“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Scullers Jazz Club
Dayla Arabella Santurri
Smitty: It has been said that a measurable part of a great jazz experience is the atmosphere, the ambience, the venue, and how true that is when you visit one of the premiere jazz clubs on the planet. Here to talk about this incredible venue is a true and passionate person of the music. Along with her great partners and staff, they have created a great tradition of class, great music, with legendary stellar performers, and a jazz club of class and elegance. Representing everyone at the legendary, Scullers Jazz Club in Boston, please welcome the incredible Ms. Dayla Arabella Santurri.
Dayla Arabella Santurri (DAS): Wow, that sounds good! (Both laugh.) Hey, thanks for having me.
Smitty: It’s a pleasure to have you here at JazzMonthly.com. When I think about great jazz clubs, there’s so much involved in that, I love to visit great clubs and take in the atmosphere and just examine what you’ve done with the music, the stage and all of that, and you have passed with flying colors. You have a great staff, a wonderful mix of music, your stage is just fantastic, and you are the rave of musicians around the country and the world, for that matter.
DAS: Ahh, yeah. We’re lucky like that. We have a good road reputation, as they say.
Smitty: Indeed you do. When I talk to musicians and the name Scullers comes up, everyone lights up in the room and they talk about the times that they’ve had there and can’t wait to go back, and they always mention the staff, so it’s like you have open arms for the musicians that come in and your clientele as well.
DAS: You know, it’s one of those rooms. It’s warm, it’s intimate, it’s inviting, and I think the first thing that people, whether they’re a sponsor, whether they’re coming to perform, an agent, a manager, you’re coming to work there, or you’re coming to see a show, you really get the sense that everyone in the room really wants to be there. We are all big jazz fans, we’re big music fans, we’re big fans of Boston, and it shows. It’s one of those things you don’t have to sell anybody on. We’re lucky like that. I’ve been there eight years and I’m still one of the newest people on board. (Laughs.) So we’ve retained our staff for a long time and I think that really helps create the warmth, and certainly the artists and audience feels it.
Smitty: Yes. Talk about the overall vision of Scullers because I know you must have a strong vision to create what you have. Talk about the vision that is a common thread among the staff and everyone there at Scullers.
DAS: Our goal, our vision is to canvas a very wide musical landscape, I think that’s what really sets us apart from most ‘jazz’ venues out there right now. People always ask me “Well, what’s your demographic? Who comes to Scullers? Who’s a Scullers regular?” And I can’t answer that question because it’s really from 18 to 80 from all walks of life. We get the rockers who will come see Joe Bonamassa. We’ve have an old school fan base that would always come to see the giants like Lou Rawls, Nancy Wilson, Bobby Short, Shirley Horn. Then we’ll do cabaret and the whole Boston cabaret scene will show up. We also host an incredible lineup of Latin Jazz artists such as Arturo Sandoval, Jose Feliciano, Tito Puente, Jr. and Spanish Harlem Orchestra. And then we’ll do the real straight ahead jazz stuff like Marcus Miller, Pharoah Sanders, James Carter and all these guys. It’s always been a part of Scullers’ vision and really has become what we do automatically to make sure we include so many different styles.
Smitty: And that’s unique and great because there are so many clubs across the country and around the world, and let’s face it, in a lot of areas clubs are struggling a bit, but you have seemed to be a force for so many years. What keeps you so strong in the business?
DAS: You know, you really have to have the passion behind it because it’s really not that easy. While we are committed to our fan base and the community we reside in, it’s important that we make our owners happy and they see us running our business in an efficient and financially responsible way. I always say running a jazz club in the corporate world is like fitting a square peg in a round hole and every day we do our best to make it work for everyone.
Smitty: (Laughs.)
DAS: So there’s a business element that a lot of people—and I understand why—don’t like to think about. Many people feel a club should be this free flowing outlet for expression and creativity and that it should transcend the borders of a business. It doesn’t, period. We still need to make money to pay the bills and I’m grateful that we’ve been able to do it for 18 years now. Believe me there are many people, that aren’t on the Scullers website, that deserve an enormous amount of credit for keeping Scullers alive. There are a host of dedicated people from the hotel that without them we might not be celebrating our 18th birthday this month.
Smitty: Yes, and I know you do different types of specials and packages with “dinner and a show” and those kinds of things that I think are just fantastic.
