SLIM JENKINS
Harold (Slim) Jenkins), known as the Mayor of West Oakland, was born in Monroe, LA in 1890. He served in the army in World War I and moved to California when he was discharged. Work as a waiter gave him an interest in the night club business and he opened Slim Jenkins’ Cafe on Seventh and Wood in Oakland in 1933 on the day Prohibition ended and operated it until 1961 when it was pulled down to make way for a service station. Newspaper reports show that as well as being an entertainment venue it was also often used to host meetings of various local business and social organizations. It also hit the headlines for the wrong reasons - having its liquor license suspended for serving to minors (July 1943 and May 1946), being the starting point of a riot involving soldiers (March 1942), and being placed off limits for soldiers and sailors for several weeks (May 1945). Like most venues catering for the top end of the market it was constantly upgrading its facilities. In September 1944 it advertised that it was “Newly remodeled and enlarged”
$2,000 Damage at 7th. St. Cafe Fire
Fire did an estimated $2,000 damage to the interior and fixtures at Slim Jenkins’ Cafe at 1748 Seventh St. today. Asst. Fire Chief Elmer Croswell said the fire apparently was caused by an overheated heater in the attic above the cafe’s dining room. The fire was discovered by a custodian, Nathan Phelps, when he reported for work early today. Phelps roused the owner and operator of the club, Harold (“Slim”) Jenkins, 66, who lives in a rear apartment, and then called the fire department.
and in May 1950 its “Orchid Room” was opened. This was followed in January 1954 by the “beautiful new swank Casa Blanca Room, completely refurnished and redecorated from the glasses to the front door knob” (The Daily Review January 30 1954) and in April 1954 we find references to the new “Theater Club” or “Theater Room.” But by July 1955 he was “remodeling his Supper Club . . again; just finished spending $50,000 a few months ago. . . Bigger main room is the main idea” But in November 1956 disaster struck. The Oakland Tribune of November 3 reported:
He was soon back in business but on March 29 1957 the same paper carried this ad:
Oakland Realty For Sale
Slim Jenkins Lounge. cafe, consisting of building, all fixtures, including kidney shaped bar; 4 room apartments, 1 rental, and parking lot. Lease possible. Hurry!
A. J. Hartman Realty OLympic 3-3575
If it was sold the new owner allowed Jenkins to continue his operation and in 1959 he made further changes. In June it was reported that “Slim Jenkins spent a week in Las Vegas. He surveyed the show lounges, took notes, and upon his return put all his ideas in a new room which opens tonight” and in August that “Slim Jenkens (sic) has remodeled his Seventh and Wood nitery.”
But, as was mentioned above, in 1961 the site was sold and he had to find a new location.
He first attempted to reopen at 975 West Grand Ave. but protests by members of the nearby Mt. Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church invoking a city ordinance which prohibited the operation of a cabaret within 300 feet of a place of worship led to denial of a cabaret permit. He then In July 1962 opened a new night club at the corner of Third and Broadway at the entrance to Jack London Square which he operated almost (it closed towards the end of 1966) until his death at the age of 76 on May 24 1967.
Information on the entertainment provided in the club in the early years is sketchy. The Plaindealer of January 22 1937 reported that “Across the Bay in Oakland . . . the popular nightly spots are Slim Jenkins Cafe and Nat Earl’s Rhythm Buffet in West Oakland, even tho the entertainment is “can” music.” But live music began to feature fairly soon - the earliest reference I have found is to “Wynona (sic) Harris, blues singer, packing ‘em in at Slim Jenkins in Oakland” (The California Eagle January 15 1942) and the following year saw “Miss Bobbie Walker, formerly of Chicago, now holding the spotlight at Slim Jenkins in Oakland . . . Bobbie Walker is the featured vocalist with the famous team of Scott and Hunter now appearing at the Jenkins, comes on week ends.” Drummer Monk McFay recalled that “After that (second half of 1945) I went back with Buddy [Banks, tenor sax]. . . . We had Frosty Pyles, very fine guitarist; Basie [William Day] on bass . . and Wallace Huff, fine trombonist. . . We went out to Oregon; we went to Seattle, Washington, and to San Francisco, to Oakland, played up there six weeks at Slim Jenkins’s club. He had a liquor store there. It wasn’t no rhythm and blues band, just nice, danceable music and listening music. Buddy sang, and we had a girl from New Orleans, Baby Davis, she sang with us, and another girl singer started out with us; her name was Fluffy Hunter.” At the end of 1945 the band at the club was led by Charles Whitfield (The California Eagle November 27, December 8 and 20 1945).
