Sad to hear of the passing of Lorraine Gordon, proprietor of the greatest Jazz club in the world, the Village Vanguard. Lorraine used to call me during my radio show, usually to insist that I play the music of one overlooked genius or another. Sometimes it was whichever one was playing her club that week but not always. Lorraine was highly opinionated and always insistent that everyone should do What Was Right.
One night a few years ago, I stopped by the Vanguard with a print of a photo I had taken there many years before. It was of two great trumpeters whom I had known: Don Cherry and Jabbo Smith. Jabbo was a contemporary of Louis Armstrong’s and was quite old by the time I met him (he was also a special favorite of Lorraine’s). Don Cherry, a true legend in his own right, had done a week with him at the Vanguard as Jabbo neared his final days. Both were long gone by the time of this visit to the club.
I found Lorraine at her desk in the kitchen that served as the office and the dressing room at the Vanguard.
Me: “Lorraine, I brought you something.”
Lorraine (dripping with sarcasm): “Let me guess: is it a photograph??”
Now, here’s the thing about photos at the Vanguard: as you can see in the picture of Lorraine from the NY Times obituary, the place is legendary for the pictures on the walls. Many that are there have been there for at least the 40 years that I have been going to the club. Every Jazz photographer and would-be photographer in the world wants a picture on the wall at the Vanguard and they are constantly giving them to Lorraine.
Me: “Yes, it is.”
Lorraine (still sarcastic as hell): “Do I have to put it on The Wall??”
Me: “Lorraine, I am giving it to you. You can do whatever you like with it.”
At that point, Lorraine Gordon opened the envelope that I had put the photo in. She looked at it and genuinely gasped. She asked where I had gotten it and I told her that I had taken it. She then started running around the office, buttonholing musicians and demanding of them if they knew who these two people were. The headliner that night was a young musician who recognized Cherry but could not identify Jabbo. Lorraine excoriated him. I mean, she really called him out, right there in the kitchen at the Village Vanguard where, as he well knew, she had stood with Coltrane, with Monk, with Miles.
Last time I was at the Vanguard I asked for Lorraine but she had left for the evening. I popped my head into the office to say hello to the musicians who were old friends of mine. There, above Lorraine’s desk, right at the spot where I had given it to her, was my photo. If you look at the pic attached in the comments, you will see it above and to the right of the flyer for Dexter Gordon.
Yeah, I have a small measure of pride in having a picture up on the wall at the Vanguard. More than that though, I value my relationship with this magnificent institution and with this woman who embodied the spirit of it.
Hats off to an ass kicker of the old school! Good on ya, Lorraine –
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/09/arts/music/lorraine-gordon-dies.html