...in today\'s (Friday 3/17) Chicago Tribune... Steve Brend1917-2006
Owned Green Mill jazz clubHired by a gangster to serve drinks at the Uptown landmark during the Prohibition era, `last link to the original guys' later operated the storied barBy Howard Reich
Tribune arts critic
Published March 17, 2006
Steve Brend served his first drink at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge in 1938 and celebrated the holidays there last December.
Between those years, he stood as the unofficial historian of one of Chicago's--and America's--most storied jazz clubs, a venue seen in films such as "Thief" and "Soul Food" and a showcase for stars such as Billie Holiday, Anita O'Day and comedian Joe E. Lewis.
Mr. Brend, 89, who died of heart failure Tuesday, March 14, in Hines Veterans Hospital in Maywood, was first hired by "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn, a principal gunman in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and, during the Prohibition era, an operator of the club.
"Steve was the last link to the original guys," said Dave Jemilo, who has owned the club since 1986. "He knew everything about the Green Mill. People would wait in line just to talk to him."
Journalists, filmmakers and authors routinely queued up to savor Mr. Brend's reminiscences about life in gangster-era Chicago, where Mr. Brend arrived from Buckner, Ill., in 1935 (he was born in Flat River, Mo.).
Working as a dishwasher in a Loop restaurant, Mr. Brend received his first dollar tip from McGurn, Jemilo said. Before long, Mr. Brend was serving drinks in Uptown, at the Mill.
"The place was the love of his life," said Jonathan Brend, one of Mr. Brend's four sons.
"The Green Mill was his life," said Gregory Brend, another son. "He introduced so many people there who eventually got married to each other."
Enlisting in the Army after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mr. Brend was shipped to Europe and worked as a medic, saving lives and carrying the dead. He never forgot the experience of seeing the carnage of the Dachau, Auschwitz and Mauthausen concentration camps, his sons said.
"He said it was overwhelming," Jonathan Brend said.
When a troop truck he was in slid into a ditch, Mr. Brend's legs were injured, causing him pain and sores for the rest of his life, Jonathan Brend said.
After the war, Mr. Brend returned to Chicago and the Green Mill, buying the club in 1960 and maintaining the music policy that long had made the room famous. But as crime increased in the Uptown neighborhood in the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Brend decided to sell.
"There were guys who wanted to buy the club just for the [antique] fixtures," said Jemilo, who believes his interest in rejuvenating the room as a jazz destination helped persuade Mr. Brend to sell it to him.
As Jemilo spruced up the place, it re-emerged as one of the city's most vital jazz spots, with Mr. Brend spending a great deal of time there, regaling fans about the old days.
Mr. Brend requested that after his funeral his ashes should be dispersed by his four sons at the four corners of Lawrence and Broadway, near the Green Mill, at a ceremony that's being planned, Gregory Brend said.
"We used to call him the Mayor of Uptown, because he could talk to anybody," said Gregory Brend. "So I guess it makes sense that that's where he wants to be."
tony b.
