Minton's Playhouse
Encyclopedia
Minton’s Playhouse is a jazz
club and bar located on the first floor of the Cecil Hotel at 210 West 118th Street in Harlem
. Minton’s was founded by tenor saxophonist Henry Minton in 1938. Minton’s is famous for its role in the development of modern jazz
, also known as bebop
, where in its jam sessions
in the early 1940s, Thelonious Monk
, Kenny Clarke
, Charlie Christian
, Charlie Parker
and Dizzy Gillespie
, pioneered the new music. Minton’s thrived for three decades until its decline near the end of the 1960s, and its eventual closing in 1974. After being shuttered for more than 30 years, the newly remodeled club reopened its doors on May 19, 2006, under the name Uptown Lounge at Minton’s Playhouse. Unfortunately, the reopened club was closed again in 2010.
Local 802. In addition, he had been the manager of the
Rhythm Club, in Harlem, in the early part of the 1930s, a place where Louis Armstrong
, Fats Waller
, James P. Johnson
, and Earl Hines
frequented. The novelist Ralph Ellison
later wrote that because of his union background and music business experience, Minton was aware of the economic and artistic needs of jazz
musicians in New York
in the late 1930s. Minton’s popularity and his penchant for generosity with food and loans, made his club a favorite hang-out for musicians.
Minton started a policy of holding regular jam sessions
at his club, which would later prove to be a key factor in the development of bebop
. Because of his union
ties, Minton was able to ensure that musicians would not be fined for their participation in jam sessions, an activity that was prohibited by the union. Dizzy Gillespie
recalled that there were “walking” delegates from the union that would follow musicians around and fine them “a hundred to five hundred dollars” for participating in jam sessions, but that they were “somewhat immune from this at Minton’s because of Henry Minton.” According to Ralph Ellison
, Minton’s Playhouse provided “a retreat, a homogeneous community where a collectivity of common experience could find continuity and meaningful expression.”
, a former bandleader, to manage the club. Building in the same direction that Minton had started, Hill used his connections from the Savoy Ballroom
(where his band used to play), and the Apollo Theatre
to increase the interest in the club. Hill put together the house band
which included Thelonious Monk
on piano, Joe Guy on trumpet, Nick Fenton on bass, and Kenny Clarke
on drums. Both Clarke and Guy were in Teddy Hill’s band before it disbanded in 1939. According to Clarke, Teddy Hill wanted to “do something for the guys that had worked with him” by giving them work during difficult times. The house band at Minton’s in 1941, with the addition of frequent guests, Dizzy Gillespie
and Charlie Christian
, was at the center of the emergence of bebop in the early 1940s. Later, the band was augmented by tenor saxophonist Kermit Scott.
. The Schiffmans treated their performers to free dinner and drinks after the conclusion of a long week of work. The food at Minton’s became almost as popular as the music as noted by many present at that time. In an interview with Al Fraser (1979), Dizzy Gillespie
told his recollection of Monday nights at Minton’s:
, Hot Lips Page, Ben Webster
, Don Byas
, and Lester Young
would sit in. The trumpet duels between Roy Eldridge
and Dizzy Gillespie
became legend, with Gillespie eventually surpassing his mentor. Speaking to Al Fraser, Gillespie recalled how Thelonious Monk
one night teased Eldridge after being out-played by Gillespie saying, “Look, you’re supposed to be the greatest trumpet player in the world...but that’s the best.” Even though Eldridge was an established musician in the older swing style, he was an active figure at Minton’s and contributed through his encouragement of Gillespie and Clarke to further their explorations.
Eldridge and the other swing masters who participated in the early cutting sessions at Minton’s played an important role in the evolution of swing toward bebop
by inspiring the next generation of musicians. A young Sonny Stitt
witnessed the great battles between the master saxophonists of the day in the early 1940s:
Byas was one of the first tenor saxophonists to assimilate bebop
into his style, in contrast to Young, Hawkins, and Webster, who stayed close to their swing roots through the development of bebop
.
Herman Pritchard, who tended bar at Minton’s “in the old days”, would watch as Ben Webster
and Lester Young
would “fight on those saxophones...like dogs in the road.” Ralph Ellison
believes that what was occurring at Minton’s from 1941 to 1942 was a “continuing symposium of jazz, a summation of all the styles, personal and traditional, of jazz.”
, was the young electric guitarist from Benny Goodman’s
band, Charlie Christian
. He played nightly at Minton’s and was one of its stars. Although Christian was in his early twenties in 1941, his time at Minton's was significant, but brief; he would die the next March after being confined to a sanatorium stricken with tuberculosis
. As evidenced by recordings made by Columbia University
student Jerry Newman in 1941, Christian’s playing was breaking new ground. Gunther Schuller’s
assessment of Christian’s playing on those recordings is as follows:
Kenny Clarke
and the band at Minton’s would look forward with anticipation to Christian’s arrival after finishing his set with Goodman. Christian was admired by his peers at Minton’s, including Thelonious Monk
who “loved listening to Charlie play solos with fluid lines and interesting harmonies.”
death, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker
would emerge as a new leader of the bebop
movement. Parker’s collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie
, Thelonious Monk
and Kenny Clarke
, at sessions at Minton’s, would build on the earlier experiments of Christian. Before 1942, Parker was known to have spent more time at Clark Monroe’s Uptown House, another Harlem club where jam sessions
extended into the early morning, than he spent playing at Minton’s. After leaving Jay McShann’s
band at the end of 1941, Parker joined Earl Hines’s
band in 1942 and was reunited with Dizzy Gillespie
, who he had met some time earlier. It was during this period of time starting in 1942 that Parker, nicknamed ‘Bird’, could be found sitting-in at Minton’s on Monday nights as recalled by Miles Davis:
Parker never was officially a member of the house band at Minton’s during that period, however sensing his importance to the bebop movement, Clarke and Monk approached Teddy Hill about hiring Parker into the band. Hill refused so Clarke and Monk decided to pay Parker out of their salaries.
After Parker’s arrival on the scene in Harlem, a new generation of player followed. Miles Davis
, Fats Navarro
, Dexter Gordon
, Art Blakey
, Max Roach
and many others were drawn to Minton’s. Miles Davis’s
search for Charlie Parker
brought him to Minton’s where he “cut his teeth” at the jam sessions. Miles remembered:
Davis’s remarks reflect on the frenzy in Harlem for the new sounds of bebop
that surrounded Parker, Gillespie and Minton’s.
, Gillespie prompted the band to play standards, such as Gershwin’s
“I Got Rhythm”, in difficult keys in order to discourage beginners from sitting in. Bassist Charles Mingus
remembers being required to audition to get up on stage:
Practices such as these challenged up-and-coming jazz musicians to get their acts together in order to participate in the jam sessions, which kept the music at a high level.
(LeRoi Jones) wrote in Black Music (1967), that “The groups that come into Minton’s are stand-up replicas of what was a highly experimental twenty-five years ago.” Although the club was open for a little more than three decades, Minton’s Playhouse will always be associated with the 1940s and the jam sessions that gave birth to bebop
.
