Macomba Lounge

The Macomba Lounge, at 3905 South Cottage Grove, Chicago, was an after-hours music club owned by Leonard Chess from 1946 to October 1950, when it burned down.

Chess had invested the money made from his two liquor stores into refurbishing an old eatery, its liquor license being granted to his brother, Phil, in February 1946, shortly after being discharged from the army.[1] In a seedy neighborhood, and initially a bar patronised by prostitutes and drug dealers, the establishment soon developed a reputation among local musicians as an after-hours club,[1] known for featuring jazz groups playing bebop[2] jump blues.[3]

The following year, in September 1947, Chess went into the recording business by buying into Aristocrat Records, a recently created local record label, after the tenor sax player Tom Archia, a member of the house trio, was hired by the label’s talent scout, Sammy Goldberg, to record a session led by Jump Jackson.[4] Goldberg would sign on several of the club’s performers.

As Chess became increasingly involved in the running of the recording company, he left the Macomba to be run by his brother Phil.[4]

Performers who appeared at the Macomba included King Fleming (January 1947),[5] Andrew Tibbs, Eddie Chamblee,[1] Ike Day,[4] Gene Ammons (February 1949), Claude McLin (two weeks in March 1949[4]), Forrest Sykes (jam session with Archia on April 11, 1950).

House bands
  • June 1946 – Timothy Brown[5]
  • June 1946 - November 10, 1946 – Charles Hawkins[5]
  • Wendell Owens Trio November 1946 – May 1947 (with Wendell Owens, piano; Glen Brooks, drums and Tom Archia, tenor sax) [4]
  • Bill Owens trio – October 1947
  • Tom Archia trio – Spring 1949 – October 1950 (with LeRoy Jackson (bass); and Wes Landers (drums))

Biopic

Chess was portrayed by Adrien Brody in the biopic about him in the 2008 film Cadillac Records.[6]

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gollark: Arguably a false negative, since it incorrectly didn't match you.
gollark: No, false negative. If you randomly get booted from an exam because you typed differently that would be bad.
gollark: I'm sure there could NEVER be false negative issues with that, and no privacy ones iether!
gollark: What, just based on camera images? That doesn't sound very secure.

References
  1. Cohodas, Nadine (2000) Spinning Blues into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records At Google Books. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  2. “How the blues brothers behind Chess Records made all the right moves” The Guardian. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  3. “Spinning Blues Into Gold” The New York Times. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  4. Campbell, Robert L. and Robert Pruter, George R. White, Tom Kelly, George Paulus “The Aristocrat Label” Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  5. Campbell, Robert L. and Leonard J. Bukowski, and Armin Büttner "The Tom Archia Discography" Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  6. "Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright in Cadillac'". Entertainment Weekly. January 22, 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
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