Jazz, Ltd.

Notable headliners

Sidney Bechet, Baby Dodds, Edmond Hall, George Brunies, Jack Teagarden, Muggsy Spanier, Clancy Hayes, Les Beigel, Lil Armstrong, Art Hodes, Don Ewell, Barrett Deems, Albert Nicholas, Miff Mole, Pete Fountain, Big Sid Catlett, Bill Johnson, Big Chief Russell Moore and many others.

Sidney Bechet

The most famous musician to headline at Jazz, Ltd. was Sidney Bechet. Bill and Ruth worked hard to feature him at the opening of their new club. He was well known in Europe but he had not been known in Chicago since 1918. His engagements at Jazz Ltd. reinstituted his popularity in Chicago. He was known for his wide vibrato (wavering pulsations) and daring improvisations, exploiting the full range of the soprano saxophone. Down Beat editor, Paul E. Miller wrote "The sounds of jazz and the fullest implications of their meanings have never been more brilliantly delineated than by Bechet." As a virtuoso, he expected the best from other bandmembers. Bechet reveled in the praise bestowed upon him by guests after he completed a music set at Jazz Ltd. He played for three engagements at Jazz, Ltd between 1947 and 1949, which drew big crowds. Unfortunately, his truancy led to litigation.

Frequent songs heard

Just a Closer Walk with Thee, Jazz Me Blues, The Charleston, Tin Roof Blues, High Society, Sensation, Original Dixieland One-Step, Royal Garden Blues, I've Found a New Baby, Slide Frog Slide, Wolverine Blues

Celebrity patrons

Carl Sandburg (writer), Eddie Foy Jr. (actor and one of the "Seven Little Foys"), Bert Lahr (actor), Tallulah Bankhead (actress), Miguel Covarrubias (illustrator), Nelson Algren (writer), Jan Sterling (actress), Sybil Burton (actress, wife of Richard Burton), Tom Ewell (actor), Mrs. Rose Movius Palmer (wife of grandson of Potter Palmer—retail magnate), Dr. John T. Reynolds (famous surgeon), Squirrel Ashcraft (jazz musician), Billy House (vaudevillian, actor), Jack Teagarden (jazz musician), Walter Cronkite (news reporter), Ernest Ansermet (Swiss conductor and composer who famously reviewed Sidney Bechet in 1919).

Unique club

When Jazz, Ltd. opened in June, 1947 it was the only jazz club in Chicago and was the first one owned by a musician in the country. It was also the first in the city to cut records on site. Bill based the format of Jazz, Ltd. on Nick's in New York. Jazz, Ltd was a rarity in keeping the mob from infringing. When it closed in February, 1972, Jazz, Ltd. was one of the longest operating jazz clubs in the country—24 years, 8 months. There was a $2.50 minimum (equiv. to $27.30 in 2015) but no cover charge. The club featured a visiting headliner and a house ensemble patterned after the "hot five": (trombone, clarinet, piano, saxophone or trumpet and drums). Bill originally intended to hire Omer Simeon for the clarinet position but he was not available, so Bill took that position permanently. When Jazz, Ltd. moved to a larger location in 1960, Jazz, Ltd. had either six or seven musicians which included a string bassist, guitarist or vocalist.

Record labels

Jazz Ltd, Atlantic Records, Regal Records, Old Swing-Master Records (French), Delmark Records

Unconventional advertising

Initially, Bill and Ruth did not advertise Jazz, Ltd. in newspapers (until 1965), magazines, on radio or on TV. Instead, they promoted their club by recording their own records on site, signing and selling them. They touted on the record sleeve and on 5x7 inserts how their Jazz Ltd club epitomizes the best aspects of New Orleans Jazz. They printed their admission rules on business cards. They compiled a large and select mailing list to promote their club to: the social set, psychiatrists, doctors, lawyers, newspapermen, business executives and few musicians. And, they sent out 4 page brochures with recent record liner notes.

Jazz, Ltd. is a nightclub dedicated to the Jazz of the '20s and World War I era. It is a club where people who are not necessarily Jazz buffs can spend some time and enjoy themselves. It is a club for the discriminating, the fun-loving and well-mannered person who likes to frequent a well run and safe night spot.

The first advertisement for Jazz Ltd was an article appearing in the May 18, 1947 Sunday Chicago Tribune which states that Paul Eduard Miller and Jazz Ltd are sponsoring a concert on May 25, 1947 at Kimball Hall featuring Sidney Bechet and Max Kaminsky. Jazz Ltd. opened the following month and in November the club headlined Sidney Bechet.

