The Jazz Crawl: Ripple Effects
The second part of a reflection on the making of the Cherokee Street Jazz Crawl
Read Part I here.
On November 9, 2019, I snapped a photo of Charles Creath III sitting at Yaqui’s on Cherokee Street, known for its nightly jazz, blues, and americana music. It must have been before his performance at the Cherokee Street Jazz Crawl that day, when a behemoth Mason and Hamlin upright piano still loomed at the back of the narrow room. Mr. Creath, the grandson of an early jazz giant and a jazz and gospel legend in his own right, died on Christmas day in 2020, a very lonely year. It makes the photograph even more noteworthy, enlarged by only five, but five long, years.
2019 was also the last year of the Nevermore Jazz Ball and St. Louis Swing Dance Festival in its more-or-less original form (it has since evolved).1 The Jazz Crawl had taken on a second set of music, a series of free dance classes that co-organizer Jenny Shirar dubbed "Community Dance Day" four years earlier, thereby expanding the event's target audience beyond the subculture of the swing dance-obsessed, and the All-Styles Dance Battle, where hundreds watch exchanges of breakin’, poppin’, lindy hop, lockin’, waacking, tap, house, charleston, and what can only be called “freestyle.”
When the Crawl returned in November 2021, I wondered if, without the surge of visiting swing dancers, the event might lack oomph. But there were more people enjoying music in the street, not less. The covid lockdown, rightly blamed for curtailing nightlife, helped, ironically, to bring this street gathering about: Yaquis’ management took advantage of a lockdown-era city ordinance that lessened fees associated with closing a street to automobiles, and hosted curbside concerts for eager bunches of listeners and dancers every weekend, seasonally, throughout 2020 and 2021.2 A monthly permit to close a portion of side street and its parking meters went from thousands of dollars to hundreds. Beckie Lewis, one of the bar’s owners, told me that the decision was “mostly business driven, but we also needed a place for our kid to roam free and our friends and family to safely congregate.” Generally, that need persists.
The weekly concerts have subsided, but the corner of Iowa Avenue and Cherokee grew as a Jazz Crawl hub, especially for the swing dancers who relish the traditional swing of Miss Jubilee, the Hot Club of St. Louis, and the Arcadia Dance Orchestra. A second outdoor hub at Texas and Cherokee managed by rehabber/developer Jason Deem has featured Kaleb Kirby’s band, the Brady Lewis Sextet, and HEAL Center for the Arts’ Birdseeds over the past two years, further activating the public spaces along the street.
Creating Culture, Creating Revenue
I sat down with Emily Thenhaus shortly after she told St. Louis Magazine that Cherokee Street was the fastest growing commercial district in the city, despite the visceral closures of beloved spots like Teatopia (which still operates online), the B-Side, Earthbound Brewery, and the Fortune Teller Bar, which Sharon Foehner and her band have turned into a raucous house of blues during the Jazz Crawl. Thenhaus has been the Executive Director of the Cherokee Street Community Improvement District since 2019, and we worked closely together in producing the Cherokee Street Jazz Crawl starting in 2021 when the event became a CID-operated event, independent from the Nevermore Jazz Ball.
In reflecting on what makes for unique events that also create ripple effects, Thenhaus outlined an artfulness required to meet and drive cultural and communal demand: "Something that comes through with our events, is how can we just be our authentic selves?" The Jazz Crawl has retained this quality of being “very organic and authentic,” she said, even while it evolves under the tensions between tradition and innovation. Of course, this genuine quality stems from the DIY ethic described in part one of this series. Authenticity flows forth from the storefronts where shopkeepers embrace friends who acutely understand the short-lived nature of business, and into the street, eddying, rising and falling, but never drying up. And then, on some days, it floods.
The Jazz Crawl, like other events on Cherokee Street, are at the mercy of a "tenuous harmony of resources," Thenhaus says, which has created ripple effects. The Brass Band Blowout, which completed its third year in February 2024, answered a call in Thenhaus' mind to have a more "music-forward" Mardi Gras celebration in St. Louis, while also raising funds for fall and winter events on Cherokee Street. But, as with any cultural phenomenon, it took relationships to transform the Blowout from concept to occurrence. New Orleans native Chris "Turtle" Tomlin leads the Saint Boogie Brass Band, a band that has become a symbol of the crawl.
