Taylor says a jazz club would serve as a hub for a revitalized scene.
Madison fancies itself a world-class city, and in some ways it is. In others, not so much. A world-class city, for example, has a real jazz joint. A number of local venues, including the Brink Lounge, Cardinal Bar and Mason Lounge, currently host live jazz on occasion. But Madison has been without a full-time, dedicated jazz venue — a place designed for listening, with an in-tune house piano, comfortable seats and no pool table or giant TV to compete with — for years.
That gap has become intolerable to Hanah Jon Taylor, so the sax whiz and educator is trying to fill it in the coming months with a new venue, Cafe Coda. Taylor, who emerged from Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians scene, has collaborated with a who’s who of adventurous jazz artists, and tours abroad regularly. He has already launched two jazz venues since moving to town two decades ago: the House of Soundz on Willy Street in the mid-1990s, and the Madison Center for Creative and Cultural Arts downtown from 2003 to 2007. Both were vibrant crucibles of creative music until the forces of development and gentrification “pulled the rug out from under them,” according to Taylor. The downtown building was demolished to create a high-rise.
What Taylor learned from those two earlier efforts was that without the full support of a landlord who shares your vision, survival will always be tenuous. He felt like he had found that vision-sharing landlord, as well as a suitable downtown location, when he connected earlier this year with Terry Tao, owner of the space at 329 W. Mifflin St. on the ground floor of Metropolitan Place, where Tao operated Metropolitan Coffee and Wine from early 2013 to late 2015. “He gets it,” Taylor says, about Tao.
Taylor and his associate, Susan Fox, hustled to put together a plan with a timeline that calls for a signed lease in December, entertainment and alcohol licenses in January and a grand opening in early March. Taylor launched a GoFundMe campaign in September with a goal of $10,000 to cover the cost of initial fees, deposits and various other expenses. Ald. Mike Verveer, who represents the neighborhood and sits on the Alcohol License Review Committee, is a fan of the project, as are a number of other Madison luminaries, including former UW Chancellor John Wiley. Verveer says he has not heard any significant opposition from the neighborhood, and expects the ALRC and city council to give the project their blessing. (Note: As a fellow musician, I contributed to the crowdfunding campaign.)
Everything seemed to be going according to plan. But just as the fundraising campaign was nearing its initial goal in early December, the condo association that represents residents of Metropolitan Place expressed concern about potential noise issues. Taylor says they contacted Tao about their worries, and insisted that Taylor consult with an acoustics expert prior to signing a lease to determine what sorts of remedial actions might be needed to protect condo dwellers’ eardrums from stray blue notes. It’s not an unreasonable request, and Taylor understood from the start that when you open a music venue in a residential building, you have to think about noise. But after weeks of friendly relations among all parties, the condo association’s hardball position caught him off-guard. Meanwhile, Tao, the landlord who “gets it,” has become less communicative, preferring to interact with Taylor and Fox through a real estate agent who brokers Metropolitan Place deals. And in contrast to the glowing words he had for Cafe Coda in a November Wisconsin State Journal article, Tao chose not to comment on the project for this story. Meanwhile, Taylor has heard that the space has been shown to at least one other potential business.
Taylor doesn’t necessarily think it’s a case of preemptive rug-pulling, but he can’t help but be nervous. He says he is willing to invest in making the space appropriately soundproof, but he is also exploring other possible locations for the club if the sound obstacles can’t be overcome. He plans to attract far-flung creatives to the space, and doesn’t want to be put into the position of having to tell them to pipe down.
Taylor says there was a robust jazz scene in Madison when he arrived 23 years ago. “[Saxophonist] Roscoe Mitchell was here. [Percussionist] Vincent Davis was here. Richard Davis was still playing around.” He says a designated jazz venue is important as it would serve as a focal point for a revitalized scene.
Johannes Wallmann, director of jazz studies at UW-Madison, agrees that Madison needs a jazz venue. “Minton’s Playhouse, the Village Vanguard, Chicago’s Jazz Showcase, the Bay Area’s Yoshis, L.A.’s Lighthouse...all of these storied clubs created communities of musicians and audiences and fostered the development of new sounds,” Wallmann says. “Madison’s jazz scene deserves a venue to call home. Over the last few years, there have been a lot of successful efforts by individuals and groups to raise musician and audience experience here, but no single thing will make a greater impact than having a quality venue dedicated solely to jazz.”
