All that jazz

Jazz, popular from Prohibition to the big band era, may get ranked with classical music, but in Northern Colorado, it’s getting lots of traction.

Dozens of local venues from bars and restaurants to clubs and speakeasies focus solely on jazz or are including jazz as part of their entertainment lineup.

License No. 1, an underground, speakeasy-style cocktail lounge in the Hotel Boulderado in Boulder, rotates through bands every month, bringing in jazz, rock-n-roll, folk and other styles of music on Friday and Saturday nights, plus regular shows of blues on Wednesday and folk rock on Thursday.

“Forty percent of the bands we have down here are jazz bands in one form or other,” said Sam Blundell, general manager of License No. 1, Spruce Farm & Fish, and The Corner Bar in the Hotel Boulderado, 2115 13th St. “The bands we get the biggest crowds for and feedback for are the ones that are more high energy, where the musicians are obviously excited about what they’re doing and excited to be here to play.”

Hotel Boulderado, built in 1909, presents jazz every Friday in the lobby, usually three- or four-piece Colorado bands, while License No. 1 typically brings in four- and five-piece bands that play in the band room, performing all styles from traditional to free form. The band room is one of nine interconnected rooms in the lounge, remodeled and renamed from Catacombs to License No. 1 about 10 years ago to reflect the first liquor license reissued in Boulder after Prohibition and decades of Boulder’s remaining a dry city. The music is piped through the rest of the venue into rooms such as the conversation and game rooms.

“It lends itself very well with the aesthetic we have here. Our intent is you feel like you stepped back in time. … It’s something you could hear in some of the speakeasies during Prohibition, so it’s a natural fit,” Blundell said. “It’s been more popular since everything started reopening from the pandemic. At least people are asking about it more.”

The Sunset Lounge Rooftop Bar, an open-air jazz bar atop The Elizabeth Hotel, offers jazz piano Thursday to Saturday and during high tea on Sunday. The lounge brings in a regular rotation of Northern Colorado performers who play all styles of jazz, as well as some visitors who both play and sing.

“It’s more of an intimate atmosphere, so we try to keep it with just the instrumentals. We have different seating arrangements that are in very small groups that would encourage smaller gatherings,” said Mark Beroza, director of sales and marketing at the Sunset Lounge, 111 Chestnut St. “Just the lighting and ambience within a rooftop lounge lends to more of an intimate atmosphere.”

Sunset Lounge, which offers a full bar and light bites, brought in the jazz to fit with the “elevated and luxurious experience” at the Elizabeth Hotel, which opened in 2018, Beroza said.

“It’s an amenity to offer our hotel guests and the local community,” Beroza said. “We have a natural following that will come to us because we are offering jazz music.”

Avogadro’s Number, a music venue, restaurant and bar that opened in downtown Fort Collins in 1971, offers a regular jazz rotation on Fridays, plus brings in the occasional jazz band on Saturdays. During the rest of the week, Avo’s rotates among all varieties of music, starting up in 1986 or 1987 when some bluegrass musicians jamming there asked about having bands perform.

“It’s pretty full. We have stuff going on most nights of the week,” said Rob Osborne, co-owner of Avogadro’s Number, 605 S. Mason St. in Fort Collins. “It kind of makes it entertaining.”

The Poudre River Irregulars Jazz Band plays the first Friday of the month, followed by the Just Jazz Quintet the third Friday and Deaf Uncle the fourth Friday. The Poudre River Irregulars, supported by the Northern Colorado Traditional Jazz Society, plays traditional Dixieland and New Orleans jazz from ragtime through early swing. Traditional jazz spans from the 1920s to the 1940s, while modern jazz is after that time period. 

The Poudre River Irregulars are a seven-piece band that includes a trumpet, trombone, banjo and piano, with all the instruments giving the occasional solo.

“The most common thing said is it keeps your feet tapping because it has a strong beat,” said Fred W. Smith, secretary of the NoCOTradJazz Society, a membership-based jazz club established in 1995. “Besides the rhythm and excellent solos, there’s the history and how it developed and how it came to be and who did what.”

The Louisville Underground, which opened in 2020 in The Corner in downtown Louisville, is a live music bar and speakeasy that offers jazz on Thursday nights and jazz, blues and other genres on Saturdays. In the area of jazz, the venue brings in local and touring acts that play traditional to modern styles.

“You get the look and feel of going into a jazz club in New York or Paris,” said Steve Long, co-owner of The Louisville Underground, 640 Main St. “It’s got low ceilings that bring a speakeasy, jazz vibe to the room. It’s an intimate, not a giant space that lends to the atmosphere.”

Other venues that play jazz include Magic Rat Live Music, a live music venue adjacent to the Elizabeth Hotel, and the Muse Performance Space in Lafayette, a blend of a jazz club and listening room.  In Denver, there are quite a few options such as Dazzle Denver, a jazz supper club; Herb’s Hideout, a night club and jazz venue; and Nocturne, a restaurant and cocktail bar. 

Ace Gillett’s Lounge, a lounge and supper club in the Armstrong Hotel in Fort Collins, used to be a jazz-only club, but it went through a renovation and a rebrand in 2020.

“We don’t have regular jazz music scheduled,” said Kelly Stine, director of sales and marketing at the Armstrong Hotel. “We do have some jazz records in our vinyl record library, but jazz is not something we exclusively focus on.”