To hear Brent “Doc” Watkins tell the story of Jazz, TX, the basement nightclub at Pearl, the project almost didn’t happen because of his own cold feet.
As he worked with an architect and the executives behind the high-profile dining and shopping development, he worried the spot originally planned for the venue — a corner inside the first floor of Hotel Emma — would end up being too cramped.
It wasn’t a business decision based on research and spreadsheets, just a hunch. Nonetheless, at nearly the last minute, and at a table surrounded by project backers, the pianist, vocalist and bandleader withdrew.
“I could just see the look of disappointment on their faces. I thought I might have screwed up the greatest opportunity of my life,” Watkins told the Current in a recent interview. “But A few months later, they came back and said, ‘OK, we realized that you’re not happy with the size of the space we offered. What if we dig a hole in the ground under the Bottling Department food hall and build a basement?’”
And that’s where Watkins’ Jazz, TX, landed.
The supper club hosted its first gig on Aug. 23, 2016, with Watkins as its resident pianist and bandleader — roles he still fills today. The club defied the odds, overcoming early rough patches and the pandemic, all while figuring out how to turn a profit while centering on a musical genre that many consider a niche interest.
Over its 10-year run, Jazz, TX, has evolved into a music destination that provides good-paying gigs for local and regional talent while booking high-profile touring acts, from TV star-turned-crooner Tony Danza to Grammy-winning avant-garde jazz guitarist Bill Frisell.
More recently, Watkins turned his attention to expanding the concept outside of San Antonio. He and his partners opened the jazz club Doc’s in Houston’s Montrose district last fall, and a second Doc’s will debut early next year in Chicago.
And while it occasionally hosts other forms of acoustic music, jazz is still the mainstay at Jazz, TX, and Watkins performs 100 or so gigs a year there, often two a night. Just don’t call him an entrepreneur. For Watkins, the word conjures thoughts of tech bros all too eager to lose other people’s money.
“I’m a piano player that’s figured out how to wrangle musicians,” Watkins said. “I don’t know anything about finance. I never took a business class in my life.”
Even so, the business side of Jazz, TX has increasingly taken up Watkins’ attention.
In addition to releasing a book titled Jazz, TX: A Love Letter To Live Music, Community And The Little Club That Could, which dropped in conjunction with the club’s 10-year anniversary, the bandleader is focused on expanding TurnTable, a ticketing platform he co-founded.
The roots of TurnTable go back to the COVID-19 crisis, when Jazz, TX was operating at reduced capacity and customers grew particular about where they sat. Watkins discovered that existing ticketing platforms let customers select individual seats but weren’t designed to let a party reserve an entire table.
So he and a software developer built their own.
Through a serendipitous online meeting, TurnTable caught the interest of British management consultant and venture capital investor Richard Koch, and it’s since been adopted by a growing number of jazz clubs and other small live-music venues across the U.S., Canada and the U.K.
Watkins said the platform’s success stems from pent-up demand for such a tool.
“People do not want communal seating at a jazz club,” he said. “And when I see communal seating in a jazz club, I think this manager must be the stupidest person on the planet for implementing this.”
Earning a living
Watkins’ “Doc” handle stems from a PhD in music he earned at UT-Austin. Although he studied classical music, his father was a jazz musician and that music also left an early imprint when he was growing up in St. Louis.
“My parents separated before I was even born, but I always had some jazz in my blood,” he said. “My dad had these albums with bossa nova tunes and Sinatra tunes and Cole Porter.”
Even though Watkins earned his doctorate in a city that touts itself as the “Live Music Capital of the World,” he found it impossible to make a living playing music there. Gentrification from the tech boom made Austin too expensive, and there were simply too many musicians scrambling for the same low-paying gigs.
So, he took a church job in San Antonio, and a university teaching position quickly followed. Neither paid much, but he realized the Alamo City might make a solid base of operations as he scrambled for gigs to support his growing family.
“San Antonio was kind of what I dreamed that a city in Texas could be like — really friendly people, great food, a slower pace of life,” Watkins said. “People are very family oriented here. And I also realized that it was unlike Austin, where musicians just constantly undercut each other to the point where gigs don’t pay anything. It’s an impossibility to make a living as a jazz musician in Austin anymore.”
Eventually, Watkins figured he could turn his love of jazz into a source of income. He approached an Italian restaurant owner about playing the piano in the corner of the dining room for tips. The first night yielded $60. Eventually, though, the gig led him to assemble a combo and land other performances at restaurants, bars and weddings.
Over time, that expanded to include high-profile slots at downtown steakhouse Bohanan’s and the Charline McCombs Empire Theatre. Watkins also grew his network of fellow jazz musicians, whom he’d book for gigs he couldn’t take because of other commitments.
By 2012, Watkins and the 50 or so musicians under his South Texas Jazz network were playing more than 500 gigs a year. Suddenly, jazz became a living — and his network attracted the attention of the Pearl real-estate honcho Bill Shown.
“We do have the ability to build the world that we want to live in,” Watkins said. “I don’t think we think about that enough when we build a real estate development and just put in a bunch of Olive Gardens and Starbucks. Is this where you want to live?”
A fine balance
To that end, Watkins has found success, said JJ Lopez, general manager of Trinity University’s jazz radio station KRTU-FM. Lopez credits the bandleader and club owner with finding a way to balance art and commerce.
“All venues have their place in the jazz ecosystem,” Lopez said. “Jazz, TX has been able to balance the localism, which is really important to the scene — they’re doing that well — and they’re starting to figure out who on the national scene fits to their program.”
Lopez noted that the club’s for-profit model and Pearl rent means it can’t just rely on diehard jazz fans. He pointed to special theme nights at the club that focus on jazz interpretations of Disney music or Vince Guaraldi’s compositions for the animated Charlie Brown TV specials as ways to draw in jazz novices.
“If you’re going to be at the Pearl and a premier place like that, your programming has to be a fine balance of specially curated programs that draw a wide appeal and also bookings that attract serious jazz heads,” Lopez added. “I think they’re finding that balance.”
Watkins acknowledges that Jazz, TX and Doc’s can’t be all things to all jazz fans. The clubs offer an elevated experience, and they lean into retro vibes. What’s more, Watkins’ personal approach to the music favors the more familiar and accessible tropes of classic jazz.
Still, Watkins said he’s willing to take chances and give music fans another place to broaden their horizons and find a sense of community. He sees the clubs as an alternative to a mass-market entertainment industry that’s pushing culture into a corner with little to offer beyond Taylor Sheridan-style episodic TV and bubblegum arena tours.
And he added that other musicians are noticing what he’s building.
Watkins recently brought premier New York bassist Neal “Sugar” Caine into the house band at Doc’s in Houston. Caine spent the past 30 years in Harry Connick Jr.’s group and will continue that gig from Houston.
In the end, Watkins’ business ventures circle back to the problem he confronted as a young pianist: how does someone devote his life to music without struggling to pay the bills?
“Every time we make a new hire like that, it’s like that’s one more musician that would’ve ultimately quit,” he said.
Texas politics is a mess. We make it a readable mess.
Sign up for San Antonio Current’s new “Texas Politics This Week” newsletter.
Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
