[Dixielandjazz] Goodbye, Mr. Hammond

[Randy Fendrick]

An article by Al Martinez in today's LA Times, while not necessarily 
dixieland, it describes some of the pitfalls OKOM faces.
later,
rf
Goodbye, Mr. Hammond -- and all that jazz
Though it was an unusual setting for a jazz club, the Back Room at a 
coffee shop named Henri's has been hosting pianist John Hammond for 
three years. Sadly for fans, the legend's stint has come to an
  March 24, 2008

There was a light mist over the Santa Monicas when I drove down from 
Topanga Canyon to catch the final appearance of the John Hammond jazz 
quintet in the Back Room at Henri's.

Earlier that day, a heavier fog had rolled in from the ocean and over 
the mountaintops but had thinned as it reached the Valley, lying like a 
bridal veil over Canoga Park. A slight chill in the air was nature's 
reminder that winter wasn't over.

  Henri's is a coffee shop, more or less, with a back room that began 
hosting Hammond about three years ago. He's a jazz legend and I'm a 
jazz nut, and to be able to drive to a club about half an hour away to 
hear great music was a gift from heaven.

He was there every Friday and Saturday night with either a trio or a 
quintet, and occasional visits by other jazz greats who dropped by to 
blow stars into the night.

But that's all gone now. Economics has ended jazz in the Back Room the 
way it is ending Dutton's bookstore in Brentwood. Little pieces of 
quality are spinning out of L.A. like leaves caught up in a gale.

Oddly, Henri's was the perfect venue. Most jazz clubs don't exist in 
coffee shops, especially on streets that die after dark. Everything 
around Henri's seemed to close when the sun went down. There was a 
feeling of loneliness to the location, which was OK in its way. Jazz is 
meant to be a little melancholy.

I was in a low mood, I guess, when I walked through the restaurant and 
into the Back Room to hear the style of music born in New Orleans more 
than a century ago. Word had gotten around that this was to be 
Hammond's last night, and it was jammed with more than 100 jazz 
aficionados. They were there to say goodbye.

The quintet, with Hammond at the piano, opened with a riff on "It Could 
Happen to You," a ballad polished into a new blues form, described once 
by Billie Holiday as walking in the rain. She was seeing jazz not as a 
love song but as a mood. The last piece was a whimsical tune Hammond 
had written called "Big Butt Blues." Then it was over.

Clearly, Henri's owner, Mike Puetz, had regrets about ending the jazz 
sessions. His father opened the restaurant in 1972, and it has become 
the place to go for breakfast in the Valley. Jazz was added when Puetz 
discovered Hammond, who was winding up a two-year stint at the Hilton 
in Woodland Hills.

Dwindling profits and rising prices forced him to end any kind of 
entertainment in the Back Room, Puetz says. The cocktail lounge will 
remain open, but it'll be just another bar without the intricate 
blending of piano, bass, drums, saxophone and trumpet to pull guys like 
me off the street and into its dark embrace. You can have a martini 
anywhere, but it begins talking to you when there's music in the night.

Trained as a classical pianist, Hammond, 66, switched to jazz when he 
was 16 and has been playing it ever since. He leans over and almost 
into the piano as if they're a single instrument, Hammond's white hair 
gleaming under the measured light that illuminates the room. With him 
on his last night were Jim Hughart on bass, Kendall Kay on drums, Pete 
Christlieb on the tenor sax and Carl Saunders on the trumpet.

The diversity of Hammond's talent glows up out of his bio, and includes 
performing or recording with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, 
Mel Torme and Tina Turner, and guest-conducting with the Johannesburg, 
BBC and New Orleans symphony orchestras, among others.

I got into jazz in college when you could hang out in San Francisco's 
North Beach and listen to good music for the price of a pitcher of 
beer. Then it turned into a tourist haven and you had to look harder to 
find one of those small clubs that didn't hit you over the head with 
cover charges and minimums.

Puetz tried a $5 cover at Henri's but it didn't help much, and charging 
more wouldn't have seemed right. So the decision was made to eliminate 
jazz. Weekends, already pretty dull in the Valley, are now even quieter 
along Sherman Way.

A great city needs great art. It needs music and galleries and 
bookstores. Its people need to be transported beyond gang violence, 
traffic jams and inadequate leadership. We need more than a Hollywood 
mentality, more than amusement parks and certainly more than the 
self-accolades of a chest-pounding city hall.

Looking around at those gathered that last night of jazz at Henri's, I 
could see how involved they were in the complicated movements of the 
music. Some bopped along to the syncopated rhythms; others were 
transported by the melodies to a level of listening where music is 
all-embracing. We shared golden moments.

As I drove away from the Back Room, I could almost see Billie Holiday 
standing under a nearby corner streetlight. It was raining and she was 
crying.

Randy Fendrick
Southside Chicago Seven
Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra, ret