MPR’s Leif Enger reports from Black & White Cafe in Little Falls, Minnnesota. Between burgers, patrons enjoy a rarity in the area, live jazz nights. Enger interviews cafe owner, one of the musicians, and a diner.

Transcript:

(00:00:00) It's 7:30 in the evening. And the stage at the black-and-white cafe is empty. No big deal, except the band ought to be here and warming up by now music is supposed to start at 8:00 tables are filling owners, Ron and Carol and Lycia car back in the small Stevie kitchen Ron in bib overalls cooking and Carolyn fretting
(00:00:19) Rubens pork chops baked potato.
(00:00:22) Usually they're here quite early and setting up so and their their parents are here and they're kind of wondering to nobody's hurt. From them. So we're hoping a UFO hasn't scooped him up at this point. We are sweating big beads of sweat
(00:00:37) between dishing up sandwiches and glancing nervously at the door the Licious talk a bit. He left Minneapolis and bought the black and white five years ago, but at first opened back in 1931, it was smaller than just a grill and a counter and a few stools wanting more space the Licious tour down a wall expanding into the former hardware store next door. They hung some art including Anna. Warmest signed saying airport in green neon letters. The sign isn't from an airport, but from an old drive-in theater called the airport they found they had room for a stage and they had two employees Jeff and Eric who were learning to play
(00:01:13) jazz. They knew that there was a lot of dead time here in the evening so they came in and would jam and we thought they were really good and we invited people over to listen and then pretty soon people were staying for coffee and we put out a tip bucket since you know, you don't we we wanted them to be rewarded for their efforts and eventually it just blossomed into what it is now because there's not very many places in in this area where you can get a good night of jazz. It's blossoming. All
(00:01:50) right, there must be a hundred people here in the band remains absent still outside the kitchen under the airport sign. No one's worried. The neon letters throw a hip incandescent across the tables. The mood is happy as if it's enough just to be here eating onion rings without guilt watching the families blanket and babies old ponytailed hippies Junior High kids and their Doc Martens and shirts like greasy pillowcases and elegant older couples like Milo Hanson and his wife Caroline Jazz lovers who have been in on these events since the crowds were small that
(00:02:23) first. There are very very few because most people like the country western and we don't that's why we like it because now that we're older we don't like to go chasing such a distance for entertainment. Just I think they're wonderful and we just enjoyed them tremendously.
(00:02:43) The on debts Jan and Bob are more recent converts. Actually. This is just my second time here,
(00:02:49) but I wouldn't miss it for anything
(00:02:50) but just so invigorating and it's just neat is different than what you hear most of the time when you turn the radio on
(00:02:57) I've known a couple of these boys since they were real small and I just think it's great to come and watch him perform as an adult.
(00:03:06) It's a bear few minutes before eight when the door opens in the Boys At Last walk in tonight. It's regular home Towners. Aang home on electric bass and keyboardist, Eric Franzen along with a drummer named Joe and Pat the sax player and Jeff Wood who plays trombone and also directs The Little Falls Middle School band Engelman friends and who started all this our seniors at the U of M Morris and hope to make a living at music. They first hooked up several years ago at a shoe store in nearby
(00:03:34) Randall. We just happened to run into each other and said, I've been playing more a little more Jazz lately and yeah, me too and so we start out with just me. And him and it was bait really casual affair eight or nine people would show up once in a while. And and the weird thing was it was like just one day it was there's a crowd of maybe 10 to 20 people. And then the next time we came, it was a crowd of almost a hundred and knows it was almost overwhelming the first time it was it was odd.
(00:04:07) And without further Ado Jeff Wood was going to introduce you to the rest of this mess. Thank you. Delicious say they'll sponsor six
(00:04:42) or seven more Jazz nights this year. They get so many phone calls about the events. They've started a newsletter to inform
(00:04:49) zealous fans of the schedule. It's been a little puzzling round leszek says live jazz being
(00:04:55) the new big thing in Little Falls,
(00:04:57) but country-western not rock and roll not a casino who would have thought it lady finger Main Street radio.