Bert Kelly was a jazz band leader and promoter. A banjoist, Kelly came to Chicago from San Francisco.
He became prominent in the Chicago music scene in the mid and late 1910s. He claimed his band was the first to use the term "jazz" in Bert Kelly's Jazz Band in 1915.[1]
His band included some notable early New Orleans jazz musicians who came to Chicago, including Alcide Nunez, Tom Brown, Gussie Mueller, Emile Christian, and Ragbaby Stephens.
Kelly later became better known as a promoter. HisKelly's Stables in Chicago's Tower Town in was one of the jazz hotspots of the 1920s. The first house band featured Alcide Nunez, whose featured number Livery Stable Blues inspired the name of the venue. Later artists to appear there included Freddie Keppard, and the brothers Johnny Dodds and Baby Dodds were featured in the house band after their break from King Oliver's band.
Kelly later opened another jazz club, "Kelly's Stable", in New York City, which was prominent on the 52nd Street jazz scene in the 1930s and 1940s.