In 1948, Ray Charles played his first regular Seattle gig in a venue that used to occupy a good deal of the second floor of this beautiful white terra cotta building, one of two along Jackson Street owned by Rainier Heat & Power Company. Charles, who came to Seattle from Tampa, Fla., was hired by the Black Elks Club, which had a suite of rooms that included a large performance space. The Black Elks was a national organization that was not affiliated with the more widely known Elks Club, which did not admit African Americans. Seattle Lodge 109 of the Improved Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of the World – IBPOE of W, for short – had been presenting holiday dances in Seattle since at least 1919, but in 1943, not long after making this location its home office, the organization started operating one of the city’s most popular late-night music venues. At the upstairs landing, patrons were greeted by a large, stuffed elk; inside, smoke hung over the 100 or so seats. Barbecue sandwiches and drinks were on offer. If you knew whom to ask, recalled trumpeter Leon Vaughn, you could even get a taste of opium tea.
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Entrance to Black Elks Club
in its heyday.
(Al Smith courtesy of MOHAI)
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Pianist Cecil Young, a hot modernist from the East Coast reputed to have jammed with Charlie Parker in New York and who had an enormous stylistic influence on Seattle jazz musicians, held forth with his quartet at the Black Elks for most of 1951. Locally raised saxophonist Billy Tolles also made the Elks his headquarters for many months, as did a racially mixed band that featured tenor saxophonist Vernon “Pops” Buford, who came to Seattle from Oakland, California. Pianist Jim Gilles, who played with Buford, recalled that while the Black Elks was primarily an African American place, white hipsters like himself felt welcome. “In those days,” said Gilles in 1989, “it was actually easier to mix, racially, than it is now…It was very harmonious.”
The Black Elks was also known for star sightings. Nat Cole almost always dropped by after his regular downtown gigs and one night Tolles brought his boss Dinah Washington with him.
The Black Elks was a going concern through the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, but in 1953 police raids eventually forced it to close.
Site of the Black Elks Club today. Entry has been divided into two doors. The Congo Room was two doors down to the left.
Next Stop: 12. The Golden West Hotel
Walk east to the corner of Seventh Avenue South and look up at the brick building next door to the construction site on the southeast corner. In very faint lettering you can just make out the words of the “ghost sign,” GOLDEN WEST HOTEL. That’s your next destination. Cross South Jackson Street and walk to 410 Seventh Avenue South, on east side of the street.
