2. The Avenoo: Clubs and Ambience of Indiana Avenue

Elks Club Parade on Indiana Avenue

Indiana Avenue was the nucleus for jazz musicians.  Just about every musician going East, West, North or South could come to the Avenue to ‘jam’.  No other city, not Kansas City, Chicago or anywhere else, had the ambience and flavor of Indiana Avenue.  (Aletra Hampton, “musical entertainer”)

“It was the place to be, I mean The Place To Be”.  (Edythe Fitzhugh, jazz enthusiast and newsletter publisher)

In the 1930s, Indiana Avenue, just northwest of downtown to the White River was the central business and entertainment district for African Americans in Indianapolis. The map above highlights the most important jazz venues. Additional jazz venues included The Flame (242 Blake St.), The Galaxy Ballroom (427 Indiana Avenue), Scotty’s Cocktail Lounge (361 Indiana Avenue), Jeff’s Cocktail Lounge (364 Indiana Avenue), The Place to Play (530 Indiana Avenue), The Rainbow Tavern (451 Indiana Avenue).

The earliest African American presence on the Avenue was dominated by the Madame C.J. Walker Center and two brothers, Sea and Denver Ferguson.

The Walker Building

The Walker Building was named after hair care formula inventor and millionairess, Madame C.J. Walker.  The building was the center of business activity on the Avenue and housed a beauty parlor, an insurance office, a doctor’s office, a drugstore, and entertainment venues — a 1,500 seat theater with a $1,500 pipe organ and an afterhours club (The Missile Room).  Pianist, Erroll Grandy recalled that the building was one of the big jazz venues “where they gave all the dances” in the 1930s.  The theater presented local jazz groups led by Jimmy Coe, the Hampton Family, Pookie Johnson and others for events such as an annual Christmas benefit.  The Missile Room was where guitarist, Wes Montgomery was “discovered” with Melvin Rhyne on organ and Paul Parker on drums.

The Walker Theater opened on December 26, 1927.  Reginald DuValle, Sr. and The DuValle Blackbirds held the honor of opening Madame C.J. Walker’s Theatre to a packed audience.

Reginald DuValle, Sr and His Blackbirds

Brothers, Sea and Denver Ferguson were pioneering Black entrepreneurs in Indianapolis.  They ran a successful printing business around 1919 and later made a fortune through the properties they acquired.  They became interested in the local jazz community and began operating businesses that helped make Indianapolis a regional jazz center.  The Ferguson brothers opened four important entertainment venues on the Avenue  — The The Cotton Club  with the Trianon Ballroom at the top, the Sunset Terrace Ballroom, and Royal Palm Gardens.  They also ran a hotel and a booking agency for musicians (Williams 2007; Indiana Cultural District Report n.d).

The Sunset Terrace

The Sunset Terrace

The Sunset Terrace, located at 873-875 Indiana Avenue, was opened by Sea Ferguson in 1938.  Erroll Grandy recalled that The Sunset Terrace and The Walker Casino provided live music for dancing.  Grandy also remembered that the Sunset as a rough place.  “…every time I went there, I wished for a bullet-proof vest.  I didn’t have one, but I wished for one. … Duke Ellington came to the Sunset one Sunday night and… of course, he was on stage and… I heard fighting in the darkness and they threw whiskey bottles and beer bottles toward… the bandstand and messed up his suit.  And he said he’d never come back there, never.  And this was, oh, back… in the late ‘30s or early ‘40s” (Grandy 1985:16-17).

The Cotton Club, was another Ferguson brother’s venue.  It had three floors that provided different types of entertainment.  In a 2009 interview Mingo Jones recalled that the main floor featured bands, the third floor featured shows with dancing girls, comedians, tap dancers, singers and an entertainer named Iron Jaws who wore skates and could pick up a girl seated on top of a table with his bare jaws.  The middle floor had all night jam sessions (Jones 2009).

The Paradise

Erroll Grandy recalled that around 1936 Earl Fox Walker was a regular at The Paradise. “[Walker] was a drummer… a terrific drummer.  Well he started out on spoons and … he graduated from the spoons to the drums, ..they hired him for the drummer at the Paradise.  And they played records and, … Earl Fox Walker was the main drummer that people could see.  And he kept in beat with the record, you know ….  And I thought that was amazing.” “…he was the only live musician [there]”. (Grandy 1985:20).

