I.
I’m right in the swing of things.
Literally—in the swing of it all. The ups and downs of the melodies, the croon of the trumpet, the thrum of the bass, and the echoes of the drums. It’s a Tuesday night, but New Haven’s Cafe Nine is alive. Flanked by posters advertising Coca-Cola products and maps of the city’s historic downtown, local guitarist Ed Cherry is soulfully strumming on the stage, playing a slow rendition of “Peace” by Horace Silver. He’s flanked by his ensemble: together, they form a trio of the bass, the drums, and Cherry on the strings. His eyes are closed. The crowd in front of him is enraptured. The room is silent, save for the music.
Tonight is one of Cafe Nine’s signature jazz shows, held in partnership with the New Haven Jazz Underground. Located on State Street, Cafe Nine hosts live music shows seven days a week with the goal of supporting emerging artists in the greater New Haven area. Twice per month, on Tuesday nights, local jazz musicians take the stage at the 34-year-old venue.
Here—alongside other local bars like The Cannon and Three Sheets—the spirit and collaborative energy that have defined New Haven’s jazz music scene since the turn of the 20th century remain alive.
II.
New Haven has always been a jazz city.
Born out of the New Orleans swing and blues scene, jazz was originally a mechanism of expression for New Orleans’ Black community. With the advent of sound recording, it spread rapidly across the South in the 1920s and 1930s.
During World War I, industry and job market growth along the Eastern seaboard sparked a large wave of Black immigration from the American South to the Dixwell and Oak Street neighborhoods of New Haven. With the Great Migration, the jazz music tradition moved North, settling along the Eastern coastline in industrial hubs like New Haven.
Many new city dwellers found work at the local New Haven arms manufacturer, Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Amidst this revitalized industrial landscape, jazz clubs began popping up across New Haven, serving as an outlet for finding community and letting loose after a long day’s work.
New Haven’s first club, The Monterey, opened its doors in 1936. Many others soon followed: Dinkie’s, Golden Gate, The Playback, The Recorder, The Foundry Cafe, The Democratic Club, and the Musicians’ Club. Most were located along Dixwell Avenue in historic downtown New Haven. From the beginning, jazz in the city was collaborative, fueled by an appreciation for the shared physical space of Dixwell Avenue and the community-orientation inherent to the genre.
Eventually, both local and national names would come to consider Elm City their stage. Alongside artists like John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and Duke Ellington—who would often stop to perform in New Haven between Boston and New York while on tour—local artists, like the Buster Brothers, Reginald Jackson, and Allen “Rubbs” Wilson, fueled and fed the jazz scene in New Haven.
Yet by the 1990s, this scene was growing smaller. Throughout the 1980s, the majority of the clubs along Dixwell had shut their doors due to bankruptcy, as well as a series of drug-related busts at clubs like the Foundry Cafe. Many New Haven musicians began moving to New York in search of greater opportunities.
Today, Dixwell Avenue looks different. Former clubs are boarded up; “For Sale” signs populate the street. The building that used to house the heart and soul of New Haven jazz, the Monterey, is now a distant memory—peeling crimson paint, graffiti tags, and wooden beams cover up what was once a national jazz hub.
Conscious of this history and desperate to keep New Haven jazz alive, organizations like Jazz Haven, founded in 1996, and the New Haven Jazz Underground, founded in 2006, began working to preserve the spirit and legacy of the genre in the city.
Jazz Haven is a not-for-profit organization that organizes jazz festivals and listening events around New Haven, such as weekly jazz listening nights at the Institute Library on Chapel Street.
Meanwhile, according to its founder, Nick Di Maria, the New Haven Jazz Underground’s goal is to “preserve and flourish jazz culture” by hosting weekly jazz shows around the city.
III.
Di Maria, a musician himself, started playing the trumpet in 1994. To put it simply, he said, he instantly “fell in love” with the instrument—and with jazz.
While he grew up just outside of New Haven, he visited often to see his uncle and fell in love with the city. After college, Di Maria decided to settle in New Haven to pursue a career as a music educator. While he didn’t expect to plant roots in Connecticut, he ended up investing in the vibrant music scene and became a local teacher. “The rest was history,” he reflected.
Di Maria sees jazz as a lifeline for himself and for the city. To him, jazz in a smaller town like New Haven fosters a strong sense of community. “Philly, Wilmington, Tampa, Pittsburgh, they’re all similar cases to New Haven. You don’t have to be from New York to grow up with this music, to grow up in a jazz city,” Di Maria said. “The Underground is trying to preserve that spirit, trying to keep that idea going that jazz doesn’t have to just thrive in a major metropolitan area. It could be somewhere like your own town, you know.”
The Underground defines itself as a “grassroots, community-based organization” that hosts clinics, shows, and jam sessions with locally and nationally renowned musicians at venues like Cafe Nine, The Cannon, and Three Sheets multiple times a month. Traditional event series like Tuesday Night Jazz at Cafe Nine fuel a symbiotic relationship between local musicians and the Underground, who count on the Underground to find gigs within the New Haven area, as well as between musicians and the greater New Haven community.
Back at Cafe Nine, Di Maria introduces Ed Cherry’s performance.
“New Haven is a jazz city, through and through,” Di Maria says. “We’ve got to keep that alive. Thank you to Ed for coming out and performing here tonight. A true jazz legend.”
IV.
Ed Cherry was born in New Haven. He moved to New York in 1978 to play guitar for jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie for 14 years. After Gillespie’s death in 1993, he began his solo career. On stage, Cherry is suave, cool, and collected. His guitar is like an extension of self, a phantom limb. When he’s performing, he and his instrument are one.
The crowd at Cafe Nine this October evening feels familiar. It’s clear that many audience members know one another; they catch up over a beer at the bar as Cherry and his band play on stage. Warm lights flicker as the crowd murmurs.
After the show, a line of people queue up to share a word with him. Some are old friends; some are fans; some are fellow musicians inspired by his craft.
“I’m a guitar player, too,” a middle-aged, bespectacled man tells Cherry. “I just got back from picking up my daughter from school, man, but I knew I had to make it here before the show ended.”
Other audience members chime in, nudging their way toward Cherry, who, at 6-foot-5, towers over the crowd. “Great show, Ed!” “What a talent.” “Nice to see you, man.”
Cherry’s mastery of the strings, to be frank, intimidates me. Watching him play, I’m catapulted back to mornings spent on my childhood bedroom floor, plucking away at my Yamaha acoustic in my desperate yearning to translate my 15-year-old thoughts into music form. I plucked and strummed and tapped my finger against the body of its bronzed wood on the daily. I never got very good. Cherry’s playing—the dynamics of it, the soul—contains deep emotion and reflection. The music he plays is alive.
I muster up the courage to get a word in. “Awesome show,” I say. “I’ve been learning guitar for a few years now. You’re a master.” Cherry smiles warmly, nods. “That’s great.” He coughs, turns. “Keep it up.” Then he walks to the bar, sits down alongside the audience members—friends, family, and community members—waiting for him, and orders himself a drink.
– Zoya Haq is a sophomore in Saybrook College.
