Outside, the neon signs cast their blue and red glow over the sidewalk and onto those who pass by the club, the one with familiar sounds of trumpet, trombone and the saxophone.
“LIVE JAZZ & BLUES,” the signs read.
From the window, you can see a busy place, packed out with waiters and customers all eager to hear tonight’s band. A stage with a brick backdrop and prop steel beams framing the band in front. On the walls, a treasury of old photographs signed by the greats, festival banners and old jazz charts, framed and retired.
Here, the music adorns the walls as well as the ears.
At Andy’s Jazz Club, on 11 East Hubbard St in Chicago, with a new band every night and three nightly performances, there is no shortage of music.
Once inside, you’ll hear the Chicago-native voice of one of three brothers. Which one is the question: Chris, Jeff and Brandon Chisholm all manage the place that their father, Scott Chisholm, bought from Andy Rizutto in 1974.
“Folks, we’ve got a real good show for you tonight,” says Jeff, or maybe Chris. He’ll tell the audience the usual: keep your voice down during performances, no flash photography and always —“if you hear something you like, feel free to express your gratitude with a donation to the band,” waving to a glass jar by the piano. Then, the band takes it away amidst the clanking of silverware dropped to applaud.
Andy’s hasn’t always been that Andy’s, though. In 1951, entrepreneur Andy Rizutto founded Andy’s Lounge as a “newspaper pub”. It became a regular spot for men who worked at either the Chicago Tribune or Chicago Sun-Times.
Each day after work, men would roll their sleeves up, loosen their ties and head to Andy’s for a drink. This rhythm rolled along through the ‘60s and most of the ‘70s, but things started to change when Scott Chisholm bought the club in 1974.
In 1977, Chisholm swung a new direction for the bar. One Friday, a “Jazz at Noon” set took place. There was no stage, no sound equipment and no music played with a straight rhythm. Everything was swing. For the first time, Andy’s had jazz.
Soon after, “Jazz at Noon” sets were added to several days of the week, as well as two additional sets, “Jazz at Five” and “Jazz at Nine”. Andy’s was no longer a newsman’s place; it was officially a jazz club.
Andy’s is a spectacle. It’s sleek. Its bright neon signs cast a shadowed glow from which the music emanates like smoke, rising throughout the club and city streets beyond. Now, with a new band every night, there’s a new experience every twenty-four hours — and with three 75-minute shows nightly with start times of 6, 8:15 and 10:30 — the quantity is as constant as the quality.
Andy’s is $15 for entry, all ages. Now in its seventy-fifth year of business, its legacy as a Chicago classic has been long established. But how does it compare to Chicago’s other — and oldest — grand jazz club, The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge?
If you ask me, what Andy’s brings in excellence, The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge brings in experience.
The Green Mill first opened in 1907 in Uptown Chicago, at the corner of North Broadway and Lawrence Street, as Pop Morse’s Roadhouse, featuring a bar and beer garden. The bar suited its people well, especially the mourners who were leaving the Graceland and Saint Boniface cemeteries, located just up the block.
In 1910, the building changed ownership and names under Tom Chamales, a real estate developer, who changed the name to Green Mill Gardens, borrowing from the Red Mill of Moulin Rouge in Paris. To avoid association with business in the red-light district in Chicago, Chamales elected green as the bar’s color.
By the 1980s, the club had fallen on hard times. But in 1986, South-sider Dave Jemilo befriended then-owner Steve Brend and bought the bar from him. He went about revitalizing the bar and bringing about the image of the club we know today.
The Green Mill, like Andy’s, can be spotted by its bright lights. Its sign is made up of hundreds of lightbulbs, “The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge” spelled out in bright green neon letters in between the luminous golden sign. With a sign like that, you’re sure to find a show inside.
The Green Mill is a place full of lessons. Here, we’re adults. Only 21 or older allowed in the bar, and cash only — the amount depends on the time and day of the week. The room is a simple rectangle with a stage at the back of the building, a mere six inches above the ground.
And the elephant in the room — the bar — takes up almost half the space of the lounge. A massive mural takes the place of a menu, teaching its patrons its first lesson: order what you want. The bartenders will make anything you want, unless they don’t want to. To keep things easy (and because I’m on Covenant), I prefer Diet Coke. I don’t catch much slack, but I do get an eye roll.
More lessons: the bar is open Sunday-Thursday until 1:11 am precisely. At that time, unless you’re Al Capone, hit the road. On the weekends, patrons may enjoy an additional 49 minutes, forced to leave instead at 2 a.m. The band plays from 8pm – 12 am. Make sure to keep your volume down — even a whisper will get an aggressive “shh” from one of the bartenders, which, unlike some drinks, they have no qualms dishing out.
The Green Mill is a worthy representation of America’s cultural identity — it’s every person for him-or-herself. In other words, no one is very nice. No reservations — sit where you want. If there’s no room, stand until you can sit or choose to leave. No one’s obligated to give their seat unless they feel like it. Here, jazz is secondary. Chicago is primary.
Jazz critic Neil Tesser once said of The Green Mill, “It reeks of Chicago. It screams Chicago in the day. But the other part of it is, it all comes from the top. The people who work there are serious. The bartenders, they don’t take any guff, but there’s still a sense that they’re happy to have you there.”
The history of the place covers its walls. The landscape paintings and their massive golden frames have always been The Green Mill’s look, even when addicts in the seventies would hide their syringes behind the frames.
Towards the stage, a statue of Ceres, the Greek goddess of harvest, watches over the performers and crowd. According to legend, her name is Stella, from the standard “Stella by Starlight,” Al Capone’s favorite song. One long-time bartender of The Green Mill said of Stella, “She’s old. Nobody is quite sure where she came from. There’s some thought she came from the original World’s Fair.”
Despite its harsh and unapologetic culture, once its lessons are learned and its legend is appreciated, The Green Mill is a piece of history that I believe is better for its culture. It’s certainly not a place for everyone, and takes some stomaching to enjoy. But in that experience also lies exposure to a moment that’s now over a century old and hopes to continue for much longer. Why apologize? The moment exists. It’s up to us to be a part of it. That, or watch the dazzle of the sign outside.
It’s up to you to go in.
Andy’s feels fun. The Green Mill feels important. I go to Andy’s more often than I do The Green Mill, but that’s like going to the movie theater more often than the museum; they’re different spectacles. Different needs. Both valuable, but one for the thrill, and one for the fulfillment. What matters is that they’re both there, waiting for you to see its bright lights outside, hear the faint music from the door and want more. To walk in and share a piece of a culture that’s embedded within the city it comes from. To become, in a way, part of the city itself.
