Addie Price and three friends were listening to a jazz band in a booth close to the stage at the Jazz Oasis. They had come to grab a bite to eat and listen to live jazz.
Price, a 37-year-old from Chicago, said it was her first time at the club, in River North. Talking over a particularly loud trumpet solo, she said that ”without a doubt” she would return.
At All Jokes Aside, one of two black comedy clubs in the South Loop area, Felicia Kline and five friends waited for the show to get under way. A savings and loan examiner from Maywood, Kline, 24, said it was ”excellent” to be able to see African-American talent, ”because I`ve been to the white comedy clubs, and you don`t get that same humor everywhere you go.”
If Price and Kline had looked for places like Jazz Oasis and All Jokes Aside 10 years ago, they wouldn`t have found them-at least not downtown. These clubs are part of a growing trend: entertainment outlets in and around the Loop that are owned, operated and frequented by African-Americans.
That`s important and comforting to the city`s black community. At these clubs, African-Americans feel they belong.
Jamal Timmins, 32, has been to the bars on Rush Street and the North Side.
”There still is that stigma that you really don`t belong” at those establishments, which mainly have a white clientele, Timmins said on a recent night at the Clique on South Michigan Avenue. ”Here (at the Clique) I feel welcome, almost like they`re catering to me.”
It`s not as if there haven`t been entertainment opportunities for blacks in Chicago. Dozens of spots on the South and West Sides have thrived.
”If you lived on the South Side, you went to clubs out south; if you lived west, you went to clubs on the West Side,” said Charles Holley, a 27-year-old lawyer and frequent visitor to the Jazz Oasis.
The difference now is the activity has moved to downtown. ”I think towards the mid-`70s and `80s black folks started gravitating more towards downtown, whether it was because of work or school,” Holley said.
That wasn`t the case years ago, when segregation forced blacks to stick close to home when seeking entertainment. During the 1920s, `30s and `40s, the hottest spots in the city were on the South Side-places like Joe`s Deluxe, Charlie`s Rum Boogie and Club DeLisa.
”Most of them were white-owned with black patrons,” said Chicago historian Dempsey Travis, 72, himself a part of that scene as a trumpeter.
”Keep in mind that there was no television and the only way you could see celebrities like Bill Robinson, Joe Louis and Stepin Fetchit would be at these clubs. They would come in and be treated like royalty.”
The thriving entertainment center for blacks was 47th Street, where clubgoers could find anything from local dance halls and neighborhood lounges with live entertainment to clubs with prime acts like Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway.
”In many of these clubs you found that there were more whites than blacks,” Travis said. ”For example, in the Rum Boogie, whites (were given)
the prime seats because they were really the prime spenders.”
The scene changed after the Big Band sound went out of style, Travis added, and many of the big clubs went with it.
By the time the 1950s and `60s rolled around, the hot location for blacks who wanted to step out for the evening was the Regal Theatre, which was at that time on 47th Street and South Parkway (now Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive). The Regal had all the hot acts, usually many appearing on the same bill: James Brown, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Four Tops, the Temptations and the Jackson 5.
During that period, however, racism was prevalent in the downtown nightclub scene, just as it was all over the city and across the country. The clubs that did permit blacks had segregated sections.
”By the time I was coming into my manhood, several black entertainers were playing downtown,” said Leon Forrest, 55, a professor of sociology and English and chairman of African-American studies at Northwestern University.
”(Entertainers like) Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole. Then things began to open up (for black patrons). This coincided with the civil rights movement. You couldn`t have one without the other.”
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The South Loop magnet
Just as 47th Street was a happening spot for African-Americans in the 1940s and `50s, the South Loop area has become a hot vicinity for blacks in the late 1980s and early `90s. This stretch of land, which includes South Michigan and South Wabash Avenues, has become something of a magnet for entertainment, with the Cotton Club and All Jokes Aside, as well as the Burnham Plaza Theatre complex, all attracting a predominantly black audience. When the Cotton Club opened five years ago in the South Loop, there wasn`t anything like it around, according to assistant manager Gail Sullivan. ”We bring in big acts every three or four weeks,” she said. ”Morgana King, Dorothy Donegan, that type of thing.”
Offering jazz in its main room and dancing in a separate room in back of the building, the Cotton Club was an enticement to other clubs trying to attract African-Americans. The South Loop offers the closeness of the downtown area, with an accessibility to those living west and south.
”I think that because of this upscale-type audience that you`re trying to reach, the fact is they feel comfortable in the South Loop,” said Raymond Lambert, co-owner of All Jokes Aside, 1000 S. Wabash Ave.
”I think that being in the South Loop is central because it`s easily accessible, and there`s a perception that goes with it that it`s downtown and it`s entertainment.”
Another draw to the South Loop is a perceived sense of safety.