1940’s-50s

Henri’s was a popular bar for jazz musicians.  Above the door there was a sign that said “Through these Portals Pass the World’s Best Musicians”.

Reginald DuValle, Jr. with musicians at Henri's

“Pookie and I would go downtown and get a couple of the guys that played in the band and we’d have a jam session and what we’d try to do was blow em’ out. … We would tackle the players that came from out of town.  That was our thing.” (Reginald DuValle, Jr. 2009)

• Reginald DuValle, Jr. talks about “blowing musicians out” at Henri’s
  

Georgia’s Bar

Georges Bar

Georgia’s Bar and Henri’s Bar sat at opposite corners from one another at Indiana Avenue, Vermont and Senate Streets. Above Georgia’s Bar sat the Sky Club.

Small clubs such as Henri’s, Geogia’s Bar and the Missile Room provided settings for cutting contests where local musicians competed against one another or with touring musicians when they finished their engagements at the larger venues. Reginald DuValle, jr.’s, father in law was Henry Vance, proprietor of Henri’s Bar.

David Baker (cellist, composer, arranger and educator) recalled that during the 1940s and 50s more than 20 jazz venues were operating in Indianapolis. In addition to those clubs operating on the Avenue were near Northside clubs – The Cactus Club, The Hub Bub, The 19th Hole, and The Topper, and Mr. B’s (Baker’s quartets played at the Topper and Mr. B’s) and on 16th street there was the 16th Street Tavern (where Wes Montgomery and Pookie Johnson played) and The Turf Bar (Indiana Cultural District Report n.d).

1960s-70s

Al’s British Lounge (1969-1975)

Al's British Lounge

Albert Coleman took over The British Lounge and reopened it as Al’s British Lounge in 1969. The Lounge became a popular meeting place for jazz musicians from 1969 until its closing in 1975.

• Al Coleman talks about musicians who played at the lounge
• Albert Colemant talks about musicians jamming at the Lounge

Christmas at Al's British Lounge

Operating at a time when Black businesses on the Avenue were in decline, Al ensured that the atmosphere at the Lounge was friendly and welcoming, not only to jazz musicians but to men and women in the community from various walks of life. Eydie Fitzhugh (jazz newsletter publisher) recalled the great atmosphere and music at the Lounge performed by Al’s Three Souls and Aretta La Marre Bush (singer). The one thing people always liked to order at the Lounge says Fitzhugh was polish sausage and dill pickles (Coleman 2009b; Fitzhugh 2009).

Three Women at British Lounge

The Hampton Sisters

“Music is a feel thing” … [Any kind of music can be jazz] “you simply put the jazz on it” (Aletra Hampton n.d.)

The Hampton Sisters’ Group played at Steins’ Restaurant for an extended engagement that outlasted five consecutive managers in the 1960s. Stein’s was formerly located at 1110 North Meridian Street. The Hampton Sisters’ Group consisted of four sisters from the Hampton family, one of Indianapolis’ most respected musical families that moved to the City in the 1930s. The group formed in the late 1960s with Virtue Hampton Whitted on bass; Aletra Hampton played piano and sang; Carmelita Hampton played saxophone and sang, and the sole surviving sister, Dawn Hampton also sang and continues to perform as a dancer in New York City today. In a 1992 interview Virtue and Aletra described the ensemble as “a rhythm and blues group who jazz it up” and the sisters referred to themselves as “musical entertainers” not “musicians”. Virtue and Aletra also noted the extraordinary difficulties and dangers that female performers faced during the first half of the 20th century. Black women entertainers were scorned by middleclass African Americans and they faced the threat of unwillingly being “kept” by wealthy White men. The complexities of performing especially without the male members of the Hampton family led the sisters to hire male side musicians for protection (Hampton n.d.).

Prior to their extended engagement at Steins the sisters formed a vocal harmony group called the “Hamptonians” in the 1940s that was modeled after The Andrew Sisters. Carmelita passed away in 1987 and Aletra and Virtue continued to perform into their 90s when they passed away in 2006 (Hampton n.d.; Kollath 2003).

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