A MUSIC LINEUP THAT RAN SEVEN NIGHTS a week has been sliced nearly in half.
A full-time staff that once numbered 15 has been cut to one.
And an organization long headed by a visionary, if controversial, executive director now has no artistic leader at all.
Can HotHouse — a once bustling cultural center in the South Loop — survive long under these austere conditions? And even if it does, can it remain a nexus for innovative jazz, novel world music, provocative poetry and practically everything else in the creative arts?
Devotees of HotHouse have been asking these questions since last July, when HotHouse founder-executive director Marguerite Horberg was suspended and, ultimately, forced out.
But the urgency of the situation increased dramatically last month, when the board members who wrested control from Horberg sent out an e-mail plea for funds.
“HotHouse is in the midst of a short-term $70,000 fundraising drive to address operational shortfalls,” it read. “We need to raise this money by June 30 to continue to bring you the world-class programming we put on the HotHouse stage.”
Ever since that alarm went out, the past and present leaders of HotHouse have increased their long-running vituperations against each other. Each has maligned the other for harming an institution that has been beloved by Chicagoans and international visitors for nearly two decades. Each side has insisted that it alone has the ability to save HotHouse.
At stake is the soul of an arts organization unique in the United States, a place where international stars and local legends have performed at affordable ticket prices not usually encountered in the Loop. With its free-flowing mix of art forms, its devotion to nurturing iconoclastic artists and its penchant for left-wing political gatherings, HotHouse reflected the philosophies of Horberg and the many fans and funders who gathered around her.
But what becomes of HotHouse now, with Horberg gone and financial troubles brewing?
“The day I left, HotHouse ceased to exist,” says Horberg. The attitude of the board that fired her, she adds, “is antithetical to the spirit of HotHouse.”
Counters board president Martin Bishop, “Nobody that is part of this organization is going to just let HotHouse die.
“If you came into HotHouse a year ago or if you come in today, you might notice some artistic differences, but the quality is the same, or better.”
Indeed, performances still unfold at HotHouse. Visitors from Chicago to Tokyo convene Monday nights to hear singer-pianist Yoko Noge’s Jazz Me Blues band. A large and diverse crowd nearly filled the place last month, when the bossa nova pioneer Joao Donato made his historic, if belated, Chicago debut on HotHouse’s appealingly intimate stage.
But the place has been sapped of some of its energy and character, as well. With so many nights dark, with Horberg and her longtime associates vanished, with no one at the artistic helm (only the new business manager, Marc Harris, holds a full-time staff position), HotHouse has changed, and not for the better.
Bishop concedes the difficulties. He acknowledges that HotHouse has cut back on presenting precisely the non-commercial, risky shows that built its reputation. He wants to get back to seven-nights-a-week programming. He agrees that “as soon as we have resources to find the right person, we need an artistic director.”
All of that, however, is beyond the organtion’s reach at this point, he says.”We downsized to stabilize,” Bishop says.
Adds business director Harris, “My opinion of all this is that we’re just in rebuilding mode.”
To help pay the bills, Harris, Bishop and HotHouse’s part-time staff have ventured beyond the e-mail quest for cash, scheduling a series of fundraiser concerts in May and June. Most of the performers, says Bishop, have donated their services.
Essentially, the HotHouse board hopes to whittle down an institutional debt of approximately $150,000 (in an organization this year budgeted at $1.4 million). Horberg says the shortfall arose because the new administration failed to apply for key grants; Bishop admits as much, but he asserts that the club’s poor record-keeping prevented timely filings.
Whatever the reasons, Bishop and his board believe they can succeed in securing HotHouse’s financial future because the institution, unlike many not-for-profit organizations, derives most of its funding from earned revenue (such as liquor and ticket sales). Just $250,000 of the annual budget, or about 18 percent, comes from individual and foundation grants. “I am optimistic,” Harris says.
Yet a great deal already has been lost. The warring between Bishop and Horberg has cast a pall on an arts center that — despite its long-running financial challenges — once radiated a sense of joy and discovery.
“It’s very sad to see the turmoil in the management at HotHouse,” says singer-pianist Noge, her own long-standing HotHouse engagement making her a kind of symbol of the place, as well. “I wish the current management and Marguerite would make peace, because their purpose is the same, their goal is the same — to keep the institution going.”
But can HotHouse retain its identity after its staff has been decimated, its programming diluted and its creator already proclaiming it dead?
Double whammy
“This is a unique situation,” says Michael Orlove, an influential music programmer in the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs. “You’ve got a not-for-profit venue that ousted not only its executive director but its founder, as well — the person that came up with the concept and drove the whole vibe of the place. …
“Is this venue strong enough that it can exist without Marguerite?”
