Birdland is a jazz club started in New York City on December 15, 1949. The original Birdland, which was located at 1678 Broadway, just north of West 52nd Street in Manhattan,[1] was closed in 1965 due to increased rents, but it re-opened for one night in 1979.[1] A revival began in 1986.
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The original Birdland was named by its owners, Morris Levy and Irving Levy, after alto saxophonist Charlie Parker,[1] nicknamed "Bird", who served as the headliner for the club,[2] although he was later banned from the venue at one point.
The neon sign at the front of the club said "Birdland. The Jazz Corner of the World". The venue seated 400 people and had space for a full orchestra. The name was carried through into the feature of caged finches inside the club.[2]
The venue attracted other jazz musicians who also made recordings there[1]. This includes Art Blakey's 1954 two-volume A Night at Birdland, most of John Coltrane's Live at Birdland and the Toshiko - Mariano Quartet's Live at Birdland. Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Louie Bellson,[3] Bud Powell, Johnny Smith, Stan Getz, Lester Young, and many others made appearances. George Shearing's standard "Lullaby of Birdland" (1952) was named in the club's honor. The club's original master of ceremonies, the diminutive, four feet tall Pee Wee Marquette, was notorious for mispronouncing the names of musicians if they refused to tip him. The disc jockey Symphony Sid broadcast live on WJZ early in the club's existence.[2]
During the 1950s, Birdland also became a fashionable place for celebrities to be seen, with Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Sugar Ray Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, Joe Louis, Judy Garland and others as regulars. Despite this illustrious history, the club began to decline during the 1960s and closed in 1965.
The current version of Birdland began in Uptown, Manhattan in 1986 at 2745 Broadway at 105th Street[1], but has since moved to West 44th Street west of Eighth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan where they boast a full weekly schedule of performers. Notable performers include Michael Brecker, Pat Metheny, Lee Konitz, Diana Krall, Dave Holland, Regina Carter, and Tito Puente. It is also notable as the club where Toshiko Akiyoshi's jazz orchestra, on December 29, 2003, played its final concert. As mentioned above she had also played at the original Birdland.
Birdland was popular with many of the writers of the Beat generation. Reference to Birdland is made in Jack Kerouac's novel On The Road: "I saw him wish a well-to-do man Merry Christmas so volubly a five-spot in change for twenty was never missed. We went out and spent it in Birdland, the bop joint. Lester Young was on the stand, eternity on his huge eyelids." Birdland is also referenced in Emmett Grogan's novel "Ringolevio". "From the get-go, Birdland became one of his favourite haunts"
In 1993, Us3 released the single "Cantaloop", which opens with the line: "Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, we have something special down here at Birdland this evening"; Pee Wee Marquette's opening announcement from Art Blakey's first Birdland album in 1954. It appeared on Us3 1993 album, Hand on the Torch, which was Blue Note's first platinum-selling album. It reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was their only big hit. "Cantaloop" is Blue Note's first gold single. It is sometimes called "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)".
Weather Report released their most commercially successful hit entitled "Birdland" on the album Heavy Weather in 1977. The Manhattan Transfer recorded a cover version of the same song in 1979, with vocalese lyrics describing the club in its heyday.
U2 references the club in the song "Angel of Harlem" with the lyrics "...Birdland on 53, the streets sounds like a symphony..."
In the play Send Me No Flowers, George Kimball relates a story concerning a female friend who ran off with a "bongo player from Birdland" after her husband died. The bongo player subsequently "took her for every cent". In the play Middle of the Night, the husband remembers the good old days at Birdland with his wife, in an attempt to save their marriage. Sesame Street featured a night club called Birdland, run by Hoots the Owl, which was occupied by various birds.
William Claxton (photographer) took a picture of the club's entrance in 1960.[1] [4]
The club, along with several artists such as Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, and James Moody, are mentioned in Quincy Jones song "Jazz Corner of the World [Introduction to Birdland]".
Ray Charles references a dance of the same name in the lyrics of his song "What'd I Say": "...See the girl with the red dress on, She can do the Birdland all night long..."
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