Artistic Achievement Award

The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, located on the northwest corner of Lawrence and Broadway in Chicago, is the oldest jazz club in the U.S.—and presumably the world. Established in 1907 as Pop Morse's Roadhouse, the jazz club was renamed the "Green Mill Gardens" in 1910. In the early days it was a favorite hangout for such head-liners as Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Wallace Beery, Sophie Tucker, and Bronco Billy Anderson, who after a day of filming westerns at nearby Spoor and Anderson Studios, would hitch his horse to the rail before settling down for a drink at the bar.

During prohibition the Green Mill was mobster territory. Al Capone's henchman, "Machinegun" Jack McGurn, owned a quarter-share interest in the club, which he earned by "persuading" comedian/singer Joe E. Lewis not to take his act to a rival nightclub (Lewis had his throat slit, but managed to survive to sing another day). The incident was immortalized in the 1950s Frank Sinatra film The Joker is Wild.

Throughout the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, The Green Mill continued to pack 'em in with a heady mix of swing, dance, and jazz music. Uptown crowds from the Aragon Ballroom or Uptown and Riviera Theaters would "stop in for one" before or after shows. Business began to slip in the mid-seventies, and in 1986, present owner Dave Jemilo bought The Green Mill and restored it to its prohibition-era, speakeasy decor.

Today the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge is one of the liveliest jazz clubs around, with music seven nights a week, often until 4 a.m. The list of performers who've played the Green Mill reads like a "Who's Who of Jazz," and the list grows each year.

ILLINOIS HERITAGE 7