DAS: That’s one of the biggest sellers that we have here our dinner and show package. We sell about 15,000 dinner show packages a year, and this is a three-course dinner that you have about an hour and a half before the show, you come in, the parking is complimentary and you receive preferred seating in the club for the performance. And another thing that we’ve added in the last few years, and it’s a big, big plus for people, we added an overnight stay package because we’re located in the Doubletree Guest Suites Boston, so you can actually have a great dinner, attend a fantastic performance, do a little after show party in the lounge, and then just take the elevator upstairs to your room. People love that.
We also have produce a travel series where we take people all over the world to premiere jazz destinations, this summer we hosted our 2nd Annual Montreal Jazz Trip to the world famous Montreal Jazz Festival in June and just a few weeks later brought a group of Scullers fans on the North Sea Jazz Cruise hosted by Marcus Miller, through Scandinavia. We are already planning a Spring 2008 trip to New Orleans.
Smitty: Very cool, that sounds exciting. Those are all winning combinations.
DAS: So those kinds of packages keep people engaged and interested in everything we do.
Smitty: Your location is fantastic and that totally helps. You’re right there on the Charles River and the view…
DAS: Yes, right at the corner of the Mass Pike and the Charles River, so really we have very easy access on and off the highway. We have 5 huge windows with a great view of the Boston skyline and the Charles River.
Smitty: Yes, it’s very cool. Now talk about what it was like for you seven, eight years ago coming into this great family of music and atmosphere. What was it like for you coming into this business, with Scullers?
DAS: Well, you know, the funny thing is when I first started I really had no idea what I was getting into. It was the Spring of 2000, it was under interesting circumstances. Personally I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to run a live music venue. That wasn’t really what I had in mind. I was working within Hilton and they called me and said “Do you want to run a jazz club?” And I said “You know, I love Ella [Fitzgerald] and Louis [Armstrong] and everybody, but I don’t think I’m ready for this.” They said “Well, we need a person that understands hotel dynamics yet is flexible enough to work with the entertainment folks and within the community,” so I took the job. I always tell this story; fast forward two weeks later I was trying to get my old job back because it was so different than anything I had ever really dealt with. It was a juggling act with a lot of very different constituencies.
We had a lot of outside vendors, from advertising, to our direct mail design and PR teams as well as our webmaster and I wasn’t particularly happy with the way things were going. There were some challenges in communication between all of the moving parts and I knew my first priority would be to build a strong relationship between the hotel and club and make sure we all knew what was expected of us. So it took me, I would say, a good two years to not only realize where we wanted to go but how to get there.
But the one thing that always was there was the music, and Fred Taylor, who is really the force behind Scullers—he’s the Entertainment Director here. He has been here since the very beginning, he’s well known in Boston and to people all over the country as the owner of Paul’s Mall and The Jazz Workshop, which were very famous clubs from 1963 to 1978 in Boston. As a matter of fact, Jay Leno’s autobiography mentions Fred and Paul’s Mall for helping launch his career. Fred was the person who debuted Bruce Springsteen, Barry Manilow, and Bob Dylan in Boston. To have this jazz impresario at the helm it really kept my fire burning, I knew we had what it took, we just needed to take things to the next level.
Smitty: Absolutely. And you mentioned Fred. And he’s just a great guy, you know? He has such a warm appeal when you meet him and I think people just gravitate to him because he’s just a fantastic person along with all of his great talents.
DAS: Oh, absolutely, he understands both sides of the coin and he has really been a great mentor to me. Fred understands balance, trying to make everyone happy, to support the music and the artists yet knowing a bottom line has to be met. He’s been doing it for 50 years and I’ve yet in the seven years that we’ve worked together hear anyone ever say a bad word about him, so he’s got the right measurements, the right mix.
Smitty: Yes he does. So as General Manager and Publicity Director, you must have at some point, and I would imagine still are, just floored by the talent that you have seen come through your doors and grace your stage. You mentioned some of those greats as well already, but talk about some of the highlights of what has just overwhelmed you and just excited you about some of the performers coming in there.
DAS: Well you sit in Scullers long enough and you’ll catch so many incredible things. You may see a living legend perform a rare intimate club date, perhaps their last, you might see one of the biggest names in jazz just show up one night to jam on stage or you might just catch the next big star.
