A New Jazz Club on Troost: Gi Gi’s Jazz Inn and Art Gallery
Last Friday was pretty much the perfect Classic Kansas City night for your pal the Wayward Son. I started off hanging with the hippies, getting kicked out of El Torreon and going over to the Tower Tavern for drinks. Brewer and Shipley were there. The Royals were winning. After a couple of hours and several cocktails, I see my neighbor, Rogers, truckin’ down the sidewalk. I rush out and grab him, and Rogers tells me he’s headed to a new jazz club on Troost. A jazz club on Troost!? Phase two of the night had just been launched.
Approaching midnight, I found myself installed within a cozy, narrow storefront joint at 3226 Troost. Name: Gi Gi’s Jazz Inn and Art Gallery. It was BYOB that night, so Rogers and I had stopped by the gas station on Linwood and Gillham for beers. The crowd was sparse, older and finely appointed. African-American couples in their 40s and 50s dressed to the nines occupied a few of the tables in front of the small, mid-room stage, on which the Horace Washington Quartet (you won’t find ’em online) dished out a blend of jazz standards, funk and a little fusion.
Gi Gi’s is a family place. It’s named for Sharon “Gi Gi” Hill and is run by her daughter, Neecy Michel (who is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and I really really hope I didn’t misspell her name, but, alas, I probably did). Adding the art into the equation, the walls are bedecked with the paintings of paterfamilias Gene Garland, Sharon’s husband and Neecy’s father, and, man, I had never seen art like this. I spent more time looking at the paintings — Gene’s son, Mike, was kind enough to give my drunk eyeballs an art tour — than anything else.
