Hot Nights, Cool Jazz, Good Eats
Christina Hamlett
March 26, 2008
Though he was born in Switzerland and spent his early upbringing in Germany, André´s connection to Pasadena has always been a strong one. His father – CalPhil´s maestro Victor Vener – was born at Huntington Hospital and still lives in the house where André grew up. The grandfather whom André never met was one of the city´s well known entrepreneurs. "I went to Polytechnic and LaSalle High School and then up to San Francisco where I currently reside. When I moved back to Europe, it was to play some soccer and travel the world. My passion for soccer definitely comes from my European background and the love of music comes from my father. I remember going to concerts with him every day, marching with the USC Marching Band behind the Trojan Horse, and even standing as a little kid watching a five-hour opera at the Vienna Opera House and really enjoying it."
From a young age, he knew he wanted to spend his life pursuing the two things he loved the most. "In America, though, soccer´s not a way to make a living except for the fun part of it! I think the reason is because in the U.S. it´s one of a hundred different sports events you can go watch." Fifteen years ago, a chance telephone interview while he was in Amsterdam proved not only to change André´s career direction but also bring him back to the States. "My new job was to open the hotel inside Huntington Hospital. A lot of people don´t realize that one exists but Huntington Oasis is a 9-bedroom hotel for people who are either going into major surgery the next morning, are in labor for two days, or perhaps there´s been an emergency motorcycle accident or car crash where the family wants to be nearby but can´t sit by their loved ones in a chair for 18 days. During that time, the person I was working with was starting the California Philharmonic and asked if I´d like to be the salesperson for it." He laughs. "I came on at $6 an hour to sell tickets and by the time the first concert arrived, the General Manager had to leave his position because of health issues. They were on a major search to hire an executive MBA from Pepperdine for a large dollar amount and I said I´d do it for half. I was only 22 at the time but they took a gamble on me, saved lots of money, and that´s how I got roped into the non-profit world."
He quips that over the course of holding eight different titles in the course of a decade, he and his father constantly argued on how to bring in audiences. "He would have been happy to do the entire Mahler Symphony and I´d want to do Andrew Lloyd Webber and we´d meet somewhere in the middle with things like ´Andrew Lloyd Webber Meets Puccini´ and ´Strauss Meets Star Wars´. I wanted to do what the popular vote was – what I felt people wanted to hear – while he was debating that it was better to give people selections they weren´t familiar with. Together, I think we had a great synergy of programming. I also feel we helped people who weren´t familiar with classical music to discover it´s not that scary and dangerous and – on the flip side - let those who were on the stuffy side appreciate there´s some fun composition going on with popular music."
His respect for musicians is unabashed. "There´s just something about those 60 musicians coming together from 25 different countries and some of them playing on instruments that are several hundred years old and performing pieces written by a 9 year old kid named Mozart. I´ve never purchased a classical CD in my life but when it´s a live performance, it totally trumps the 2000+ CD´s I own that are in the rock and roll, jazz, and rap genre. The sound of a full orchestra just goes through you and blows you away!"
His trip to Chicago turned out to be an epiphany. "I wanted to hear what jazz was all about. People assumed that - since I ran the CalPhil - I knew anything and everything about music. Now that I run RedWhite and Bluezz, people ask me who my favorite jazz artist is and the truth is I don´t know that many and I don´t know the names of what they play but I do know what I like! When I think about the CalPhil, I remember legalese words like ´union´ and ´overtime´ and ´notices´ and it seriously took away a lot of the fun for me. I knew I wanted to be around music but that I had to find something that made me happy instead of frustrated. When I went to Chicago, I saw musicians who had no sheet music on their stands and also apparently no concept of time. The show was supposed to start at 9 but things didn´t get underway until about 9:20. Funny thing was that no one in the audience was upset about it because they were all having a good time talking to each other and having drinks. When the music started, I was surprised to see that two new people came up and joined in and it became this amazing evening of improv where people were calling out pieces they wanted to hear. Well, the program was supposed to wrap at 1 in the morning but by 2:30 they were still going strong as a result of a couple other musicians who had just gotten off work, dropped by, and were invited to jam."
He felt like he had really come home to something that suited his style. "Whether it was a 2-minute drum solo or one that lasted 20 minutes, the passion for the music was so amazing! I went around to a lot of different jazz clubs and realized I´d never hear the same piece of music played twice because of the composition of the musicians on any given night and what their respective moods were."
He was in the process of getting his executive MBA at Drucker, the first year of which was devoted to participants writing about their current positions. "I decided to start writing about a new career objective of mine which was to develop a business plan for opening a jazz club. My scope was to show how jazz, wine and America all come together. A month later, I happened to drive by this spot on the corner of Raymond and Green and knew it was just perfect for what I wanted to accomplish."
When he left CalPhil after 10 years, André felt as if he had done a lot in terms of taking the organization from five concerts in the park to events at the Rose Bowl, Walt Disney Concert Hall, reopening the Ambassador, creating the "Music, Martinis and the Maestro" series, and growing audiences at the Arboretum. He cites that the lessons learned were invaluable. "Every time someone goes to a concert or every time someone comes here to dinner, it´s usually because it´s a special day for them. They want to relax and unwind and it´s important in either venue that you give them your best. You also have to do something good for the community and society. When Robert and Denise Zeilstra agreed to be my principal investors in redwhite+bluezz, the first decision we all agreed on was to make it our mission to financially support non-profit organizations in our community. So far to date, we have reached over 50 charities exceeding 6 figures in contributions. I like the fact I´m keeping the music live here and have, in fact, turned down requests from people who want to have parties and bring in DJ´s." He encourages his employees to learn about wine, music, and food in order to enhance the experience of being somewhere unique.
"Up to four times a month, we host different charity events. The first Wednesday of every month is Charity Night where we invite a local charity to come and have dinner, drinks and a show and we turn around and write them a check for 20% of our proceeds. It´s a fun way for them to hang out with their staff, their board members, and their clients. We basically let our staff do all the work and the charity´s only job is to have a great time! Any charity in the Pasadena area is welcome to contact us and set something up and we´d be happy to have them. We also do one major fundraiser per month for a charity. They actually come here and use our facility – free room, free service, free music. They just pay for the cost of the food and wine."
On April 13th, he states that he is proud to be launching a major event for Pasadena that will benefit Five Acres and the CalPhil. "It´s the Old Pasadena´s Annual Wine and Jazz Walk. There will be 10 participating wine bars and jazz clubs in the event. What I´ve created from scratch is a fun event where - for only $40 - people can visit all of the wine bars and jazz clubs and have wine tastings, appetizers and listen to music. We have 1,000 tickets available and - with the proceeds to be split between these two organizations."
He is emphatic that his goal wasn´t to be a restaurant. "I wanted to be a jazz club that just happens to have great food and wine. The ´red and white´ in our name means the wine and bluezz means the jazz, a truly American invention that conjures relaxed feelings." He also points out that California is the third largest distributor of wine in the world after Italy and France.
"We´re open at 5 daily with jazz on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights starting at 7. We also do a live jazz brunch from 10-2 on Sundays." New to the mix on Thursday nights from 8-12 is Bryon Miller, bass player for Luther Vandross, Carlos Santana, and many others. "It´s a fun jam session where any musician who has called him or has called me is pre-qualified to come and play. Happy hour begins at 10 p.m. and it´s a whole crowd of people who are just getting off of work at other restaurant venues and just want to relax a bit before going home."
Red White + Bluezz is located at 70 South Raymond. Phone: (626) 792-4441.
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