Chicago Dream

Transcript

Welcome to Dream Auguries. Tonight, we take a musical interlude and explore a moment in Chicago history.

When it comes to different versions of Johnny Mercer's hit song Dream, we could have gone with Ella Fitzgerald or Nat King Cole. Instead we chose this live recording of Sarah Vaughan from Mister Kelly’s in 1957 because it conjures both a time and a place.

Mister Kelly’s was a club on Rush Street in Chicago. It opened as a restaurant serving “steaks and Green Goddess salad as a house special." It added entertainment in 1954. After a fire destroyed the club in 1955 it was rebuilt with a staircase that went nowhere, where people could sit and watch the performers.

In 1959, the club instituted a policy of pairing a comedian with a musical act. Bob Newhart was on the bill with Janice Halpern. Woody Allen recorded his comedy album there. Other comedians included: Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Flip Wilson, George Carlin, Mike Nichols and Elaine May. The musicians were legendary too: Ella Fitzgerald, the Kingston Trio, Anita O’Day and Billie Holiday. On June 11, 1963, a twenty-year old Barbara Streisand, made her debut at Mister Kelly’s.

My film, Dreaming Grand Avenue is a palimpsest of Chicago, a layered history in which you can glimpse events reaching back before World War II, before Prohibition, and before the Great Fire. As you listen to this, close your eyes and imagine Rush Street on a warm August evening in 1957. As the album cover shows us, men are still wearing hats. Mister Kelly’s doormen are dressed in tuxes. Taxis are dropping off movie stars and millionaires at the front door. And out on the sidewalk, you can hear the voice of Sarah Vaughan spilling out like some kind of potent liquor. We've got a link to the full version of the song on our website.

Dream Auguries is a weekly reflection series for insomniacs, lucid dreamers, oracles and soothsayers, magicians and conjurors of all kinds. It’s bonus content for the film, Dreaming Grand Avenue, now streaming on cable, written and directed by Hugh Schulze. Our theme music was composed and performed by Tony Scott-Green and sound design by Kevin O'Rourke.