10 for 30: Elephant Room

Basement jazz club is next in our series of 10 current Austin clubs open at least 30 years

Roscoe Beck and Brannen Temple are just two of the accomplished musicians who’ve found a subterranean home on Congress.

If you lived in Austin in 1985 you remember the discovery of an ancient mastodon burial ground on Congress Avenue. Construction workers made the archeological find when they dug 20 feet for the foundation of the 22-story Avante building at 301 Congress. Extinct for 10,000 years, mastodons were distant relatives of modern-day elephants, with crazier tusks and hairy bodies.

Some of the mastodon bones had been stored in the long, narrow basement next door, so when that space rented out as a nightclub in January 1991, the owners called their joint the Elephant Room. Belgium-born J.P. Vermaelan, a manager at Gambrinus exotic beer bar across the street, had wanted his own place, so he talked lawyer David Chamberlain, a regular at Gamby’s, into backing him. They opened at 315 Congress on January 18, 1991 without live music, though singer-songwriters Stephen Doster and Tommy Elkes had been booked for a couple weeks later.

J.P. Vermaelan opened and closed the Elephant Room every day for 30 years.

Austin’s jazz entrepreneur Mike Mordecai, the trombonist who founded BBA Management & Booking in 1973, dropped in that first week, saw the potential, and gave his card to Vermaelan. “How soon can you book a show?” asked J.P., who everyone called “Japa.” Two nights later, Tomas Ramirez and Jazzmanian Devil christened the Elephant Room as a basement jazz club. “Tomas was THE jazz star in town,” says Mordecai. “He packed the place.” More importantly, the sax great from Falfurrius, the butter capital of Texas, made an instant fan of Japa, who didn’t really know much about music, but loved the adventurous sound he was hearing. Mordecai got the gig, and he’s still booking the room 32 years later. The keys to the club’s success were Mordecai knowing the scene inside and out, and Vermaelan being deeply involved, though it wasn’t apparent. He opened and closed the club every night for 30 years with a simple rule for staff; if they told anyone he was the owner they were fired.

The in-demand Ramirez was also a member of the Lost Gonzo Band and played on Christopher Cross’s mega-debut LP.

That first month’s performers set a high standard of musical excellence: Alex Coke and Rich Harney played the night after Ramirez, followed by James Polk on that Sunday, and Tony Campise, former lead alto saxophonist from the Stan Kenton Orchestra on Tuesday. Kyle Turner, the Brew, Worthy Constituents, Beto y los Fairlanes, Martin Banks, Lara & Reyes, Jazz Pharaohs and Bobby Doyle soon followed.

“Live jazz on Congress, seven nights a week, no cover” were the only 10 words needed to draw in the beginning, though eventually an admission charge was added on weekends so the waitresses could get through the crowd.

Ephraim Owens, Pete Rodriguez and Elias Haslanger.

The Elephant Room has not always had an easy go of things. Just weeks after opening, pieces of granite were falling from the Avante building, so the sidewalk was closed off for weeks. Then came the Congress Avenue tree planting project, followed by street closures to fortify bus lanes. “If you were having dinner at Manuel’s (formerly Piggy’s), right across the street, you had to walk four blocks to come to the club,” says Mordecai. The Elephant Room also survived a fire from Swift’s Attic, in the same building, which enveloped keyboardist Red Young in smoke, as the club was evacuated. “Red just kept playing,” Mordecai laughs, with “Smoke On the Water” when the firemen arrived.

The E.R. started with a bang, as most clubs do, but hit a bit of a slump in year two (as most clubs do.). But the filming in Austin of A Perfect World, starring Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner, was perfect timing for the club. Eastwood dropped in every night, sometimes jamming, sometimes with Costner, and the word got out.

Former Cool River waitress Kat Edmonson went from the Monday jams to weekend headliner in record time. Courtesy Elephant Room.

Marc Katz’s Top of the Marc had also done well on the downbeat, opening above his Jewish deli in 1989, but it couldn’t sustain the draw. His goal to be to jazz in Austin what Clifford Antone was to blues, was derailed the year the Elephant opened. The Marc changed formats to cover bands (Duck Soup, Rotel and the Hot Tomatoes, etc.), which moved the popular Monday jam session to the E.R. Here’s where Japa’s room really made its mark, with such newbies as Kat Edmonson, Ephraim Owens, Elias Haslanger, Pamela Hart and Jon Blondell graduating to weekend gigs. Mordecai says he knew Edmonson was destined for stardom when she sang one Monday and the whole place went pin drop quiet. (It should be noted that the Elephant is a bar, not a listening room, with an occasional set marred by drunks whose favorite music is their own bray.) Guitarist Slim Richey formed a combo around Edmonson called Kat’s Meow, but it was her 2009 solo debut Take to the Sky that made the pixie “Austin’s Great Jazz Hope”, and then a major label act based in NYC.

