"THE CELLAR"
APRIL 1956
- FALL, 1963
Story by John Dawe
(lt-rt) Jerry Fuller, drums, Freddy Scheiber, bass;
Joe Gordon (trumpet) and Bob Nixon (piano)
.
The opening and the following sucess of the
Cellar was a unique experience for us and Vancouver jazz fans in general.....there had been
nothing
like it
before and it inspired others to open
similar types of clubs in other parts of the city...... such as the "Black
Spot" in Dunbar and the "Blue Horn"
near Broadway and Alma....followed by others
later.....not to forget Howie Bateman's
"Inquisition". For many of us younger musicians with little previous
jazz experience, it was a total gas to be able
to sit back a listen and get to know all these great
out of town players "doing their thing" it was better than any
music school and a hell of a lot more fun.
The Cellar had no liquor licence and was known as a "bottle club".
What we accomplished was phenomenal and it was all done on a "shoe-string"
budget
and the locals guys who played
there made $10 bucks a nite, so none of us were getting rich.... it was a
a labour of love.
The Story
The
original Cellar club was something just short of a miracle!!...... we took
a bare-assed concrete basement and
turned it
into what later became one of the
most important jazz clubs on the west coast........ in time it
became known as a great
place to play with jazz players as
far south as San Diego.
It began as an idea from a small nucleus of non-professional
muscians out of the Ken Hole
big band and
was created mostly to provide a place for muscians to practice,
rehearse
play jazz for ourselves and
hopefully for those who may wish to drop in to listen and
socialize together.
Getting the place ready was no easy
task and
involved a lot of hard work and
dedication. It was located a half block east of
Main St. on Broadway beneath some stores
on what looked like a back alley at 2514 Watson St. The main
group of
people involved in getting the doors open
and
the place up and
running were: Ken Hole, Wally Lightbody, Bill Boyle,
Jim Kilburn, John Dawe, Jim
Johnson, Al Neil, Tony Clitheroe,
Dave Quarin, Ed Roop and Barry Cramer. The basic design
and
decor of the club was left to the very creative abilities of
architect John Grinnell, artist/designer Harry Webb, Jim
Kilburn and
Al Neil.
Art works were donated or loaned and
hung at various spots throughout the club and
"other" venues were tried at later dates,
such as plays performed on Sundays
and
poetry &
jazz was also introduced. The club was registered under the "non-profit"
Societies Act and
the main core group were the " Charter Members" and
the others were "Social Members". In order to
make sure that all our expenses would be
covered the Charter Members paid a yearly fee of about $60 and
each had their
own individual keys.......after
expenses all profits were banked and
when enough money was built up we would then
book in out of town jazz groups, mostly
from L.A. and
San Francisco.
The first opening month was
Apr. /56 and
we were only renting half the basement and
it's a bit hazy, but I think we had
about 8 or 9 tables and
probably about 18 or 20 members and
friends showed up and
the music was just various guys
sitting in and
jamming. The following weekend however was an other
story....people were lined up to get in from the
bottom of the stairs and
spilling out into the parking area. We decided then
to take a chance and
rent the whole
basement at the exhorbitant fee of
ninety bucks a month!
This involved more work.......a
larger bandstand, more decorating and
lighting and
new washrooms etc, and
the place began
to look very groovy.....this became
the Cellar most people remember and
news of the place was spread mostly by word
of mouth and
the UBC jazz society .
(lt-rt) Al Neil (piano), Bob Frogge (vibraphone), Freddy Schreiber (bass),
Bill Boyle (drums), John Dawe (trumpet)
About this time Al Neil
and
Jim Kilburn formed their own groups. Al's was: Jim Johnson, tenor....John
Dawe, trumpet....
Tony Clitheroe, bass....and
Bill Boyle, drms....... this group played the Cellar until about
1961. Jim Kilburn's group. varied
over the years, but was
mainly.... Jim Johnson or Bill Holmes, tenor sax.....Tony. Clitheroe,
bass....Bill Boyle or
Chuck Logan,drums and
at times Harvey Adams, bassoon and
Dorene Williams, jazz vocals. A little later came the
Bob Frogge quintet with Bob Miller or
Freddy Schrieber, bass. These 3 groups
sort of became the regular "house bands"
for the Cellar and
Dave Quarin also brought in an occasional group.
The food menu was a gourmet's
delight (haha)..... hot dogs, saranwrapped sandwiches, coffee
and
pizza and
NO table
service...... hell, we were serving
jazz, not food!! The doors usually opened about
10:30 and
the bands started anytime
after that......usually
about 11pm and
finished about 2 am.... sometimes followed by a late nite session,
depending on who
might fall by after their
gigs.....there was really no official closing hour and
we often hung around 'till sunup.
