Call it the accidental jazz club.
Then Andy’s Lounge, a divey bar-restaurant, the space at 11 E. Hubbard that would become Andy’s Jazz Club was sold, along with the rest of the building, in 1975. Its buyers included Scott Chisholm, eventually its longtime proprietor. In the early years, Chisholm experimented with live music to spark business, to mixed success: Rock shows started too late, and blues audiences BYO’ed instead of buying at the bar.
Then, during a trip to the South Side, Chisholm passed a sight that would be any venue owners’ dream. People spilled out from a nearby club into the street, clustering near the windows for a peek inside. The attraction: a live jazz band. Even the eavesdroppers outside passed around a hat for the band. A lightbulb went off. Chisholm offered to open up Andy’s for the afterparty, and, as his sons say, the rest is history.
Problem is, Chisholm himself knew nothing about jazz. So, he enlisted one of Chicago’s best and brightest promoters, who he also met during that formative South Side jaunt: Penny Tyler, once the president of the Jazz Institute of Chicago. Tyler would scout and book talent for the club until she moved to New Orleans in the 1990s. Chisholm’s oldest son Chris remembers Tyler, who died in 2021, as a “mama bear” of the local jazz scene.
“In the back corner over there, with all those banners, is where they had multiple meetings about organizing the very first Chicago Jazz Fest,” Chris says, pointing.
Since Chisholm eased into retirement 10 years ago, his sons have followed their dad into the family business, however windingly. Chris, 44, has been at it the longest, joining his father at the club more than 20 years ago. Jeff, 43, followed him in short order, helping with various administrative duties. Brandon, the baby at 40, joined the business after a career in the TV industry. At least one of the three can be found at Andy’s on any given day of the week, making the shlep from their respective homes in the suburbs. (They insist they don’t mind the commute. “The drive home can be calming. It’s a good time to decompress a little bit,” Chris says.)
All say they would have never expected this outcome as kids, growing up in Hoffman Estates.
“Our dad never wanted us to go into the business. He kind of kept us away from it,” Brandon admits.
Later this month, Andy’s celebrates its 50th anniversary with a special concert series that reads like a history of the club itself. Bobby Lewis played trumpet in that very first band to play at Andy’s, in the spillover gig from the South Side; likewise, his Rhythmakers (May 25) formed out of Andy’s former Jazz at Noon sessions. The Windy City All-Stars (May 23) were regulars in the ’90s and 2000s; the Hubbard Street Swingers (May 24) started there even earlier, in the 1980s and ’90s.
Meanwhile, when Mario Abney joins New Orleans saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr. for sets May 25-27, his presence will nod to live music’s darkest chapter. As the club bounced back from COVID, Andy’s booked the trumpeter so frequently that he moved back to Chicago from New Orleans. Barrett Deems’ drum kit, usually on display in the club and refurbished by Brandon as a pandemic project, makes a return to the bandstand on May 24 and 25 in midday tribute sets by drummer Joel Baer’s Blueshift Big Band.
“It’s like a time capsule, from the beginning to where we are now,” Jeff says.
We met with the Chisholms at the club earlier this month while they tidied up for the evening ahead. Our following conversation has been edited.
Q: You’re brothers who have worked together for more than a decade. Do you ever punt unwanted jobs to one another?
Chris: No, we all love each other dearly. (Laughter)
Jeff: It happened twice today already! Each of us has strengths that we can lean on. So, if there’s something we’re not comfortable doing, we can pass the buck and know it’ll get done.
Chris: We’re all working towards the same goal of trying to advance the business. It takes a lot of talking. Some therapy.
Q: Speaking of advancing the business, it’s a tough proposition to run a jazz club in 2025. Plus, the neighborhood has grown tonier and tonier around you. What challenges are you three staring down that your dad wasn’t?
Chris: When he got into this business, the venue itself wasn’t a music venue. And back then, there was no competition: There was a hot dog stand down the street, and across the street was a gravel parking lot.
There’s competition now. Plus, people’s expectations have changed: you gotta pay attention to everybody. So it’s not just, ‘Hey, we’re Andy’s; we’re gonna keep doing things the way that we did it back in the ’80s,’ which was wild and fun and hanging from the rafters. It was more like a juke joint, as opposed to a jazz room, which was quieter and more refined.
Q: You have white tablecloths now.
Brandon: I would say is the biggest challenge at this point, actually, is the balance between being a restaurant and a jazz club. Are we a music venue that has food, or are we a restaurant that has music? We don’t want to be so good at one that we’re lacking in the other.
Jeff: We changed our business model, too. My father drilled in my head to let people stay as long as they want. That’s fantastic, but in order to keep the lights on, things had to change.
It took COVID, when we were only allowed 25% capacity — 36 people — to make that happen. Now, if you’re sat for the six o’clock show, we give you a little time to finish your food and beverage, but then we need to clear out for the next set. We bring in fresh people so they get a chance to enjoy it, too.
Q: So, who the hell is Andy?
Chris: He was a gentleman named Andy Rizzuto. Not too long ago, his granddaughter reached out to see if we had any photos of him or any memorabilia. Unfortunately, there’s nothing like that around. But Andy owned the building at one point and ran Andy’s Lounge on the first floor. As Dad put it, when he first came in, Andy had a La-Z-Boy recliner outside the kitchen and a little clicker to count bowls of soup coming out of the kitchen.
When Andy sold the building, he gave them the keys and said, “All right, I’m out.” They went, “What?” They needed him to run the first-floor business so money came in. But he said, “I’m retired; I’m done.”
None of them wanted to or knew how to operate a bar. But our dad was a notorious hell-raiser through high school, so the bar industry fit him to a T. He needed business to keep coming in, so it stayed Andy’s.
Brandon: Dad told me that Andy retired to Florida. That sounds right, because nobody ever saw him again. So, it’s always funny when people beg to be let in: “I know Andy!” …Yeah, sure you do.
Q: How does programming at the club work now?
Jeff: Chris does all the music, and he does a fantastic job with that — you can keep that on the record. He switches things up and keeps it fresh. People leave here being fulfilled with what’s on stage.
Chris: I want you to give me your best show. What’s your best foot forward right now? What’s got you excited? Because that’s going to translate to the crowd. Don’t come in and do the Great American Songbook for us just because you think that’s what jazz clubs want to hear. That’s not as exciting as that burning passion for whatever you created, or whatever really moves you.
As far back as I can remember, we’ve been an entry-level jazz club. River North is bustling and very touristy. A lot of people come to visit because it’s a nightlife hot spot; not a lot of them have experienced a jazz club before. But they walk past the door, they see the neons, they hear the music, and they go, “You know what? I’m going to give it a try.”
“Andy’s 50th,” May 23-27 at Andy’s Jazz Club, 11 E. Hubbard St., cover $15–$25; for details and a full list of events, see andysjazzclub.com.
Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.
