by Ellen Johnston | It’s almost July, so jazz is in the air. While the sidewalks have yet to sizzle, there’s just something about the Vancouver International Jazz Festival that sings of summer (and all the glories that come with it) – beers on the patio, beach barbecues, twilights that seem to go on forever, and the sweet sound of saxophones wafting through the city streets. While the Jazz Fest is no longer Jazz-exclusive, and that whole “summer thing” is certainly taking its time to set in, this time of year is a great one to look back on the history of Jazz in Vancouver. Though it may only be a small part of our city’s musical heritage, we are connected in more ways than might be expected to that greatest of American art forms.

Before Vancouver was known for its squeaky clean image of condo living and yoga by the beach, it was a bit of a rough and tumble, overgrown logging town born out of a much needed drinking hole (thank you Gassy Jack), it wasn’t quite the “No Fun City” that we know it as today. While Vancouver is thankfully (slowly but surely) getting over its weird and often puritanical bylaw restrictions, we have still lost a lot. The recently demolished Pantages Theatre, built in 1907, was home to the Vancouver stop of the North American vaudeville circuit in the early 20th century. A second Pantages Theatre was built ten years later, and following the end of vaudeville, it showed movies and hosted live music between screenings. It was known as the greatest and most elaborately decorated of all the Pantages theatres, but it, too, was demolished, a move that now seems strange for us Vancouverites, living as we do in a city with a venue shortage and a lack of architecturally significant buildings.

Jelly Roll Morton | Maple Leaf Stomp

That first Pantages theatre, the one that was most recently demolished, was a victim of our city’s westward slant. Located on the Downtown Eastside, it stayed unoccupied and uncared for for many years after downtown Vancouver began its steady shift away from Hastings Street and towards the Granville Street centre it maintains today. But some legendary establishments in the East End did survive, including the Patricia Hotel, where Jelly Roll Morton played piano from 1919 to 1921. While he needs little introduction, here are a few notes for the uninitiated: he was born into a Creole family in New Orleans; he was an arrogant self-promoter who claimed he invented jazz; his piano was hot; and his personal life was possibly even more so. It is said of his time at the Patricia Hotel that he “fought off drunken loggers”, and that his arrival, according to the historian Mark Miller, heralded “an extended period of itinerancy as a pianist, vaudeville performer, gambler, hustler, and, as legend would have it, pimp”. He was also, as it happens, one of the greatest Jazz men of all time.

Not too far from the Patricia Hotel and the Pantages Theatre was Hogan’s Alley, Vancouver’s only Black neighbourhood, which flourished in the early 20th century. Flourished, that is, until the construction of the Georgia Viaduct, when it disappeared almost completely and took more pieces of Vancouver’s Jazz history with it. Home to Vancouver’s “square mile of sin”, Hogan’s Alley fomented music not only through its many nightclubs, gambling houses and theatres, but also the African Methodist Episcopal Fountain Chapel, located at 823 Jackson Avenue. Most significant of these establishments was the Harlem Nocturne, Vancouver’s only Black-owned and operated nightclub, with the trombonist Ernie King and his dancer wife Marcella “Choo Choo” Williams at the helm. It wasn’t easy to run a Black nightclub back in those days, even in Canada, and King was regularly harassed by Vancouver’s vice squad. But, for those who were local Jazz-heads or just thrill-seekers, the Harlem Nocturne was the place to go not only for great Jazz music, but also for intrigue, immorality and all those other great things that have always made vice so very popular.

While the construction of the Georgia Viaduct may have not been directly aimed at the residents of Hogan’s Alley, it was a convenient way to eliminate any problems that the city might have had with those who were considered “less desirable”, whether they were thought so because of their illegal alcohol vending, their income level, or quite simply, their skin colour. The destruction of Hogan’s Alley was a tragedy for the city of Vancouver, not only because it destroyed entertainment venues and people’s homes, but because it made it all the more easier to forget. We forget what and who came before, and the contribution they made to the city’s cultural life. Thankfully. however, awareness about Hogan’s Alley has been growing, mostly due to the efforts of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project.

Still, many Vancouverites have very little knowledge of the neighbourhood, due to the fact that it has essentially disappeared off the map. Since the tearing-down of the Georgia Viaduct appears to be inevitable in the near future, we can only hope that the city will find a way to memorialize – and possibly even revive – this lost piece of Vancouver’s history. A large parcel of land is going to open up and there are many things that we could do with it. Instead of building just condos and parkland, why don’t we build a museum dedicated to the history of Hogan’s Alley? And while we’re at it, why not build some more of those music venues that we so desperately lack?

While the East Side has probably been the biggest loser when it comes to the neglect and destruction of our once great Jazz venues, some other interesting bits of Vancouver’s Jazz history have turned up in some of the least expected, far-off parts of the city. Imagine my surprise when, several months ago, I was walking down Dunbar Street and saw a historical marker that said I was standing mere feet away from the home of Vancouver’s original beatnik coffee house. Known as The Black Spot, this was a place where, according to the sign (though I haven’t been able to find confirmation of this anywhere else), Allen Ginsberg himself is said to have performed. Say what?! I knew that Dunbar had not always been so leafy and middle class (it even had its own gang), but this was a revelation. If few people know about Hogan’s Alley, then almost no one, as far as I know, is aware about this important landmark in the cultural history of our city.

Founded in 1958, The Black Spot began as a hangout for young UBC and Lord Byng students, but gradually developed a clientele of poets, artist, and musicians (photos here). Perhaps most deviously, it also attracted the young ladies of the Convent of the Sacred Heart (the current location of Saint George’s Junior School), which is located just down the street. It was a hit from the start, with line-ups around the block and a membership that cost twenty-five cents. It had an all-black dress code, with black walls, bamboo blinds and fishnets hanging from the ceiling. Programming consisted of poetry readings, chess, and musical improvisation (provided by anyone who wanted to bang away on the venue’s piano). Many of our city’s most famous poets read there, from Roy Kiyooka and Bill Bissett to Jamie Reid. In the 1960s, the Black Spot adopted a more serious Jazz policy. It built a stage and became a regular home for Jazz music. But unlike more established downtown venues like The Cellar, it was a place for experimentation, a place for young musicians to test out their chops, try new ideas, and well, just play. And the music went all night, apparently, so that even paper boys delivering the morning news could listen outside the Black Spot’s window and tap their feet along to the swinging rhythms. This is hard to imagine happening today, not only in Dunbar, but also downtown, where closing hours remain embarrassingly early.

So let’s get out and support Jazz in our city this weekend! Festival events run until July 1st, both indoors and out, ticketed and free. And if you’re feeling especially earnest, go pay homage to those sites of Vancouver Jazz History past, and bring your saxophone, or trumpet, or old TISH poetry newsletter with you. Blow that horn, shout it out on the street, because it’s time for Vancouver to stop forgetting. It’s time for us to remember that under all those bylaws and restrictions and new constructions, we used to a pretty fun place. The NIMBYism of Dunbar and the neglect of the DTES are only two examples of this. So go there, play a little tune, say a little poem, and maybe someone, somewhere, might just listen and remember.

For more information of classic Vancouver jazz venues, check out http://www.jazzstreetvancouver.ca.

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Ellen Johnston considers herself a wanderer, whether tramping through the rain-soaked streets of Vancouver and attempting to pry loose the layers of our urban fabric, couch-surfing across America, or getting lost in the souks of Marrakech. Since that is not a full time gig, she fills her days with the study of African dance and drumming, writing, piano, and running her own cookie company, Cookie Elf. She grew up in Vancouver, studied in Philly and London, and hopes to see even more of this great big world in the future.

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