ndiamone
600 Club - QQ All-Star
The Jazz Cellar on Milwaukee's East Side.
Dad was a huge jazz fan, and even before we moved up to Chicago's North Shore when we still lived near Belmont and Sheridan - since even Dr. Wax and Stax-o'Trax on North Clark Street only carried CHICAGO jazz and blues - my Dad would make a weekly or monthly trip up to Milwaukee to get some obscure jazz record or other he couldn't getat home - and then make the rounds of the same Peaches, Radio Doctors, Mean Mountain Music, Final Vinyl and all the other one-off record shops that were all pretty much one-man operations all over Southeast Wisconsin and Northwestern Illinois.
We'd make a great big loop up through Milwaukee and Green Bay - stop off at my aunt's in Wausau and spend the night - head out in the morning to Madison and Rockford to get all the wierd jazz and experimental music - which in those days was just dumped unceremoniously into Jazz for lack of a better place to put it - and the eclectic tastes of jazz lovers who might like it vs the fickle pop and rock people - and be home in time for supper.
Also - Green Onions in Center City Philadelphia.
They called it that because two old Godfather-type brothers by the name of Scallione (pronounced Sca- lee-oh-nay) owned it.
I got a job there my sophomore year in college only because the boys' father Adriano caught me waiting in behind the Italian restaurant two doors down for them to throw out all their leftovers at the end of the night - dragging disposable aluminum pans out of the garbage with their lids to put all the food in so I could get on the Market-Frankford el-train.
I'd balance one or two trays on my lap and go back to the closet known as my apartment in Upper Darby - preferring to get off in Millbourne so I didn't have to fight the crowds - and the SEPTA security - that were always crawling all over 69th Street - even though it meant an extra six blocks to walk - at least I could do it in peace.
So one day after school lets out of my freshman year, Adriano catches me like I said - only I don't know it at the time. Having lived in Philly over a year and a half already by then, I had picked up a little bit of Italian comprehension - especially my landlady's fights with her husband.
Coupled with the Quebecoise French my grandmother spoke, I found out I could figure out more Italian than I thought.
So the next time I'm in there spending money on records instead of eating, their mother Adele comes out, gives me the long look up and down - and gives the Evil Eye to Adriano - who shrugs. I pay and leave, and not one second later I hear Adele yelling in Italian I can sort of semi-decode something about how much (of my college grant) money I'm spending in there and how skinny I am.
Adriano's big booming voice yells back in Italian something about being Jewish and how Jews are supposed to be thin. This goes on for some minutes until I hear Adele clear as a bell talking something about `he loves music so much he needs to work here when Giuliano leaves for college (in a month) and get paid for it - in records if you're too stingy to pay him in cash.
I snort trying to suppress a laugh and Adriano hears it, comes storming out and, trying to stammer out some scrambled Itanglish that you eventually learn from living in Philly - and tells me his wife wants to know if I want to work there. I say yes, and for the next three years I'm living in heaven. All the records I want, above minimum pay besides, i learn how to cook and serve in the restaurant - turned out his cousin owns it - and never had to worry about being a Skinny Jew.
When Adriano died the summer after my senior year, his wife wasn't interested, in the business even tho she knew almost as much as he from doing it so long - the two boys didn't have the knowledge or skill and I was headed to L.A.
And so they sold out and it became a tobbacconists.
Dad was a huge jazz fan, and even before we moved up to Chicago's North Shore when we still lived near Belmont and Sheridan - since even Dr. Wax and Stax-o'Trax on North Clark Street only carried CHICAGO jazz and blues - my Dad would make a weekly or monthly trip up to Milwaukee to get some obscure jazz record or other he couldn't getat home - and then make the rounds of the same Peaches, Radio Doctors, Mean Mountain Music, Final Vinyl and all the other one-off record shops that were all pretty much one-man operations all over Southeast Wisconsin and Northwestern Illinois.
We'd make a great big loop up through Milwaukee and Green Bay - stop off at my aunt's in Wausau and spend the night - head out in the morning to Madison and Rockford to get all the wierd jazz and experimental music - which in those days was just dumped unceremoniously into Jazz for lack of a better place to put it - and the eclectic tastes of jazz lovers who might like it vs the fickle pop and rock people - and be home in time for supper.
Also - Green Onions in Center City Philadelphia.
They called it that because two old Godfather-type brothers by the name of Scallione (pronounced Sca- lee-oh-nay) owned it.
I got a job there my sophomore year in college only because the boys' father Adriano caught me waiting in behind the Italian restaurant two doors down for them to throw out all their leftovers at the end of the night - dragging disposable aluminum pans out of the garbage with their lids to put all the food in so I could get on the Market-Frankford el-train.
I'd balance one or two trays on my lap and go back to the closet known as my apartment in Upper Darby - preferring to get off in Millbourne so I didn't have to fight the crowds - and the SEPTA security - that were always crawling all over 69th Street - even though it meant an extra six blocks to walk - at least I could do it in peace.
So one day after school lets out of my freshman year, Adriano catches me like I said - only I don't know it at the time. Having lived in Philly over a year and a half already by then, I had picked up a little bit of Italian comprehension - especially my landlady's fights with her husband.
Coupled with the Quebecoise French my grandmother spoke, I found out I could figure out more Italian than I thought.
So the next time I'm in there spending money on records instead of eating, their mother Adele comes out, gives me the long look up and down - and gives the Evil Eye to Adriano - who shrugs. I pay and leave, and not one second later I hear Adele yelling in Italian I can sort of semi-decode something about how much (of my college grant) money I'm spending in there and how skinny I am.
Adriano's big booming voice yells back in Italian something about being Jewish and how Jews are supposed to be thin. This goes on for some minutes until I hear Adele clear as a bell talking something about `he loves music so much he needs to work here when Giuliano leaves for college (in a month) and get paid for it - in records if you're too stingy to pay him in cash.
I snort trying to suppress a laugh and Adriano hears it, comes storming out and, trying to stammer out some scrambled Itanglish that you eventually learn from living in Philly - and tells me his wife wants to know if I want to work there. I say yes, and for the next three years I'm living in heaven. All the records I want, above minimum pay besides, i learn how to cook and serve in the restaurant - turned out his cousin owns it - and never had to worry about being a Skinny Jew.
When Adriano died the summer after my senior year, his wife wasn't interested, in the business even tho she knew almost as much as he from doing it so long - the two boys didn't have the knowledge or skill and I was headed to L.A.
And so they sold out and it became a tobbacconists.