The limited seating of 81 people at the club caused a long line of people each night waiting outside and this helped to showcase Jazz, Ltd's popularity. During the 1950s Ruth said they were so busy that when Bill was on vacation she devised a way to increase turnover. Art Hodes led the substitute band in 20 minute sets and finished with "The Saints." Customers left happy and Ruth let in another 81 people to the club.

A business card reads: "The BEST DIXIELAND BAND in the MOST intimate atmosphere, Superb Liquors, Genteel Clientele, Acclaimed by The Press everywhere"

To entice people to Jazz, Ltd, Mr. Reinhardt dispelled half a century of common misperceptions about jazz music. He used the space on the back of his albums to tell people how Jazz, Ltd. is different:

there has been a persistent and willful notion that jazz is somehow associated with squalor and dinginess and bad ventilation, and that its partisans qualify as dedicated only if they present a take-me-home-for-¬twenty-two-fifty appearance. ...there has been a widespread belief that jazz is not truly jazz unless it is heard in an atmosphere of murkiness, strangulating spirits, dirty glasses and soiled napery. Unfortunately, the suspicion that jazz existed only in hideous little subterranean sweat-boxes had assumed the proportions of a tradition.

Conventional advertising

By the 1960s Jazz, Ltd. did radio commercials for Ford automobiles and Kleenex tissue, magazine advertisements for Hannah & Hogg Whiskey, newspaper ads for women's clothing, club advertisements in cabaret and tourist magazines and they did TV appearances on NBC's Today Show and on WTTW in Chicago (1969).

Editorial friends

Ned Williams, a publicist and managing editor of Down Beat for ten years and an old friend of the Reinhardts, helped them get their club started. Noted jazz critic and columnist, Paul Eduard Miller, helped the Reinhardts with a mailing list.

Ruth persuaded friends at Chicago newspapers and jazz magazines into printing many stories about Jazz, Ltd.: "Disc jockey Dave Garroway mentions Jazz Ltd. and our musicians because he is very fair and interested in jazz. Even though we are not part of any WMAQ commercials, he would not ignore us completely. Dale Harrison gave us a lot of space when he wrote for the Sun. Irv Kupcinet has helped us tremendously, though jazz is not his forte. Bill Leonard, directly across the street at The Journal of Commerce drops in and always has..."

There were no less than 31 editor friends of the Reinhardts whose articles contributed to the success of Jazz, Ltd. By the 1950s Jazz, Ltd had press coverage in Time, Redbook, Collier's, Esquire, Holiday, The Second Line, Theatre Arts, Down Beat, Tiger, Civil War Roundtable, Chicago Welcome, Where, Cabaret, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Daily News, Chicago American, Chicago Sun Times, and Detroit News.

Admission rules

Having worked in Broadway shows and nightclubs since 1923 in New York, Ruth Reinhardt was well aware of the demise of jazz on 52nd Street:

...the state of disrepair into which quaint, storied old Fifty-second Street has been allowed to fall. Eddie Condon, who long ago deserted Fifty-second Street.

As far as jazz is concerned, 52nd Street is gasping for breath...Jimmy Ryan's remains to champion the cause that made the famous block a national institution.

52nd St razed by housewreckers

Bill and Ruth knew that the failure of many jazz clubs from the 1910s through the 1940s can be attributed to bad management, mob connections, illegal speakeasies, gambling, drugs, prostitution and drunkenness. So, to ensure no bad influence would tarnish Jazz, Ltd, they refused to buy alcohol from mob owned distributors, had no cigarette machine in the club and they rigorously enforced a set of rules so strict that Ruth compared their club to a church. With this one set of rules they prevented prostitution, maintained high standards for dress, prevented under age drinking, maintained a comfortable environment and, from a financial perspective, avoided a 20% federal cabaret excise tax on singing, dancing and admissions from 1947 to 1960:

Additional rules are that Jazz, Ltd:

