Aside from wind, stockyards that use everything but the squeal, Da Bears and de Cubs (and maybe the White Sox) Chicago has been most noted for it being home to some of the finest Jazz and Blues in the North. While St. Louis can lay some claim to being a home to the Blues, and New York City can say everybody's played here, it's Chicago everybody thinks of when the Blues and Jazz are mentioned.
New York has too many other distractions for it ever to be the home to any one genre, and St. Louis just hasn't managed to capture the public's imagination in the same way Chicago has. Maybe it's because even today you can walk into almost any downtown neighbourhood and find that the local drinking spot doubles as a Blues bar. Or it could be that Chicago has been home to so much music and so many clubs since the 1920s that they've become synonymous in most minds. (That the biggest collection of Mormons in the United States, Utah, has a basketball team called the Jazz strikes me as one of life's biggest ironies and mysteries – but that's for another column and another day)
Because of this reputation Chicago has developed into a place for pilgrims in search of the holy sites from the past where venerated types like Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, and others have played through out the years. One of the most unlikely spots on the pilgrim route has to be Meyer's Ace Hardware at the corner of 35th and Calumet in the South Side. For the last fifty or so years they've sold plumbing parts and fittings in the same building where Louis Armstrong learned his big band chops and Sun Ra took off for Jupiter.
In 2005 some of the more interesting pilgrims showed up to look around, and since they were there, the Jazz O'Maniacs from Germany decided to play a few tunes as well. They were over in the States to participate in the annual "Tribute To Bix" festival held in Racine Wisconsin, and part of the festival was a tour of Chicago's famous Jazz spots, and there are few so famous as the former Sunset Café/Grand Terrace now Hardware Store.
As is they seem to do so often, Delmark Records, was on hand to record this unique performance, and then to follow the Jazz O'Maniacs down to Wisconsin to catch them in concert during the festival. There probably couldn't have been a more appropriate band than these guys to do a few tunes where Louis Armstrong used to play.
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