Foundation hopes to bring music back to old El Chapultepec and much of Denver

By ALAN GIONET

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    DENVER (KCNC) — The doors were open and the music of Freddy Rodriguez and the Jazz Connection drifted out over the sidewalks at 20th and Market Street from the old El Chapultepec before the start of Wednesday’s Rockies game.

People wandered in, like Al Williams, who loved the old “Pec” and was downtown for the game, but was pleasantly surprised.

“First time I came in here I’m like, ‘this is a hole in the wall.’ And then I heard the music and I’m like, ‘whoa it’s a hole in the wall with good music,'” Williams said.

El Chapultepec has been closed since 2020, unable to survive through the pandemic. But it had survived in downtown for 87 years.

For years it was a mariachi music club, but in the 1960s, it switched to jazz.

It was lauded at times as one of the best jazz bars in the west, which made for appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for its late owner, Jerry Krantz.

“Everybody’s treated the same, bad,” Krantz joked during a CBS News Colorado interview back in 2008.

“Just straight-ahead jazz, Miles Davis, John Coltrane,” remembered Freddy Rodriguez Jr., the son of a Denver jazz legend, who played the club for decades. “The place was swinging. Just straight jazz, every Thursday, Friday and Saturday.”

It was an unpretentious spot, not suffering updates. The décor was dark wood, peeled linoleum and ragged carpet, nicotine-tainted pictures of jazz greats who had played through the years and a long bar, backlit in pink, where bartenders slid icy, dew-covered brown bottles of plain beer to waiting hands.

It catered to well-heeled post-symphony crowds and construction workers done for the day.

“You’d have poor people, rich people, I mean every kind of person. Everybody was cool,” said band member, Andrew Hudson.

Williams added, “it was a mixture of every class, every kind of personality, but jazz brought them together.”

The building’s current owners, 1962 Market Street Partners also own the building housing, the Giggling Grizzly, next door on 20th Street.

Co-owner, Matt Runyon, is backing the recent creation of the 87 Foundation, led by a familiar musical name, who is Stephen Brackett of Flobots.

“When you walked into the place the most magical thing and I can only see that now in hindsight was that everyone was there. Everyone was welcome,” Brackett remembered. “It just opened up all these different questions in my mind of what does it mean to lose a place that meant so much to the city?”

Runyon has been opening the club as an event space before Rockies’ day games to have Rodriguez’s band play.

“I think we could make a complete comeback with music here,” said flute player, Vince Wiggins.

Brackett says, “something died in me to see it go. So we’re trying to see what we can do to make sure that music stays in this location.”

Bringing the Pec back is one thing, the city yet another. But the foundation is thinking about it.

“We live in a city that’s actually filled with music and filled with culture. And I feel like it should be a right for people to be able to have that and experience it near them,” he said.

LoDo has been hobbled by reports of crime and violence. Clubs have closed, including the Blake Street Tavern, which recently shut down just as the Rockies season started.

“We don’t have a cultural night plan,” Brackett shared. “There’s not a place for people to talk about how do we make this safer, how do we make this enjoyable? How do we make sure this includes people?”

He hopes to make it a place that thrives from morning until night.

Other cities like Nashville and Memphis have achieved it in districts. Over a dozen cities have targeted a nighttime economy and have developed plans.

“So, one of the things we’re trying to do is actually have a plan. When you have a plan there’s actually opportunity for input. There’s ways for change. What’s happening here is not a plan,” he said.

Business owners in competition but not working cooperatively enough he believes.

“What would it look like if this kind of became the Wrigley Field of Denver where it became recognized as the heart of the city?” Brackett asked.

But there are certainly issues, like a noise ordinance he believes limits music to less than the sound of traffic. Denver, he hopes would be open for more people.

“When I go to a place where everybody is like these town squares they’re filled with everyone. I think we have that opportunity in 10 or 15 years… that actually means more money, more safety, more fun. But we need to be able to have a place to make those plans happen,” he said.

Re-opening the bar with music is one small, first step and that is not yet a definite. It would certainly take years to change Denver’s profile, but Brackett says he has found open ears and minds.

“We have only been around for about two months and I have not had a conversation yet that hasn’t been met with enthusiasm and how can I help?” Bracket asked.

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