El Chapultepec Legacy Project pays homage to late, legendary jazz club

Anna Diaz simply ran out of room for tributes.

As the co-owner of El Chapultepec, Denver’s legendary jazz club that closed its doors in 2020 after 87 years in business, Diaz and co-owner/sister Angela Guerrero in April began soliciting memories for a legacy project. Besides photos, postcards, flyers and audio recordings, they wanted video interviews that could act as archives of El Chapultepec’s musical culture.

“We made a list of about 100 people, but it easily could have been 10,000,” Diaz said. “We only narrowed down the people (to record) by who was available on the day.”

And there’s more to do. The sisters’ El Chapultepec Legacy Project officially debuted last week at thepeclegacy.com featuring a 20-minute YouTube video with dozens of fans and musicians, branded merchandise, and donation appeals. Its goal is to keep the past from slipping away — to preserve the unique culture, which for decades anchored what’s now called Lower Downtown from 20th and Market streets — but also to push it forward.

“We’ve donated a lot of items to History Colorado and the Colorado Music Hall of Fame, but that doesn’t really archive our experiences,” said Diaz, who hopes to turn the project into a nonprofit foundation.

In addition to archives, the legacy project will work to keep live music affordable in Denver, Diaz said, although the exact form that takes is still to be determined. So much of jazz stage-time in Denver is devoted to original music, Diaz said. That’s great, but without the ‘Pec there are fewer places to improvise with other top musicians, and the project will look to foster that.

The legacy project will also continue building a community of music fans and artists “from all races, genders, sexualities, and socioeconomic classes in a way that sheds pretense and embraces humanity,” according to the website. There are plans to to set up a residency at a local music venue (no word yet on where but there aren’t many dedicated jazz clubs in Denver, so you do the math) called The El Chapultepec Piano Bar.

Diaz and Guerrero are hoping to raise $50,000 for the project, including running live music at “tribute spaces” every weekend through the end of the year. Just don’t confuse them for venue owners anymore.

“We didn’t sell the name, but also don’t have anything to do with the current space,” said Diaz, who noted that it’s currently being occupied by the nonprofit 87 Foundation, which has hosted scattered jazz events before Colorado Rockies games.

The building at 1926 Market St. still sports El Chapultepec’s signature neon-cactus signage, but has changed hands a couple of times since shutting down. It’s now owned by the Monfort Companies, an investment and real estate firm which also bought the building and the next-door Giggling Grizzly in November 2022, with plans to redevelop. Monfort Companies is associated with Dick Monfort, who owns the Colorado Rockies.

Preservation is vital as generations churn and memories fade, Diaz said. El Chapultepec over the years hosted jazz legends ranging from Etta James and Art Blakey to Harry Connick Jr., all three Marsalis brothers, Natalie Cole and Chick Corea. Past reports also cite visiting stars Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, members of U2 (who were turned away for not having valid IDs), President Bill Clinton and the Jonas Brothers.

Despite that, El Chapultepec’s reputation was one of accessibility, flattening out barriers of race, class and gender with a constant stream of quality live music, low prices and a non-judgmental atmosphere. Owner Jerry Krantz — Diaz and Guerrero’s feisty father — inherited it in 1968 from his father-in-law and began building a modest live music program. Over the years it became one of the region’s best series, known far outside Colorado’s borders to touring musicians.

“At the time when (my father) started it … there were people who had never even seen live music,” Diaz told The Denver Post just after her father’s death in 2012. “So there was no cover charge, no dress code. The bums on the street were just as welcome to come and listen as the millionaires.”

Most important, El Chapultepec seeded and nourished Denver’s jazz scene, allowing underage students who listened outside the alley door to eventually sit in with their musical idols. The sisters noted Freddy Rodriguez, Sr., who started Jazz at the ‘Pec in 1980, as well as Bob Montgomery, Bruno Carr, Gene Bass, and Phil Urso among influential local jazz names. The late, great Grammy winner and Blue Note artist Ron Miles. who died in 2022, played there, too.

But as will all music venues, COVID-19 hit El Chapultepec fast and hard. House favorite Rodriguez Sr. was one of the first, and biggest, area musicians to have his death attributed to the global pandemic in late March 2020. Years of tightening regulations in LoDo were now joined by a shutdown and staggering revenue losses. When business came back, the sisters were reminded that their neighborhood was now a mecca for sports bars and late-night violence.

In the 20-minute YouTube collage on the project’s website, Diaz and Guerrero talk about having to plug doors and windows with wet rags to keep tear gas out of the club during street riots. They began to shut down early so employees could get to their cars safely. They warned bands to stay away on certain dates. Amid weekend shootings and vandalism, it just wasn’t fun anymore, they said. It was scary.

“At some point we were making so many concessions that we weren’t even running the business we wanted to run,” Diaz said.

But stepping away from El Chapultepec gave them valuable perspective. Yes, there were the grittier aspects of running a decades-old, all-are-welcome bar, Mexican restaurant and music venue. But the club’s overall history is one of inclusion and cross-pollination, and the creativity and sense of family it fostered continue to definite its long, storied run.

“Before this we had never reached out for donations, or had any kind of advertising or ad budget,” Diaz said. “But the response has been overwhelming. Anyone can enjoy the website gallery and submit their own photos. And we value every single person’s contribution.”

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