No more jazz at the Hedley Club?
It’s a jam shame
Fans looking for their regular music fix at the Hotel De Anza’s Hedley Club Lounge are out of luck, it seems. The popular, long-running Jazz Jam that filled the Hedley in downtown San Jose with smooth sounds on Wednesdays has been canceled, and no other live music appears to be scheduled for the venue in the near future, either. San Jose Jazz Executive Director Brendan Rawson said the Hedley Club had been a beautiful space for jazz for a long time, and he expressed hope that it would be again.
“However, it was never the room that made it great,” he said. “It was folks like Stephen Marley, Collette Lewis, Matt Beasley, John Worley, Morgan Slade, Oscar Pangilinan and the great staff at the Hedley that made it happen every week.”
The Hotel De Anza has had a great deal of management turnover during the past year, and other musicians have said time slots and band pay had been reduced and that there was almost no marketing of the acts. (Folks at the De Anza didn’t respond to my requests for comment about the Hedley Club issue.)
On top of providing a great
showcase for local musicians, the Jazz Jam was a real community crowdpleaser, packing in audiences during Winter Fest and bringing in donations every year with its Holiday Toy Drive. And it certainly gave the Hedley Club an identity as a comfortable place to listen to jazz throughout the year. Where will those fans go now?
Rawson says he’s confident we’ll see more activity popping up at other downtown venues, and I’ve heard there’s interest in finding the Jazz Jam a new home. “Sadly, I believe the Hotel De Anza is shooting themselves in the foot,” Rawson said. “I don’t know, maybe the cornhole games on the Palm Court Terrace are a bigger hit than I understand.”
CRISTO REY’S MARCH MADNESS >> Cristo Rey San Jose Jesuit High School had quite an event Thursday to open its new gym, the Valley Foundation Pavilion. The Rey of Hope scholarship
event had a packed house with President Margaret Higgins welcoming many of the school’s leading supporters, including Sue and John A. Sobrato, Mary Ellen and Michael E. Fox Sr., Helen and Eddie Owen, Molly Swenson, Lisa Sobrato Sonsini and Matt Sonsini and John Vidovich.
The festivities included a performance by the school’s folkorico dance troupe and a showcase of other student activities. Of course, you can’t properly open a gym during March Madness without throwing in a little basketball. So a ritual “first shot” was taken in honor of B.J. Cassin, co-chair of Cristo Rey’s board of directors. It went in, of course, and that’s got to be good luck.
GRAND OPENING FOR A GRAND BUILDING >> The Palms restaurant has its grand opening planned Monday night in beautiful Coggeshall Mansion in Los Gatos. This is the latest eatery to occupy the historic manse on North Santa Cruz Avenue, following Palacio, Trevese and, of course, the beloved Chart House.
Monday’s festivities will include a ribbon-cutting at 5:30 p.m., followed by a reception inside the remodeled restaurant with hula dancers and Hawaiian music. Tickets, which can be bought at the door for $20, include a drink and a selection of appetizers from the restaurant’s Pacific Rim-inspired menu. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Alzheimer’s Association.
LIONS ROAR FOR BRYAN STOW >> Members of the Los Gatos Lions Club were decked out in their Giants gear Wednesday as they hosted Bryan Stow and his caregiver parents, Ann and Dave Stow, at their meeting at the Los Gatos Lodge.
It’s been nearly seven years since Stow, a former paramedic, was severely beaten following a GiantsDodgers game March 31, 2011, in Los Angeles. He talked to the club about his experiences and the Bryan Stow Foundation, which brings an anti-bullying message to schools. You can find out more about the foundation’s work at www.bryanstowfoundation.org. SPINNING AND WINNING >> Uproar Brewing Co. in downtown San Jose is launching a new “Sunday Vinyl” series this weekend, with downtown promoter Fil Maresca as its first “celebrity DJ” playing music from 5 to 8 p.m.
Maresca says he’s digging out his collection of 1980s New Wave, Modern Rock and Brit Pop, with a few funky surprises thrown in and some 12” extended dance mix singles. “I have a bunch of them from my days as a DJ in 1980s San Francisco before moving to S.J. to open the Oasis in
1987,” Maresca said.
And, from a suggestion by Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Mighty Mike McGee, Maresca will have ’80s music bingo cards so you can play along as you listen to the Talking Heads and A Flock of Seagulls.
TALKING IMMIGRATION >> In support of the exhibition “Traveling Stitches: Quilts Made at the Day Worker Center of Mountain View,” the Los Altos History Museum has put together its own tapestry of community leaders for a panel discussion on immigration issues Thursday.
The 7 p.m. panel at the Los Altos Youth Center on San Antonio Road features San Jose State professor Margo McBane, Mountain View-Whisman School District Superintendent Ayinde Rudolph, Los Altos Mayor Jean Mordo, DACA representative Angelica Esquivel of De Anza Valley College, immigration attorney Mary Dutcher and William Lambert, board president of the Day Worker Center of Mountain View.
The quilt exhibition will be on display through April 29 at the J. Gilbert Smith House in Los Altos.
PALO ALTO, DISRUPTED >> Upgrade Downtown, the multiyear infrastructure improvement project in Palo Alto, is slated to start on Monday. What this means to you: University Avenue will be closed between Webster and Cowper streets for the next two months, so plan accordingly if your daily travels take you through downtown Palo Alto. Get updates on the project upgradedowntownpa.com.