Cultural critic Ted Gioia has gained a good deal of attention in recent years with his gimlet-eyed views of contemporary culture. In a typically jaundiced assessment last May he charged that \u201cin the 21st century, creative stagnation is aggressively promoted by entertainment and culture businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Gioia is hardly a pessimist, focusing equally on the long view and the cyclical nature of cultural innovation and decline. In a recent column on his Substack \u201cThe Honest Broker\u201d he highlighted a countervailing force girding humanity against the torrent of formulaic pablum.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people hear music in a group setting their brainwaves start to synchronize,\u201d he writes. \u201cThe body also releases the hormone oxytocin, which makes them more trusting and willing to bond together. That\u2019s why so many couples, over the course of centuries, have discovered their romantic attraction at a dance or nightclub.\u201d<\/p>\n
I read this column, titled\u00a0\u201cThe Glorious Future of Live Music,\u201d a few days after talking with Dan Vado about the imminent closure of his\u00a0San Jose club the Art Boutiki. It struck me that the sad corollary to Gioia\u2019s celebration of the singular power of music to bring people together is the fact that musicians need amenable spaces to work their alchemy.<\/p>\n
Music\u2019s future looks a whole lot less glorious in the South Bay with the Art Boutiki\u2019s last gig on New Year\u2019s Eve marking the loss of irreplaceable venue where jazz acts, rock bands and singer\/songwriters have communed with listeners while audiences connected with each other.<\/p>\n
In a conversation that occasionally turned emotional, Vado described the difficult decision to shutter the Art Boutiki, which moved to its current location in 2013. He singled out the double whammy of thin post-pandemic audiences and inflation for forcing his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cAttendance at shows is down 20 percent this past year,\u201d he said. \u201cExpenses have been up even more, most dramatically the utilities. In the summer we have to run the air conditioning and it was costing $3,000 a month. More than once we did GoFundMes just to stay open through the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Describing the Art Boutiki as a labor of love doesn\u2019t quite capture the nature of the enterprise. The venue has been a family project from the start. His wife, Michelle Vado, is on hand most shows working at the caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n
His older son, Dustin Vado, set up the sound system and can usually be found working the club\u2019s sound board. And his younger son, drummer and vibraphonist Dillon Vado, has been a regular at the venue with various combos, most recently Heart Matters, his collaboration with San Jose-reared vocalist Amy D.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a DIY family effort,\u201d Dan Vado said. \u201cOur space is perfect for midsized touring jazz bands, but whether it\u2019s punk show one day or jazz show the next day people come away saying it\u2019s the best sounding venue.\u201d<\/p>\n
In many ways the Art Boutiki exemplifies the oversized role played by independent venues, which disproportionately provide space for local artists and touring acts that might not fit neatly into genre-specific clubs. San Jose drummer Wally Schnalle, who recently played a sold-out Art Boutiki double bill with his fusion band Idiot Fish and the prog jazz combo Raze the Maze, noted that the venue\u2019s\u00a0closing \u201cwill leave a cultural void in San Jose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Working in a variety of musical settings, San Jose drummer Gabby Horlick has thrived at the Art Boutiki, one of the few spaces in the area capable of hosting her 7th Street Big Band, which plays a final gig at the venue Dec. 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the venue we played at the most by far since we launched 12 years ago,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are not a lot of stages we fit on, other than the Tabard Theatre, which closed in 2023. Nothing compares to it. For local bands, they make you feel like a professional with a nice stage, good lighting and unmatched sound.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horlick also leads the Sick Ones, which she first assembled for a one-off cover show. But the band evolved into something of an Art Boutiki house band with quarterly shows devoted to themes like \u201ccountry music, low-rider oldies, and No Doubt\u2019s \u2018Tragic Kingdom,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Booked for New Year\u2019s Eve, \u201cwe get to be the last band to play the Art Boutiki,\u201d Horlick said. \u201cWe\u2019re reprising shortened versions of all those themes, and Dan\u2019s going to sit in with the band to sing on one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vado launched the Art Boutiki as a showcase for comic books published by his Slave Labor Graphics. Fittingly he turns the venue\u2019s final\u00a0Drink and Draw session Dec. 18 into a book release party for\u00a0his concise but Proustian memoir, \u201cMy Diecast Life.\u201d It\u2019s a\u00a0series of vignettes sparked by memories of playing with Hot Wheels and other diecast cars he rediscovered in the attic of his childhood home.<\/p>\n
The Art Boutiki would already be a memory but for Vado\u2019s determination not to cancel any previously scheduled gigs. The prospect of a white-knight music fan riding in to save the day seems to have flickered and faded.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made an announcement early hoping that someone would come and say we\u2019d like to take over,\u201d Vado said. \u201cBut when they look at the details they see it\u2019s probably not a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a notoriously difficult business, Vado leaves the field after sowing countless encounters between artists and audiences, experiences that will continue to resonate for a long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cultural critic Ted Gioia has gained a good deal of attention in recent years with his gimlet-eyed views…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[12853,330,88,90,89,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-83345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-jazz","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-san-jose","11":"tag-san-jose-headlines","12":"tag-san-jose-news","13":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}