George's Spaghetti House

George's Spaghetti House was a jazz club located at 290 Dundas Street East in Toronto.

History

In 1956 entrepreneur Doug Cole (1925-2012) bought the restaurant, keeping the existing name. Cole began to feature jazz at the restaurant on weekend evenings, and starting on 5 September 1960 booked music six night per week. Saxophonist Moe Koffman served as the booking agent for the club. As a result, Koffman frequently booked himself into the club, giving rise to a running joke amongst Toronto's jazz fans and musicians, who would phone the club and say, "I'd like to know who is playing tonight, and I won't take Moe for an answer." Nevertheless, many of Canada's most famous jazz musicians played at the club, including Don Thompson, Ed Bickert, Guido Basso, Doug Riley, Terry Clarke, and Rob McConnell.

Cole later opened a restaurant called Castle George on the second floor of the building. He also operated two other clubs in Toronto: Bourbon Street and Basin Street, which occupied the upstairs and downstairs portions of 180 Queen Street West. Cole sold George's in 1983.

Live albums

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 3/17/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.