Minton’s Playhouse is a jazz
club and bar located on the first floor of the Cecil Hotel at 210 West 118th Street in Harlem
. Minton’s was founded by tenor saxophonist Henry Minton in 1938. Minton’s is famous for its role in the development of modern jazz
, also known as bebop
, where in its jam sessions
in the early 1940s, Thelonious Monk
, Kenny Clarke
, Charlie Christian
, Charlie Parker
and Dizzy Gillespie
, pioneered the new music. Minton’s thrived for three decades until its decline near the end of the 1960s, and its eventual closing in 1974. After being shuttered for more than 30 years, the newly remodeled club reopened its doors on May 19, 2006, under the name Uptown Lounge at Minton’s Playhouse. Unfortunately, the reopened club was closed again in 2010.
Local 802. In addition, he had been the manager of the
Rhythm Club, in Harlem, in the early part of the 1930s, a place where Louis Armstrong
, Fats Waller
, James P. Johnson
, and Earl Hines
frequented. The novelist Ralph Ellison
later wrote that because of his union background and music business experience, Minton was aware of the economic and artistic needs of jazz
musicians in New York
in the late 1930s. Minton’s popularity and his penchant for generosity with food and loans, made his club a favorite hang-out for musicians.
Minton started a policy of holding regular jam sessions
at his club, which would later prove to be a key factor in the development of bebop
. Because of his union
ties, Minton was able to ensure that musicians would not be fined for their participation in jam sessions, an activity that was prohibited by the union. Dizzy Gillespie
recalled that there were “walking” delegates from the union that would follow musicians around and fine them “a hundred to five hundred dollars” for participating in jam sessions, but that they were “somewhat immune from this at Minton’s because of Henry Minton.” According to Ralph Ellison
, Minton’s Playhouse provided “a retreat, a homogeneous community where a collectivity of common experience could find continuity and meaningful expression.”
, a former bandleader, to manage the club. Building in the same direction that Minton had started, Hill used his connections from the Savoy Ballroom
(where his band used to play), and the Apollo Theatre
to increase the interest in the club. Hill put together the house band
which included Thelonious Monk
on piano, Joe Guy on trumpet, Nick Fenton on bass, and Kenny Clarke
on drums. Both Clarke and Guy were in Teddy Hill’s band before it disbanded in 1939. According to Clarke, Teddy Hill wanted to “do something for the guys that had worked with him” by giving them work during difficult times. The house band at Minton’s in 1941, with the addition of frequent guests, Dizzy Gillespie
and Charlie Christian
, was at the center of the emergence of bebop in the early 1940s. Later, the band was augmented by tenor saxophonist Kermit Scott.
. The Schiffmans treated their performers to free dinner and drinks after the conclusion of a long week of work. The food at Minton’s became almost as popular as the music as noted by many present at that time. In an interview with Al Fraser (1979), Dizzy Gillespie
told his recollection of Monday nights at Minton’s:
, Hot Lips Page, Ben Webster
, Don Byas
, and Lester Young
would sit in. The trumpet duels between Roy Eldridge
and Dizzy Gillespie
became legend, with Gillespie eventually surpassing his mentor. Speaking to Al Fraser, Gillespie recalled how Thelonious Monk
one night teased Eldridge after being out-played by Gillespie saying, “Look, you’re supposed to be the greatest trumpet player in the world...but that’s the best.” Even though Eldridge was an established musician in the older swing style, he was an active figure at Minton’s and contributed through his encouragement of Gillespie and Clarke to further their explorations.
Eldridge and the other swing masters who participated in the early cutting sessions at Minton’s played an important role in the evolution of swing toward bebop
by inspiring the next generation of musicians. A young Sonny Stitt
witnessed the great battles between the master saxophonists of the day in the early 1940s:
Byas was one of the first tenor saxophonists to assimilate bebop
into his style, in contrast to Young, Hawkins, and Webster, who stayed close to their swing roots through the development of bebop
.
Herman Pritchard, who tended bar at Minton’s “in the old days”, would watch as Ben Webster
and Lester Young
would “fight on those saxophones...like dogs in the road.” Ralph Ellison
believes that what was occurring at Minton’s from 1941 to 1942 was a “continuing symposium of jazz, a summation of all the styles, personal and traditional, of jazz.”
, was the young electric guitarist from Benny Goodman’s
band, Charlie Christian
. He played nightly at Minton’s and was one of its stars. Although Christian was in his early twenties in 1941, his time at Minton's was significant, but brief; he would die the next March after being confined to a sanatorium stricken with tuberculosis
. As evidenced by recordings made by Columbia University
student Jerry Newman in 1941, Christian’s playing was breaking new ground. Gunther Schuller’s
assessment of Christian’s playing on those recordings is as follows:
Kenny Clarke
and the band at Minton’s would look forward with anticipation to Christian’s arrival after finishing his set with Goodman. Christian was admired by his peers at Minton’s, including Thelonious Monk
who “loved listening to Charlie play solos with fluid lines and interesting harmonies.”
death, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker
would emerge as a new leader of the bebop
movement. Parker’s collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie
, Thelonious Monk
and Kenny Clarke
, at sessions at Minton’s, would build on the earlier experiments of Christian. Before 1942, Parker was known to have spent more time at Clark Monroe’s Uptown House, another Harlem club where jam sessions
extended into the early morning, than he spent playing at Minton’s. After leaving Jay McShann’s
band at the end of 1941, Parker joined Earl Hines’s
band in 1942 and was reunited with Dizzy Gillespie
, who he had met some time earlier. It was during this period of time starting in 1942 that Parker, nicknamed ‘Bird’, could be found sitting-in at Minton’s on Monday nights as recalled by Miles Davis:
Parker never was officially a member of the house band at Minton’s during that period, however sensing his importance to the bebop movement, Clarke and Monk approached Teddy Hill about hiring Parker into the band. Hill refused so Clarke and Monk decided to pay Parker out of their salaries.
After Parker’s arrival on the scene in Harlem, a new generation of player followed. Miles Davis
, Fats Navarro
, Dexter Gordon
, Art Blakey
, Max Roach
and many others were drawn to Minton’s. Miles Davis’s
search for Charlie Parker
brought him to Minton’s where he “cut his teeth” at the jam sessions. Miles remembered:
Davis’s remarks reflect on the frenzy in Harlem for the new sounds of bebop
that surrounded Parker, Gillespie and Minton’s.
, Gillespie prompted the band to play standards, such as Gershwin’s
“I Got Rhythm”, in difficult keys in order to discourage beginners from sitting in. Bassist Charles Mingus
remembers being required to audition to get up on stage:
Practices such as these challenged up-and-coming jazz musicians to get their acts together in order to participate in the jam sessions, which kept the music at a high level.
(LeRoi Jones) wrote in Black Music (1967), that “The groups that come into Minton’s are stand-up replicas of what was a highly experimental twenty-five years ago.” Although the club was open for a little more than three decades, Minton’s Playhouse will always be associated with the 1940s and the jam sessions that gave birth to bebop
.