The first really exciting out
of town group to be booked in was the "Jazz Messiahs", who had
been doing a gig in Seattle
and
had
one free nite before returning to L A ....... this group knocked
us all on our asses.....wow!!..... Don Cherry, trumpet...
George Newman,
alto and
the great Billy Higgins, drums..... no one can recall the bass or
piano player's names.
(lt.) Don Cherry (rt.) Billy Higgins (Nov. 1957)
About
the end of /56 a new guy appeared in the Cellar.....BOB FROGGE!!.....trying
to describe him is impossible....
when they made Bobby they threw
away the mold. He was the funniest, grooviest and
most laid-back cat you'd ever
meet....... and he
was totally insane ( in a very groovy way).... I don't know what
planet he was from, but it wasn't in this
galaxy, or the next ....Bob
soon put together a quintet with himself on vibes, Al Neil, piano, Freddy
Schrieber or
Bob Miller, bass, myself trumpet
and
Bill Boyle, drums ......this group. stayed together until about
1960, when Bob's
lifestyle finally caught up with
him and
he had to return to his home town of Kansas City.
The Paul Bley Quartet from L A did an interesting 4 or 5 day gig....... the
first 2 days without a bass, as Charlie Haden
had a serious
drug problem and
was in no shape to play..... a very young Dave Pike was on vibes......
it was a super group.
The next
out of towners were the newly formed "MASTER-SOUNDS" from San Francisco
with MONK, BUDDYand
WES MONTGOMERY, filled out with Richie
Crabtree piano and
Benny Barth, drums, a good group but rather a poor
man's copy of the MJQ.
Dave Pike, Carla Bley, Paul
Bley, Don Franks, Dave Quarin,
Ken Hole in
the parking area at the entrance to the Cellar
In early 1957 a real surprise to us was the booking in of a then unknown (to
us) alto player from L.A. named SONNY
REDD. Besides being an excellent
jazz player, he introduced us to a great (new) tune..."GREEN DOLPHIN STREET"
.....Miles' recording of this tune
had not yet been released and this tune really knocked
us out. Sonny laid the "changes"
to this tune on us and naturally we all started
playing it.....as I remember it, he was backed up by locals Tony Clitheroe,
bass.... Bill Boyle, drums......and Fred Massey, piano. (Sonny was from Detroit, via New York and last
played Vancouver
in 1974 at Lucy's Jazz Workshop with drummer Roy Brooks
- Gavin Walker)
The weekend of May 16 /57 brought
in the" infamous" L.A.
alto player ART PEPPER...he did 2 nites with the Al Neil trio
and the
3rd nite with Chris Gage...... the last nite ART was 40 mins.
late in showing, making everyone pretty nervous that he
wasn't going to show.......
finally he burst thru the door, sweating profusely and
obviously VERY stoned...... ha ha, he
played his ass off !!
By the summer of /57 Don Cherry's "MESSIAH'S" were back in for
3 days with the VERY
great JAMES CLAY on tenor,
Don Payne, bass and
Billy Higgins, drums.......... we were all somewhat in awe of
this
group.... at this time they sounded
much like a combination of MILES' group and
the "Jazz Messengers"....... wow! again!
.....on the last day we all got together
and went
speedboating out to Horseshoe Bay and Bowen Island....fantastic weekend!!
The next really bigtime player
booked in was the marvellous L.A.
bebop pianist LOU LEVY.......a big press party was thrown
at the club beforehand for publicity and
to push Lou's new album.....also to help pay his expenses. It
was arranged for Lou to
do a solo spot on a local TV show called
"Club Date" and
the FRED MASSEY quintet also appeared....Fred's group was
Fred Masseys group had PAUL PERRY tenor, JOHN
DAWE, trpt., TONY CLITHEROE bass & BILL BOYLE , drums.
On the Cellar gig Lou used Paul
Ruhland, bass, and
Ted Owen, drums. Next to appear was the great HAROLD LAND group
for 3 days. Harold's guys ate
most of their meals at a "greasy-spoon" cafe on Kingsway called (haha) 'UNCLE
TOM'S
CABIN".... those guys loved that place
and
went out of their way to "dine" there !!
Harold Land at the Cellar, 1960
(with Joe Peters, drums and Clarence Jones, bass)
In the fall of /57 DON
CHERRY was back again......this time with a very startling group....... this
was the first time
that these guys had worked
together as a group publicly and ORNETTE COLEMAN was more
than a bit of
a shocker!........ they did a
lot of Ornette's tunes, which at that time were still fairly conventional,
but Ornette's
solo style was extremely "unorthodox".......
you either dug them or you hated them, but after the 3rd nite most
of us were starting to dig what
they were putting down.
