played today that isn't free jazz" term I use is "straight ahead" - do actual musicians use that one? I've also seen critics write "mainstream," sometimes "modern mainstream" but those feel more like words musicians wouldn't use.
The utility of "post-bop" to me conceptually is making the point that in many ways the music (mostly) still functions like bebop, or at least more like bebop than it does like New Orleans trad, big band swing, the various approaches of free jazz, etc. Small group, song forms, head - lots of solos - head, etc., but with a broader spectrum of materials poured into that bucket. Of course it's a huge bucket that doesn't tell you a lot about what a specific performance will sound like. When I encounter modern [whatever] that seems to me to be in the spirit of what you describe as the Slugs' scene, I tend to mentally shorthand it as "Joe Henderson quartet" music.
Sidebar, in your experience do musicians hit on the significance of "hard bop" vs. "bebop"? And what of "cool"? To me I basically think of it all as bebop ... I recognize there were critical volleys about this at the time, and probably sociological significance, but looking back and focused on the sound, the borders are pretty murky to me outside of maybe a few definitive records.
we definitely use "straight ahead." But the music covered in my article is not straight ahead, it is too experimental. I read somewhere that Stanley Dance came up with "mainstream." While I don't think I heard a musician use mainstream, it's not a bad word, at least I know what it means.
I hear bebop more than hard bop in rehearsals, but that's also because hard bop is a rare reference these days. Hard bop really requires the blues, gospel, and the shuffle.
Interestingly Lee Konitz didn't like the word "cool" for his jazz, although I personally would say he was cool. Of course he was a Tristanoite first, but he fit in with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan like a glove. There's less blues and absolutely no gospel in cool jazz, it can be contrapuntal and harmonically complex. And it is Caucasian, of course lol
Just fabulous. Thanks for saving this history. In the 70s the Smiling Dog Saloon in Cleveland had big acts like some of these from Tuesdays to Sundays too. Glad I caught some of them.
Hi Ethan, great to see these. Can we see the relevant years? Some show the days of the week, but unless we still have our diaries…
I don't know how to fix that, Steve has what he has.
The first handbill (with Charles Mingus playing Tuesday Dec 16 - Sunday Dec 21) is from 1969. I deduced this from looking at a website where you can display old calendars.
https://www.generalblue.com/yearly-calendar/c/1969
The others can probably be researched the same way.