Dakota 40th Anniversary Block Party at Dakota Jazz Club (September 20, 2025)

 

Forty-year anniversary celebrations were on the menu this weekend. In Chicago the Pogues played Riot Fest to celebrate the 40 years since the release of their seminal album Rum Sodomy & the Lash. At The Bank on the University of Minnesota campus an all-star line-up, including Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, headlined the 40th Farm Aid Music Festival. And on Nicollet Mall in the heart of downtown Minneapolis, a jazz club reached the rare milestone and decided to throw a party.

 

What’s there to say about the Dakota Jazz Club other than it’s one of our favorite venues in the Twin Cities. The interior is beautifully illuminated. The proscenium stage allows great viewing. And the curation of musical acts is given as much care as what the world-class food added to the menu.

 

We have seen quite a few shows over the years, whether it be jazz with Veronica Swift, international with Céu, singer songwriters like Freedy Johnston or iconic bands like Cowboy Junkies. And none of these shows (14,000) over forty years would have happened if it wasn’t for one man, Lowell Pickett.

 

The Star Tribune recently did a story where they asked three music venues (Bunkers, First Ave and Dakota Jazz Club) for the secret to their longevity. And for Pickett it boiled down to a few essential items:

 

 

The Dakota provides free food and drinks for the performers. I personally witnessed it when I saw Freedy Johnston’s girlfriend running him drinks from the bar during his set. Then there was the entire San Francisco Jazz Collective sitting at an extended table in an upstairs room, eating a pre-show meal. That’s nine guys.

 

The funny thing is Pickett never intended to draw national acts when he opened the Dakota in St. Paul’s Bandana Square in 1985. For him, the Dakota was a restaurant that had jazz musicians playing live music. The musicians were local, and they were there for background music. It was only because of his friendship with jazz legend, McCoy Tyner, that Pickett started to book more national acts. And from there…

 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch many of the acts at the block party due to time constraints and the fact that the club could not accommodate the amount of people who wanted to enter. All the shows were free, and I was lucky to sneak in to catch the MacPhail Faculty Ensemble, playing jazz standards like Miles Davis’ “Pfrancing” and Freddie Hubbard’s “Red Clay.”

 

 

Luckily, the outdoor stage on Nicollet Mall was more expansive. There was plenty of room to see Pickett and his business partner, Richard Erickson, receive a proclamation from Mayor Jacob Frey, stating that September 20th, 2025, will now be known as “Dakota Jazz Club Day.” After that, music from Jamecia Bennett and her band J Movement. Actually, there was a delay for it is really hard to do a sound check at a music festival with three horns, two keyboards, guitar, bass, drums and five backup singers. But eventually, they began with the jazz standard “Summertime,” but this rendition felt more suitable to downtown Minneapolis than a southern back porch on a sultry day.

 

Bennett is the lead singer for the Grammy-winning gospel group, Sounds of Blackness. She has provided singing support for Sting, Janet Jackson and Eryka Badu. She has acted in and directed local venues like Guthrie Theater (The Night Before Christmas) and Penumbra Theater (Black Nativity). She will also be back to the Dakota September 25th, for Ladies of Soul, singing the music of Chaka Khan, which was her next song, Khan’s rendition of “My Funny Valentine” which started off with Bennett giving all her musicians an opportunity to solo with their instruments (That’s 7 solos!). Then it was a musical melody of Aretha Franklin songs before ending with a duet with her son, singing “Don’t You Worry about a Thing” by Stevie Wonder.

 

Since there was no way of getting back into the club, I waited for Tina Schlieske and her band to tune up, take a sound check and begin playing. If you are not old enough to remember, Schlieske had a band in the 90’s called Tina and the B-Sides, a beloved local band. And like most musicians, she has morphed with the times and expanded her reach with musical acts like Genital Panic, a feminist punk band that has something to say about the current political climate. Then there is her dip into lounge music with Sinatra to Simone, a complete 180 from her other band where she does her own interpretation to songs of the jazz cannon.

 

And that’s how she began her set with “It’s the Good Life,” a song made famous by Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Schlieske said she was so thankful to Pickett for booking her jazz show at the Dakota and was more than happy to get on a plane in her home in California and come celebrate the club’s milestone. So she sang a new song “Keeper” followed by a blues-fueled song from Big Mama Thorton. And since she was in Minneapolis and singing next to the Dakota, the place that held a legendary residency for the Purple One in December, 2013, she sang Prince’s “How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore?”

 

FUN FACT: Lowell Pickett’s first national booking wasn’t McCoy Tyner. It was actually Muddy Waters. Fresh out of college, living in Northfield, Pickett dipped his toes into the musical scene and booked the legendary blues musician for a concert. It was a money-losing (-$300.00) enterprise. And to top it off, Pickett forgot to closely read the concert rider, which required beer to be available for the musicians. And the only beer available on a Sunday afternoon? 3.2 beer at a local supermarket. Welcome to Minnesota Mr. Waters.