This story was updated at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, July 25, to include Dazzle’s partnership with the El Chapultepec Legacy Project.
After more than a year of renovations, fundraising and sponsorship appeals, Dazzle Jazz announced the long-awaited opening dates for its new club at the Denver Performing Arts Complex.
“Now that we have the green light to move into 1080 14th Street, we’ve been booking shows as fast as possible,” said marketing director Kelley Dawson.
The club will open Friday, Aug. 4, and Saturday, Aug. 5, with two shows each night at 7 and 9:30 p.m. René Marie and Dawn Clement will perform songs “curated especially” for the event, Dazzle’s website says. Tickets for the all-ages concerts are $15-$45 via dazzledenver.com.
Marie and Clement will be joined by John Gunther (saxophone/CU Boulder), Steve Kovalcheck (guitar/UNC Greeley), Seth Lewis (bass/CSU Fort Collins) and Dru Heller (drums/MSU Denver).
The new space, at 1080 14th Street, is about two blocks northwest of Dazzle’s former location at the historic Baur’s Building. The move will save the club thousands of dollars per day and set up the 25-year-old business for success over the next decade, co-owner Matt Ruff told The Denver Post last year.
“Downtown is not returning the way we hoped it would, and (Baur’s) just doesn’t work anymore,” he said. “A lot of patrons and artists have also told us they miss the feel of the old, black-box Dazzle (in Capitol Hill), and it’s been challenging at Baur’s having a bar right in the performance space.”
The club’s new location, originally slated to open in winter 2022, takes the place of the former Onyx nightclub with a more intimate feel that mimics Dazzle’s former Capitol Hill club. Leading with a circular, understated logo from by Denver’s ArtHouse Design, the new Dazzle features architecture by Perkins+Will and is being built by Loomis Improvements Inc. The two-room layout features the showcase stage on the right side (when walking in from the street) and a 10-seat bar and lounge area on the left, according to architectural renderings.
On Tuesday, July 25, the El Chapultepec Legacy Project said it had secured the bar space at Dazzle to continue its mission of preserving the LoDo jazz-club’s culture of improvisation and collaboration. The El Chapultepec Piano Bar at Dazzle, as it will be called, will host “The Late Set” 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. Thursday through Saturday nights starting in the fall.
The lounge space will feature “a variety of favorite bands from The Pec keeping the legacy alive by hosting talented artists and ensuring live music is accessible to all with no cover charge,” according to a press statement. It will be accompanied by the El Chapultepec Legacy Collection, an installment by artist Shay Guerrero that was commissioned by Deborah and Jim Frank.
The paintings, themed “With Love,” honor the Hispanic and Chicano influences on jazz in Colorado, organizers said, including the work of Freddy Rodriguez Sr., Carlos Lando, Jerry Krantz, Flo Hernandez-Ramos, Tina Cartagena and Arturo Gomez.
Having the city as a landlord will allow the jazz club’s owners to take advantage of Denver Arts & Venues’ marketing and promotions resources and, eventually, co-present shows at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House and other prestigious spaces. The club will continue to be privately owned.