Pee Wee Crayton also had a long stint there in the late ‘40s, working for a year as a single, as was confirmed by Lowell Fulson who knew him at that time and said “Me and Pee Wee go back a long time. When I first recorded, started in Oakland, he was up there at Slim Jenkins’, and I’m trying to get a record. I had a record but it wouldn’t fit in Slim Jenkins’ night club. It was the wrong type of music. He wanted more . . . the T-Bone Walkers, the Ivory Joe Hunters. Pee-Wee and T-Bone sounded quite a bit alike” (Living Blues 115 p. 23). Pee Wee himself, in Living Blues 56 (Spring 1983) 9 said "So Slim Jenkins, that's the fellow that had a nightclub up there in Oakland, I worked for him for a while. I was a single attraction. He had the band. Had a little band in there called the Four Kings, and they backed me up," and when asked how long he was at Slim Jenkins' replied "Oh, about a year." This was probably round 1947. Millar, Bill, in the liner notes to Route 66 KIX-4 (Ivory Joe Hunter - 7:th Street Boogie) says that after Hunter moved to California in 1942 he "secured a residency at Slim Jenkins' 7th Street Oakland club where he formed what he came to regard as one of his finest bands with Ernie Royal (tpt), Pat Patterson, Baker Milliam (tnrs), Commodore Lark (bass) and Chuck Walker (dms.)" The Oakland Tribune of May 30 1950 said that “you can’t help liking the Fri-through-Sun entertainment featuring Four Masters of Rhythm, Helen Matthews [Linda Hopkins] and Dan Grissom.” The Baltimore Afro-American of May 17 1952 reported that "The club . . is ornate and spacious and featured Singer Jo Jo Alexander; Comedian Jazzbo; and a line of chorus girls who would do any New York hot spot proud. Patrons included colored couples, white couples and mixed pairs."
Up to the fifties Slim Jenkins’ was mainly an up-market jazz club but musical trends in the fifties and sixties meant that blues and rhythm and blues acts began to appear there frequently. We are fortunate that Jenkins began to advertise in The Oakland Tribune, first with a series of generic and unspecific ads in 1950 and from 1953 onwards with ads listing the featured artists; presumably as a corollary of this the entertainment columns of the paper also began to comment on the shows at the club. As a consequence we can get a reasonably full picture of the programmes of the club from 1953 to its closure in 1967. Unsurprisingly Slim tried to bring in artists with a national (or at least other than local) reputation, such as Redd Foxx (September 1953; October 1954), Dinah Washington (August 1954), the Platters (October 1954), the Ink Spots (November 1954; February 1955), Savannah Churchill (February 1955), Roy Milton (September 1954; April and October 1955), Ernie Fields (July and August 1955), Chuck Higgins (August 1955), the Medallions (August 1955), Riff Ruffin (August 1955), Johnny Watson (September 1955), Camille Howard (December 1955). Things became more sporadic after this, with Louis Jordan (August 1957 and February 1966), Ernie Fields (November 1957), Little Willie Littlefield (January 1958), Sonny Stitt (January 1959), Earl Hines (May-June 1963), LaVern Baker (February and July 1965), Stepin Fetchit (October 1965), Vi Redd (March-May 1966) and Charles Brown (September 1966).
However in some ways more interest lies in the less well known (often local) artists who were able to win bookings in what was probably the most prestigious black club in the Bay Area. Work as the regular band must have been much sought after - a role played by Que Martyn in 1953-4, by the Bill Washington Quartet in mid 1955, by a group led by drummer Jimmy Rainey in 1956-7, and in 1958-9 by a quartet known variously as the Four Masters of Rhythm and the Four Masters of Rock’n’ Roll. Mid July 1959 saw the appearance of organist Bobby (Bobbie) Brooks who, often accompanied by the cocktail drums of Tippy Alexander, was a regular until the end of 1963 and reappeared for the early months of 1965. The duet was often boosted by the addition of a couple of horns at weekends. Organist Del Matthews had a few months stint in 1964 and again at the end of 1965 on into 1966) as did Leroy Felts and his Trio in the second half of 1964.