Minton’s Playhouse is a jazz
club and bar located on the first floor of the Cecil Hotel at 210 West 118th Street in Harlem
. Minton’s was founded by tenor saxophonist Henry Minton in 1938. Minton’s is famous for its role in the development of modern jazz
, also known as bebop
, where in its jam sessions
in the early 1940s, Thelonious Monk
, Kenny Clarke
, Charlie Christian
, Charlie Parker
and Dizzy Gillespie
, pioneered the new music. Minton’s thrived for three decades until its decline near the end of the 1960s, and its eventual closing in 1974. After being shuttered for more than 30 years, the newly remodeled club reopened its doors on May 19, 2006, under the name Uptown Lounge at Minton’s Playhouse. Unfortunately, the reopened club was closed again in 2010.
Local 802. In addition, he had been the manager of the
Rhythm Club, in Harlem, in the early part of the 1930s, a place where Louis Armstrong
, Fats Waller
, James P. Johnson
, and Earl Hines
frequented. The novelist Ralph Ellison
later wrote that because of his union background and music business experience, Minton was aware of the economic and artistic needs of jazz
musicians in New York
in the late 1930s. Minton’s popularity and his penchant for generosity with food and loans, made his club a favorite hang-out for musicians.
Minton started a policy of holding regular jam sessions
at his club, which would later prove to be a key factor in the development of bebop
. Because of his union
ties, Minton was able to ensure that musicians would not be fined for their participation in jam sessions, an activity that was prohibited by the union. Dizzy Gillespie
recalled that there were “walking” delegates from the union that would follow musicians around and fine them “a hundred to five hundred dollars” for participating in jam sessions, but that they were “somewhat immune from this at Minton’s because of Henry Minton.” According to Ralph Ellison
, Minton’s Playhouse provided “a retreat, a homogeneous community where a collectivity of common experience could find continuity and meaningful expression.”
, a former bandleader, to manage the club. Building in the same direction that Minton had started, Hill used his connections from the Savoy Ballroom
(where his band used to play), and the Apollo Theatre
to increase the interest in the club. Hill put together the house band
which included Thelonious Monk
on piano, Joe Guy on trumpet, Nick Fenton on bass, and Kenny Clarke
on drums. Both Clarke and Guy were in Teddy Hill’s band before it disbanded in 1939. According to Clarke, Teddy Hill wanted to “do something for the guys that had worked with him” by giving them work during difficult times. The house band at Minton’s in 1941, with the addition of frequent guests, Dizzy Gillespie
and Charlie Christian
, was at the center of the emergence of bebop in the early 1940s. Later, the band was augmented by tenor saxophonist Kermit Scott.
. The Schiffmans treated their performers to free dinner and drinks after the conclusion of a long week of work. The food at Minton’s became almost as popular as the music as noted by many present at that time. In an interview with Al Fraser (1979), Dizzy Gillespie
told his recollection of Monday nights at Minton’s:
, Hot Lips Page, Ben Webster
, Don Byas
, and Lester Young
would sit in. The trumpet duels between Roy Eldridge
and Dizzy Gillespie
became legend, with Gillespie eventually surpassing his mentor. Speaking to Al Fraser, Gillespie recalled how Thelonious Monk
one night teased Eldridge after being out-played by Gillespie saying, “Look, you’re supposed to be the greatest trumpet player in the world...but that’s the best.” Even though Eldridge was an established musician in the older swing style, he was an active figure at Minton’s and contributed through his encouragement of Gillespie and Clarke to further their explorations.
Eldridge and the other swing masters who participated in the early cutting sessions at Minton’s played an important role in the evolution of swing toward bebop
by inspiring the next generation of musicians. A young Sonny Stitt
witnessed the great battles between the master saxophonists of the day in the early 1940s:
Byas was one of the first tenor saxophonists to assimilate bebop
into his style, in contrast to Young, Hawkins, and Webster, who stayed close to their swing roots through the development of bebop
.
Herman Pritchard, who tended bar at Minton’s “in the old days”, would watch as Ben Webster
and Lester Young
would “fight on those saxophones...like dogs in the road.” Ralph Ellison
believes that what was occurring at Minton’s from 1941 to 1942 was a “continuing symposium of jazz, a summation of all the styles, personal and traditional, of jazz.”
, was the young electric guitarist from Benny Goodman’s
band, Charlie Christian
. He played nightly at Minton’s and was one of its stars. Although Christian was in his early twenties in 1941, his time at Minton's was significant, but brief; he would die the next March after being confined to a sanatorium stricken with tuberculosis
. As evidenced by recordings made by Columbia University
student Jerry Newman in 1941, Christian’s playing was breaking new ground. Gunther Schuller’s
assessment of Christian’s playing on those recordings is as follows:
Kenny Clarke
and the band at Minton’s would look forward with anticipation to Christian’s arrival after finishing his set with Goodman. Christian was admired by his peers at Minton’s, including Thelonious Monk
who “loved listening to Charlie play solos with fluid lines and interesting harmonies.”
death, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker
would emerge as a new leader of the bebop
movement. Parker’s collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie
, Thelonious Monk
and Kenny Clarke
, at sessions at Minton’s, would build on the earlier experiments of Christian. Before 1942, Parker was known to have spent more time at Clark Monroe’s Uptown House, another Harlem club where jam sessions
extended into the early morning, than he spent playing at Minton’s. After leaving Jay McShann’s
band at the end of 1941, Parker joined Earl Hines’s
band in 1942 and was reunited with Dizzy Gillespie
, who he had met some time earlier. It was during this period of time starting in 1942 that Parker, nicknamed ‘Bird’, could be found sitting-in at Minton’s on Monday nights as recalled by Miles Davis:
Parker never was officially a member of the house band at Minton’s during that period, however sensing his importance to the bebop movement, Clarke and Monk approached Teddy Hill about hiring Parker into the band. Hill refused so Clarke and Monk decided to pay Parker out of their salaries.
After Parker’s arrival on the scene in Harlem, a new generation of player followed. Miles Davis
, Fats Navarro
, Dexter Gordon
, Art Blakey
, Max Roach
and many others were drawn to Minton’s. Miles Davis’s
search for Charlie Parker
brought him to Minton’s where he “cut his teeth” at the jam sessions. Miles remembered:
Davis’s remarks reflect on the frenzy in Harlem for the new sounds of bebop
that surrounded Parker, Gillespie and Minton’s.
, Gillespie prompted the band to play standards, such as Gershwin’s
“I Got Rhythm”, in difficult keys in order to discourage beginners from sitting in. Bassist Charles Mingus
remembers being required to audition to get up on stage:
Practices such as these challenged up-and-coming jazz musicians to get their acts together in order to participate in the jam sessions, which kept the music at a high level.
(LeRoi Jones) wrote in Black Music (1967), that “The groups that come into Minton’s are stand-up replicas of what was a highly experimental twenty-five years ago.” Although the club was open for a little more than three decades, Minton’s Playhouse will always be associated with the 1940s and the jam sessions that gave birth to bebop
.
