For almost three decades, Nick=92s Steakhouse was revered as "the place"
in Greenwich Village to hear classic, hot, improvised jazz. Music
stands and orchestrations were banned from the stage.
Muggsy Spanier led his group there, as did Bud Freeman and Eddie
Condon. Booked for a one-nighter, Benny Carter stayed for five weeks.
Fats Waller would drop by to play 'for fun,' and so did Jack
Teagarden.
Jazz pianist Johnny Varro worked at the club off and on, for more than
a decade, in bands led by Phil Napoleon and Pee Wee Erwin. Varro gives
a flavor of what it was like, "It was a great place. It had
atmosphere. They had moose heads all over the walls. From the kitchen
they=92d bring out these sizzling steaks and poured brandy on the
platter and the sweet smell would permeate the place."
Nick=92s Steakhouse in Greenwich Village had the =91cream of the crop=92
on
the bandstand. And in the audience=97the best =91brains and brawn=92 New
York caf=E9 society had to offer. Icons of high culture and low rubbed
shoulders with students and army privates for a chance to experience
cornetist Bobby Hackett with Pee Wee Russell on clarinet, the powerful
sound of trumpeter Wild Bill Davison, or
the swinging sophistication of Bud Freeman and his Summa *** Laude
Orchestra. Playing intermission piano, you might've heard stride piano
man Cliff Jackson, Hank Duncan or boogie woogie master Meade Lux
Lewis.
Crammed together in the smoky room, novelist John Steinbeck and
baseball legend Joe DiMaggio crowded around tables next to celebrity
bank-robber Willie Sutton and the hottest name in television=97The
Honeymooners' Jackie Gleason.
Hopping off the subway at Sheridan Square, you crossed the street and
walked straight into Nick=92s front door on the corner of 10th and 7th
Avenue. The pie-shaped club, lovingly created by Nick Rongetti, had a
stained glass window with the letter =93N=94 in blue and gold. Tuxedoed
waiters delivered steaks to the tables, but If you did your listening
at the bar, beer was only 20 cents.
Between 1937, when the club first opened its doors, until the last set
with bandleader Sol Yaged in 1962, a trip to New York wasn=92t complete
for many fans without a visit to Nick=92s. Once hooked on the informal,
freewheeling style of jazz played at the club, it often became a life-
long passion.
In November 1962, banjoist and entrepreneur Joel Schiavone bought
Nick's and re-opened it as Your Father's Mustache. Your Father's
Mustache closed in 1971 and the venue went through several more
reincarnations until the building was demolished in 1989.
We invited Riverwalk Jazz listeners to share their memories of Nick's
in the Village, and the phones began to ring off the hook. We heard
from one man who had gotten engaged at the bar, one who was an Olympic
athlete, and several who were musicians who had played at Nick's.
These listeners, and others, contribute their stories to this week's
Riverwalk Jazz broadcast as The Jim Cullum Jazz Band celebrates Nick
Rongetti's club with clarinetist Kenny Davern, pianist Dick Hyman and
others.
The atmosphere of Nick's in the Village, and the exhilarating music
made there, lives on, in the fond memories of fans. Tune in to
Riverwalk Jazz to hear all about it.
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