Most of the available photos of the club are to be found in the African American Museum and Library in the Oakland Public Library. They can be most conveniently viewed at https://calisphere.org/search/?q=Slim+Jenkins. A small number of other photos have been published in various sources (some are said to come from AAMLO but don’t appear in the website noted above), as follows:-
Jerry Thompson and Duane Deterville, Black Artists in Oakland (2007)
P. 15 Members of a San Francisco club called the Ramblers enjoying a meal at Slim Jenkins’.
P. 17 A party of men and women at Slim Jenkins’.
P. 20 An exterior shot of the club.
[All three are credited to AAMLO]
Thomas and Wilma Tramble, The Pullman Porters of West Oakland (2007)
P. 79 Two shots of cocktail lounge.
P. 80 An exterior shot of the club (same as p. 20 above).
[All three are credited to AAMLO]
Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje and Eddie S. Meadows (eds.), California Soul: Music of African Americans in the West (1998)
P. 105 An exterior shot of the club (Courtesy of Chris Strachwitz).
Sights and Sounds: Essays in Celebration of West Oakland (1997)
P. 312 A group of guests (Photo courtesy of Gladys LeProtti).
P. 316 Homer “Chuck” Walker with a band.
P. 321 Sims and Keller, publicity photo for Slim Jenkins.
P. 323 Slim Slaughter’s Quartet at Slim Jenkins’.
[The last three photos “courtesy of Homer “Chuck” Walker”].
In Part Two I shall begin to look at the host of less well known artists who appeared for short stays at Slim Jenkins'.
Appendix: Notes on Slim Jenkins' biography.
The details of Slim Jenkins’ early life throw up a few problems. It is probably best to begin with his registration card for the WWII draft which he filled out in 1942 . He gave his name as Harold Hardy Jenkins, his birth date as July 22 1890 and his birthplace as Monroe LA. He was living at 733 36th Street in Oakland with his wife Elsie F. Jenkins and his place of business was 1748 7th Street in Oakland.
We can find him in the 1900 Census in Monroe. Ephriam Jenkins, a 40 year old drayman, was married to 32 year old Alphira, a washerwoman. They had six children - James (13), Zylohia (12), Hardy (10, born January 1890), Celeste (9), William (7) and Myrtle (3). The only problem is that Hardy is described as “daughter”! It does not seem unreasonable to regard this as simply a mistake by the enumerator. The difference in birth month is to be noted.
The family was enumerated in 1910, still in Monroe, but the only children still at home were (possibly - the names are hard to read) Myrtle, William and Celeste. I can find no trace of Hardy/Harold in the 1910 Census.
Slim Jenkins is said to have been a WWI vet in the Oakland Tribune obituary ('Rites Set for Slim Jenkins' May 24 1967 pp. 1-2). The only possible candidate in the draft is Hardy James Jenkins who was resident at 753 Standford, Los Angeles and said he was born on July 22 1888 in Monroe. He was a waiter at the Cadallac (sic) Cafe in Watts. The same man appears on the Los Angeles voters’ register in 1916, listed simply as Hardy Jenkins. On balance this appears more likely to be Slim’s elder brother, James, but the name Hardy and the date of birth (apart from the year; though note that according to the 1900 Census James too was born in July) do throw some doubt.
We appear to be on somewhat more solid ground in the 1920 Census where we find Harold H. Jenkins rooming in Willow Street in Oakland.. He is aged 27, was born in Louisiana, and his profession was “Waiter. R. Road.” However in the California Voter Registration lists we find in Oakland the following:-
1926
Jenkins, Harold 1668 Atlantic St., waiter
1928
Jenkins, Harold H., 1089 7th St., none
1928
Jenkins, Harold, 525 Market St., waiter
1930
Jenkins, Harold, 1105 7th St., restaurant worker
1932
Jenkins, Harold, 1119 8th St, waiter
1932
Jenkins, Harold H., 1105 7th St., waiter
1934
Jenkins, Harold 1119 8th St, waiter.
It is more likely that Harold H. is our man, in which case we find him in the 1930 Census lodging at 1105 7th Street. He was aged 39, born in Louisiana and was proprietor of a pawn shop.
By the time of the 1940 Census Harold Jenkins, aged 49, Employer, Cafe was living at 733 36th Street in Oakland with his 36 year old, Texas born, wife Elsie. They said they had been at the same address in 1935.