Cafe Coda
Hanah Jon Taylor: club owner and gifted flute, saxophone and wind synthesizer player.
Isaiah Collier is late for his concert at Cafe Coda. His band, The Chosen Few (Jeremiah Hunt on bass and James Russell Sims on drums) is forced onto the stage when the audience mock applauds and shouts an hour after the concert was supposed to start, but then they’re not sure what to do. Fortunately Collier appears suddenly, saxophone in hand, and immediately starts playing. Three standards later he speaks for the first time, apologizing and explaining he had been playing with one of his mentors in Chicago, and his mentor wouldn’t stop playing. By now the audience has forgiven him. He switches to his own compositions. By the end of the concert, the crowd is enraptured.
This was just one of many outstanding concerts at Cafe Coda since live music started taking place in person there again in March. Take, for instance, a sold-out June show by the king of the avant-garde side of Chicago jazz, Madison’s own Roscoe Mitchell, or an October performance by Hanah Jon Taylor, Coda’s owner and one of the best flute, saxophone and wind synthesizer players around — a concert made even better by the joy of hearing Taylor again for the first time since he received treatment for prostate cancer this summer. (He still has a final examination, but for now it looks like he defeated the cancer and he says his doctor told him he could live another 20 years.) His son is the club’s co-manager. “It’s great to have a son that cares about music and culture as much as I do,” says Taylor.
Through the pandemic, Cafe Coda has shown itself to be the little venue that could, refusing to throw in the towel and emerging on the other side with undiminished energy.
Cafe Coda was started by Taylor in spring 2017 in part because Madison had no venue dedicated to jazz. He wanted the club to be a hub for artists and to present world-class jazz acts with artists with a focus on those from Madison, Minneapolis and Milwaukee. Things got off to a rough start: Six months after Coda opened, its location on Dayton Street, just off State, was sold — sooner than Taylor had expected — and he had to scout a new venue. It reopened in a storefront at 1224 Williamson St., across from the fire station, in September 2018.
Jane Reynolds, jazz pianist/composer and co-host of Strictly Jazz Sounds on WORT-FM, has both played and listened to jazz at the venue. “It’s an intimate setting where everyone is there for the same reason — to hear creative improvised music. It’s the perfect space for bringing the community together for one common purpose — the love of jazz.”
Local jazz singer Lynette Margulies praises the club’s piano, a Yamaha C7, as well as the ambiance and layout of the club. A great piano “needs to be a staple in all clubs,” says Margulies.
During COVID-19, Taylor was able to transform the club into a streaming venue through a GoFundMe effort “that allowed us to pay the artists, the technicians and the electricity bills,” he says. The landlord deferred the rent for nine months and a PPP loan and grant from the federal government made it possible to pay the rent eventually. A plan to have a subscription music series didn’t pan out, but Taylor and his team are offering a new membership program, which includes access to the venue’s video library, a drink voucher and a show voucher.
Taylor is also passionate about serving the community. Cool School, a free program he launched in the Goodman Center in 2013 and restarted at Coda in 2018, provides instruments to young people, 8-19 years of age.
Saturday late nights offer jam sessions with both professional musicians and students. Fake books (outlines of popular music and jazz standards that a musician can look up if an audience member requests a specific piece) are not allowed. Taylor says there had been nowhere for students to jam and improvise before. “We require that musicians come here to play and not read. Fake books defeat the purpose of a jam session. It should be pure improvisation. We get great audiences for these, consistently.”
There’s also free music on Thursday, Friday and Sunday mornings. The community, Taylor says, “deserves at least one free event a week.” Sales of coffee, tea and some limited food options help Coda pay the artists. Coda also holds workshops, master classes, rehearsals, private events, and salsa and tango nights.
At 71, Taylor is still pushing himself hard, saying he’d like to “develop into the best sax player who ever lived. I just want to be the best that I can be for as long as I can be.”
[Editor's note: the first paragraph has been rephrased to correct an editing error in the text of the Dec. 2, 2021 print version.]