”Young people in their 20s and 30s, people who have money, are attracted to a place that is in a nice area and that is safe to bring a date,” Forrest said. ”They want to go to a place that`s exciting with some sense of well-being.”
The 1970s saw a number of entertainment outlets for African-Americans, including a smattering of clubs in the neighborhoods, roving parties and a few clubs out in the suburbs. For Steve DeJoie, the place was not in Chicago but in suburban Dolton.
”When we were young (in the 1970s), they had the Nymbis out in Dolton, and it was a live spot,” said DeJoie, 32, part owner of DeJoie`s Bistro, 230 W. Kinzie St. ”After the Nymbis died out, for a while you saw organizations that threw their own parties at bars and hotels.
”After that you saw an effort in the River North area (in the mid-1980s) with the old Manhattan`s (on Wells Street), trying to develop a place for black professionals downtown that was upscale.” Manhattan`s closed a few years later.
Filling a gap
That`s when DeJoie, an investment banker and a lifelong resident of Chicago, started to hear all the talk from his friends. There just wasn`t any place for upwardly mobile blacks to spend their money and feel comfortable.
”We would say, `How come someone hasn`t opened up a place?` ” DeJoie said. ”We checked it out and said, `Let`s do it.` I said, `We`re going to hang in here until the business turns.` ”
So DeJoie, along with his mother and a family friend, Craig Butler, opened up DeJoie`s Bistro in the River North area in April 1990. In a few weeks, business flourished.
DeJoie`s intention was to create ”a multiracial jazz club that had a variety of entertainment: comedy, music, reggae.” DeJoie`s offers live music (on Thursdays and Sundays) and dance music (on Fridays and Saturdays). Another drawing card is DeJoie`s menu of New Orleans-style cuisine.
But what makes DeJoie`s even more popular is the relaxed ambiance: There is a lounging area, divided by a large, silver oval bar, and a large dance floor.
Just a few blocks away from DeJoie`s Bistro sits Spices, 812 N. Franklin St., one of the more eclectic clubs of the bunch.
Luther Minner, 50, who used to own a downtown beauty salon, and his wife, Diane, a former buyer for Sears, rehabbed space formerly known as the Raccoon Club and opened up Spices in November 1990 as a jazz club. Soon, the Minners decided to have more diverse forms of entertainment, adding poetry readings, comedy and art shows.
”It`s an intimate place and we wanted people to feel at home,” said Minner, whose clientele ranges in age from 25 to 45. ”The last thing we wanted was to have just a bar.”
Minority ownership
Most of the new clubs are minority-owned. Blacks owned the bars through the years, but never the nightclubs, Northwestern`s Forrest said. This new entrepreneurship makes the minority patron happy.
”We own it and we patronize it,” said Denise Mason at the Jazz Oasis.
”And that`s what we need to do: go out to the community and patronize our own, because that`s the only thing that`s going to really get us ahead in anything.”
”Historically,” said Jazz Oasis owner John Moultrie, ”minorities have opened up discos or some kind of club with (loud) entertainment or dance, but there`s none of that here. So this caters to a more cerebral group, which means we`re evolving as a race of people.”
Clique owner Calvin Hollins knows a lot about the club business. He was a part owner of Dingbats, the popular Rush Street club that was one of the first to jump on the disco craze of the 1970s.
Dingbats closed its doors in 1984. Later Hollins wanted to tap into the popular sports bar craze, since none had a mostly black clientele. In 1987, he opened Heroes Sports Bar. When that didn`t work out, Hollins opened a juice bar for a younger crowd. When business fizzled, Hollins closed shop to reopen as the Clique at 2347 S. Michigan Ave.
”We as a people are starting to move into more of a sophisticated attitude,” Hollins said. ”The Clique gives you a place to rub shoulders with business people. We cater to a white-collar clientele. That`s why I made the transition to a jazz club. The need was there.”
The Clique offers an unusual atmosphere, with couches and tables on the main floor along with a stage. In the back, there`s a smaller room with a stage for live entertainment. The Clique also has a state-of-the-art second floor dance club and a kitchen. The entertainment complex also houses its own comedy club, the Comedy Klik. As you might expect, attire is upscale.
The word ”upscale” goes hand-in-hand with the new clubs. At the Cotton Club, men aren`t allowed to wear hats. Gym shoes and wing-tips didn`t make a perfect harmony at the old Heroes, so when it reopened as the Clique, sneakers and like attire were banned. The Jazz Oasis gets patrons whose yearly salary averages upwards of $30,000, according to Moultrie. Age requirements range from at least 21 to 25 and over at some spots.
But whatever restrictions are in place are meaningless to thousands of African-Americans, who welcome them if it means they`ll have a music club, dance club or just a club where they can relax with friends.
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”Middle-class black people are just looking for entertainment,” said Jerome Barksdale, who books live acts for DeJoie`s. ”And I think they would get tired just going to one club. Diversity is the key.”