There’s a benefit concert for the Artists’ Quarter Sunday, December 8 from 5 p.m. to close. Donations will go toward easing the costs of closing at the end of December. Image courtesy of the AQ.

Despite persistent rumors of an 11th-hour benefactor that might save the day, St. Paul’s storied jazz venue, The Artists’ Quarter, still looks set to close at the end of December. Jazz writer Pamela Espeland, in particular, has been doing some excellent wide-angle coverage of the story on her Bebopified blog: she offers a succinct overview of the circumstances of the club’s closing and what it means for the Twin Cities music scene; she’s asked a wide variety of musicians for reminiscences and personal reflections on how the AQ has variously shaped their careers. If you’d like to catch some shows, you can get the skinny on this last month performances over at Jazz Police.

On mnartists.org (where in my day job, I serve as editor), just today, composer and pianist Jeremy Walker raises some pointed questions about why a cultured city like ours would let a beloved institution like the AQ go down blithely, when this community has ponied up so generously in the recent past for other performing arts organizations in town.

He writes:

“It is a good thing that people have stepped up, willing to front 20 million dollars to get the Minnesota Orchestra working again. But I have to say: I marvel at that number. That kind of money could have funded the entire historical run of the AQ and more, with money left over for health insurance. And as far as I know, no one is rushing in with a seven-figure check to make sure we can still hear geniuses like Roy Haynes, Sweets Edison, Benny Golson, Irv Williams, Dave Karr, Bill Carrothers, Anthony Cox, and all the rest, too many to name, who have risked, invented, and offered their musical greatness in that space for all these years. Why not?”

It’s a question worth chewing on, don’t you think?

On a related note: If you’d like to show your esteem for the Artists’ Quarter and its legacy of great music, friends of the AQ are holding a benefit concert this weekend. The stated aim of the event isn’t so much to save the place as it is to help defray the costs of shutting the joint down.

Artists’ Quarter owner Kenny Horst. Photo: Elizabeth Flores for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, via the venue’s Facebook page

According to Jazz Police‘s Andrea Canter, vocalist Lucia Newell is spearheading the event, and she explains:

It is our goal that Kenny not go out broke from keeping the AQ open for all of us all these years and giving many musicians a place to really play what’s in our hearts and minds, and a home away from home for all to listen to and hear these dedicated, talented musicians play.

Featured musicians show the wide range of notable artists who regularly grace the club’s stage: Phil Aaron, Billy Peterson, Carole Martin, Brian Grivna and Dave Karr; Zacc Harris, Bryan Nichols, Adam Linz and JT Bates; Joan Griffith, Mary Louise Knutson, Brian Courage, Nathan Norman and Connie Evingson; Dean McGraw, Jay Epstein, Patty Peterson, Bill Carrothers, Maud Hixson and many more. (Find the full schedule of performances here.)

The benefit concert by Friends of the Artists’ Quarter will take place Sunday, December 8 from 5 p.m. to close (minimum donation is $10), in the Historic Hamm Building of downtown St. Paul, 408 St. Peter Street. Proceeds will go toward closing and transitioning costs when the AQ shutters at the end of December 2013.