Nice (if short) NYT obituary for Lorraine Gordon who has died, aged 95.
She was married first to Alfred Lion and then Max Gordon, owner of the Village Vanguard, and ran it after his death until now.
"In the summer of 1948 she was trying to promote a Blue Note musician — the pianist Thelonious Monk, then little known — when she met Max Gordon quite by accident on Fire Island. “I accosted Max Gordon,” she remembered. “I’m all business. I told him about Thelonious Monk. He was very interested. He said, ‘I just happen to have an opening in September.’”
They struck a deal. Monk was “in and out in one week,” she said. “But Max and I were not in and out in one week, somehow. Whatever the connections were, they took hold.”
BN
She was married first to Alfred Lion and then Max Gordon, owner of the Village Vanguard, and ran it after his death until now.
"In the summer of 1948 she was trying to promote a Blue Note musician — the pianist Thelonious Monk, then little known — when she met Max Gordon quite by accident on Fire Island. “I accosted Max Gordon,” she remembered. “I’m all business. I told him about Thelonious Monk. He was very interested. He said, ‘I just happen to have an opening in September.’”
They struck a deal. Monk was “in and out in one week,” she said. “But Max and I were not in and out in one week, somehow. Whatever the connections were, they took hold.”
BN
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