I remember the last performances of Bobby Short, Shirley Horn, Ray Brown and Stanley Turrentine at Scullers. They were exceptional evenings and in every instance we all expected to see them again. To this day I have people come up to me and say they were so glad they were in attendance and have these last memories of these final performances.
Of course, everyone seems to remember when Tony Bennett showed up, unexpected after his Symphony Hall show and sat in with Freddy Cole. No one could believe their eyes, or there ears for that matter. We had no idea he was going to walk in.
For stars on the rise, when Diana Krall was still at Berklee she would perform at the club and all of those in attendance knew this girl was going places. In more recent times we had Norah Jones January of 2002 just three weeks before she was on The Today Show as a person to watch and then two months before she just burst onto the scene with “Don’t Know Why.” She was so incredibly shy, she turned her back to the audience and barely said a word but played a great set. We all looked at each other and thought “Hmmm…”, but Blue Note had just signed her a few weeks earlier so we weren’t alone even then. Jamie Cullum made his Boston debut in Scullers in 2003 and since that time has become one of today’s most celebrated new artists. We debuted Michael Buble in Boston in 2003 and his Dateline NBC special was actually filmed at Scullers. He just played the Opera House in Boston and mentioned how his first Boston shows were at Scullers.
Smitty: Very cool.
DAS: And then it’s those initial relationships you build with the artists that you develop over years and allows you to get them to return even when they are commanding big money in very large venues. In 2004 we had both Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr. return. These relationships are priceless to us and have set us apart from so many other venues in the country. That’s really a fascinating thing, as the General Manager, as a jazz fan, to be a part of this.
Smitty: Yes, you have such a rich and priceless tradition there at Scullers. Now, I have to mention the food at Scullers! You have a great chef and a great staff in the kitchen. (Laughs.)
DAS: If he wasn’t great, we’d have him outta here in no time. (Both laugh.) Tony Frechette is the chef here. He’s terrific! He’s been here for three years and he has so many great ideas. As a matter of fact, he’s the one who started changing the menu every month, so people are always shocked when they come in and there are all of these new selections. It’s pretty tough to keep up that pace, but Tony and his terrific team thrives on it. We sell a lot of food here at Scullers and people just love it whether it’s in our Boathouse Grille restaurant, our Terrace Lounge or in the club itself.
Smitty: Yes, and everyone always leaves Scullers smiling and I think that’s just a consistent, fantastic thing that you don’t get everywhere.
DAS: It’s certainly what we strive for and if for some reason someone’s not, we usually get down to the bottom of it pretty quick. I’m very fortunate because I have a base here of clients who really are very communicative, they let us know what they expect, what they’d like to see. And now with the Web site, www.scullersjazz.com, our newsletter, the blog, I’m getting constant feedback and I always want more. And, really, so many of the things that have come from Scullers, and the packages that we do—the travel series, the Latin music series—were all born from clients suggestions.
Smitty: You are doing something that’s truly unique in that you are constantly communicating with, and more importantly, you are listening to your clientele. That’s special stuff.
DAS: I feel that you must do that and I enjoy it. It helps me do my job better, and I really do appreciate all those comments.
Smitty: Yes. Now tell me again, how many years has Scullers been there?
DAS: This is our 18th year.
Smitty: Wow, that’s incredible.
DAS: It’s amazing.
Smitty: Yes, it is. Now, I just know you and Fred and the rest of your team are cooking up something really cool for the 20th year, I just know. (Laughs.)
DAS: We are. You know, I wish I could tell you, but I can’t because we don’t have it all sealed up.
Smitty: I totally understand.
DAS: But hopefully, hopefully we’ll be able to announce it maybe by the end of this year.
Smitty: Yeah. Oh, that’ll be fantastic.
DAS: Interesting stuff happening and we’re really excited about that.
Smitty: Well, I’m definitely gonna come over. (Laughs.)
DAS: I hope you do. Come on over.
Smitty: Yeah, absolutely. Now, Scullers, because of all the things that we’ve talked about and so many other things that we haven’t even mentioned yet, you have coveted some fantastic awards, this club. I mean, Boston’s #1 Jazz Club by Boston Magazine, Citysearch.com, AOL Cityguide, CBS 4 Boston. Talk about what those awards mean for you and what that does for the drive for your entire staff to continue this great tradition of doing what we love and delivering what we like.