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
club and bar located on the first floor of the Cecil Hotel at 210 West 118th Street in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
. Minton’s was founded by tenor saxophonist Henry Minton in 1938. Minton’s is famous for its role in the development of modern jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, also known as bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, where in its jam sessions
Jam Sessions
Jam Sessions is a guitar simulation software title and music game for the Nintendo DS based on the Japan-only title Sing & Play DS Guitar M-06 originally developed by Plato. It was brought to North America and Europe, courtesy of Ubisoft...
in the early 1940s, Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
, Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
, Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
, Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
and Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, pioneered the new music. Minton’s thrived for three decades until its decline near the end of the 1960s, and its eventual closing in 1974. After being shuttered for more than 30 years, the newly remodeled club reopened its doors on May 19, 2006, under the name Uptown Lounge at Minton’s Playhouse. Unfortunately, the reopened club was closed again in 2010.
The club's beginnings
Minton’s original owner, Henry Minton, was well known in Harlem for being the first ever black delegate to the American Federation of MusiciansAmerican Federation of Musicians
The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada is a labor union of professional musicians in the United States and Canada...
Local 802. In addition, he had been the manager of the
Rhythm Club, in Harlem, in the early part of the 1930s, a place where Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
, James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson was an American pianist and composer...
, and Earl Hines
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
frequented. The novelist Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
later wrote that because of his union background and music business experience, Minton was aware of the economic and artistic needs of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
musicians in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in the late 1930s. Minton’s popularity and his penchant for generosity with food and loans, made his club a favorite hang-out for musicians.
Minton started a policy of holding regular jam sessions
Jam Sessions
Jam Sessions is a guitar simulation software title and music game for the Nintendo DS based on the Japan-only title Sing & Play DS Guitar M-06 originally developed by Plato. It was brought to North America and Europe, courtesy of Ubisoft...
at his club, which would later prove to be a key factor in the development of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
. Because of his union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ties, Minton was able to ensure that musicians would not be fined for their participation in jam sessions, an activity that was prohibited by the union. Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
recalled that there were “walking” delegates from the union that would follow musicians around and fine them “a hundred to five hundred dollars” for participating in jam sessions, but that they were “somewhat immune from this at Minton’s because of Henry Minton.” According to Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
, Minton’s Playhouse provided “a retreat, a homogeneous community where a collectivity of common experience could find continuity and meaningful expression.”
Minton's in the 1940s
In late 1940 Minton hired Teddy HillTeddy Hill
Teddy Hill was a big band leader and the manager of Minton's Playhouse, a seminal jazz club in Harlem...
, a former bandleader, to manage the club. Building in the same direction that Minton had started, Hill used his connections from the Savoy Ballroom
Savoy Ballroom
The Savoy Ballroom, located in Harlem, New York City, was a medium sized ballroom for music and public dancing that was in operation from March 12, 1926 to July 10, 1958. It was located between 140th and 141st Streets on Lenox Avenue....
(where his band used to play), and the Apollo Theatre
Apollo Theatre
The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. Designed by architect Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfield, and the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street, its doors opened on 21 February 1901 with the American...
to increase the interest in the club. Hill put together the house band
House band
For the British band that existed from 1984-2001, see The House BandA house band is a group of musicians, often centrally organized by a band leader, who regularly play an establishment. It is widely used to refer both to the bands who work on entertainment programs on television or radio, and to...
which included Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
on piano, Joe Guy on trumpet, Nick Fenton on bass, and Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
on drums. Both Clarke and Guy were in Teddy Hill’s band before it disbanded in 1939. According to Clarke, Teddy Hill wanted to “do something for the guys that had worked with him” by giving them work during difficult times. The house band at Minton’s in 1941, with the addition of frequent guests, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
and Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
, was at the center of the emergence of bebop in the early 1940s. Later, the band was augmented by tenor saxophonist Kermit Scott.
Monday celebrity nights
A feature of Minton’s Playhouse during Teddy Hill’s tenure as manager was the popular Monday Celebrity Nights sponsored by the Schiffmans who owned the nearby Apollo TheaterApollo Theater
The Apollo Theater in New York City is one of the most famous, and older, music halls in the United States, and the most famous club associated almost exclusively with Black performers...
. The Schiffmans treated their performers to free dinner and drinks after the conclusion of a long week of work. The food at Minton’s became almost as popular as the music as noted by many present at that time. In an interview with Al Fraser (1979), Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
told his recollection of Monday nights at Minton’s:
On Monday nights, we used to have a ball. Everybody from the Apollo, on Monday nights, was a guest at Minton’s, the whole band. We had a big jam session. Monday night was the big night, the musician’s night off. There was always some food there for you. Oh, that part was beautiful. Teddy Hill treated the guys well.
Cutting sessions and duels
During the Monday Celebrity Nights, many notable guest musicians such as Roy EldridgeRoy Eldridge
Roy David Eldridge , nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a...
, Hot Lips Page, Ben Webster
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
, Don Byas
Don Byas
Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
, and Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
would sit in. The trumpet duels between Roy Eldridge
Roy Eldridge
Roy David Eldridge , nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a...
and Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
became legend, with Gillespie eventually surpassing his mentor. Speaking to Al Fraser, Gillespie recalled how Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
one night teased Eldridge after being out-played by Gillespie saying, “Look, you’re supposed to be the greatest trumpet player in the world...but that’s the best.” Even though Eldridge was an established musician in the older swing style, he was an active figure at Minton’s and contributed through his encouragement of Gillespie and Clarke to further their explorations.
Eldridge and the other swing masters who participated in the early cutting sessions at Minton’s played an important role in the evolution of swing toward bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
by inspiring the next generation of musicians. A young Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
witnessed the great battles between the master saxophonists of the day in the early 1940s:
Can you imagine Lester YoungLester YoungLester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
, Coleman HawkinsColeman HawkinsColeman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
, Chu Berry, Don ByasDon ByasCarlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
, and Ben WebsterBen WebsterBenjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
on the same little jam session? They had a place called Minton’s Playhouse in New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. It’s kaput now. And these guys, man, nothing like it. And guess who won the fight?...Don ByasDon ByasCarlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
walked off with everything.
Byas was one of the first tenor saxophonists to assimilate bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
into his style, in contrast to Young, Hawkins, and Webster, who stayed close to their swing roots through the development of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
.
Herman Pritchard, who tended bar at Minton’s “in the old days”, would watch as Ben Webster
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
and Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
would “fight on those saxophones...like dogs in the road.” Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
believes that what was occurring at Minton’s from 1941 to 1942 was a “continuing symposium of jazz, a summation of all the styles, personal and traditional, of jazz.”
Charlie Christian and the house band
One of the pioneers of the new style, which would eventually become known as bebopBebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, was the young electric guitarist from Benny Goodman’s
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
band, Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
. He played nightly at Minton’s and was one of its stars. Although Christian was in his early twenties in 1941, his time at Minton's was significant, but brief; he would die the next March after being confined to a sanatorium stricken with tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. As evidenced by recordings made by Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
student Jerry Newman in 1941, Christian’s playing was breaking new ground. Gunther Schuller’s
Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...
assessment of Christian’s playing on those recordings is as follows:
His work here seems to me relentlessly creative, endlessly fertile, and is so in a way that marks a new stylistic departure. Indeed, it signals the birth of a new language in jazz, which even [Charlie] ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
did not have as clearly in focus at that time.
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
and the band at Minton’s would look forward with anticipation to Christian’s arrival after finishing his set with Goodman. Christian was admired by his peers at Minton’s, including Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
who “loved listening to Charlie play solos with fluid lines and interesting harmonies.”
