{"id":56579,"date":"2025-07-11T10:15:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T10:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/56579\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T10:15:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T10:15:13","slug":"philadelphia-clef-club-undergoing-4-5-million-renovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/56579\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Clef Club undergoing $4.5 million renovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

The Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts on South Broad Street was founded in the 1960s as a social club for the Black musicians\u2019 union, which at the time was barred from the segregated musicians\u2019 union, said board president Kenneth Scott.\n<\/p>\n

Many now-famous entertainers \u2014 such as Count Basie, Dinah Washington, John Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones, Dizzy Gillespie and Grover Washington Jr. \u2014 were members of the Musicians\u2019 Protective Union of Local 274, American Federation of Musicians, and frequented the Clef Club, which took its name from a club in New York.\n<\/p>\n

Today, the Clef Club is undergoing a major transformation, including a $4.5 million renovation that will upgrade its education facilities, create a state-of-art recording studio and reimagine its education program, said Oscar Payne, the club\u2019s managing director.\n<\/p>\n

About $2 million will come from the William Penn Foundation, with the remaining funds generated from the state and the city, along with money from the Presser Foundation, the McLean Contributionship and the William B Dietrich Foundation.\n <\/p>\n

The club, which moved to its current location at Broad and Fitzwater streets in 1995, has been a training ground for a host of well-known Philadelphia jazz musicians, including saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, bassist Christian McBride, Grammy winner Joey DeFrancesco and Roots cofounder Ahmir \u201cQuestlove\u201d Thompson, Payne said.\n<\/p>\n

Many of those artists learned under the tutelage of the legendary Lovett Hines, who founded the education program at the Clef Club in 1985. Hines left the club this year and now runs another music education program.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a number of people that consistently came through the Clef Club and developed and went on to do bigger and greater things,\u201d Payne said. \u201cCurrently, we are continuing in that legacy. Due to COVID-19 and changes in the economy, the program is smaller. It\u2019s not a bad thing right now because we are about to redirect the vision of everything. Everything is changing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The club\u2019s influence on Philadelphia<\/p>\n

The Clef Club will celebrate its 60th anniversary next year.\n<\/p>\n

It has been very important for young people interested in jazz education and jazz educators, said Frank Machos, vice president and director of the Mann Center Institute for Creative Arts and Community Impact.\n<\/p>\n

In fact, it helped to create the \u201cblueprint for intergenerational sharing of jazz education\u201d that other organizations, like the Mann Center, have tried to replicate, he added.\n<\/p>\n

As an example, the Mann\u2019s All-City Orchestra Summer Academy<\/a> gives middle and high school students learning opportunities with top musicians, like renowned bassist Gerald Veasley, the Mann\u2019s jazz curator. The academy is under way this summer.\n<\/p>\n

Philadelphia\u2019s \u201cjazz community is very tight-knit,\u201d Machos said.\n<\/p>\n

He added that the program\u2019s aspirations are tied to Hines, who is deeply respected for his music knowledge and ability to teach and hold young artists accountable.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the type of person you wouldn\u2019t want to disappoint,\u201d Machos said.\n<\/p>\n

The Clef Club has a special relationship as a partner to the nearby Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA). Many of the big names in Philly\u2019s jazz scene, including Wilkins, McBride, DeFrancesco and Thompson, were students there. Some of them played music together.\n<\/p>\n

In May, the Clef Club hosted about 35 students from CAPA for a senior vocal recital.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was wonderful,\u201d Payne said.\n<\/p>\n

Another special program, the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz Summer Camp, is currently in session.
\n\"SaundersSaunders Sermons II, a trombonist and vocalists, who has performed with musicians like Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z and Maxwell leads a session at the Clef Club summer program. (Stephen Williams\/WHYY)\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":56580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,41480,1448,2830,18729,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-56579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-creativity-sparks-success","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-pennsylvania-education","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114834081585651217","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}