Slugs' Saloon was a

jazz club A jazz club is a venue where the primary entertainment is the performance of live jazz music, although some jazz clubs primarily focus on the study and/or promotion of jazz-music. Jazz clubs are usually a type of nightclub or bar, which is license ...

at 242 East 3rd Street, between Avenue B and C in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

's East Village, operating from the mid-1960s to 1972. The location, in what was then a run-down part of New York City, first hosted a Ukrainian restaurant and bar, and later a bar that served as a meeting point for drug dealers. In 1964, Robert Schoenholt and Jerry Schultz opened it as a club and initially called it "Slugs' Saloon", the "slugs" being a reference to the "three-centered beings" and "terrestrial three-brained beings" mentioned in the book ''

Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson ''Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson'' or ''An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man'' is the first volume of the ''All and Everything'' trilogy written by the Greek-Armenia mystic G. I. Gurdjieff. The All and Everything trilogy als ...

'' by

George Gurdjieff George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (; rus, Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гурджи́ев, r=Geórgy Ivánovich Gurdzhíev, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪd͡ʑ ɡʊrd͡ʐˈʐɨ(j)ɪf; hy, Գեորգի Իվանովիչ Գյուրջիև; c. 1 ...

. Due to New York City regulations, the word "saloon" had to be dropped from the name. The venue was called "Slugs' in the Far East", due to its easterly location in the East Village. The interior of the club was longer than it was wide and the bandstand all the way in the back. It could fit 75 people but often held twice that.Interview with Jerry Schulz
(audio). The bar was on the left side as one entered the venue. The wooden sign that hung outside the venue was carved by James Jackson. During the mid-1960s it slowly started attracting regular jazz performances, developing a reputation as a musician's bar. In this period it became closely associated with free-jazz musician

Sun Ra Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific out ...

: from March 1966 through late 1967, Sun Ra and his Arkestra (billed as "Sun Ra and His Astro-Infinity Music") played regular gigs every Monday, and continued to play the venue irregularly thereafter. By the late 1960s the club had grown a vibrant scene in its out-of-the-way location, with performances from prominent jazz musicians including

Sonny Rollins Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a ...

Albert Ayler Albert Ayler (; July 13, 1936 – November 25, 1970) was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer. After early experience playing R&B and bebop, Ayler began recording music during the free jazz era of the 1960s. Howev ...

and

Ornette Coleman Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Colle ...

, among many others. Some of these performances were recorded, often surreptitiously, and appear on officially released or on bootleg albums. Audiences included a number of well-known artists and musicians, ranging from

Larry Rivers Larry Rivers (born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg) (1923 – 2002) was an American artist, musician, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, he was one of the first artists ...

Paul H. Brown Paul Brown "PB" (March 6, 1934 – May 6, 2016), was an American jazz bassist. He was the founder of the Monday Night Jazz Series in Hartford, Connecticut, which was recognized by the Library of Congress as the oldest and longest-running free fe ...

to Bob Thompson and

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

. The venue saw the death of

Lee Morgan Edward Lee Morgan (July 10, 1938 – February 19, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. One of the key hard bop musicians of the 1960s, Morgan came to prominence in his late teens, recording on John Coltrane's '' Blue Train'' (1 ...

on February 19, 1972, when he was shot at the bar by his common-law wife Helen Moore. The general demise of the neighborhood and his hard lifestyle as a club owner led Jerry Schulz to leave, and the club shut down in late 1972.

External links

Interview with Jerry Schulz (originally aired on Radio NZ National Music, Saturday 9 August 2014)

''Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson'' by G. I. Gurdjieff

"Inside Slugs' Saloon, Jazz's Most Notorious Nightclub," JazzTimes 10 September 2015

References

{{Coord, 40.7220, -73.9815, type:landmark_region:US-NY, display=title Former music venues in New York City 1972 disestablishments in New York (state) Defunct jazz clubs in New York City 1960s establishments in New York City