The Jazz Crawl has spun out or supported year-round activity. Blues and ragtime pianist Ethan Leinwand played the Cherokee Street Jazz Crawl in 2014 at Yaqui's, recently opened, and ten years later continues to play there weekly. Renowned jazz musicians Carolbeth True and Randy Holmes played at the intimate wine bar, 'Ssippi, in 2023, and have enjoyed regular appearances alongside other top names in local jazz culture—all reasons for people to come back and congregate.
When people come out to a low-key weekly event or a high-profile annual festival, they aren’t paying for authenticity or connection, per se, but these core human requirements tend to accompany the best of art and culture, which, as it turns out, is a huge money-maker. The average attendee of a nonprofit arts and culture event in the Greater St. Louis area spends $35.74 per person per event, beyond the price paid for admission. For nonlocal attendees that average expenditure goes up to $53.65, and a majority of them say they would travel elsewhere to access a similar event.3 But what’s critically important is that for the majority of the Jazz Crawl there’s no entry fee (thanks to essential arts grants and local sponsors). There’s more than enough room for the hard-pressed, the mothers walking strollers so that kids catch the glimmer of dancing brass, the boys who wear Halloween masks, cruising freely, briefly, down Cherokee on their bikes.
In turn, the establishments we love have a better shot at choosing whether to stay open or not, and numerous report their best sales of the year on Jazz Crawl day.
Martell Stepney (aka Grand Martell, aka Grand Leroy, aka I Dunno Marty), who has been MC’ing the All Styles Dance Battle and teaching a break dancing class at the Jazz Crawl for several years said, "It's worth it. We're creating culture, we're creating revenue in the city." But just as important, he said, is it creates an outlet for kids in the neighborhood to be inspired by music and maybe learn a few dance steps, instead of getting into trouble, which echoes the marvelous intention and rise of Love Bank Park, whose creators and nurturers understand that a safe place for young people is the real bottom line. At the 2024 edition of the event, for the first time ever, free dance classes in lindy hop, jazz, break dance, salsa, and St. Louis bop took place outside at Love Bank.
The Battle
“I have to talk to the audience—not just the person I am competing with,” said Rider, a contestant in the 2024 All-Styles Dance battle when I asked her about her dance background, and how that played out on the floor of the Golden Record, where the eclectic tournament ensued. The Dance Battle has been a culminating Jazz Crawl event since 2019 and makes palpable a tenet that runs the imposing continuum of Black American dance: individual expression for collective good.
—And let’s break here to note that without Black culture, without Black artists, there would be no Cherokee Street Jazz Crawl, period.—
Rider’s training is a mix of commercial hip-hop and punking/whacking/waacking, a style she says originated in the Los Angeles’ Black and Latinx gay community during the 1970s. “I am communicating often as a character or emotion (such as, lip syncing to a portion of Beyonce's lyrics), removing my glove and handing if off to the other contestant, as both a gesture of acknowledgement, but also of power (as it's usually the man handing off his handkerchief to the woman, not vice versa).”
Samanvita, a dancer trained in Indian classical dancing, specifically Bharatanatyam and Kathak, and contemporary and Hip-Hop told me she was intimidated to compete against breakers, poppers, and waackers this year, but brought her training through “footwork, rhythmical patterns, movement language, and storytelling.” The experience of fusing together numerous styles and dancing against dancers who did the same, she said, “was very reflective of the practice of Bharatanatyam, all in a cultural setting that wasn’t traditional at all.”
Each dancer is at the mercy of the DJ, or, as it occurred in November 2022 when Lamar Harris’ Georgia Mae played live for the final battle, the musicians. Responding to unexpected DJ’d and live music was a stand-out memory for two-time battle winner Richy, who has been a b-boy for twenty years, but also has jazz and ballet training.
