A TALE OF TWO CITIES…
HERE IN LA, JAZZ CLUBS HAVE BEEN CLOSING LIKE THERE’S A QUARANTINE GOING ON. AT ONE TIME, THE ANGELENOS BOASTED OF AT LEAST A DOZEN SPOTS WHERE YOU COULD HEAR EXCELLENT SOUNDS AT A REASONABLE PRICE. SOME EVEN HAD A GOOD MEAL.
NOWADAYS, WE’RE DOWN TO LESS THAN A HANDFUL PERMANENT PLACES, AND IT’S REAL DEPRESSING TO LOOK AT AN ARTIST’S TOURING SCHEDULE AND READ AN INTINERARY THAT GOES, “SEATTLE, PORTLAND, SAN FRANCISCO…PHOENIX”! NOWADAYS, LA GETS PASSED BY LIKE A LEPER COLONY!
IN CONTRAST, OVER IN THE MID-WESTERN TUNDRA OF MINNEAPOLIS MINNESOTA, THERE IS A THRIVING JAZZ CLUB NAMED THE DAKOTA JAZZ CLUB. IF YOU GO TO THEIR WEB SITE WWW.DAKOTACOOKS.COM, YOU WILL SALIVATE OVER THE TOP-GRADE ARTISTS THAT PLAY THERE; MCCOY TYNER, CHICK COREA, PAT METHENY, THE BAD PLUS, KENNY BARRON, ERIC JOHNSON, BRAD MEHLDAU AND JOSHUA REDMAN ARE JUST A FEW OF THE ARTISTS THAT HAVE PLAYED THERE IN JUST THE PAST TWO MONTHS!!!
BESIDES THAT, THE DAKOTA BOASTS OF A MENU THAT WILL APPEAL TO EVEN THE MOST SNOBBISH ‘FOODIE,’ WITH A SELECTION THAT WILL MAKE THE SOUNDS ON THE INTIMATE STAGE MELD PERFECTLY WITH THE SUBLIME TASTES ON YOUR PLATE.
WE RECENTLY TOOK IN A SHOW WITH FREDDIE COLE, BUT BEFORE THE SET WE SAT DOWN AND HAD A CHANCE TO MEET WITH LOWELL PICKETT, ONE OF THE OWNERS OF THIS HIP CLUB IN THAT CULTURAL CROSS ROADS OF DOWNTOWN MINNEAPOLIS. THE THINGS THAT HE SHARES ON HOW TO MAKE A JAZZ CLUB SUCCESSFUL TO THE THREE SIDED COIN OF THE OWNERS, CLIENTELE AND MUSICIANS IS WORTH NOTING.
WHY IS THE PLACE CALLED “DAKOTA”? YOU’RE A FEW HUNDRED MILES AWAY FROM NORTH AND SOUTH DAKOTA?
Are we really? (laughs)
I have a partner now; but, when we first opened in 1985 I was trying to come up with a name that I thought people could remember and spell. Something that could resonate on different levels; it’s a familiar name in this area. I liked the juxtaposition in my mind of The Dakota building in New York on the west side of Central Park with the state of North Dakota, which is unpretentious and straight forward. I liked it!
YOU HAVE NATURAL ROUTES FOR MUSICIANS IN THE WEST AND EAST COASTS, YET YOU GET ARTISTS LIKE CHARLES LLOYD AND CHICK COREA COMING OUT HERE OUT OF THEIR WAY, SOME THAT RARELY HIT LOS ANGELES, LIKE MARTIN BARRE. HOW DO YOU GET THEM HERE?
It’s a combination of things. When we first opened, there was no national music. It was a restaurant with local music. I really didn’t want to have national music; I didn’t want it to be a showcase.
I’d never seen the Village Vanguard or Sweet Basil, the clubs in New York that were active at the time. I didn’t want to be a “destination” venue; I wanted to be a place where people could just come by, have a great dinner and listen to some great music at the bar.
By 1988, we’d been opened for a few years. I had a friend from another lifetime when I was making documentary films and had arranged a concert at the Guthrie Theatre in town for the Walker Arts Center with McCoy Tyner. McCoy and I had become friends.
McCoy really came as a favor. We’d never before had anyone from out of town; I had gotten a call from an agent and I told him that we don’t do that stuff. But he called me back a couple of weeks later and said that he had talked to McCoy, and if you get him a good piano he’d be happy to come.
It was too great an opportunity to pass, and it worked out well. As a result of that Ahmad Jamal was booked by the same agent the next month. Bobby Watson had just put together Horizon, so that worked out well. He and I had a mutual high school friend.
