Bessie Young’s Boarding House
1242 S. Jackson St.
Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, touring Black musicians were rarely permitted to stay in segregated Seattle hotels. Even a superstar like Louis Armstrong usually stayed at the Coast Hotel in the Chinatown-International District. Many artists stayed at Bessie Young’s Boarding House, the handsome Victorian building that once stood where a parking lot is today, here by the bus shelter.
“Any acts that came to Seattle, they came to Bessie Young’s Theatrical Boarding House,” recalled Bruce Rowell, a saxophonist and entrepreneur active in Seattle’s jazz scene of the ’20s and ’30s. “Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Williams and Walker.”
Frank Waldron, c. 1920
(Black Heritage Society of Washington State)
One longtime resident at Bessie Young’s was saxophonist, trumpeter and music teacher Frank Waldron. Born in San Francisco, Waldron came north to Seattle to seek his fortune after the 1906 earthquake. Waldron moved into Bessie Young’s Boarding House in 1911 and formally set up shop there as a music instructor in 1919 in “the big room upstairs,” according to Rowell. After 1931, Waldron taught out of his own home on 15th Avenue, but during his time at Bessie’s he tutored Seattle’s first generation of jazz musicians, including pianist Evelyn Bundy-Taylor, who led the Garfield Ramblers, and the Adams brothers — Jimmy (trumpet) and Wayne (saxophone). Waldron also wrote and published a book of his own songs, Syncopated Classic, and appeared with the first Black band to ever play at a downtown Seattle venue, the Odean Jazz Orchestra. Later, he played steadily with the Whang Doodle Orchestra, the band that had kicked off the Seattle jazz era at the Dumas Club (Stop 1) in 1912. When another generation came up in the ’40s — trumpeter Quincy Jones, alto saxophonist (and later, bassist) Buddy Catlett, reed player Ronnie Pierce and others — Waldron was still the go-to guy for music lessons.
Bessie Young’s Boarding House is the white three-story building in the middle of the photograph. “Frank Waldron taught in the big room upstairs,” recalled saxophonist
and promoter Bruce Rowell.
(Source: Washington State Archives, Puget Sound Regional Branch)
![Bessie Smith's Boarding House hi res 332000-0145,_house,_1937[1].tif](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/b4878d_f6b1d77a1a99464e90212253d0b79789~mv2.png/v1/crop/x_174,y_0,w_1294,h_969/fill/w_519,h_389,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/Bessie%20Smith's%20Boarding%20House%20hi%20res%20332000-0145%2C_house%2C_1937%5B1%5D_tif.png)
Cover of Syncopated Classic, 1924
According to Pierce, who studied with Waldron after WWII, Waldron was an imposing fellow.
“When you went up to his house,” he recalled, “you felt like you were invading his private domain. He wore a white shirt and bright suspenders and had a big belly. He’d sit there, across from you, not next to you, like other teachers. You got the feeling he knew what he was about. And he would have a Victrola and play records for you.”
Buddy Catlett, who studied saxophone with Waldron and later played bass with Count Basie and Louis Armstrong, added that Waldron dressed to the nines.
“Watch fob, shoes, everything was immaculate,” remembered Catlett.
Waldron died in 1955, leaving behind few clues about his life but a legacy of Seattle jazz unparalleled by anyone else of his generation.
For information about Frank Waldon, see Seattle’s Syncopated Classic by Greg Ruby with Paul de Barros.
Site of Bessie Young’s Boarding House, 2024.
Next Stop: 19.
The Entertainer’s Cabaret
Walk east to Boren Avenue, cross Boren and turn left. Walk to the corner of South Main Street, cross Main and stop at a spot about 50 feet from the corner on your left. Here stood the Entertainer’s Cabaret on what is now the playfield for Bailey Gatzert Elementary School. Behind it, on what used to be the corner of 13th Avenue South and South Washington Street was Finnish Hall.