Tony Outhwaite is a jazz aficionado who has been coming to Brasserie Julien 2 or 3 times a week for the past 15 years.
A New Yorker of Italian and English heritage, raised here in the neighborhood, he began coming here even before it became known as Brasserie Julien in 1999, when the establishment was still called La Folie and also featured jazz.
He often compares our jazz scene to that of Bradley’s, the renowned jazz club in Greenwich Village for those in the
know. Sadly, Bradley’s closed in 1996. According to him, it was also a place for insiders, with a relaxed, homey, and welcoming atmosphere.
Many prominent jazz performers would stop by to jam.
At Brasserie Julien we have stepped in to continue that tradition and fill that void here on the Upper East Side. He considers the majority of New York’s other jazz clubs tourist traps, outrageously overpriced. “They lack heart and soul, ” he says. He believes that the jazz vibe at Brasserie Julien is authentic and down to earth. That it’s “pure jazz. “The man has a listening “addiction,” like a player sweating music through his ears, enthralled by jazz since he began listening to jazz on the radio at age 10.That passion remains unchanged even today, October 2010, at Brasserie Julien, where he is a familiar presence, a “regular.” When you ask him questions about jazz, he’s like a human encyclopedia. He knows the performers and their professional backgrounds, their ups and downs, with a depth of knowledge and affection.
He has now completed a book about the inner scene of the jazz organ circuit of the 1950s,
1960s, and 1970s, titled WHISTLE STOP CHORDS: The Untold Story of the Jazz Organ Clubs of
America’s Inner Cities — due to be published in March of 2012. In this compelling history, there is
a rare level of trust, confidentiality, and spontaneity in his “jam” interviews with masters of the organ genre such as Jimmy Smith, Wild Bill Davis, Bill Doggett, Brother Jack McDuff, Rhoda Scott, and many others.
The book is a guided tour through the black inner-city jazz organ “circuit” that was such a comfort to the music fans of black neighborhoods for nearly 50 years. Those not in the music business might have called them clubs, lounges, music bars, or just plain “joints,” but to the musicians who performed there they were known as “organ rooms.”
The repertoire the musicians played was a combination of blues, ballads, jazz and popular standards, and be-bop tunes, tunes that, according to prominent saxophonist Houston Person, “swung, had a nice melody, were danceable, and had elements of the blues.”
We welcome our patrons to preview the book’s introduction, “Downbeat,” and Chapter One, “At Showman’s Cafe.”
You can also contact Tony directly at www.tonyouthwaite.com to be kept current about the final release date of the book.
