Historic venue to close
Denver jazz club survives nearly 90 years, but the pandemic takes final toll
World War II, recessions and generations of jazz fans came and went, but after nearly 90 years, it took a global pandemic to do in El Chapultepec.
The Denver jazz club and bar on the corner of 20th and Market streets is closing — according to the Krantz family, which runs the business — throwing the city’s cultural scene into mourning.
“Krantz family sends our love to all who this decision affects ... we did not take it lightly,” the owners wrote in a Facebook post on Monday. ” The Pec is a living, breathing member of both our family and the Denver community.”
Denver jazz musician Joshua Trinidad said co- owner Angela Guerrero told the house band last week the club would be shutting down for good.
“Historically, it’s as big as some of the major closings over the years, like ( San Francisco’s) Keystone Korner or The Fillmore,” said Carlos Lando, program director for Denver jazz station KUVO 89.3 FM. “You could be the governor and you’d be standing right next to a person who was destitute, because they never charged a cover. If you behaved, you were treated exactly the same as the celebrities that visited.”
“This place was a come- one, come- all safe space for everyone,” Andrew Hudson, who played at El Chapultepec over the years, wrote on Facebook. “You’d see ... the cops swinging with the crooks.”
Hudson has been in touch with Krantz family — Jerry Krantz, who died in 2012, formerly owned El Chapultepec — and wrote that while the pandemic played a role in the closure, the real reasons are “multifactorial.”
“Denver’s welcoming, collaborative music scene, in essence, was born there,” said Jessica Love Jones, a nationally touring Denver jazz and soul singer who had performed near- weekly at El Chapultepec for the last seven years, in addition to playing nationally with Ivan Neville and members of Trey Anastasio Band.
“Before the jam- band scene, before folk, and before Denver became a music hub, there was El Chapultepec.”
By Monday morning, Guerrero had shared nearly a dozen remembrances of the club from longtime supporters, including former Rocky Mountain News contributor and musician Dave Flomberg, reinforcing the impact of the club’s longfeared closure, but also its culture of camaraderie.
“When I was 16, I sat on the sidewalk outside the stage door, listening to Freddy Rodriguez Sr. ( another terrible Covid casualty) and Rich Chiaraluce and Tony Black and Bob Montgomery and so many others playing that mythical stage ...” Flomberg wrote.
“This city has lost so much this year. But losing El Chapultepec is a bridge too far.”
El Chapultepec opened in 1933, the day after Prohibition was repealed, but didn’t begin hosting regular live jazz until 1968 — a decade after jazz- fan Krantz began working there. Under Krantz, who inherited it from father- in- law Tony Romano, it became known for shows by local and touring legends who stopped through on the way to gigs; who sat in with house bands after a nearby set; or who set up residence at the club.
In its late 20th- century heyday, music icons such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald stopped in to listen and perform, as well as visiting rock stars such as Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger. Even President Bill Clinton played his tenor sax on stage there.
“I’ve had everyone in here but Jesus,” Krantz was once quoted as saying.
“His big thing is that he always wanted it to be for everybody,” said Krantz’s daughter, Anna Diaz, after his death in 2012. “At the time when he started it you’d get dressed up to go to the symphony, and there were people who had never even seen live music. So there was no cover charge, no dress code. The bums on the street were just as welcome to come and listen as the millionaires.”
In recent years, El Chapultepec — caddy- corner from Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies — had become a symbol of gritty, pre- gentrification Denver in the otherwise sports bar- heavy neighborhood of Lower Downtown. Over the summer, El Chapultepec and fellow Denver jazz club Dazzle took “extraordinary measures” to respond to coronavirus closures, according to Denver Post jazz critic Bret Saunders, including streaming pre- recorded sets to raise money.
“Both clubs are seeking fan financial support to keep the music playing on the web, while supporting the artists and employees,” Saunders wrote in June.
A previous El Chapultepec fundraiser posted by Guerrero on March 23 raised only $ 1,630 on GoFundMe before it closed.
Chris Zacher, executive director of Levitt Pavilion Denver, said he knew the club was in trouble earlier this year but hoped Guerrero could hold out for federal aid. The amount of musical history at El Chapultepec is staggering, he said, and nothing can replace it.
“It was Jack Kerouac’s place,” Zacher wrote on Facebook. “Count Basie, Doc Severinsen, Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, and Frank Sinatra all played at the Pec along with Bill Clinton and Ed Sheeran.”
It’s also the second womanowned jazz club to close this year, singer Jones said, citing the closure of downtown club Jazz at Jack’s.
“I had residences at both of those places,” she said. “And the only reason I ever got hired is because I had a place like El Chapultepec to hone my craft.”