The Jazz Legend of Gordon’s Town House

For decades, jazz fans in Knoxville have heard rumors of Gordon’s Town House on the corner of Cumberland Avenue and 17th Street. In the 1950s, full swing orchestras played there in its big dining room with a dance floor that looked straight out of a posh Manhattan nightclub in an old black-and-white movie. Gordon’s also had a smaller, more intimate room called the Blue Note, where you could hear more current music, like bebop. Before he passed away in 2023, Jack Neely interviewed Gordon Sams about his iconic jazz club and hear some of the true-to-life tales of the jazz legends who played there, including Duke Ellington and his orchestra, Count Basie, Tony Pastor, Woody Herman, and the irrepressible trumpeter Louis Prima. Fittingly, join jazz aficionado Paul Parris, WUOT radio’s longstanding host on Improvisations on Wednesday evenings, for a reading of Neely’s story that offers a rare look into the world of Gordon Sams, a colorful jazz promoter in 1950s and ‘60s Knoxville.This episode also complements the Knoxville History Project’s developing project: the Knoxville Music Archive & Oral History Project.     Written by Jack Neely and read by Paul Parris.Special thanks to producer Pete Carty. Knoxville Chronicles is brought to you by the nonprofit Knoxville History Project.Funding for this episode has been kindly provided by the City of Knoxville and Friends of the Knoxville History Project as well as donors from National Giving Day 2025, including: Gary Balltrip, Karen Callaway, Steve and Lisa Davis, David Headrick, Theresa Lee and Jacob Love, John and Katherine McCarty, John and Lillian Mashburn, Susan Davenport, Katharine Capito Torbett & Howard Capito, Anne Young, and Christopher Manning.Learn more at KnoxvilleHistoryProject.org