Ruth's management style

"Ruth remembered faces, names. And she'd hip her husband with 'Oh, Bill! You remember Mr. Johnson?' And of course William remembered. Made for good business. Ruth had the ability to get people from all over the country to drop in when they were in town." "She had a talent for presiding with a subtle but firm hand"..."keeping an eagle eye on all proceedings." "Because the room is small, the tension is magnified. When an obnoxious person has to be invited to leave, everyone knows about it. Should a musician become temperamental, or should a celebrity of stage or screen walk in, all the customers are aware of it." "And [Ruth] could smell trouble a mile away." "She had a cutting, sharp kind of satirical wit that was fun to watch being used on someone that got out of line in the club. We were standing up near the front bar one night on a break when some guy got out of line with one of the waitresses. Before he knew what had happened he was standing out on Grand Avenue, his hat and coat draped over his head. But his bar bill was paid up in full, and he never knew what had hit him...Ruth had a soft, generous side to her, too." Ruth makes the analogy of gangsters to sharks, claiming she doesn't know what a gangster looks like but she wouldn't admit one in because "it's just like swimming in the ocean and waiting for a shark...to attack you. You can't see them but you know they're there." "I don't drink and am very conscious of bad behavior. We feel that people come here to hear the music. Any unnecessary noise, from a few, spoils the pleasure of the entire room."

Jazz Ltd. paid their musicians well, $100 a week in 1948 (equivalent to $1,000 in 2015).

Ruth claims it is an advantage to be tone deaf when one spends eight hours a night six nights per week in a jazz club: "Psychiatrists who come here tell me that if I heard every flat note, every wrong, voicing, I'd probably go out of my mind."

Music management

"Bill called the tunes and stamped off the tempos." "Bill surrounded himself with good musicians, but the turnover at times was great. At other times, and on other chairs, some of the sidemen stayed for years." "The band was a driving, hard-working, and fun band, even if we did seem to end up with the wearies after the six-hours of romping-stomping Reinhardt sets." "If we had one thing going for us, it was that we were always working." A card on the table states: "Sometime during the evening you will hear all your favorites." The front line of the band was seated close to the customers and this made for an informal atmosphere. Musicians would chit-chat among themselves and consort with the customers.

Criticisms

From the beginning Jazz Ltd. had its naysayers, its music format criticized and its club chastised, but the club and the band endured and succeeded beyond Bill and Ruth Reinhardt's expectations. When Jazz Ltd opened in June 1947 editors of the Chicago Tribune proclaimed that the club would not last more than two weeks to a month. By 1964 27 other Dixieland clubs in Chicago either closed or ended their music policy. In 1947 there were no jazz clubs in Chicago and jazz music had been in decline since the mid 1930s. Musicians complained that the format was too rigid, that they played many of the same songs every night and that there was no dancing allowed. Playing the same popular tunes each night was common in bands; Louis Armstrong's All-Stars were known for this. The Reinhardts actually favored dancing but not at the cost of a 20% excise tax on profits (from 1947 to 1960) so they forbade it. When a patron observed that Ruth threw out many customers for bad behavior, he threatened to open a competitor across the street to accommodate them. Ruth admitted this club would have plenty of business, but she was more concerned with the happiness of the majority of their clientele, the respectable ones.

Jazz Ltd. building

The first location was at 11 East Grand Ave. and was formerly a tenement house. It was on the near north side, close to all transportation and near a parking lot. The club was just below street level as a step-down-and-into establishment. The avant-garde room was designed by artists Hugo Weber and Emerson Woelffer from the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. The bandstand walls were made of spring steel to help resonate the band, which was on a small round carpeted deck in the back. Enlargements of recent albums adorned the other walls. Bill Reinhardt installed air-conditioning and customized acoustics in which "The softest note makes itself heard all the way to the north wall." Booths lined the walls along perimeter of the main room and while the middle was filled with small square pedestal tables having lacquered tops, surrounded by ladder-back wood chairs. Jazz, Ltd. seated 85 people and had 15 employees. Over the cash register was a sign, "ASCAP salutes Jazz, Ltd. for providing its patrons with America's finest music..." Due to Jazz, Ltd's small size, "most tables have to be reserved. People are turned away by the dozens, but the ones in the know called ahead and tables were held for them.

This procedure was heretofore unknown to Chicago, for a jazz spot." "We are making money and pleasing hundreds of customers weekly." One small spotlight shone on the bandstand that was situated just a foot from the tables. There was a small service bar in front. In the front window was Ziblid, a large statue ridiculing women in general. This was also used as part of the logo on Jazz Ltd. records.

