[Dixielandjazz] Re: Green Mill

[Rob McCallum]

Hi Don and everyone,

Thanks for reminding me about the Green Mill.  I visited once a few years
back but it was in the afternoon and it wasn't open (so I didn't get the
chance to catch a show or see the inside).  I also visited some other
Chicago jazz sites including the Aragon Ballroom.

I read somewhere, perhaps in Christiane Bird's book (which I was using as a
tourist guide at the time), that the entire block that the Green Mill is a
part of was once a giant entertainment complex in the 1920's with hanging
gardens and the works. I believe there is a story about a down and out
musician who was living in the club's basement and froze to death there.
Perhaps someone has some more details.  Certainly it's a wonderful historic
space.  Did your father ever play there??

All the best,
Rob McCallum


> Rob et al:
> Baker's may have been one of the oldest jazz club's but it would have to
go
> back another decade or so to top the Green Mill in Chicago. It was a
> northside bar that featured ragtime and then jazz as it became the vogue
in
> Chicago. It was a favorite stop for Big Al Capone, and a table at the back
> was always reserved for him at all times.
> There have been some greats of early jazz to play there, and the club is
> still going with a jazz policy to this day.
> It was a "speak" in the prohibition period, booze supplied by Capone. The
> Green Mill goes back to near the turn of the 1900's and  is still in
> business, jazz ploicy intact.
> Don Ingle
> PD -- No argument that Baker's in Detroit has a great jazz history in its
> own and certainly has earned a respectible place in jazz history in the
> midwest.