Jackson Street Jazz Scene
In the early 1930s Seattle’s African American-oriented newspaper, The Northwest Enterprise, described the town’s notorious Jackson Street scene that, in part, ran straight through the neighborhood historically known as “Chinatown” – today’s International District. It reported that the area “attracts persons from all sections of the city and numerous migrants who are attracted by the bright lights and allurements. And there are allurements, if you know where to find them…Jackson Street might be called the ‘Poor Man’s Playground.’ Here all races meet on common ground and rub elbows as equals. Fillipinos [sic], Japanese, Negroes and whites mingle in the same hotels and restaurants and there is an air of comradeship.”
The Black and Tan
“Smith was a gambler and a businessman,” de
Barros further informs, “who was nicknamed ‘Noodles’ because no matter how much
he risked in a crap game, the story went, he always set aside enough cash to
buy a bowl of noodles before he went to bed.” He had begun to amass his
considerable fortune back in the 1920s by co-founding the fabled Black and Tan
club (12th Avenue and Jackson Street) – a long-lived room whose very name
signaled its racially tolerant access policy.
But times were already moving on, as Kaegan
Faltys-Burr has written: “In the climate of Roosevelt’s New Deal, Jackson
Street jazz clubs began catering to more class-specific audiences.” And it was
Smith who “saw the need for a more sophisticated club to satisfy the growing
demand of wealthy whites for jazz venues.”
“Chinatown"
Thus begins the short-lived but legendary
saga of Smith’s most ambitious nightclub enterprise of all, the Ubangi (410 7th
Avenue S). He set out by renting a large space on the east side of the Louisa
Hotel – which had originally been built (by a trio of Scandinavian emigrants)
back in 1909 as the Nelson, Tagholm & Jensen Tenement (a 120-room
boarding house that catered mainly to recent-arrivals and ethic workers
awaiting passage to seafood canning jobs up in Alaska). “The Louisa was
something of a sanctuary,” Ellis E. Conklin has written, “and in the 1920s and
1930s, Chinatown throbbed with excitement. Paper lanterns and glowing neon hung
from the stoops of apartment dwellings. Children pitched baseball cards in
Canton Alley. Adults gathered in social clubs, tucked away in basements and
backroom parlors, for card games, and feasted on platters of” authentic Chinese
delicacies. “The hotel, with its orange brick facade and windows with cast-stone
sills and lintels, boasted a second-floor billiard room where seven two-story
bay windows allowed light to stream in. Rumors persist that a secret casino
with a surreptitious passageway may also have been on the second floor.”
Rumors aside, what is certain is that the
hotel’s alley featured an entrance to one particular Chinese social club – the Blue Heaven (665 South King Street)
– where illicit gambling flourished for decades. Recast later as the Wah Mee
Club, the basement room would become widely infamous in 1983 as the site of one
of Seattle’s most shocking robbery/murder sprees. Much of what had long
occurred at this club was hidden and illicit, whereas the illegal activities at
the Ubangi were rather more open, and Smith dealt with whatever fallout the
traditional way: by paying off the police.
Direct from the Cotton Club
Smith’s goal was to run a swanky room that
offered the finest in entertainment, and towards that end he and a manager,
Bruce Rowell, took a trip down to Los Angeles to scout out talent. A visit to
Frank Sebastian’s famous Cotton Club brought him into contact with one of that
town’s leading black bands, Les Hite’s Cotton Club Orchestra. A deal was struck
and Hite, his band, and a chorus line of singing/dancing girls were
successfully booked for a twelve-week stint to mark the Ubangi’s grand opening.
The two-story club featured two distinct ballrooms and a mezzanine that boasted
a solo pianist, initially the legendary Seattle pianist Palmer Johnson. Seattle’s
most glamorous black-owned rooms, the Ubangi offered the public the town’s
first floor-show spectacle, in an atmosphere of elegance and exotica – replete
with potted palm trees and an African-themed décor.
The Ubangi – which the Northwest Enterprise
deemed “the largest race-owned enterprise…north of Los Angeles” – was an
immediate hit. Especially with certain members of the white community who had
extra money to burn during those Great Depression years – and Les Hite’s band
got the joint off to a jumpin’ start. After a dozen weeks, Hite moved on but
other fine talents kept the momentum up. Seattle’s own Howard Wyatt dance
orchestra was brought in, as were additional stars from Los Angeles. Among the
biggest names to work the stage was Gene Coy’s 11 Black Aces, and Cab “Hi-De-Ho”
Calloway.
It's A Raid!
“Smith spared few expenses,” Faltys-Burr
wrote, “flying in musical and dance acts from Los Angeles, and as a result most
of the patrons attracted to the club were white. But even the lavish Ubangi
continued to deal with problems of police harassment.” Raids by the Seattle
Police Department, and/or state liquor agents, were common along Jackson
Street, even if they often only resulted in punitive fines (or were forestalled
by cash payoffs). But the Ubangi’s physical layout afforded employees, like
manager Rowell, opportunities for escape via secret doors, stairwells, and even
a hidden slide.
Decades after-the-fact Rowell once gleefully
recalled to de Barros: “That’s how I got away from the Washington State liquor
board, three times! Heh-heh-heh!
When they came in, I’d go to [my] office, see, and say ‘Let me get my
overcoat.’ Then I’d zip down that little deal, you know, near the floor, and Sheeoop! I’m
downstairs in the basement. Next thing I know, I’m coming out [in the back
alley], go down to the Mar Hotel, get a room, take a bath, and go to bed!
They’re all up there looking’ for me and I’m in the shower!”
All this must have been a frustration for Smith, but he had enough income streams – additional nightclubs, his personal gaming and gambling, and various real estate investments – to forge ahead. Indeed, his profile within the community continued to grow with every step including his founding and supporting of a very popular black semi-pro football team called the Ubangi Nighthawks. Smith was renowned for attending each of their games, while Rowell attended to, as Brent Campbell has written, “the team’s financial and physical health.”
Alas, the well being of the Ubangi itself couldn’t be maintained once the building it was based in was sold off in February, 1938 – and then 75 years later, on Christmas Eve, 2013, a fire destroyed the top floor of the historic building and ruined numerous businesses below.
A New Discovery
Now, in late 2014, I have recently unearthed what is perhaps the only known artifact related to this whole little realm of Ubangi club history: a vintage photograph of an as-yet-unidentified racially diverse band that includes a pianist, six sax and trumpet players, a bassist, a drummer, a leader, and three female singer/dancers(?). The 8x10 glossy print is autographed thusly: “9/27/36 To Hazel Simpson: May you never get any nicer, may you never get any worse. Paula Walton Ubangi Club. Seattle Wash.”