The second location was at 164 East Grand Ave. In 1960, the 11 East Grand locale was vacated when the American Medical Association bought the property for their high-rise office building. The new location was twice the size of the former one, with more seats, a larger stage to accommodate a bassist and guitarist, and a dance floor. This second building was more in keeping with New Orleans style, in Spanish Colonial Revival architecture. Ruth controlled multiple spotlights on the band to match the mood of the music. This location also had microphones and a speaker system and featured a singer. Due to the union's limit of five-day regular gigs, Franz Jackson's Original Jass All Stars played on Thursday nights. They began announcing songs here and permitted dancing.

Until 1960, the club was open from 9 PM to 4 AM weekdays and closed Sundays and after 1960 it was open from 9 PM to 5 AM Sunday mornings through a late-hour license.

"Jazz, Ltd." moniker

Ruth Reinhardt: "Limited space suggested the final name. Jazz Ltd. has caused much comment, and, having worked for Billy Rose for four consecutive years (1931–35), I realize the commercial value of comment" "Jazz, Ltd." is a registered trademark.

Anecdotes

Rules recoil. Before pant suits came, Jazz, Ltd. didn’t allow slacks in their club because they are a part of The Establishment. Once a woman came in with slacks and Ruth offered her a coat if she removed her slacks. She agreed. That woman got drunk and when leaving she took the coat off, showing her girdle; the men gawked at her. So, Ruth took her to the coat check room and helped her put her slacks back on.

Caviling Coward. Noël Coward and Talullah Bankhead came to “a beastly little club” and sat at a table right under the trumpet. Noel thought the music so cacophonic that he walked out holding his ears with Talullah behind him. The customers were delighted.

Tit for tat – as told by Dick Wellstood and Joan Hulbert. Trombonist Munn Ware, seeing Bechet sit down after playing a solo on Tiger Rag, believed he was done. So, Munn then stood up and started blowing. Sidney promptly jumped to his feet and resumed where he had left off. Munn politely sat down and awaited the end of the soprano saxophone solo, and Sidney sat down. But again, just as Munn rose Sidney leapt up and recommenced playing, much to the amusement of the crowd. Sidney pretended to stop, but kept playing. Munn took out a water pistol (used to oil his slide) and shot Sidney on the back of the neck, causing water to soak his shirt and suit. Dick was terrified but kept playing, waiting for the sky to fall, wondering what Sidney would do when his part was done. He did nothing but sit down and laugh. Then, Munn laughed, Bill laughed, the guests laughed and, finally, Dick laughed.

Bamboozled Bechet. One night when friend and actor Donald McKee visited Jazz, Ltd., Ruth confided to him that she was remiss in managing Sidney Bechet’s misbehaving. So, Ruth introduced Don to Sidney as "Doc" McKee. The "doc" took Bechet to the back room, removed a terrible looking green liquid filled vaccine (nail polish) in a large syringe from a doctor’s bag and scolded him sternly with it while holding it up to his nose: "You get out of line once more, and Ruth will give you a jab with this that will make you wish you’d behaved." Bechet was terrified and promised the "doctor" he’d be good and he never misbehaved again.

Talullah’s throne. While Jazz, Ltd. was moving to their new address on Grand Avenue, a frequent guest of theirs, Mr. McCorkle, asked Ruth Reinhardt to save a particular thing from the first club of great interest to him, no matter how odd it seemed. So, when McCorkle got the package he pleaded for pianist Art Hodes to come over right away to the new club to witness 'the unveiling'. It is a gilded toilet seat, which underneath has a note reading, "Talullah Bankhead sat here."

Prospects for another Jazz Ltd

In 1970 Bill and Ruth Reinhardt, along with investors, were building a new Jazz Ltd club in the warmer climate of the Bahamas but it did not materialize since the only prospective buyers of the Chicago club wished to convert it into a restaurant.

Musicians

Original Jazz Ltd band members: Bill Reinhardt (cl), Doc Evans (c), Don Ewell (p), Danny Alvin (d), Munn Ware (tb).

Franz Jackson's Original Jass All Stars members: Franz Jackson (sax, cl), Bob Schoffner (tp), Albert Wynn (tb).

This represents about 1/7th of all musicians at Jazz, Ltd. starting in 1947.

Instrument abbreviations: b – bass, bj – banjo, c – cornet, cl – clarinet, d – drums, g – guitar, p – piano, sax – saxophone, sb – string bass, ss – soprano saxophone, ssph – sousaphone, t – trumpet, tb – trombone, v – vocal