On the closing of Portland’s The 1905

Four days ago, I and the rest of the Portland jazz community got word that The 1905, our city’s primary jazz club for the past several years, was closing its doors effective immediately. This, despite being recognized by Downbeat Magazine as “one of the world's top venues for live jazz in 2023," and recent public and private campaigns to save it.

The unceremonious shuttering of one more jazz haven in an American city is almost cliche by now. Unfortunately, this club’s demise did not come as a particular surprise —at least to those in the community familiar with its history. (Here is a well-written article in the arts journal Oregon Arts Watch for those who want to learn more about that history.

To be clear, The 1905 faced substantial challenges to functioning as a successful business. It was too small to generate the kind of revenue needed to support its artistic ambitions. The caliber and volume of high-level art, both local and national, that its proprietor Aaron Barnes was determined to present would have been a struggle for any venue, much less a 50-seat room trying to present music seven nights a week.

Obviously, every business success or failure is the product of hundreds of individual choices and decisions, plus luck and timing. I have never run a for-profit restaurant/entertainment venture. So, I’m not privy to the myriad challenges that venue owners come up against. That the club survived the pandemic at all seems like no small miracle to me. But survive, it did. And who knows, maybe its small footprint, along with scrappiness, the ability to pivot, a commitment to community, and love of the music allowed it to sustain where others failed. 

Here’s what I can say about its proprietor, Aaron Barnes. When faced with a choice between art and business, he chose art every time. The cynic in me says that people who make that decision are never gonna last. That despite the “pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps” rhetoric of the American Dream, the unfortunate reality is that even art must conform to the rules of the marketplace or succumb to it. After all, 70% of small businesses eventually fail. Such is the fate of those who resist putting profit over people. 

My son recently made me a distinctly un-cynical t-shirt that I treasure. It sports a mathematical formula that translates as, "There is no failure, only learning."  I wear it regularly to remind myself of the mindset I want to carry through every day of my life. It occurs to me that these events, sad as they are, also contain opportunities for learning. 

I’ve been thinking for a while now about a jazz community as a kind of ecosystem. Its various individuals and collectives interact in ways similar to those we see in the natural world around us. Just as old-growth trees provide shelter for new saplings, rivers and estuaries nourish and transport life, pollinators move from plant to plant, fertilizing as they go, and fire serves to open space for regeneration, our varied constituencies compete, cooperate, evolve, and form relationships of mutual benefit that nourish the whole. It is this web of interactions that makes sustainability and resilience possible.

As much as the The 1905’s closing is painful and disappointing, it is also an opportunity to reflect on what the venue provided for our ecosystem, the seeds it planted, the new talent it nurtured, and the roots of connection to communities beyond Portland, not to mention the incredible musical bounty that inspired and elevated us these past several years.

In addition to our debt of gratitude, I think we owe it to the club and ourselves to try to figure out what a new jazz haven could look like — one that is neither the mercenary compromise of a commercial business, nor the endless treadmill of dependence on non-profit philanthropy. Maybe an entity that doesn't put so much of the burden on one person. One we don’t expect to live forever, but also doesn’t collapse in debt or stagnate from inability to to change and adapt. A living thing that can gracefully give way in time to something better? 

Ecosystems are always changing. Looking around at the spectacular explosion of reds, yellows, and golds that mark the end of autumn in the Pacific Northwest, I can’t help but be reminded that endings are inevitable and sometimes even beautiful — especially when we can trust that out of them will spring new life. I appreciate Aaron and everyone who gave their best to The 1905 for making space for us to feel a part of something bigger. Even as the lights go out in the building, the light that spread in the community remains to warm us through the winter and help illuminate our next steps forward. 

There is no failure, only learning. 

Darrell

Thanks to Andy Milne and Mary-Sue Tobin for inspiring me to find these words. Here's a clip from one magic night at The 1905 with Mathis Picard.