Bird and Dizzy
Soon after Charlie Christian’sCharlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
death, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
would emerge as a new leader of the bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
movement. Parker’s collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
and Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
, at sessions at Minton’s, would build on the earlier experiments of Christian. Before 1942, Parker was known to have spent more time at Clark Monroe’s Uptown House, another Harlem club where jam sessions
Jam Sessions
Jam Sessions is a guitar simulation software title and music game for the Nintendo DS based on the Japan-only title Sing & Play DS Guitar M-06 originally developed by Plato. It was brought to North America and Europe, courtesy of Ubisoft...
extended into the early morning, than he spent playing at Minton’s. After leaving Jay McShann’s
Jay McShann
Jay McShann was an American Grammy Award-nominated jump blues, mainstream jazz, and swing bandleader, pianist and singer....
band at the end of 1941, Parker joined Earl Hines’s
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
band in 1942 and was reunited with Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, who he had met some time earlier. It was during this period of time starting in 1942 that Parker, nicknamed ‘Bird’, could be found sitting-in at Minton’s on Monday nights as recalled by Miles Davis:
On Monday nights at Minton’s, Bird and Dizzy would come in to jam, so you’d have a thousand [players] up there trying to get in so they could listen to and play with Bird and Dizzy. But most of the musicians in the know didn’t even think about playing when Bird and Dizzy came to jam. We would just sit out in the audience, to listen and learn.
Parker never was officially a member of the house band at Minton’s during that period, however sensing his importance to the bebop movement, Clarke and Monk approached Teddy Hill about hiring Parker into the band. Hill refused so Clarke and Monk decided to pay Parker out of their salaries.
After Parker’s arrival on the scene in Harlem, a new generation of player followed. Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Fats Navarro
Fats Navarro
Theodore "Fats" Navarro was an American jazz trumpet player. He was a pioneer of the bebop style of jazz improvisation in the 1940s. He had a strong stylistic influence on many other players, most notably Clifford Brown.-Life:Navarro was born in Key West, Florida, to Cuban-Black-Chinese parentage...
, Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
, Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
, Max Roach
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...
and many others were drawn to Minton’s. Miles Davis’s
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
search for Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
brought him to Minton’s where he “cut his teeth” at the jam sessions. Miles remembered:
The way [it] went down up at Minton’s was you brought your horn and hoped that Bird and Dizzy would invite you to play with them up on stage. And when this happened you better not blow it...People would watch for clues from Bird and Dizzy, and if they smiled when you finished playing, then that meant your playing was good.
Davis’s remarks reflect on the frenzy in Harlem for the new sounds of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
that surrounded Parker, Gillespie and Minton’s.
Sitting-in at Minton's
Minton’s Playhouse became so popular in those days that the house band began to develop ways of weeding out the musicians who couldn’t play that wanted to sit in. According to bassist Milt HintonMilt Hinton
Milton John "Milt" Hinton , "the dean of jazz bass players," was an American jazz double bassist and photographer. He was nicknamed "The Judge".-Biography:...
, Gillespie prompted the band to play standards, such as Gershwin’s
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
“I Got Rhythm”, in difficult keys in order to discourage beginners from sitting in. Bassist Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
remembers being required to audition to get up on stage:
To play at Minton’s you couldn’t just walk in and grab a bass. They made you go in a back room or a kitchen and call a few tunes. They did it to me too. They said, “Can you play ‘Perdido’? Can you play ‘Body and Soul’?”
Practices such as these challenged up-and-coming jazz musicians to get their acts together in order to participate in the jam sessions, which kept the music at a high level.
The end of an era
Minton’s changed its open jam policy in favor of big name acts in the 1950s. By the late 1960s bands were no longer at the cutting edge. Harlem writer, Amiri BarakaAmiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka , formerly known as LeRoi Jones, is an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism...
(LeRoi Jones) wrote in Black Music (1967), that “The groups that come into Minton’s are stand-up replicas of what was a highly experimental twenty-five years ago.” Although the club was open for a little more than three decades, Minton’s Playhouse will always be associated with the 1940s and the jam sessions that gave birth to bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
.
See also
- List of jazz clubs
- Midnight at Minton'sMidnight at Minton'sMidnight at Minton's is a 1941 album by jazz musician Don Byas. It is a live recording of a jam session at Minton's Playhouse, the famous New York nightclub at which the emerging style of bebop was being pioneered....
— 1941 Jerry Newman recording of a session featuring Don ByasDon ByasCarlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
and Thelonious MonkThelonious MonkThelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
Minton’s Playhouse is a jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
club and bar located on the first floor of the Cecil Hotel at 210 West 118th Street in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
. Minton’s was founded by tenor saxophonist Henry Minton in 1938. Minton’s is famous for its role in the development of modern jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, also known as bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, where in its jam sessions
Jam Sessions
Jam Sessions is a guitar simulation software title and music game for the Nintendo DS based on the Japan-only title Sing & Play DS Guitar M-06 originally developed by Plato. It was brought to North America and Europe, courtesy of Ubisoft...
in the early 1940s, Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
, Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
, Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
, Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
and Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, pioneered the new music. Minton’s thrived for three decades until its decline near the end of the 1960s, and its eventual closing in 1974. After being shuttered for more than 30 years, the newly remodeled club reopened its doors on May 19, 2006, under the name Uptown Lounge at Minton’s Playhouse. Unfortunately, the reopened club was closed again in 2010.
The club's beginnings
Minton’s original owner, Henry Minton, was well known in Harlem for being the first ever black delegate to the American Federation of MusiciansAmerican Federation of Musicians
The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada is a labor union of professional musicians in the United States and Canada...
Local 802. In addition, he had been the manager of the
Rhythm Club, in Harlem, in the early part of the 1930s, a place where Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
, James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson was an American pianist and composer...
, and Earl Hines
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
frequented. The novelist Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
later wrote that because of his union background and music business experience, Minton was aware of the economic and artistic needs of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
musicians in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in the late 1930s. Minton’s popularity and his penchant for generosity with food and loans, made his club a favorite hang-out for musicians.
Minton started a policy of holding regular jam sessions
Jam Sessions
Jam Sessions is a guitar simulation software title and music game for the Nintendo DS based on the Japan-only title Sing & Play DS Guitar M-06 originally developed by Plato. It was brought to North America and Europe, courtesy of Ubisoft...
at his club, which would later prove to be a key factor in the development of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
. Because of his union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ties, Minton was able to ensure that musicians would not be fined for their participation in jam sessions, an activity that was prohibited by the union. Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
recalled that there were “walking” delegates from the union that would follow musicians around and fine them “a hundred to five hundred dollars” for participating in jam sessions, but that they were “somewhat immune from this at Minton’s because of Henry Minton.” According to Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
, Minton’s Playhouse provided “a retreat, a homogeneous community where a collectivity of common experience could find continuity and meaningful expression.”
Minton's in the 1940s
In late 1940 Minton hired Teddy HillTeddy Hill
Teddy Hill was a big band leader and the manager of Minton's Playhouse, a seminal jazz club in Harlem...