Bobby gave me Betty Carter’s number; I called her and she said she’d come for whatever I could afford, but she’d never do it again. She’d one a Grammy the week before she came, and she just loved it. We talked a lot after the third night, and she said “You’ve gotta have Nancy Wilson here. You gotta have Freddie Hubbard here.”
Because Betty liked it so much, Carmen McRae came in. All of these were a month a part. Her manager, Larry Clothier, said that Carmen told him it was the most enjoyable engagement she’d ever had, and she doesn’t say that unless she means it. She referred me to Shirley Horn.
By the end of summer, Shirley Horn, Freddie Hubbard and then Marcus Roberts and Horace Silver all came. We started out on a very high level without really attempting to do that.
BUT THERE ARE TONS OF CLUBS MORE CONVENIENT TO GET TO ON THE TWO COASTS. WHY DID THEY COME TO MINNESOTA AND REFER OTHERS?
We treated them well. That summer I was in Perugia, and was trying to get Joe Williams at that time. His agent said that they would laugh at us if we went to them with what we could afford. Joe, McCoy and Carmen were all playing at the Perugia Jazz Festival. Larry was there; Roy and Geoffrey Keezer had just graduated from Berklee and had been roommates. They were in a group that Larry had put together to tour the European festivals, called Generations with Jimmy Cobb.
Larry said I should get Joe Williams, but I told him we couldn’t afford it. He said, “Carmen was there and loved it; you can afford Joe Williams.”
So, Joe Williams came twice. That’s how we started. People came; I was just a kid at the time. They liked it and we treated them well. Joe called me up a couple days after he left and told me “I just want you to know that it’s a real special place, and there aren’t many of them.
IT’S ONE THING TO BRING ARTISTS, BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO KEEP FINANCIALLY AFLOAT? HOW DO YOU KEEP IT SUCCESSFUL COMMERCIALLY?
It took us a long time to get to that balance. I did this for 18 years, the last 12-13 I’ve had a partner, Richard Erickson, but it has been hard from time to time. In the early 90s it was really hard. There was a 5 year period when I didn’t take a weekend off.
One of the things that we did was that we had a great building, but not in a great location. It wasn’t an easy location to get to. In 2003 we moved to the current location, where we are now. This obviously is where you have corporations, the Nicolette Mall, downtown Minneapolis where we’re surrounded by hotels. All of those things have helped.
YOU HAVEN’T EVEN MENTIONED THE FOOD YET. MOST JAZZ PLACES DON’T TAKE PRIDE IN THEIR MENUS.
From the very start, because we started as a restaurant…when we first opened The Dakota I was asked by the developer…I was the managing partner of a restaurant before. I had a non-profit life where I was making documentary films and the restaurant part was to subsidize it. But I met some guys who were doing a development and they wanted me to open my business there.
I was trying to figure out why I would go a location that was out of my normal path. One, I would go for the food, and the restaurant where I was the managing partner had great food. We were one of the first restaurants in this part of the country that had really talented chefs cooking from scratch. Good food. Creative food.
A good wine by the glass list. We have a great list. Outdoor dining, music in the bar. The music that I thought made the most sense was jazz. Those were the ingredients.
It was a restaurant for the first two years. In fact, we were written up in the New York Times as a restaurant! Ken, our chef at the time, wanted to create a new cuisine. He wanted to do a regional cuisine around products that are indigenous here. So, he was one of the pioneers of that.
The Times wrote an article about Midwestern Cuisine including a place in Milwaukee called Le Trois, one in Chicago called Prairie with one of the star chefs, and then The Dakota! Ken’s picture was in The Times. We were written up in a number of national food magazines and were getting wine list Awards of Excellence. Those things were important to us.
It seemed to us that we wanted to have all of those things together in order to provide a complete and thoroughly enjoyable night out. Food, music and environment.
At the time, I had never seen a New York jazz club. I didn’t realize that they were pretty spare places. The Dakota was designed well; it’s nice inside. When McCoy came, I got him a 9 foot Steinway. He looked at me and said, “We can do this.” If it weren’t for McCoy, we wouldn’t be doing national shows.
DO YOU HAVE ANY “BUCKET LIST” ARTISTS THAT HAVEN’T COME HERE YET?
There’s no single Silver Chalice. But I can name off four or five, and they’re not all pure jazz.
I really think that cross-genre collaborations are really interesting. We’ve had Graham Parker and Judy Collins here.
We had Lucinda Williams here; she just did four nights and it was fabulous. This is one of America’s greatest songwriters. I’ll give you an example; We had a co-bill of JD Souther and Nellie McKay. That was because both wanted the same night and JD’s agent said JD really likes Nellie McKay and so got it so they both worked together.
