Pioneer Square Hoodies

The roots of jazz run deep in Seattle culture. From the '20s through the '50s, the jazz scene flourished in nightclubs along Jackson Street, starting the careers of Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Ernestine Anderson, and many others. If you allowed yourself to follow the sound of these music legends, you'd end up at Bud's Jazz Records — where history could be heard and learned. Listen carefully, though, or you might pass this hidden repository that has been tucked away in a basement suite well below Jackson Street. Far from a polished mega-chain record store, Bud's was the real deal with literally stacks upon stacks of records and CD's that helps them live up to their tagline - Jazz in all it's forms.

As one of the two bookend clubs on either side of the Denny Way freeway overpass (the Off Ramp being the other) that ruled the Seattle scene during the early 1990s, when the city was discovered by the world. RKCNDY was a huge, two-level, warehouse-type space that had amazing sound and was an all around great place to catch a band most any night of the week. The closure of RKCNDY in 1999 was a hard hit to the all-ages scene, especially with Seattle's Teen Dance Ordinance still firmly in place for another three years.

The Off Ramp Cafe was a dive situated in an odd no-man's land corner of downtown Seattle. it was trapped between a concrete off-ramp from southbound Interstate 5 and the tangled intersections of Eastlake Avenue, Stewart Street, and John Street, and wedged below a massive wall of the Denny Way bridge over I-5. Finding the rather small 300 person capacity joint was a challenge and parking was near impossible, but those factors didn't prevent the venue from being a destination for bar patrons and indie music lovers alike. The venue was at the heart of the grunge explosion in the ’90s that changed Seattle and music forever

The OK Hotel was a cafe, bar, and music venue located under the viaduct in Seattle's Pioneer Square district. Founded in 1988, the club came to an end with the Nisqually earthquake of February 28, 2001, which damaged numerous buildings in the historic district. Most widely recognized outside of Seattle as a prominent location in the movie Singles (1992), the OK Hotel was one of numerous active Seattle rock venues during the celebrated local scene of the late eighties.

It was at the end of 1957 when Seattle finally got its own dedicated jazz club when Pete's Poop Deck opened their doors. Having taken up residence in a former tavern in Pioneer Square on what was then known as Skid Road – named for the greased logs that were laid to shoot timber off First Hill to Seattle’s waterfront mills – Pete's Poop Deck was the place to be for enthusiasts of modern jazz. This low-fi establishment with its dim lighting and apple crate seating quickly grew in popularity and was THE place to take in some jazz music. From local musicians to national touring acts, Pete's Poop Deck was open nightly and promised "carefully calculated confusion," something they delivered on throughout the '60s.

It was at the end of 1957 when Seattle finally got its own dedicated jazz club when Pete's Poop Deck opened their doors.

Bronze sculptures by Hai Ying Wu for the Fallen Firefighters Memorial at Occidental Park, Pioneer Square, Seattle, Washington, during Holiday Season.

The Seattle Banjo Club was born in 1962, under the leadership of Myron Hinkle (1916-2001), a banjoist in "The Banjo Boys" (four banjos and a piano) at the Blue Banjo, a popular bar in Pioneer Square where patrons were entertained on Friday and Saturday nights while they sang along, ate peanuts and popcorn, and drank beer by the pitcher.

The Colourbox opened their doors in 1991 at 113 1st Ave S in Pioneer Square, right as the 'Seattle sound' began blowing up national charts and the local music scene exploded. Located in the Terry-Denny Building, the venue was a small space that gave emerging artists a high visibility location to play. With a low stage and a long bar serving stiff drinks, the Colourbox was an intimate space with surprisingly good sound that saw countless acts throughout the club's near decade long run. Owned by a notorious slumlord, the rent was cheap, but the owner's lack of maintenance was the club's ultimate undoing as the building's ancient pipes routinely failed, causing raw sewage to back up into the restrooms, which wasn't exactly good for business.