, a former bandleader, to manage the club. Building in the same direction that Minton had started, Hill used his connections from the Savoy Ballroom
Savoy Ballroom
The Savoy Ballroom, located in Harlem, New York City, was a medium sized ballroom for music and public dancing that was in operation from March 12, 1926 to July 10, 1958. It was located between 140th and 141st Streets on Lenox Avenue....
(where his band used to play), and the Apollo Theatre
Apollo Theatre
The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. Designed by architect Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfield, and the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street, its doors opened on 21 February 1901 with the American...
to increase the interest in the club. Hill put together the house band
House band
For the British band that existed from 1984-2001, see The House BandA house band is a group of musicians, often centrally organized by a band leader, who regularly play an establishment. It is widely used to refer both to the bands who work on entertainment programs on television or radio, and to...
which included Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
on piano, Joe Guy on trumpet, Nick Fenton on bass, and Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
on drums. Both Clarke and Guy were in Teddy Hill’s band before it disbanded in 1939. According to Clarke, Teddy Hill wanted to “do something for the guys that had worked with him” by giving them work during difficult times. The house band at Minton’s in 1941, with the addition of frequent guests, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
and Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
, was at the center of the emergence of bebop in the early 1940s. Later, the band was augmented by tenor saxophonist Kermit Scott.
Monday celebrity nights
A feature of Minton’s Playhouse during Teddy Hill’s tenure as manager was the popular Monday Celebrity Nights sponsored by the Schiffmans who owned the nearby Apollo TheaterApollo Theater
The Apollo Theater in New York City is one of the most famous, and older, music halls in the United States, and the most famous club associated almost exclusively with Black performers...
. The Schiffmans treated their performers to free dinner and drinks after the conclusion of a long week of work. The food at Minton’s became almost as popular as the music as noted by many present at that time. In an interview with Al Fraser (1979), Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
told his recollection of Monday nights at Minton’s:
On Monday nights, we used to have a ball. Everybody from the Apollo, on Monday nights, was a guest at Minton’s, the whole band. We had a big jam session. Monday night was the big night, the musician’s night off. There was always some food there for you. Oh, that part was beautiful. Teddy Hill treated the guys well.
Cutting sessions and duels
During the Monday Celebrity Nights, many notable guest musicians such as Roy EldridgeRoy Eldridge
Roy David Eldridge , nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a...
, Hot Lips Page, Ben Webster
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
, Don Byas
Don Byas
Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
, and Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
would sit in. The trumpet duels between Roy Eldridge
Roy Eldridge
Roy David Eldridge , nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a...
and Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
became legend, with Gillespie eventually surpassing his mentor. Speaking to Al Fraser, Gillespie recalled how Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
one night teased Eldridge after being out-played by Gillespie saying, “Look, you’re supposed to be the greatest trumpet player in the world...but that’s the best.” Even though Eldridge was an established musician in the older swing style, he was an active figure at Minton’s and contributed through his encouragement of Gillespie and Clarke to further their explorations.
Eldridge and the other swing masters who participated in the early cutting sessions at Minton’s played an important role in the evolution of swing toward bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
by inspiring the next generation of musicians. A young Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
witnessed the great battles between the master saxophonists of the day in the early 1940s:
Can you imagine Lester YoungLester YoungLester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
, Coleman HawkinsColeman HawkinsColeman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
, Chu Berry, Don ByasDon ByasCarlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
, and Ben WebsterBen WebsterBenjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
on the same little jam session? They had a place called Minton’s Playhouse in New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. It’s kaput now. And these guys, man, nothing like it. And guess who won the fight?...Don ByasDon ByasCarlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
walked off with everything.
Byas was one of the first tenor saxophonists to assimilate bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
into his style, in contrast to Young, Hawkins, and Webster, who stayed close to their swing roots through the development of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
.
Herman Pritchard, who tended bar at Minton’s “in the old days”, would watch as Ben Webster
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
and Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
would “fight on those saxophones...like dogs in the road.” Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
believes that what was occurring at Minton’s from 1941 to 1942 was a “continuing symposium of jazz, a summation of all the styles, personal and traditional, of jazz.”
Charlie Christian and the house band
One of the pioneers of the new style, which would eventually become known as bebopBebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, was the young electric guitarist from Benny Goodman’s
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
band, Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
. He played nightly at Minton’s and was one of its stars. Although Christian was in his early twenties in 1941, his time at Minton's was significant, but brief; he would die the next March after being confined to a sanatorium stricken with tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. As evidenced by recordings made by Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
student Jerry Newman in 1941, Christian’s playing was breaking new ground. Gunther Schuller’s
Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...
assessment of Christian’s playing on those recordings is as follows:
His work here seems to me relentlessly creative, endlessly fertile, and is so in a way that marks a new stylistic departure. Indeed, it signals the birth of a new language in jazz, which even [Charlie] ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
did not have as clearly in focus at that time.
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
and the band at Minton’s would look forward with anticipation to Christian’s arrival after finishing his set with Goodman. Christian was admired by his peers at Minton’s, including Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
who “loved listening to Charlie play solos with fluid lines and interesting harmonies.”
Bird and Dizzy
Soon after Charlie Christian’sCharlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
death, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
would emerge as a new leader of the bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
movement. Parker’s collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
and Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
, at sessions at Minton’s, would build on the earlier experiments of Christian. Before 1942, Parker was known to have spent more time at Clark Monroe’s Uptown House, another Harlem club where jam sessions
Jam Sessions
Jam Sessions is a guitar simulation software title and music game for the Nintendo DS based on the Japan-only title Sing & Play DS Guitar M-06 originally developed by Plato. It was brought to North America and Europe, courtesy of Ubisoft...
extended into the early morning, than he spent playing at Minton’s. After leaving Jay McShann’s
Jay McShann
Jay McShann was an American Grammy Award-nominated jump blues, mainstream jazz, and swing bandleader, pianist and singer....
band at the end of 1941, Parker joined Earl Hines’s
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
band in 1942 and was reunited with Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, who he had met some time earlier. It was during this period of time starting in 1942 that Parker, nicknamed ‘Bird’, could be found sitting-in at Minton’s on Monday nights as recalled by Miles Davis:
On Monday nights at Minton’s, Bird and Dizzy would come in to jam, so you’d have a thousand [players] up there trying to get in so they could listen to and play with Bird and Dizzy. But most of the musicians in the know didn’t even think about playing when Bird and Dizzy came to jam. We would just sit out in the audience, to listen and learn.
Parker never was officially a member of the house band at Minton’s during that period, however sensing his importance to the bebop movement, Clarke and Monk approached Teddy Hill about hiring Parker into the band. Hill refused so Clarke and Monk decided to pay Parker out of their salaries.
After Parker’s arrival on the scene in Harlem, a new generation of player followed. Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Fats Navarro
Fats Navarro
Theodore "Fats" Navarro was an American jazz trumpet player. He was a pioneer of the bebop style of jazz improvisation in the 1940s. He had a strong stylistic influence on many other players, most notably Clifford Brown.-Life:Navarro was born in Key West, Florida, to Cuban-Black-Chinese parentage...
, Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
, Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
, Max Roach
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...
and many others were drawn to Minton’s. Miles Davis’s
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
search for Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
brought him to Minton’s where he “cut his teeth” at the jam sessions. Miles remembered:
The way [it] went down up at Minton’s was you brought your horn and hoped that Bird and Dizzy would invite you to play with them up on stage. And when this happened you better not blow it...People would watch for clues from Bird and Dizzy, and if they smiled when you finished playing, then that meant your playing was good.
Davis’s remarks reflect on the frenzy in Harlem for the new sounds of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
that surrounded Parker, Gillespie and Minton’s.
Sitting-in at Minton's
Minton’s Playhouse became so popular in those days that the house band began to develop ways of weeding out the musicians who couldn’t play that wanted to sit in. According to bassist Milt HintonMilt Hinton
Milton John "Milt" Hinton , "the dean of jazz bass players," was an American jazz double bassist and photographer. He was nicknamed "The Judge".-Biography:...
, Gillespie prompted the band to play standards, such as Gershwin’s
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
“I Got Rhythm”, in difficult keys in order to discourage beginners from sitting in. Bassist Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
remembers being required to audition to get up on stage:
To play at Minton’s you couldn’t just walk in and grab a bass. They made you go in a back room or a kitchen and call a few tunes. They did it to me too. They said, “Can you play ‘Perdido’? Can you play ‘Body and Soul’?”
Practices such as these challenged up-and-coming jazz musicians to get their acts together in order to participate in the jam sessions, which kept the music at a high level.
The end of an era
Minton’s changed its open jam policy in favor of big name acts in the 1950s. By the late 1960s bands were no longer at the cutting edge. Harlem writer, Amiri BarakaAmiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka , formerly known as LeRoi Jones, is an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism...
(LeRoi Jones) wrote in Black Music (1967), that “The groups that come into Minton’s are stand-up replicas of what was a highly experimental twenty-five years ago.” Although the club was open for a little more than three decades, Minton’s Playhouse will always be associated with the 1940s and the jam sessions that gave birth to bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
.
See also
- List of jazz clubs
- Midnight at Minton'sMidnight at Minton'sMidnight at Minton's is a 1941 album by jazz musician Don Byas. It is a live recording of a jam session at Minton's Playhouse, the famous New York nightclub at which the emerging style of bebop was being pioneered....
— 1941 Jerry Newman recording of a session featuring Don ByasDon ByasCarlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
and Thelonious MonkThelonious MonkThelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
Minton’s Playhouse is a jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
club and bar located on the first floor of the Cecil Hotel at 210 West 118th Street in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
. Minton’s was founded by tenor saxophonist Henry Minton in 1938. Minton’s is famous for its role in the development of modern jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, also known as bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, where in its jam sessions
Jam Sessions
Jam Sessions is a guitar simulation software title and music game for the Nintendo DS based on the Japan-only title Sing & Play DS Guitar M-06 originally developed by Plato. It was brought to North America and Europe, courtesy of Ubisoft...
in the early 1940s, Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
, Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
, Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
, Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
and Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, pioneered the new music. Minton’s thrived for three decades until its decline near the end of the 1960s, and its eventual closing in 1974. After being shuttered for more than 30 years, the newly remodeled club reopened its doors on May 19, 2006, under the name Uptown Lounge at Minton’s Playhouse. Unfortunately, the reopened club was closed again in 2010.
The club's beginnings
Minton’s original owner, Henry Minton, was well known in Harlem for being the first ever black delegate to the American Federation of MusiciansAmerican Federation of Musicians
The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada is a labor union of professional musicians in the United States and Canada...
Local 802. In addition, he had been the manager of the
Rhythm Club, in Harlem, in the early part of the 1930s, a place where Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
, James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson was an American pianist and composer...
, and Earl Hines
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
frequented. The novelist Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
later wrote that because of his union background and music business experience, Minton was aware of the economic and artistic needs of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
musicians in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in the late 1930s. Minton’s popularity and his penchant for generosity with food and loans, made his club a favorite hang-out for musicians.
Minton started a policy of holding regular jam sessions
Jam Sessions
Jam Sessions is a guitar simulation software title and music game for the Nintendo DS based on the Japan-only title Sing & Play DS Guitar M-06 originally developed by Plato. It was brought to North America and Europe, courtesy of Ubisoft...
at his club, which would later prove to be a key factor in the development of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
. Because of his union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ties, Minton was able to ensure that musicians would not be fined for their participation in jam sessions, an activity that was prohibited by the union. Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
recalled that there were “walking” delegates from the union that would follow musicians around and fine them “a hundred to five hundred dollars” for participating in jam sessions, but that they were “somewhat immune from this at Minton’s because of Henry Minton.” According to Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
, Minton’s Playhouse provided “a retreat, a homogeneous community where a collectivity of common experience could find continuity and meaningful expression.”
Minton's in the 1940s
In late 1940 Minton hired Teddy HillTeddy Hill
Teddy Hill was a big band leader and the manager of Minton's Playhouse, a seminal jazz club in Harlem...
, a former bandleader, to manage the club. Building in the same direction that Minton had started, Hill used his connections from the Savoy Ballroom
Savoy Ballroom
The Savoy Ballroom, located in Harlem, New York City, was a medium sized ballroom for music and public dancing that was in operation from March 12, 1926 to July 10, 1958. It was located between 140th and 141st Streets on Lenox Avenue....
(where his band used to play), and the Apollo Theatre
Apollo Theatre
The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. Designed by architect Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfield, and the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street, its doors opened on 21 February 1901 with the American...
to increase the interest in the club. Hill put together the house band
House band
For the British band that existed from 1984-2001, see The House BandA house band is a group of musicians, often centrally organized by a band leader, who regularly play an establishment. It is widely used to refer both to the bands who work on entertainment programs on television or radio, and to...
which included Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
on piano, Joe Guy on trumpet, Nick Fenton on bass, and Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
on drums. Both Clarke and Guy were in Teddy Hill’s band before it disbanded in 1939. According to Clarke, Teddy Hill wanted to “do something for the guys that had worked with him” by giving them work during difficult times. The house band at Minton’s in 1941, with the addition of frequent guests, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
and Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
, was at the center of the emergence of bebop in the early 1940s. Later, the band was augmented by tenor saxophonist Kermit Scott.
Monday celebrity nights
A feature of Minton’s Playhouse during Teddy Hill’s tenure as manager was the popular Monday Celebrity Nights sponsored by the Schiffmans who owned the nearby Apollo TheaterApollo Theater
The Apollo Theater in New York City is one of the most famous, and older, music halls in the United States, and the most famous club associated almost exclusively with Black performers...
. The Schiffmans treated their performers to free dinner and drinks after the conclusion of a long week of work. The food at Minton’s became almost as popular as the music as noted by many present at that time. In an interview with Al Fraser (1979), Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
told his recollection of Monday nights at Minton’s:
On Monday nights, we used to have a ball. Everybody from the Apollo, on Monday nights, was a guest at Minton’s, the whole band. We had a big jam session. Monday night was the big night, the musician’s night off. There was always some food there for you. Oh, that part was beautiful. Teddy Hill treated the guys well.
Cutting sessions and duels
During the Monday Celebrity Nights, many notable guest musicians such as Roy EldridgeRoy Eldridge
Roy David Eldridge , nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a...
