Instructor: Deborah L. Gillaspie
Curator, Chicago Jazz Archive
University of Chicago Library
Email:ucjazz@lib.uchicago.edu
Phone: 773-702-3721 M-F 9am-5pm (work, voicemail)
Class 3: Thursday March 7, 2002: Alan Gresik's Swing Shift Orchestra at the The Green Mill
The Green Mill is a bit of Jazz Age Chicago in the now-hip Uptown neighborhood. Originally a roadhouse and bar, it changed hands and re-opened in June 1914 as the Green Mill Gardens. A color postcard of the Mill c.1915 can be seen on Scott Newman's Jazz Age Chicago website. and on the American Music Center "New Music Box" website's Green Mill page.
The Green Mill is best known for its connection to gangsters and Prohibition. It was a speakeasy partly owned by Al Capone henchman "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn. One of the most famous Green Mill stories concerns the hit McGurn ordered on Joe E. Lewis, who was a main entertainer at the club.
Lewis had an offer to move to a different club as his Green Mill contract with McGurn ended. When Lewis informed McGurn of his intention to leave, McGurn warned him that he wouldn't live to make the move. Joe E. opened at the New Rendezvous on November 2, 1927; on the 9th McGurn's thugs broke into his room and slit his throat. Lewis lived and even returned to show business eventually, but his attackers were mysteriously found dead. This incident is immortalized in the movie The Joker is Wild (1957), with Frank Sinatra playing the role of Lewis.
Ever wonder what people wore to places like the Green Mill? Visit the Chicago Historical Society's exhibit, Flappers, Fashion and All That Jazz on display through Sept. 29, 2002.
Resources
CDs
Frank Catalano "Live at the Green Mill" DelmarkFletcher Henderson "Live at the Grand Terrace 1938" Jazz Unlimited 2053 (live broadcast with NBC voiceovers)
Chicago gangster collections
*WARNING: Some photos on the gangster websites are quite graphic*
Newspapers of the Day and Bios courtesy of Capone collector Mario Gomez and his Al Capone Museum
Chicago gangster photos courtesy of the John Binder Collection
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