As an amateur Jazz guitarist, it’s my pleasure to take a break from theology and philosophy to note the 70th anniversary of the original Birdland club.
First, happy birthday to Barry Harris (b. 1929) and Curtis Fuller (b. 1934)!
70 years ago, December 15, 1949, a basement Jazz club—following the Ubangi, the Ebony, and The Clique—opened as “Birdland: The Jazz Corner of the World.” Its birth coincided with the demise of “The Street,” i.e., the serendipitous concatenation of jazz clubs that sprung up on 52nd Street between Fifth and Seventh Avenues in the wake of Prohibition. (See Patrick Burke’s scholarly Come In and Hear the Truth: Jazz and Race on 52nd Street. Arnold Shaw’s 52nd Street: The Street of Jazz makes an excellent companion reader.) Continue reading “Birdland, 1949-1965: Hard Bop Mecca”