Tag: 1960s

Local History Advent Calendar 2019 – Day 6 – Mount Pleasant: Jazz Central

December 6, 2019

Last year I took on the challenge of the first-ever Local History Advent Calendar! For 24 days in a row, I presented random historical tidbits I’d collected over the previous year and presented them in the form of “treats” for my 2018 Local History Advent Calendar. This year, the “Heart of Mount Pleasant” was number 1 on Heritage Vancouver’s Top 10 Watch List for 2019.  So I decided to choose Mount Pleasant as the theme for the Vanalogue Local History Advent Calendar for 2019.  Each day you can “open” a new historical treat. Think of them as holiday cocktail party fodder – 24 facts about Mount Pleasant history that can be used as conversation starters at your next social event.

Inside the Cellar: March 21, 1961. Photos: Franz Lindner, CBC Vancouver Still Photo Collection.

For much of the second half of the 20th Century, Mount Pleasant was the neighbourhood for jazz in the city with establishments like The Hot Jazz Society Hot Jazz Club (1980s – ca. 2004) and The Glass Slipper (1988 – early 90s). All that jazz started with The Cellar – a co-operative founded and operated by members of the local bebop jazz scene. Opened in April 1956, The Cellar was officially located at 222 East Broadway, but the entrance to the basement bottle-club was at the side of the building at 2514 Watson Street. The subterranean space was built into the natural ravine of Brewery Creek, which ran across Watson Street between 10th Ave and Broadway.

The old Cellar Jazz building shortly before its demolition in 2014.

Until its closing in 1963, The Cellar was known as “one of the leading jazz clubs in North America”. It hosted local jazz musicians and international jazz greats such as Charles Mingus, Ernestine Anderson, Ornette Coleman, and Wes Montgomery. Some of the visiting musicians would stay at the City Centre Motor Inn or at the “bebop house”, located 3 or 4 blocks from Cellar, where a few core members of the Cellar resided. The Cellar wasn’t just a venue for jazz music; it also hosted plays, poetry readings, and featured artworks by Harry Webb.

While I was working at the CBC Vancouver Media Archives several years ago, I was fortunate to re-discover and digitize some of Franz Lindner’s photographs documenting the production of a jazz music programme filmed on location at The Cellar – a rare look inside the iconic jazz club.

“Jazz # 3” – CBC mobile unit on location. March 21, 1961. The Cellar (222 East Broadway – Entrance at rear off Watson St.) exterior. Photo: Franz Lindner, CBC Vancouver Still Photo Collection.

For more information about the Cellar and the Vancouver jazz scene, I recommend reading Marian Jago’s 2018 book, “Live at the Cellar: Vancouver’s Iconic Jazz Club and the Canadian Co-operative Jazz Scene in the 1950s and ‘60s”. It’s full of facts and great stories, like the night in 1961 when Charles Mingus hit a BC Lion over the head with a toilet plunger between sets.

Advance poster for Charlie Mingus concerts at the Cellar, 1960, designed by Harry Webb. Adrienne Brown Collection.

If you want to hear what it sounded like inside The Cellar, check out Al Neil: The Cellar Years – archival recordings from 1957… have a listen here:

Al Neil: The Cellar Years by Condition West Recordings

And here’s a video from The Hot Jazz Club in 1982:

From the archives of Don/Brian Ogilvie.

60th Anniversary of CBUT – Part 2 – All That Jazz

April 9, 2014
Two images of the exterior of the former Cellar Jazz club. Left- January 2014 a couple of months before the building was torn down To make way for more condos! Photo: C. Hagemoen. Right- March 21, 1961, CBUT on location at the Cellar, Photo: Franz Lindner, CBC Vancouver Still Photo Collection.
Two images of the exterior of the former Cellar Jazz club. Left- January 2014 a couple of months before the building was torn down To make way for more condos! Photo: C. Hagemoen. Right- March 21, 1961, CBUT on location at the Cellar to record Jazz #3, Photo: Franz Lindner, CBC Vancouver Still Photo Collection.

I knew its days were numbered when I saw the blue construction fencing being installed around its perimeter a few weeks ago. Sure enough, two days later a bulldozer was pulling down the final remains of a piece of Vancouver’s jazz history – The Cellar Jazz Club. Officially located at 222 East Broadway, the entrance to the basement club was in the rear along the “alley like” Watson Street. The Cellar, which opened in April 1956, was a “bottle club” – it had no liquor license. British Columbia historically has had very odd liquor laws (still does in many ways) and so most cabarets would sell ice and soft drinks while allowing patrons to bring in their own concealed containers of alcohol. The Cellar was founded and operated by members of the local jazz scene. Continue reading “60th Anniversary of CBUT – Part 2 – All That Jazz”

That Cold Day in the Park

March 7, 2014
A cold day in the park. Park bench in Tatlow Park, Vancouver. Photo: C. Hagemoen
A cold day in the park. Park bench in Tatlow Park, Vancouver. Photo: C. Hagemoen

One of Vancouver’s oldest parks, Tatlow Park (at Point Grey Road and MacDonald), was the central location of one of the first Hollywood features filmed in Vancouver; Robert Altman‘s often neglected 1969 film, That Cold Day in the Park.

A newly restored 35mm print of the film is screening this weekend (March 8th & 9th) part of the the UCLA Festival of Preservation. This biennial festival is making its only Canadian stop at The Cinematheque in Vancouver. The UCLA Festival of Preservation reflects the “broad and deep efforts” of UCLA Film & Television Archive to preserve and restore America’s national moving image heritage.

The historical sweep and technical wizardry of UCLA Film & Television Archive’s preservation projects—from early silent films and Golden Age classics, to fascinating rarities and contemporary gems—are showcased in our biennial UCLA Festival of Preservation.

Hosting this Festival allows the Cinematheque to showcase “the important preservation and restoration work being done by other cinema archives, film studios, and specialty distribution companies around the globe”. The preservation of Altman’s first feature, That Cold Day in the Park (1969), was funded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and The Film Foundation.

Continue reading “That Cold Day in the Park”