DAS: It’s is always great to take home the awards handed out by the editorial staffs however, when the votes come in from the people of Boston, people in the suburbs, who voted us #1, that’s really special, it means so much more.
Luba Yabrov, who’s the Operations Manager here, she’s been here just about the same amount of time as I have, has really changed the dynamic of the club in terms of the way it’s serviced, the way we hire people, and the way the people who work for us feel about working here. It’s very special. Most of our staff are professionals in Boston, we have a nurse, a lawyer, a travel and a real estate agent, so this is their part-time job. After a long day at their offices they come to the club and yet you always sense everyone really wants to be here and there’s a passion for the music and audiences can sense that. Luba has always been at the forefront of keeping our staff motivated and engaged with our philosophy of service. I am so proud to work with such a great team and I know that it is Luba and our staff that really bring home those accolades.
Smitty: Yeah, so now if you were visiting in another state, another city, and someone asked you “What’s Scullers like?” What would you say? How would you describe Scullers?
DAS: Scullers is a very intimate and warm listening room with great views of the Boston skyline, a fantastic menu, superior service and hands down a roster of artists that rivals any roster in any jazz club in the world. We offer a variety of music to a variety of people and one day can be a 180 degree turn from the next in terms of our program and the clientele we serve. So it’s hard to describe because you could come here Tuesday through Saturday and every single night of the week will kind of transcend the night before.
Smitty: Yeah, I like that. That’s variety at its best!
DAS: I don’t remember ever anyone saying “I don’t think this place is for me.” If they did I would say “Try us on a different night.” We are kind of like New England weather.
Smitty: (Laughs) Oh absolutely.
DAS: If you don’t like it today, wait until tomorrow.
Smitty: Yes indeed. You gotta tell me about the dance party series.
DAS: We just had our last installment on August 1st with Spanish Harlem Orchestra and this was something that over the years people were adamant about. “We wanna dance!” Finally under the mounting emails and calls we said we’d give it a try. We are a 200-seater club and it’s a tight space, but we’re lucky enough to have a ballroom adjacent to us, so we opened up the double doors, took our club furniture out, and set up two dance floors. It’s less formal than what we do normally, there are no reserved seats nor food service in the club. We’ve featured some of the hottest salsa/meringue groups on the planet such as Tito Puente Jr. Orchestra, Miami based, Tiempo Libre, and The Spanish Harlem Orchestra the true ambassadors of the New York salsa scene.
Smitty: Nice!
DAS: Three hours of just everyone dancing like crazy and having a good time, it’s a lot of fun.
Smitty: I think that’s a beautiful thing when you can be so versatile and eclectic and accommodate so many different people and different styles, and it’s all geared toward everyone having a great time and a memorable experience at Scullers.
DAS: Yeah, again, that concept was born out of people seeing some of the shows that we had and said “Ahh, this would be great if we could dance.” Had our clientele not stayed on us to open up the room for this kind of event I am not sure on our own we would have gone there.
Smitty: Absolutely, and now you also are Vice President of Public Relations & Development for American Women in Radio & Television?
DAS: That’s true, for the Boston Chapter.
Smitty: Wow.
DAS: I was asked by the President, Candy O’Terry, from one of the greater media stations here (Magic 106.7). She is the on-air personality and Assistant Program Director. She’s a powerhouse and a good friend, and she said “We want you to jump on board.” I had already a lot of exposure to many of these beautiful women through my own PR contacts from the club so I thought it was a natural progression to get to know many of them and their enterprises more intimately. It’s been so rewarding and a lot of fun.
AWRT is a great resource for women in all kinds of electronic media, to network and collaborate. It’s a tough business and for women there are added challenges. We have networking events and we produce seminars and sometimes we just provide an outlet to provide support and a friendly ear. Mentoring the next generation of girls in this business is also at the heart of the organization and we will soon be unveiling our sponsorship of a new mentoring program.
Smitty: So you’re not only the General Manager and Publicity Director there at Scullers, you’re working with this great networking group and you are a fan as well because I know you travel to different events outside of Scullers, so you’re a fan, too.
