Old Bob & Barbara's Art/Benefit for Howard Candie

I was going through my files these past few days and found a lot of old stuff. I have posted on here many times about my love of Bob & Barbara's at 15th & South. The place has always been a neighborhood bar that Center City grew up around. The place precedes the gentrification of that area, and has been run like a neighborhood bar with affordable drinks for decades.

I don't spend nearly as much time there as I used to. But I still feel awfully welcome when I walk in the door. The bike messengers and hipsters may not know me. Neither do the kids who pack the place on the weekends, but the barkeeps and the locals do. I will always feel comfortable sitting and drawing cartoons at that bar. I found this piece from 2001 that was drawn at the bar while rocking cans of Pabst and shots of Jim Beam:


It was a flier for the bar. Frank, the manager at the time (and the guy responsible for scoring most of that vintage PBR swag way back when) wanted to do something nice to pay pack the bar's steady patrons. So he created "The Big Payback", a weekly event where he brought in free home cooked food. Sadly, the event started to draw a lot of starving addicts who popped out of the woodwork and disturbed steady patrons. So the Big Payback was a short-lived event in Bob & Barbara's history. But it was great that Frankie wanted to do that for his customers. Bob & Barbara's has always been diverse and experimental with their nightly events, from Bingo to Ping Pong to Pictionary to the Drag Show to live Jazz every week.


Above is a photo I took back around 2001 or 2002. I've sung the praises of Nate Wiley & the Crowd Pleasers many many times. They are my heroes. Nate and Cliff have passed, but Howard Candie, the greatest organist the band ever had, is still around. Lately, he has been having some health problems. So once again, Bob & Barbara's Lounge is giving back. Tonight, September 14, from 8 PM to 11 PM, there will be a fundraiser to help Howard and his family with their medical bills. Anyone who has ever heard Howard play has been amazed. He makes that Hammond B-3 shake the room like no other. If you know Howard's music, please come out and help him and his family out. They're great folks.

If you've never heard Howard, you can CLICK HERE to hear him on this documentary short made by local filmmaker Jim McGorman.

We miss Philly Jazz!!!!!

Crowd Pleasers cartoon by Andrew Hart

Howard Candie oil painting by Andrew Hart

Cliff Lamar oil painting by Andrew Hart

Nate Wiley oil painting by Andrew Hart

Andrew Hart (PCS Cofounder whose cartoon and paintings appear above) called me tonight from Bob & Barbara's (15th & South), a place that was very much at one time the official club house of the Philadelphia Cartoonist Society. Sadly, living the grown-up lives that most of us are reluctantly leading, we don't get out there weekly like we once did as young, hungry cartoonists. We still manage to get in there at least once a month, and the staff and regulars still know us and treat us swell. But some nights I miss the old haunts. I miss Nate Wiley and Cliff Lamar especially. Several PCS members had the honor of being pallbearers at Nate Wiley's funeral.

Before we adopted Bob & Barbara's as our club house, we'd frequent a bunch of other clubs. So tonight I dug out a couple documents from the jazz haunts that me, Andrew and some of the PCS folks used to hit up in the early days of the group. Although it was high end, if someone like Freddy Cole, Andy Bey, or Ahmad Jamal was coming to Philly, it was worth forking out the dough to go to Zanzibar Blue on Broad Street. I think it's some kind of sports bar these days. But a short few years ago, it was a great place to see out of town big names in a closed-in setting. I did the pencils and inks of this drawing in a small sketchbook at Zanzibar when Andrew and I saw Ahmad Jamal there in 1998. I did the colors later at home in marker. Ahmad made that piano sound like an orchestra.
I did the flier below for the also sorely-missed Ortlieb's Jazz Haus. When Pete Souders ran Ortlieb's, I heard some of the best jazz Philly had to offer: Bootsie Barnes, Shirley Scott, Mickey Roker, Sid Simmons, Roger Prieto, the list goes on and on. We'd go to Ortlieb's a lot. It was a great hang with great music, good food. If you knew Ortlieb's, you can probably tell that the cat in this drawing is based on haus band bass player Mike Boone and you'll recognize the water buffalo from the taxidermy that hung over the bar.
Although I am told there are a handful of good jazz clubs around the city, I really miss these places. They were a significant part of the group's history. If anyone has any advice on good Philly jazz clubs where it's affordable and comfortable to draw, let us know. It's good to switch up the scene from time to time.