This aspect of the Jazz Crawl is a result of ripples associated with Nashville, Montreal, Stockholm, and St. Louis. I probably met Martell Stepney in 2013 when Em Piro, the director of the St. Louis Fringe Festival, had connected Jenny Shirar and me to DJ-producer Darian Wigfall and Stepney to instigate a “dance battle” between lindy hoppers and b-boys/b-girls at the 2014 Fringe. We danced to a combination of live music by Miss Jubilee and DJ'd music furnished by DJ Whiz.
“All Styles” battles are commonplace in the break dance community. "It's open to any dance style imaginable: break, crunk, tap, lindy hop / swing, two-step, juking, whatever dance style you're proficient in, or multiple styles you're proficient in,” Stepney said, adding that it’s also more economical to have one larger contest compared to several contests each focused on a specific style.
There was something in the air, a desire to connect Black dances (and therefore, people) that have been disconnected, often due to the neat categories white dance studios create to sell classes. And, more obviously, the legacy of Jim Crow-era legal segregation.
Montreal Swing Riot, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada was an annual festival best known for its lengthy, high energy and viral video-producing dance battle that pitted a team of "Vintage" Street Dancers against "Modern" Street Dancers. In April 2019, I attended the Stockholm Tap Festival, which featured an All-Styles Dance Battle on Saturday night. This was the ultimate inspiration to ask Martell Stepney if he wanted to MC an All-Styles Dance Battle at the 2019 Jazz Crawl. He had recently gone to an Open Styles Beat Rock competition at Bashville Stampede in Nashville, TN for the first time.
Authenticity is a pre-requisite for dancers in the All Styles Battle. But for the dancers I communicated with, their experience in the Battle was connected to deeper meanings. Rider described being able to explore collaborative improvisation while making new friends dancing to the Saint Boogie Brass Band. For Richy, “the most significant aspect of the Jazz Crawl is how it brings people together. From all different age ranges, different financial classes, and different backgrounds, races, and nationalities all to share a love for good music, history, dance, and the cross exposure of cultures.”
Samanvita agreed, saying that she didn’t know St. Louis was capable of having so many diverse groups in just one street. She also touched on the theme that celebration is serious stuff: “There's also this conception that areas like Cherokee are 'unsafe' and I know for a fact people in suburban areas don't venture out into communities outside of the West County area—but this notion is holding them back from exploring the heart of this city, and events like this really open your eyes to the possibilities that St. Louis as a city can hold.”
Young artists take the stage as we mourn musicians like Charles Creath, and like Gus Thornton, who played bass with Marquise Knox for an astounding Jazz Crawl finale party this year just days before his passing. Their music, if we are present enough to listen, tells us something about who we are, it tells us where we want to go and a way to get there, even if that means staying right here in the neighborhood.
A few scene scapes from the 2024 Jazz Crawl:
In 2023, Nevermore: A Jazz Action Summit took place as an outgrowth of the Nevermore Jazz Ball. It focused on how to create social dance events that are local in focus, global in context, and both culturally and environmentally sustainable. Dance/sociologist Jamica Zion helped to conjure this event with myself and a team of local and regional dancers. We’re excited about the possibility of deepening this event alongside the Cherokee Street Jazz Crawl.
As indoor gathering became a health threat, and outdoor gathering became a safer alternative, I noticed a window opening in which just a small amount of space we allocate for cars and car traffic might be re-allocated to cultural activities like this curbside concerts. The National Blues Museum’s Blues on the Block music series originated under the same conditions and persists as a summer music series. That window has remained open for a portion of the Open Streets in New York City, but in St. Louis it was merely cracked open to reveal how culture in the streets might play out on a weekly and monthly basis without much of a larger impact in how we might lean into free, public open street culture year-round and day-to-day. I know I’m not the only one waiting for St. Louis, as a city backed with policy, to commit more fully to returning its streets to the service of the artistic, the cultural, and the entrepreneurial.
Info derived from the Arts and Economic Prosperity 6 study: https://racstl.org/wp-content/uploads/MO_GreaterStLouisArea_AEP6_CustomizedFinalReport1-1.pdf