Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, was an after-hours music club owned by
Leonard Chess
Lejzor Szmuel Czyż (March 12, 1917 – October 16, 1969), best known as Leonard Sam Chess, was a Polish-American record company executive and the co-founder of Chess Records. He was influential in the development of electric blues, Chicago bl ...
from 1946 to October 1950, when it burned down.
Chess had invested the money made from his two liquor stores into refurbishing an old eatery, its liquor license being granted to his brother,
Phil
Phil may refer to:
* Phil (given name), a shortened version of masculine and feminine names
* Phill, a given name also spelled "Phil"
* Phil, Kentucky, United States
* ''Phil'' (film), a 2019 film
* -phil-, a lexical fragment, used as a root ter ...
, in February 1946, shortly after being discharged from the army. In a seedy neighborhood, and initially a bar patronised by prostitutes and drug dealers, the establishment soon developed a reputation among local musicians as an after-hours club,Cohodas, Nadine (2000) ''Spinning Blues into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records'' At Google Books. Retrieved 5 July 2013. known for featuring jazz groups playing
bebop
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...
and jump blues.
The following year, in September 1947, Chess went into the recording business by buying into
Aristocrat Records
Aristocrat Records, sometimes billed as the Aristocrat of Records, was founded in April 1947 by Charles and Evelyn Aron, together with their partners Fred and Mildred Brount and Art Spiegel. By September Leonard Chess had invested in the young rec ...
, a recently created local
record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
, after the tenor sax player
Tom Archia
Ernest Alvin Archia, Jr. (November 26, 1919 – January 16, 1977) known as Tom Archia, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
Early life
Archia was born in Groveton, Texas, moving with his family as a child to Rockdale and then Baytown, ...
, a member of the house trio, was hired by the label’s
talent scout
In professional sports, scouts are experienced talent evaluators who travel extensively for the purposes of watching athletes play their chosen sports and determining whether their set of skills and talents represent what is needed by the scou ...
, Sammy Goldberg, to record a session led by
Armand "Jump" Jackson
Armand "Jump" Jackson (March 25, 1917 – January 31, 1985) was an American blues and rhythm and blues drummer, bandleader, songwriter, record label owner, and booking agent. He is best known for creating the forceful "sock" rhythm found on the ...
King Fleming
Walter "King" Fleming (May 4, 1922 – April 1, 2014) was an American jazz pianist and bandleader.Andrew Tibbs
Andrew Tibbs (February 2, 1929 – May 5, 1991) was an American electric and urban blues singer and songwriter. He is best known for his controversial 1947 recording "Bilbo Is Dead", a song relating to the demise of Theodore G. Bilbo.
Biogr ...
,
Eddie Chamblee
Edwin Leon Chamblee (February 24, 1920 – May 1, 1999), known as Eddie "Long Gone" Chamblee, was an American tenor and alto saxophonist, and occasional vocalist, who played jazz and R&B.
Life and career
He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, United S ...
,
Ike Day
Isaac Day Jr. (1925 – 1958), better known as Ike Day, was a Chicago-based hard bop and bebop jazz drummer.
Life
Referred to as “legendary” by many jazz musicians, including Andrew Hill, very little is known about Day except for a few spe ...
Claude McLin
Claude McLin (December 27, 1925 – July 21, 1995) was an American
(two weeks in March 1949), and Forrest Sykes (jam session with Archia on April 11, 1950).
House bands
* June 1946 – Timothy BrownCampbell, Robert L. and Leonard J. Bukowski, and Armin Büttner "The Tom Archia Discography" Retrieved 5 July 2013.
*June 1946 - November 10, 1946 – Charles Hawkins
*Wendell Owens Trio November 1946 – May 1947 (with Wendell Owens, piano; Glen Brooks, drums and Tom Archia, tenor sax)
*Bill Owens trio – October 1947
*Tom Archia trio – Spring 1949 – October 1950 (with LeRoy Jackson (bass); and Wes Landers (drums))
Biopic
Chess was portrayed by
Adrien Brody
Adrien Nicholas Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring as Władysław Szpilman in Roman Polanski's '' The Pianist'' (2002), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Acto ...
in the biopic about him in the 2008 film ''
Cadillac Records
''Cadillac Records'' is a 2008 American biographical drama film written and directed by Darnell Martin. The film explores the musical era from the early 1940s to the late 1960s, chronicling the life of the influential Chicago-based record-compan ...