Judy Sirota Rosenthal
The curtains in the lobby of the Lawn Club’s ballroom were opened, and the sunlight flooded the black and white space. The bar opened for a glass of wine for the celebrants before lunch. In the ballroom itself, the Arts Council of Greater New Haven feted six stalwarts of New Haven’s arts community, with talents ranging from sculpture and dance to music and, well, business.
The council’s 2015 arts awards were given to Willie Ruff, acclaimed jazz musician and teacher; Paul Clabby, curator of John Slade Ely House for 20 years, arts organizer at large, and painter in his own right; Susan Clinard, a sculptor with an artist residency at the Eli Whitney Museum; the International Festival of Arts and Ideas; Melinda Marquez, virtuoso dancer and teacher; and Steve Rodgers, musician and owner of the Outer Space and the Space, a place perhaps unique in the state for being an all-ages club.
“They just called me on the phone,” Rodgers told this reporter of learning that he had received the award. “I was sitting in my office, listening to hundreds of band submissions.”
For Rodgers, the award comes after a tumultuous few months for the Space that ended in triumph. In July, after a “sleepless week wondering, ‘what are we going to do here?’” he posted a GoFundMe campaign for the all-ages club, revealing that it was in some financial trouble. He also reached out to area bands asking of they would perform a benefit for the club.
Rodgers had no idea what response he would receive. His staff called him, asking if they still had jobs. Rodgers assured them they did.
Meanwhile, news outlets, from print to radio to television, ran with the story, and bands lined up to play until the benefit itself looked more like a festival, featuring a reunited Pencilgrass, a beloved dance band, as headliner.
“I put my honest words out there,” a humbled Rodgers said, “and to see the support from the community was very rejuvenating.”
This reporter suggested that maybe part of the reason he was surprised was that people don’t usually tell him, day to day, how much they appreciate him. Rodgers made a correction.
“I hear it all the time,” he said. “Especially from parents when they drop off their kids at the Space.” During Space shows, he said, many of the parents come to the 21+ Outer Space, with which the Space shares a parking lot, to have a meal and take in some music. “They say, ‘‘This is so great that my kid can be over there and safe, and I can be here.’ I hear it quite frequently.”
Willie Ruff accepted the C. Newton Schenck III Award for lifetime achievement with grace and humor. He gave a brief tour of his life, from his stint as an “underage buffalo soldier” to his career as a jazz musician — sharing stages with luminaries from Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington to Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis — to his teaching at Yale. He cited a long list of people who had influenced him over the years.
“They all made me what I am today,” Ruff said, “but I forgive them.”
The whole room laughed.