Max Gordon, a life in jazz

An article by Marco Molendini appeared in the newspaper "Il Messaggero" on October 24, 1979 with an interview with Max Gordon, founder of the "Village Vanguard”, historic jazz club located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.

In the interview, Max Gordon, then seventy-six, tells the story of the famous jazz club new Yorker - "The first place I opened in 1934 in the same area (Greenwich Village). Then I moved here a year later. It wasn't a jazz club then. A kind of coffee-house, rather, full of poets, writers ... we started doing folk around 1940 ... when be-bop came out, there were jam sessions every night. There was Pork pie hat, what's his name, ah yes, Lester Young, and Billie (Holiday). That was the music I liked, but also Trane and Rollins ... this is where the history of jazz of the last forty years has passed. Everyone played on stage over there, Bird (Charlie Parker), Miles (Miles Davis) went there. He was a good boy, Miles, he grew up here ”.

Contribution shared by Marco Molendini