In the basement of the same building the Green Dot was in, but around the corner, along the east side of Sixth Avenue South, there was another small venue called the 411 Club. On June 24, 1938, the Northwest Enterprise noted that pianist Palmer Johnson, who also played the Green Dot, was at the 411, adding that “This popular rendezvous is fast becoming noted for its tasty lunches and barbeque.”
Johnson usually played with bassist Junior Raglin (who later toured and recorded with Duke Ellington) or guitarist Milt Green and sometimes hired a trumpet or a saxophone player, as well. Likely as not, however, on Sundays the horns would be played by visiting musicians, who were welcome to sit in and jam till the sun came up, which they often did. One of them was a young white pianist from Spokane named Jimmy Rowles, a student at the University of Washington hungry to learn how to play jazz. Rowles would later become famous as an accompanist for Billie Holiday and mentor to Diana Krall, as well as a major keyboard stylist in his own right. He later credited Johnson as an early influence, as well as pianist Julian Henson, whose father worked as a bartender at the 411. Johnson recalled letting Rowles take over at the piano from time to time.
The 411 Club was located at 411 Sixth Avenue South, in the basement of this building, the Welcome Hotel. (The Bush Hotel, which still stands, is behind it.) The doorway to the club was probably below the checkered pattern at right of the building, down Sixth. To the left, up Jackson, was the Green Dot barber shop.
(Washington State Archives)
Famous musicians such as Louis Armstrong and sidemen from Duke Ellington’s band also came by to jam after their shows in downtown theaters. During one notorious “cutting session,” as competitive jams were called back then, Tacoma tenor saxophonist Corky Corcoran, still a teenager, got the best of the great Ellington saxophonist Ben Webster.
“Webster was mad,” recalled guitarist Al Turay, an eyewitness to Webster’s unheard-of drubbing by a local. “He’d been drinking. He slammed his horn down.”
The 411 Club was hot for a couple of years but was eclipsed in 1939 by a much larger basement establishment situated on the same part of the block, but one street over, on Maynard Avenue South (see Stop 8). Possibly because they were close to each other and their addresses were similar – Basin Street was at 413 Maynard – folks sometimes confused the two and even called Basin Street “the 411.” But they were two distinct venues.
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The entrance to 411 Club was probably in what is now the driveway to parking lot
Behind the WaFd bank (with green strip). Hing Hay Park is now on the right. All of
the buildings on this entire block, except the Bush Hotel (in the distance, behind
the tree leaves), have been torn down since the Jackson Street heyday.