Ornette Coleman,
Ben Tucker (hidden) and Billy Higgins
opened a very groovy jazz
club called "THE SCENE" in Victoria........at times some of us would
trek over there
to do a weekend. Alto saxist Dave Quarin took
over as the fulltime paid manager and guitarist Jim Kilburn stepped in
as the new president of the
club.
The club was now starting to get onto a high roll and a steady stream of excellent
players were coming in .......some
as singles working with local rhythm
sections ........guys such as HOWARD ROBERTS, who surprised the hell
out
of all of us........he was
a stone-assed bebopper and the whole weekend just cooked.....
he was backed by Tony
Clitheroe bass, and Bill Boyle drums. ...Howard's
wife also sat in on drums occasionally.
Tenor player HERMAN GREEN brought an excellent bebop group
in from San Francisco with an marvellous trumpet
player named Richard "Notes"
Williams and bassist LARRY LEWIS.......the
group was filled out with locals FRED
MASSEY piano and Bill Boyle........they would
do "CHEROKEE" every nite at an outrageous tempo and Boyle would
come off the stand wringing
in sweat and cursing !!
Dave Quarin
Pl;aying art the cellar, August, 1958
|
"makin' some steam"
with the Al Neil Group, late /59
lt-rt.: Jerry
Fuller, (drums, John Dawe (trumpet), Jim Johnson (tenor sax)
unseen is Bob Miller (bass) and,
of course, the maestro, Al Neil (piano) |
The club by this time had started to attract a large group
of very colorful "regulars".......some real characters like LARRY
GOON and "DAN-DAN" ........Danny
was an ex-airline pilot from Peru ........ between the two of them
their alcohol consumption
could have fuelled a 747!
DON FRANCKS and FRANK LEWIS had become regulars
at the club since it's inception.........Francks was an
extremely talented up and coming
actor and Frank Lewis a very talented
modern artist. Frank donated a fantastic floor
to ceiling self portrait that
hung at the bottom of the entrance stairs......... both these guys pulled
off some outrageous
stunts during some of their
Cellar visits.
There
was a small group of chicks who were always hangin' out at the club and
helping to make life a helluva lot more
pleasant for us musicians......Carol
Hunter...Vivian Cook...Doreen Williams...Lois Scott...Rae Sawyer
and others......
Doreen worked the door
for years and
was a good jazz singer to boot and Viv Cook worked the kitchen
for a while.
One nite while working with
Al Neil's group, Al peered out over the crowd, turned back to
us, laughed and said,
"hey man, where are the bebop
girls tonite ?"....... ha ha, after that we usually referred to
the chicks as "the bebop girls".
Some of the other regulars were Sam Toren...
Arnie Chycoski, Don Cumming, Ray Sikora, Birgit, Stan
Perry, Bob
Streeter...a very young Gavin Walker and
a very super couple of great people, artists Lloyd
and
Mitzi Gibbs.
Bassist Larry Lewis,
bassist with the Herman Green Quintet.
|
Doreen Williams
singing with Al
Neil and his trio
|
Another
pretty colorful cat was trumpet player Dick Forrest...... he came to town
with Louis Bellson's big band....... he
came for 1 week and
stayed for 2 years!!!........ at that time Dick's whole life
swung the whole gamut between the hilarious
and the absurd.......I think
I spent too much time hangin' out with Dick! Word of the
Cellar was getting to be known and
talked about in other
cities and
in late July /58 a great young alto player arrived on the Vancouver scene......Dale
Hillary.
Dale already had quite a bit of playing
experience...... he had just done time at the Lennox School of Music and
had already
sat in with some bigtime
players in NYC. He was a solid ball of nervous energy and
he NEVER stopped talking, ha ha.
I did a weekend with him at the
club and we played an original jazz suite he had just written.....
even that early on he was
a pretty good writer and
over the next few years turned out some really good jazz originals..........for
the next few
years. Dale made Vancouver and
San Francisco his home bases.
Dale Hillary on alto sax with Philly Joe Jones in Cuba
(Bill Barron, tenor sax, Mike Downs, trumpet)
Around the summer of /58 a new phenomenom
had surfaced.......the "BEAT GENERATION".......... it had started
in San Francisco and had now moved northward.
It was a good thing for jazz clubs like the Cellar..... the college kids and
other psuedo hipsters
were into it and
it brought a whole new group of people into the club........
things like poetry and
jazz became the latest "scene". Most
of us thought it was pretty "jive-assed" crap, but what the hell.....