, Hot Lips Page, Ben Webster
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
, Don Byas
Don Byas
Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
, and Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
would sit in. The trumpet duels between Roy Eldridge
Roy Eldridge
Roy David Eldridge , nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a...
and Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
became legend, with Gillespie eventually surpassing his mentor. Speaking to Al Fraser, Gillespie recalled how Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
one night teased Eldridge after being out-played by Gillespie saying, “Look, you’re supposed to be the greatest trumpet player in the world...but that’s the best.” Even though Eldridge was an established musician in the older swing style, he was an active figure at Minton’s and contributed through his encouragement of Gillespie and Clarke to further their explorations.
Eldridge and the other swing masters who participated in the early cutting sessions at Minton’s played an important role in the evolution of swing toward bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
by inspiring the next generation of musicians. A young Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
witnessed the great battles between the master saxophonists of the day in the early 1940s:
Can you imagine Lester YoungLester YoungLester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
, Coleman HawkinsColeman HawkinsColeman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
, Chu Berry, Don ByasDon ByasCarlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
, and Ben WebsterBen WebsterBenjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
on the same little jam session? They had a place called Minton’s Playhouse in New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. It’s kaput now. And these guys, man, nothing like it. And guess who won the fight?...Don ByasDon ByasCarlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
walked off with everything.
Byas was one of the first tenor saxophonists to assimilate bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
into his style, in contrast to Young, Hawkins, and Webster, who stayed close to their swing roots through the development of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
.
Herman Pritchard, who tended bar at Minton’s “in the old days”, would watch as Ben Webster
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
and Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
would “fight on those saxophones...like dogs in the road.” Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
believes that what was occurring at Minton’s from 1941 to 1942 was a “continuing symposium of jazz, a summation of all the styles, personal and traditional, of jazz.”
Charlie Christian and the house band
One of the pioneers of the new style, which would eventually become known as bebopBebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, was the young electric guitarist from Benny Goodman’s
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
band, Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
. He played nightly at Minton’s and was one of its stars. Although Christian was in his early twenties in 1941, his time at Minton's was significant, but brief; he would die the next March after being confined to a sanatorium stricken with tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. As evidenced by recordings made by Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
student Jerry Newman in 1941, Christian’s playing was breaking new ground. Gunther Schuller’s
Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...
assessment of Christian’s playing on those recordings is as follows:
His work here seems to me relentlessly creative, endlessly fertile, and is so in a way that marks a new stylistic departure. Indeed, it signals the birth of a new language in jazz, which even [Charlie] ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
did not have as clearly in focus at that time.
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
and the band at Minton’s would look forward with anticipation to Christian’s arrival after finishing his set with Goodman. Christian was admired by his peers at Minton’s, including Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
who “loved listening to Charlie play solos with fluid lines and interesting harmonies.”
Bird and Dizzy
Soon after Charlie Christian’sCharlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
death, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
would emerge as a new leader of the bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
movement. Parker’s collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
and Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
, at sessions at Minton’s, would build on the earlier experiments of Christian. Before 1942, Parker was known to have spent more time at Clark Monroe’s Uptown House, another Harlem club where jam sessions
Jam Sessions
Jam Sessions is a guitar simulation software title and music game for the Nintendo DS based on the Japan-only title Sing & Play DS Guitar M-06 originally developed by Plato. It was brought to North America and Europe, courtesy of Ubisoft...
extended into the early morning, than he spent playing at Minton’s. After leaving Jay McShann’s
Jay McShann
Jay McShann was an American Grammy Award-nominated jump blues, mainstream jazz, and swing bandleader, pianist and singer....
band at the end of 1941, Parker joined Earl Hines’s
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
band in 1942 and was reunited with Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, who he had met some time earlier. It was during this period of time starting in 1942 that Parker, nicknamed ‘Bird’, could be found sitting-in at Minton’s on Monday nights as recalled by Miles Davis:
On Monday nights at Minton’s, Bird and Dizzy would come in to jam, so you’d have a thousand [players] up there trying to get in so they could listen to and play with Bird and Dizzy. But most of the musicians in the know didn’t even think about playing when Bird and Dizzy came to jam. We would just sit out in the audience, to listen and learn.
Parker never was officially a member of the house band at Minton’s during that period, however sensing his importance to the bebop movement, Clarke and Monk approached Teddy Hill about hiring Parker into the band. Hill refused so Clarke and Monk decided to pay Parker out of their salaries.
After Parker’s arrival on the scene in Harlem, a new generation of player followed. Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Fats Navarro
Fats Navarro
Theodore "Fats" Navarro was an American jazz trumpet player. He was a pioneer of the bebop style of jazz improvisation in the 1940s. He had a strong stylistic influence on many other players, most notably Clifford Brown.-Life:Navarro was born in Key West, Florida, to Cuban-Black-Chinese parentage...
, Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
, Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
, Max Roach
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...
and many others were drawn to Minton’s. Miles Davis’s
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
search for Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
brought him to Minton’s where he “cut his teeth” at the jam sessions. Miles remembered:
The way [it] went down up at Minton’s was you brought your horn and hoped that Bird and Dizzy would invite you to play with them up on stage. And when this happened you better not blow it...People would watch for clues from Bird and Dizzy, and if they smiled when you finished playing, then that meant your playing was good.
Davis’s remarks reflect on the frenzy in Harlem for the new sounds of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
that surrounded Parker, Gillespie and Minton’s.
Sitting-in at Minton's
Minton’s Playhouse became so popular in those days that the house band began to develop ways of weeding out the musicians who couldn’t play that wanted to sit in. According to bassist Milt HintonMilt Hinton
Milton John "Milt" Hinton , "the dean of jazz bass players," was an American jazz double bassist and photographer. He was nicknamed "The Judge".-Biography:...
, Gillespie prompted the band to play standards, such as Gershwin’s
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
“I Got Rhythm”, in difficult keys in order to discourage beginners from sitting in. Bassist Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
remembers being required to audition to get up on stage:
To play at Minton’s you couldn’t just walk in and grab a bass. They made you go in a back room or a kitchen and call a few tunes. They did it to me too. They said, “Can you play ‘Perdido’? Can you play ‘Body and Soul’?”
Practices such as these challenged up-and-coming jazz musicians to get their acts together in order to participate in the jam sessions, which kept the music at a high level.
The end of an era
Minton’s changed its open jam policy in favor of big name acts in the 1950s. By the late 1960s bands were no longer at the cutting edge. Harlem writer, Amiri BarakaAmiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka , formerly known as LeRoi Jones, is an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism...
(LeRoi Jones) wrote in Black Music (1967), that “The groups that come into Minton’s are stand-up replicas of what was a highly experimental twenty-five years ago.” Although the club was open for a little more than three decades, Minton’s Playhouse will always be associated with the 1940s and the jam sessions that gave birth to bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
.
See also
- List of jazz clubs
- Midnight at Minton'sMidnight at Minton'sMidnight at Minton's is a 1941 album by jazz musician Don Byas. It is a live recording of a jam session at Minton's Playhouse, the famous New York nightclub at which the emerging style of bebop was being pioneered....
— 1941 Jerry Newman recording of a session featuring Don ByasDon ByasCarlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
and Thelonious MonkThelonious MonkThelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
