Tucson’s only jazz club, the Century Room, is at a crossroads. Most jazz clubs at 5 years old either fold or make plans for the next five years. The Century Room opened in 2022, but Arthur Vint, the Century Room’s general manager and artistic director, isn’t ready to shutter the place. He recognizes the importance of the club in the Old Pueblo’s music scene and its importance to many Tucsonans.
In fact, for some, a visit is a tradition. Take, for example, the yearly Christmas show featuring the music of renowned jazz artist Vince Guaraldi.
“Those always sell out,” Vint said. “The music is fun to play so it doesn’t really feel like work. … We did three shows the first year, seven the next. We did 14 last year and this year I think we’re going to be doing over 20.”
The show fills the room.
“It’s kind of become one of the traditions in Tucson,” he added. “People go to Winterhaven. They go to Tohono Chul Park. They’ll go to the zoo lights and they’ll come to the Century Room for ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas.’”
That announcement will come in October.
But that is only one little part of the Century Room’s year.
Just steps from Hotel Congress on the corner of Congress Street and Fifth Avenue, a set of double doors opens to a musical world of wonder. The Century Room, designed by and large by Vint, features live jazz six nights a week, sometimes three times a day. Though they might not be household names, the acts are very well-known in the jazz world and that can make for an arduous task.
“Selling tickets is the challenging part,” Vint said. “Booking the music is easy but trying to get people to come out and convince them why it’s worth seeing this artist because a lot of jazz artists aren’t necessarily household names but they’re some of the greatest living musicians of our time so part of my job is introducing audiences to new artists.”
One night a week is set aside for local musicians to bring their instruments and jam. Tuesday, the club is closed. The rest of the week’s nights host musicians from all over the U.S. All those nights make for about 500 shows every year.
It’s a small club. They usually sell about 85 tickets. But, at capacity, it seats 100. Vint has some plans to expand that a bit. As one might expect, the interior is atmospheric and intimate, dark and just a tiny bit mysterious. The room is small enough that patrons can see the musicians’ fingers and feet if they like or they can sit in the back and be invisible.
Decorations consist of a few pieces of Vint’s vast vinyl collection along with some of his instruments. Vint is a drummer by trade and often sits in with the musicians he brings in, many of whom are friends. Staff also may make their area of service more reflective of their personalities. Look for the Lego figure hidden in plain sight.
The club specializes in serving mezcal, so at the bar is a rather large agave plant sculpture that holds the bottles.
As people file in, that night’s musicians are waiting in the green room. It’s a small, some might call cozy, room, with walls lined with framed, signed show posters. Vint has played with most of them. They may order from a limited special menu; no one likes to play on an empty stomach and Vint wants them to know they are important to the club, much more than an afterthought.
When it’s time the acts walk through a very short corridor and enter through a door in the back of a low stage. They settle, pick up the instruments, are introduced and it’s showtime. For whatever reason, Vint doesn’t know why, shows last 70 minutes.
A side note: Most of the instruments are provided by the club and are all very high quality, and that goes for the sound equipment, too.
“So the musicians who play here just have to bring themselves,” Vint said.
During that time, audience members generally do not talk. They actively listen and the band can tell.
Interestingly, there are regulars and Vint knows their names and where they sit.
Vint himself is an interesting fellow. He got his first drum kit when he was about 6 years old. It was a toy but he took to it. One of his first jobs out of high school was working the front desk at Hotel Congress, so he knew the owners. After a move to New York City, he found a living as a musician. One night he was in Tucson with his band, playing a gig on the Plaza at the hotel, and the owners came to see him.
“After the show we got to talking and I was telling them that I was thinking about moving back to Tucson but that Tucson didn’t have a jazz club and if I were to move back to Tucson it would only be if I had an opportunity to open up a jazz club,” Vint said. “And (co-owner) Shana (Oseran) said, ‘Well, let’s open up a jazz club.’”
That night they walked around the space, which had been occupied by the Copper Hall. Vint thought about it all night and designed a tentative plan. Now it’s his second home.
Ryan Wheless works closely with Vint. He calls himself the Century’s Room’s Guy Who Helps Out. Vint said Wheless works with programming.
He understands very well what it takes to get a show to the stage, and it’s a lot.
“I think a lot of the general population and artists have the impression when they walk into a place that’s as beautiful as this one is that everything is figured out when in actuality Arthur and I, not to mention all the other people who work in the larger hotel, it’s kind of like an all-hands-on-deck (situation).”
It’s clear they work very hard to take care of their musicians.
“We do everything every day to put as many dollars in the pockets of the artists playing as possible,” he said.
“I think that’s an important thing,” Vint added. “We are trying to sell tickets because the more tickets we sell the more we can pay the musicians.”
Unfortunately, attendance has dropped at the Century Room compared to last year. Vint credits the economy with this. Everything has gone up but for the Century Room. The prices are still the same. Still, there’s less to go around, and that’s unfortunate.
Even so, Wheless and all the staff at the Century Room will do everything they can to keep the doors open and the music playing.
“There are a lot of people like myself who are willing to live and die by the Century Room,” Wheless said.
“The Century Room has become as important, I would argue, as the Tucson Symphony, Arizona Opera, Ballet Tucson and the Rialto and the Fox in terms of venues,” Vint said.
