Hanah Jon Taylor Talks about Jazz and Cafe: Jazz Principles (Part 2 of 2)
Hanah Jon Taylor with his newest soprano sax, which he says he will play for the rest of his musical
career.
by Jonathan Gramling
In his heart, Hanah Jon Taylor has always been an educator.
For the past seven years, Taylor has owned and operated Cafe CODA on Williamson Street across from the Willy Street Coop. Taylor remains true to the art form of jazz and himself. In some ways, Taylor is forced to use the term jazz even though he doesn’t necessarily care for the term due to its historical and sometimes contemporary usage.
But his commitment to the art form of jazz and its connection to the Black experience in America — and expression that arose out of it — is something that Taylor will always respect. And that doesn’t always lead to commercial respect.
“Cafe CODA is doing fine in that it is upright and still taking solids, so to speak,” Taylor said with a chuckle. “The lights are still on. The government is still on our side in terms of not being adversarial in any kind of way. And the neighbors still dig us. A lot of times, you don’t need money in order to survive. You do need money from time to time. I say that because our existence is always based upon the seasonal opportunities that we have to present the art form. Let’s talk about the seasonal challenges. In the fall, we have football. I could have Elvis Presley reincarnated, but the Packers are playing; no one’s coming. You have to find these small windows of opportunity in order to present something that is not in conflict in the fall with football, in the summer outside festivals, in the winter, winter and in the spring, spring break, holidays and graduations. So we look for these small windows of opportunity. And remember that we only have a capacity of 99 people. Consider that if I wanted to have a big name here, there would be a small window of opportunity in which I could produce it and then I have to have two shows if I’m paying this artist what he deserves to play in a place that only seats 99 in the Midwest. That gives you an idea of about how we are doing.”
It is very difficult to run a music business and be a performing artist at the same time. Each demand your undivided attention.
“I can tell you that this is probably the most difficult thing that I have ever done, that being an owner and a manager of a jazz club in my 75 years around the sun,” Taylor observed. “I’ve done some difficult stuff, stuff that I didn’t think I would ever do. This is more difficult than learning the bassoon. The bassoon has nothing on this. I’m serious.”
Due to the lack of financial sponsors, Taylor was forced to cancel CODA Fest, an expanded weekend of performances from local to national talent. Canceling it was not an easy decision.
“I have always said, when things go right, I have so many people to thank,” Taylor said with a smile. “When it goes wrong, it can always be traced back to something I didn’t do. It’s my fault in some kind of way. I have to take 51 percent of the responsibility, only 51 percent because I think that being a sole proprietor of a music venue that has survived COVID, we’re doing pretty good. But I believe that the political strata of America is giving out some residual energy or the lack there of to the arts, the living arts especially.”
But again, being a pure arts venue can run contrary to being commercially viable.
“We now still depend on donations and support from the local business community,” Taylor observed. “And that’s to do our outreach programs, the CODA Mobile. Cool School, CODA Fest itself, which feeds money into those other two programs. When you have an economy that is teetering on what move it is going to make, I think that is how we could describe the economy in America at this point, it impacts giving. And so if I
am a businessman contributing to the arts in years past, I might be a little hesitant, a little resistant to it until I see what is going to happen next. Let’s take the Internal Revenue Service as an example. Just today, they are talking about the IRS and Social Security people are getting laid off and fired. What’s that going to do to tax returns? As a business man, I tell Hanah that I’m going to give Cafe CODA $5,000 in support of CODA Fest, but I don’t know when my tax refund is going to come, you see my point? If we just brought in local acts and put a pin ball machine up in here, this is Wisconsin. We could make it as a bar. But can we make it as an art venue? Can we maintain a cultural environment here that doesn’t compromise the more commercial aspects of selling alcohol?”
Cafe CODA is in the process of obtaining its 501(c)(3) status from the IRS. That would mean that individuals and corporations could donate money and deduct it from their individual or corporate income taxes. That should spur more contributions.
“That will give us the impetus to solicit financial support from corporations, which we have not been able to do,” Taylor said. “We don’t have to consider that all of our money will come from our friends in the local business community. But legitimately there are some grants that I hope will still exist in a year. Again, I can give you a hopeful answer. But I can’t tell you what the United States Government is going to do or what they are going to eliminate. I hope to God it isn’t Social Security.”
Just like the resilience of Africans who were once enslaved in America all to the present, the art form called jazz will survive and thrive as will Hanah Jon Taylor and Cafe CODA. You can’t keep a great jazz musician down.
Next issue: Cafe CODA and the Future of CODA Fest