DAS: I’m a huge fan and I go to as many shows as I can, everywhere I can. Whenever I’m on vacation or when I get a night off, I’ll check out what’s going on in the city. I spent all of my summer vacation soaking in the sun and some of the best jazz on the planet. In July Scullers hosted our 2nd annual trip to the Montreal Jazz Festival. Fred and I took a bunch of people from Boston with us and we enjoyed 4 days/3 nights at arguably the best jazz festival in the world. I left Fred in Montreal and met Luba in Copenhagen to board the maiden voyage of North Sea Jazz Cruise with Marcus Miller. What a trip, 10 days and nights of pure jazz heaven with Dee Dee Bridgewater, James Carter, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Roy Hargrove on board.
The cruise disembarked at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, Holland. Once we got there we went backstage and got to say hi to some old friends. Luba and I caught up with Jamie Cullum and Terence Blanchard, who we hadn’t seen in a while, got some great photos and all that stuff. So the short answer to your question is yes, I am a big fan and I hope that spills out in everything I do here.
Smitty: I think that’s a beautiful thing, yes, I love it. Talk to me about what’s coming up for Scullers that you can tell me.
DAS: Well, since we reopened from our Summer break it has been crazy around here. August was Smooth Jazz Month and in the course of three weeks we had The Rippingtons, Acoustic Alchemy, Steve Cole, Richard Elliot and Mindi Abair. Moving forward, we’ve got such an unbelievable schedule. Every year the Fall seems to be the highlight of the whole year. Just to name a few: in October we have Danilo Perez, Warren Hill, The Yellowjackets, Bobby Caldwell, Christian Scott, Average White Band and then into November we have Roy Ayers, Walter Beasley, The Subdudes, Eddie Palmieri, Chris Botti and Paul Taylor. There is a lot of excitement surrounding the schedule so we are bracing for some crazy nights.
We are also working on our next installment of our Travel series. This Spring we will be heading to New Orleans for the Jazz Festival and for the opening of the Boston House in the Musicians’ Village. All of this is up on our site www.scullersjazz.com
Smitty: Wow, I’m excited just listening to you..
DAS: We are also giving Scullers a make over, by mid to late October we’ll have all new club furniture, the tables and chairs will be more comfy, and we’ll be able to offer a little more leg room. Our new Yamaha C7 grand piano has arrived and the artists have been raving about it. Our Boathouse Grille will also be completely renovated in time for New Year’s Eve, and we are really looking forward to our reopening. So everywhere you look at Scullers on the stage, in the audience, in our restaurant or on our site you’ll see exciting things happening.
Smitty: Oh, that’s fantastic. Well, I certainly love what you’re doing and all of this information will be readily available at the appropriate time on your Web site too.
DAS: Absolutely. I update it right from my desktop, so as soon as I know what’s going on, it goes right on the site.
Smitty: Yeah, and you’re quick with that thing too. (Both laugh.)
DAS: I try to be.
Smitty: I know we’ve mentioned it before but give me your Web site again.
DAS: Oh yeah, www.scullersjazz.com. You’ll get everything there, all the coming attractions, all the programs, memberships, dinner show packages, you name it, we put everything up there.
Smitty: Yeah, and you’ve got a really nice little blog that you’ve got working there as well. I love that little blog.
DAS: We just started that up. I’m putting all the entries on, but soon enough we hope to get some guest bloggers on there, so that should be real fun, and hopefully more and more people will post comments. People don’t mind e-mailing me directly from the Web site, but responding to the blog is a little slow, so hopefully we’ll be getting a little bit more back and forth conversation on there. I’m sure it’ll happen.
Smitty: Yeah, so all right all you great patrons of Scullers, let’s sound off, let us hear your comments on the blog!
DAS: (Laughs.) Let’s hear ya!
Smitty: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Dayla, I love what you’re doing, I love your entire staff, please give my love to Fred and everyone there.
DAS: I will, of course.
Smitty: And I would say keep doing what you’re doing and we certainly look forward to all of those great things that you have coming in the future.
DAS: Oh, thank you.
Smitty: All right, we’ve been talking with Dayla Arabella Santurri, General Manager and Publicity Director for the fantastic Scullers Jazz Club in Boston. If you’re in the area, you won’t want to miss this legendary, fantastic experience. Dayla, thanks again and all the best in 2007 and the coming year.
DAS: Thanks a million.
Baldwin “Smitty” Smith
For More Information Visit www.scullersjazz.com
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