[78-L] Jazz gift shop in Lincoln Center closes

[soundthink at aol.com]

>From the NY Times

Cary Ginell


JANUARY 7, 2009, 11:05 AM

The Doors on a Jazz Gift Shop Swing Closed

By COREY KILGANNON

Phil Schaap, the D.J. and historian, teaches jazz survey classes at the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s adult education program known as Swing University.

Just over two years ago, he rented from the center a small space in the lobby’s fifth floor near the entrance to the center’s performance spots, and he hired some of his more knowledgeable students to help run the shop and, less formally, dispense information and recommendations and directions to the center’s guests.

“We basically became the information center here,” Mr. Schaap said at the shop on Tuesday night — which, as it turns out, was its last night of business.

The gift shop closed at midnight. Jazz at Lincoln Center officials would not renew Mr. Schaap’s lease, he said.

“If they loved it, I would have done it forever, but they didn’t, and that’s O.K.,” he added.

The shop was open daily through the end of the last set at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, in the center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.

For decades, Mr. Schaap has been the host of “Bird Flight,” a morning show of Charlie Parker’s music on WKCR-FM (89.9), the radio station of Columbia University. In the past few days, he had repeatedly announced on the show that the shop was closing. He said there would be=2
0discounts on merchandise, and that he would be hanging around on Tuesday until the doors closed, to talk jazz with any and all comers.

And on Tuesday, many people did show up for both offerings, including Walter Blanding, a tenor saxophone player with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra who said, “I heard it was closing and I just had to stop by.”

“What happened?” he said to Mr. Schaap, who taught him jazz history at the New School, years ago. “I’m sorry to hear about this.”

Mr. Schaap had been hearing this kind of thing all day, as had Rose Rutledge, 25, the store’s manager.

At one point, a tall woman approached Ms. Rutledge and said in a thick Swiss accent something that sounded like, “Ees that Feel Shop?”

“Yes, that’s Phil,” Ms. Rutledge said. The woman, Annemarie Wiesner, a violinist and an avid WKCR listener, asked Mr. Schaap: “Why are you closing? It’s so sad.”

“Jazz at Lincoln Center wants to do something else, I guess,” Mr. Schaap replied.

Gail Beltrone, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s vice-president of Frederick P. Rose Hall, said that officials there were eager to see Mr. Schaap spend more time as a teacher and curator at the center, and that the shop’s closing was part of a large-scale redesign of the open space on the fifth floor. The center is planning to put up exhibits, create wi-fi networks for guests, and sell jazz merchandise itself at other spo
ts on the floor.

At least business was booming on this last day. Some of the more popular selling items included “The Story of Jazz,” by Marshall W. Stearns, and “Congo Square,” a CD by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra. Autographed by Mr. Marsalis, it was selling for $53.

Now Ms. Rutledge was telling Mr. Schaap that some woman on the phone wanted to buy 30 copies of Mr. Schaap’s new book, “Charlie Parker and Jazz Club Memorabilia,” written with Norman R. Saks. The book, if autographed by both Mr. Saks and Mr. Schaap, was selling for $75, “and you can’t get it anywhere else,” noted Mr. Schaap, who then took the phone from Ms. Rutledge and told her, “Go get your name in The New York Times.”

Some of the most costly items were prints of jazz artists autographed by legends, collected by Mr. Schaap over the years. One of them, priced to sell at $4,000, was signed by Milt Hinton, Chico Hamilton, Wynton Marsalis, Lionel Hampton, Roy Haynes and others. Then there were the mounted and framed 78-r.p.m. records — “Santa Claus Blues,” by Louis Armstrong, “Night and Day,” by Erroll Garner, and others — from Mr. Schaap’s collection, autographed by Mr. Marsalis and selling variously for several hundred dollars apiece.

Hashem Sharif, of Tinton Falls, N.J., walked into the shop and also asked for Mr. Schaap.

“I listen to his program religiously every day,”
 Mr. Sharif said. “This man is a national treasure. I heard it was the last day for the shop and I had to come.”

Mr. Sharif bought Mr. Schaap’s book and asked him to sign it, which Mr. Schaap did, with the inscription “Bird Lives.” Mr. Sharif then sought Mr. Schaap’s assessment of the CDs he had selected. Mr. Schaap approved of his choices, especially of a Count Basie CD.

“This was his last album while he was alive — it’s very important,” Mr. Schaap said.

Mr. Schaap said the shop was a place where his jazz students gathered, and had a knowledgeable staff, including a student of his, “who knows more about the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra than anyone in the world under age 40.”

He spoke highly of Ms. Rutledge, who put much of her jazz study on hold as she ran the shop. She is a saxophonist with a master’s degree in jazz studies and who now studies independently with Mr. Schaap and aspires to be a working musician. Now that the store was closing, she could at least put more time into that, she said.

Mr. Sharif remarked that it was a challenging career choice, but Ms. Rutledge said she was ready to pay her dues. After all, she noted, even Charlie Parker got kicked off the bandstand in his early years.

“I guess I’ll go get kicked off some bandstands,” she said.