Dizzy's Sparks Downtown

By Randy Hoffman

It is spare, inexpensive and comfortable. Instead of talking, patrons listen. And if it's running on the idealistic fumes of his youth, Chuck Perrin doesn't care. Dizzy's, the performance space he has operated since April of 2000, has refocused San Diego's sputtering jazz scene and is fast becoming a destination for original performance of all kinds.

Located at the southern tip of Seventh Avenue, Dizzy's restful interior counters the flux of it's East Village surroundings. To the east, the ballpark expansion rages. To the west, the hustle of the Gaslamp rules. But beneath the open beamed ceilings and within the aging brick walls of a former warehouse, Perrin has factored out alcohol, television, neon, and other distractions common to local music venues, creating an atmosphere as friendly to the audience as it is to the performer. "People come into Dizzy's because it's not like anyplace else," he says.

To Perrin, the concept of Dizzy's is not a new one. His midwestern college education was funded by three different coffeehouses he established in the 1960's. "They were basically what Dizzy's is now, a collective for artists, musicians, films and theater people, as well as gathering places for people who had opinions about things," he says. "The feeling of empowerment that ran through that is what I've tried to recapture."

With the systematic closure in recent months of clubs in the San Diego area that supported a jazz policy, Perrin found his own performing career, as well as those of several of his friends in the jazz community, in a stiffening downward spiral.

"I'm a guitar player and songwriter, and it's always been my vision to have the spontaneity and improvisation of jazz thrust in with folk music,"Perrin says, "but there was no longer a place to do that kind of stuff. The only way was to find a place and set it up so people could perform."

Perrin contacted Fritz Ahern, a friend whose family owns several older commercial spaces in the downtown area."He loves to turn these spaces into things that can be creative," Perrin says. Originally pursuing a location in Little Italy, Perrin instead struck a deal for a dusty storage room downtown. "I started looking at it like it was a club, and man it just hit me over the head! I saw what it could be right away."

For the next several weeks, Perrin worked by himself, cleaning and shaping the room until it could serve his vision. "A lot of people offered their help," he laughs, "but nobody showed up."

Anxious to take the stage in a club advertised as having "no limits", local jazzers like Peter Sprague, Gilbert Castellanos, and Joe Marillo quickly found spots on the calendar. When Perrin mixed the stinging blues of guitarist Billy Thompson and the bluegrass improvisations of Sean and Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek) with the adventurous efforts of songwriters like Cindy Lee Berryhill, Berkley/Hart and Dave Howard, the cultural stew began to boil. Though the performances are diverse in style, Perrin insists that it is all "jazz".

"Jazz is a state of mind, rather than a specific type of music. A jazz musician is someone who lives and creates in the moment. Dizzy's is my way of expressing that in a more ostentatious way."

Perrin's agreement with Ahern allows a high percentage of the admission fee to go to the performers each night. Fixed at eight dollars for most shows, it is the club's sole source of revenue. Refreshments, served quietly by Brenda Villegas, are made available at nominal cost. By the time the evening's expenses are met, there is little in the way of money for the proprietors to take home.

"These things are not done for financial reasons," the 56 year old Perrin says, adding that he finds ways to meet personal expenses through various side ventures. Though he admits "heaving a sigh of relief each month when every bill gets paid", he says that life as a musician has taught him to "live on that marginal fringe".

"For me the sense of community among people, especially musicians and other artists, is really important," Perrin says. "All musicians really want is someone to say ' I respect you'. When the musicians can be free, then the experience of the audience can be heightened enormously. It's a magical situation."

Dizzy's is located downtown at 344 Seventh Avenue (between J&K).

All ages are always welcome.