[Dixielandjazz] From the Village Voice - 1963

[Stephen G Barbone]

Dixieland isn't dead yet, but as Ellington said, "Things Ain't What  
They Used To Be." A few of us on the DJML remember Nick's and some  
played there. Great memories of some great music in this grand old  
place.

Some other musicians who played there but are not listed below were  
Tony Spargo (Sbarbaro),
Kenny Davern, Billy Maxted, Sal Pace, Charlie Traeger, Lee Gifford,  
Andy Russo, Kenny John,
Hank Duncan, Johnny Varro and countless others.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


August 15, 1963, Vol. VIII, No. 43 - Village Voice - by Diane Fisher

Changing Times Down Dixie's Last Bastion


The awning still says he will, but Sol Yaged will no longer appear  
nightly at Nick's. "In Greenwich Village since 1922," read the stained  
glass windows. "Closed in August, 1963," is the unwritten legend and a  
sharp reminder of the waning interest in Dixieland jazz, the coming  
end of an era.

Through the rise and fall of big bands and bop, swing and 52nd Street  
and soul jazz, more recently in the face of fads of folk music and  
"the new thing" (whatever that may be) in jazz, Nick's survived, but  
it suffered. In the early days, jazz meant Dixieland. More recently,  
as new forms have developed, Nick's has become somewhat of a museum  
for a certain sound. It has been for Dixie buffs a mecca of an old,  
slowly dying form, for others a place to recapture one's youth  
briefly, for out-of-town collegians the only familiar name on a first  
tour of Greenwich Village. But it has been perhaps merely a matter of  
time until Nick's would succumb. Commercially, it was an anachronism.

Nick was Nick Rongetti; his widow has owned and operated the business  
since his death in 1946. Rongetti's first club was at 15 Christopher  
Street, and subsequent locations were on Cornelia Street, Grove  
Street, and at Sixth Avenue and 4th Street. The original Nick's Tavern  
was at 140 Seventh Avenue South (now the Page 3). The final Nick's  
opened at Seventh Avenue South and 10th Street in 1936 and closed the  
first Saturday in August, 1963.

Nick was devoted to Dixie, and the musicians he and "Mrs. Nick"  
featured over the years compose an impressive roster. Some of them  
were George Wettling, Max Kaminsky, Vic Dickinson, Pee Wee Russell,  
Jack Teagarden, Wild Bill Davison, Sidney Bechet, Ray MacKinley, Meade  
(Lux) Lewis, Bobby Hackett, Bill Butterfield, Miff Mole, Edmond Hall,  
Bud Freeman, Muggsy Spanier, Phil Napoleon, and Peanuts Hucko. Another  
was Eddie Condon, who has had his own Dixie emporiums since.

Mrs. Rongetti has lost the lease, and nobody knows, or is saying, just  
what business will occupy the building. For the unaware, a warning of  
U.S. Government seizure decorates the door "This property seized for  
nonpayment of internal revenue taxes," it says, "by virtue of levy  
issued by the District Director of Internal Revenue

"All persons are warned not to remove or tamper with in any manner  
under severe penalty of laws." But the tax collector didn't close  
Nick's, he is just the first wolf at the door -- the creditor with  
priority.

The only sure thing is that there are some more musicians on the  
street, and that, following a nation-wide pattern one of the last few  
bastions of Dixie is gone.