At Jazz, TX, an Alamo City blend of restaurant, cocktail bar, and dance hall is centered on toe-tapping jazz.
Running the show (and the keyboard) is a 36-year-old Oregonian named Brett Watkins, who migrated south to study music in college. A few years later, he had a lofty degree and a nickname.
“When I got my PhD from UT Austin, my friends just started calling me Doc,” he said. “And all of a sudden, that nickname kinda stuck.”
Doc Watkins studied the classics but fell for jazz.
“Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, they were swing bands. But if you actually watch the videos and listen to the music, they were basically a Texas jazz band,” Doc said.
Doc’s band also has that old big band sound with a little blues and Broadway all blended together in a blur, sometimes sultry.
“What I love about the San Antonio music scene is that just as country and western, swing and jazz were all kinda together. That’s what San Antonio is culturally,” Doc said. “And it was important for me to do something that I thought was authentic to my own personality, and I thought San Antonio kinda beckoned me here.”
Watkins started his live music venue under the renovated Pearl campus 18 months ago, and it’s been a hit ever since.
“We’re still in the honeymoon phase. We are sold out every single Friday and Saturday night since we opened a year and a half ago,” said Doc, who features Texas musicians first and foremost. “And that’s why we have to be choosy with all of the out-of-town bands, because we’re not gonna make room for every out-of-town band. I don’t care how good they are or how many Grammys they’ve won, because we’re gonna focus on local cats first.”
Curtis Calderon is one of those “local cats” and says that they live music scene had hit a lull until Jazz, TX opened.
“[Doc] wanted to start this club and he’s tried to book these gigs to take care of local musicians,” Calderon said. “He’s a really good guy and a really fair guy. Sometimes he would put his own money up to make these things work, and to pay everyone fairly.”
The little underground club only seats about a hundred people but has a large nationwide following now thanks to public radio. They tape once a month and broadcast the shows weekly, and the crowd comes from near and far.
“People come down and they say, ‘I’ve never even been to a jazz club before. I don’t even like jazz but I love this place!’ And that what we want to hear,” Doc said.
As for the future, Doc says he’s confident that despite the digital age, the classic jazz songbook will survive.
“There’s always gonna be music,” he said. “Someone’s always gonna wanna hear a song. And whether the model breaks or not, the essence of the thing is never gonna go away. Where’s it gonna go?”
Thanks to Doc Watkins, jazz will always have a place to go in San Antonio. And that’s why he’s another one of the people who make San Antonio great.