I don’t know if it will now happen, but the Silver Chalice would include Eric Clapton here on acoustic guitar. Or Ry Cooder, who I absolutely revere.
Bonnie Raitt’s bass player came here for dinner one time and said, “This would be a really cool place for Bonnie.”
I have had other kinds of things that. Did you know Prince played here? He was here for three nights, and that was unheard of, even in this community where he’s from. Since he became well known he had not played a small venue.
SO, YOU’RE ABLE TO ATTRACT THE JAZZ ARTISTS, THE JAZZ FANS, THE FOODIES AND THE UPSCALE FOLKS. THAT’S A GOOD COMBO.
We also like to do creative things. I love John McLaughlin, and we’ve had him here. I also love his percussionist Zakir Hussain. Shakti was playing in town and I got to know Zakir, and he had dinner here. I can’t talk music with McLaughlin or Hussain, but I could present him with some great food and wine, and one time he couldn’t find another location so he agreed to play here.
After, Zakir came to me and said, “I’m going to be doing something with (banjo player) Bela Fleck, and we’d like to do it here. He’s also done something here with Steve Smith, and another time he was here with Charles Lloyd and Eric Harland.
Lloyd was one of the guys from the Silver Chalice. Charles has been here many times; he’s got that rich spiritual thing when he comes here, and I love it. He’s here with Bill Frisell this spring.
So Zakir agreed to do something here with Bela Fleck and (bluegrass bassist) Edgar Meyer. We had it arranged; it was going to be here in April. But there was another show in town that was presenting Bela Fleck and the Flecktones with an outdoor venue at the zoo at the end of August. The presenters told us, “No; we can’t do it. Conflict of interests.”
But we think that the market is sophisticated enough to absorb artist’s work in different contexts. One year we had Hiromi here with her electric quartet in June. Next, we had Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White acoustic. Two weeks later, Stanley Clarke returns with his acoustic trio which had Lenny White and Hiromi! Two months later, Stanley and Hiromi come back as a duo and one month later Hiromi came back solo. Hiromi was here four times and you could see her in a different context in each.
You talk about cross collaborations, we’ve really opened it up. Del McCoury, Ricky Skaggs and Jerry Douglas have all been here. Those are musicians at the top of the world.
AND THE MINNEAPOLIS AUDIENCE IS VERY ACCEPTING. THEY TAKE IT ALL IN.
One time a local radio person was upset with me because we were doing things that weren’t “pure jazz.” He was there one time seeing Omar Sosa, and that I talked about a country act coming in. I told him that they may be country, but they are really good! He didn’t think our great jazz club should be diluting i’s presentations.
I told him “I just don’t buy that. If you don’t like country, then you don’t like bluegrass then you probably don’t know who Chris Thile is.” So I told him about The Punch Brothers, Edgar Meyer and Bela Fleck and Yo Yo Ma (who is another Silver Chalice, BTW). So I told him, “You’re really missing an opportunity to hear great music”
It all can work here; we’ve had a solo cellist here. Phillip Glass played here. Next week a flat pick guitar player from The Punch Brothers is playing here with Julian Lage, who is probably the pre-eminent jazz guitarist of his generation. He’s doing his acoustic guitar with a flat pick guitar player! Two weeks later, Stuart Duncan, a great country-bluegrass fiddle player is playing with the banjo player from the Punch Brothers, and a month after that Julian Lage is coming back here to play duets with Nels Cline. Then, Chris Thile is coming back to do acoustic duets with Brad Mehldau.
Now, you can say that you don’t like bluegrass, but these young and creative musicians don’t care what you think about them. To them, music is just like air; it’s going to blow over those man made borders.
WHAT COMES ACROSS FROM THIS INTERVIEW IS THAT PICKETT UNDERSTANDS THE NEEDS OF BOTH THE ARTIST AND JAZZ PATRON. THE INTIMATE ENVIRONMENT OF THE DAKOTA MAKES FOR A PERFECT SEAT IN EVERY TABLE, WHILE THE FOOD SATISFIES EVEN THE MOST ANTI-JAZZ CUSTOMER FOR A GOOD NIGHT OUT. BECAUSE HE IS LOYAL TO MEETING THE MUSICIANS’ NEEDS, MAJOR ARTISTS GO OUT OF THEIR NORMAL PATHS TO PLAY AT HIS VENUE, WITH MANY OF THEM LIKE THE BAD PLUS RETURNING FOR THE SAME WEEK EVERY YEAR.
FOR MY MONEY, THE CENTER OF JAZZ IS IN THE CENTER OF THE COUNTRY, AS THE DAKOTA SHOWS THE TWO COASTS HOW TO MAKE MUSIC AN ‘IMMOVABLE’ FEAST!