Calling the Elephant the closest Austin’s got to a Greenwich Village jazz club, Mordecai says “those 19 steps down will take you 1700 miles away.” Haslanger says the dark club has maintained “an unmistakable vibe” after more than three decades. “You can recommend the Elephant Room to visitors because you know it’s gonna deliver the same experience, that cool basement jazz club. The crowd is really interesting and diverse.”

That rare ankle-high club sign. Photo courtesy Elephant Room.

The talent was here before the E.R. gave the scene a clubhouse. In the late ‘80s there were five or six jazz rooms on Sixth. “I had a fella from New York (a pit player in a Broadway touring musical) ask me, ‘so, is there any live jazz in Austin?’ Mordecai recalled. “He was skeptical, so I took him first to see John Mills at the Driskill Cabaret, and he was knocked out. Then, we saw Tomas at the Oasis on Sixth. Blown away. We’re not done yet. Here’s Kirk Whalum at Baxter’s. Unbelievable. Last stop was Tony Campise at Anchovies. The guy from New York couldn’t believe all that great jazz in one night. He said, ‘What the hell is going on in Austin, Texas?!”

Nobody made the Elephant a special Room like sax player Campise, who Mordecai credits with creating, through his personality, as well as his world-class musicianship, a community among musicians. “We all kinda grew up together, you know,” Mordecai says of the UT-trained players who came up through the Nash Hernandez Orchestra farm team, then had a mid-‘70s heyday at Casablanca and Blue Parrot on 15th St., Mackedrick’s Treehouse on Dawson and Piggy’s on Congress. “We took each other for granted and just waited for our turn (to solo). But Tony got us talking and thinking about what we were doing. He’d say, ‘wow, that was a great solo’ and we’d go, ‘yeah, it really was.’ We got more in tune with each other.”

Tony Campise, The Godfather of Austin jazz.

Campise was brought to Austin in the mid-’80s to play Anchovies by owner Sam Irwin, who saw the crowds Whalum was bringing to Baxter’s and wanted a Houston hotshot of his own. When Anchovies went cover band, and then swingers club (it was our Plato’s Retreat for a couple years), Campise found a new home at 315 Congress.

A proud Sicilian known to pack heat, Campise lived for Tuesday nights, when he could unleash the full force of his musical personality. So did the Elephant Room, which did more business on that customarily dead night than it did on weekends. “He was so versatile,” Haslanger says. “He could play alto and tenor sax both really well, which is rare. Sonny Stitt could do it, but I can’t think of anyone else besides Tony. He was also an incredible flute player.” Each set, Campise would put on sunglasses, play that eerie bass flute, and talk like he was from outer space. He’d have a few cocktails and the night would get crazier. Here’s his former boss Kenton: “Campise has such tremendous technique he can't help but use it. He would take a lot of wild chances and scare guys to death, the things he would get going on that horn."

Unthinkable tragedy struck in October 2009, when Campise fell outside a Corpus Christi hotel and hit the back of his head, causing a brain hemorrhage that took his life a few months later. He was 67. His ashes are kept in a miniature saxophone case above the stage, fitting because Campise would always say, after introducing the band, “and I am the remains of Tony Campise.”

The horn master was generous imparting knowledge to younger players who kissed the ring, but Campise was not looking for a protege. San Antonio sax player Kris Kimura finally broke him down with his persistence, and Tony took him under his wings. Today, Kimura is a titan on the local jazz scene, buying Vermaelin’s minority share of the Elephant during the pandemic, and opening the fabulous Parker Jazz Club with investors.

Lawyer Chamberlain, who found the Room’s trademark martini glass neon in New Orleans, remains head elephant, with Aaron Frescas replacing J.P. as director of operations. There’s world class jazz in Austin every night of the week. Just look at tonight, a Sunday, with Red Young (Linda Ronstadt, Eric Burdon) on B-3, former Janet Jackson drummer Brannen Temple, and sax player Michael Malone (Jimmy Smith) cooking up some red hot instrumentals. Haslanger’s quintet headlines on Friday, and July 30 is the monthly appearance of the great pianist Kevin Lovejoy, who came off the road from John Mayer to produce Edmonson’s breakout LP.

No cover. A lotta stairs. And a roomful of chops. Ten words that have said it all for 32 years and counting.

PREVIOUS: 10 for 30

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