The Clef Club gets ready for its 60th anniversary celebration but not without organizational unrest
A $4.54 million renovation project is underway along with a board departure and an alleged “forced retirement.”
Major changes are coming to the Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts. While a renovation promises a bright new chapter for the storied educational institution and performance venue, not all of the recent developments have been quite so harmonious.
Last year, the Philadelphia Clef Club announced a $4.54 million project that will transform its longtime home on South Broad Street. The ongoing capital campaign includes a $2 million gift from the William Penn Foundation, supplemented by funding from other donors.
At the same time, the institution announced the surprising departure of one of its most beloved educators. Lovett Hines, who had launched the Clef Club’s education program in 1985, retired September 30, but would “continue to be involved with PCC, serving as artistic director, emeritus and will work as an advisor on special projects for the organization,” a news statement said.
When reached for comment, Hines called it a “forced retirement.”
“As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t retire. Whether/if I decide to retire, which maybe I will in a couple of years, I want to do it on my terms,” said Hines, 81, who has since cut ties with the institution. “Blindsided” by Hines’ reaction, Oscar Payne, Chef Club’s managing director, explained that the grant that had funded the veteran educator’s role as artistic director ended Sept. 30, 2024.
“You have to adapt to what the donors are looking for and the guidelines for the grants [we are receiving] focused on expanding more into the schools and having a very clear curriculum … Our job now is to take what he started, enhance it and eventually develop it into an accredited program.”
The Clef Club, Payne said, is working closely with the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA), cross-pollinating students between the two institutions, and offering master classes for CAPA students by artists scheduled to perform at the Clef Club. Payne hopes to expand that partnership to other city schools and cultural institutions.
The initial news release went on to announce that two professional musicians, educators, and board members — trumpeter Terell Stafford, the chair of instrumental studies and director of jazz studies at Temple University, and trombonist Brent White, a professor at Drexel University — would be “leading the highly acclaimed jazz education program.” While it suggested that the pair would be stepping into Hines’ place as co-directors of the Clef Club’s education program, that turns out not to be the case.
“It didn’t mean leading on the ground,” Payne said. “It meant leading from 10,000 feet. They’re on the board and they have influence, but they won’t be there every day actually teaching kids.”
Stafford has since resigned from the Clef Club board, while White continues to be actively involved in the education program and its post-Hines transition. According to Payne, a search for a new education director is contingent on funding.
Hines has continued to dedicate himself to teaching young Philadelphia musicians. He has launched a new program, the Hines Global Creative Arts Initiative. The program, currently free, works out of donated space at the Grand Yesha Ballroom in South Philly.
“As far as I’m concerned, this is not competition [with the Clef Club],” Hines said. “It’s about giving as much as I can to my young people.”
Saxophonist David Fishkin studied with Hines at the Clef Club before joining the faculty in 2014. He’s continuing to teach at the Clef Club while also working with Hines in his new venture. “I am invested in seeing both programs succeed,” Fishkin wrote in an email. “I’m always in favor of creating more avenues for young musicians to express themselves creatively. What it really comes down to, is that I feel a sense of dedication to the students, some of whom I’ve been working with for years, and I’ve seen them grow into thoughtful, expressive musicians.”
The Global Creative Arts Initiative will be the latest incarnation of a program that Hines started at Settlement Music School in 1980, where he mentored future greats including bassist Christian McBride and organist Joey DeFrancesco. He found a new home at the Clef Club in 1985, where he stayed for nearly four decades teaching a list of students that includes saxophonists Jaleel Shaw and Immanuel Wilkins, and drummer Justin Faulkner, among others.
The Clef Club itself had been founded in 1966 as the social club for Musicians’ Protective Union Local 274, the city’s union for Black musicians barred from the segregated Local 77. Once those racial barriers were abolished, the two unions merged and the Clef Club continued as a gathering space for local artists. It began to host performances and classes in the late 1970s, and established its current home at Broad and Fitzwater in 1995.
Payne says that the next chapter in that story will be launched later this year as renovations are scheduled to be completed by early winter, in time for the Clef Club’s 60th anniversary celebration in 2026. The renovation will redesign both exterior and interior spaces.
“There are a lot of misconceptions about what the Clef Club is,” according to Payne. “We really want to turn that around. We’re not a jazz club or a social club. We’re a cultural and arts institution and an educational institution that is dedicated to preserving and promoting jazz music in Philadelphia.”
To that end, the exterior renovations are intended to better align the Clef Club with other cultural institutions along the Avenue Arts with enhanced signage, a new entrance facing Broad Street, and a more inviting lobby space with historical and interpretive displays relating to the history of the Clef Club and the Philadelphia jazz scene. Inside, students will benefit from new and expanded classrooms and program spaces and a new state-of-the-art recording studio. The HVAC system and roof will undergo much-needed repairs, while new lighting, colors, materials, and finishes will modernize the building.
“The mission here is to sustain the organization for the next couple of generations,” he said. “My objective is to be able to hand this off to the younger folks so that this wonderful institution will be around for decades to follow, if not centuries.”