That’s the pivotal question, though this is hardly the first time an arts organization has booted out the pioneer who invented it. Lyric Opera of Chicago clearly survived and flourished after firing founder Carol Fox, in 1981. The Chicago Humanities Festival forged ahead in 2005, when its board forced out president Eileen Mackevich, who co-founded the festival with Richard Franke (he became board chairman emeritus earlier this year).
But those organizations are far larger and more socially entrenched than HotHouse, and therefore, perhaps, better able to withstand major administrative upheavals.
HotHouse, for all of Horberg’s artistic success in creating and building it, has flirted with disaster practically since the beginning.
Founded in 1987 by Horberg as the for-profit Center for International Performance and Exhibition, the umbrella organization soon opened HotHouse in a charmingly ramshackle but strategically well-located space at 1565 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Thanks to Horberg’s ingenious and consistently innovative programming, HotHouse quickly emerged as a magnet for brilliant artists and inquisitive audiences. Her “Women of the New Jazz Festival,” launched in 1991, defied the men’s-club ambience that pervades jazz to this day. Her determination to present some of the most iconoclastic music in the world, from Roscoe Mitchell’s thundering saxophone-solo shows to Leroy Jenkins’ free-jazz violin improvisations, placed HotHouse permanently at the forefront of new musical thought.
Unfortunately, even as HotHouse was making musical history, it was running up against economic problems. By 1994, a rent dispute prompted HotHouse’s landlord to cut off electricity and serve eviction papers. A year later, HotHouse was homeless. It re-emerged in 1998 as a not-for-profit organization in its plush current location, at 60 E. Balbo Drive. But even then, says Horberg, the institution was $250,000 in the hole.
But HotHouse continued to produce remarkable artistic results. Horberg’s adventurousness in booking such far-flung attractions as the virtuoso band Cubanismo (from Havana), conguero Giovanni Hidalgo (Puerto Rico) and singer Cibelle (Brazil) proved that all the world converged at HotHouse.
Worst of times
Turbulent times, however, never really subsided. In the wake of Chicago’s E2 nightclub tragedy, in which 21 people were killed, the city began cracking down on club violations and shuttered HotHouse in May 2003, for failure to follow the provisions of its theatrical and liquor licenses.
The club reopened not long after, but a turning point had been reached in the ongoing soap opera. “There was a move among the board to bring [onto] the board different kinds of professional expertise,” says Horberg.
“It was in response to the E2 tragedy. …
“People who got on the board were not part of the cultural community, they had no ties to people who had been there” as the club had developed, Horberg says.
Moreover, they became impatient with HotHouse’s chronic debt. Horberg accuses Bishop, who joined the board in 2003, of using the debt as an excuse to get rid of her. Bishop says that when the board set new policies to control spending, Horberg refused to follow them.
Though perhaps no one ever will get to the bottom of the he-said, she-said allegations, the future of HotHouse seems perilous.
“Whatever issues anybody had with Marguerite, the place stayed open and played tremendous music,” says jazz devotee Steven Saltzman, who serves as president of the non-profit Jazz Institute of Chicago but hastens to note that he speaks on this situation solely as a music lover.
Says Chicago bandleader-composer Nicole Mitchell, who often has performed at HotHouse, “It’s kind of sad that it had to come to this.”
Who and what to see at HotHouse
Following are shows worth hearing at HotHouse, 31 E. Balbo Drive. For details, call 312-362-9707 or visit www.hothouse.net.
* Yoko Noge’s Jazz Me Blues: The veteran singer-songwriter presents a fusion of American and Asian musical idioms; 8:30 p.m. Mondays; no cover.
* Funkadesi: The self-described “Indo-Afro-Caribbean” band celebrates its 10th anniversary with a fundraiser for HotHouse; 9 p.m. May 24; $15-$20.
* Miyumi: Tatsu Aoki’s East-meets-West ensemble performs a chamber version of its glorious suite, “Rooted: Origins of Now”; 8 p.m. May 25; $10-$12.
* Corey Wilkes: The brilliant, ascending Chicago trumpeter leads his Black Slang band; 10 p.m. June 2; admission price to be announced.
— Howard Reich
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A short history of HotHouse
1987 Marguerite Horberg establishes the not-for-profit Center for International Performance and Exhibition, to create arts programming.
1989 Horberg opens the for-profit HotHouse club at 1565 N. Milwaukee Ave.
1991 HotHouse’s “Women of the New Jazz Festival” shatters the gender barrier, spotlighting Jane Bunnett and Rita Warford, among others.
1992 Cutting-edge bands such as 8 Bold Souls, the Ritual Trio and the Ken Vandermark Quartet headline at the club.
1994 HotHouse has its electricity cut off and is served eviction papers by its landlord in a rent dispute.
1995 The venue closes its doors at the Milwaukee Avenue address, though Horberg thereafter presents occasional shows in various locations.
1998 HotHouse reopens as a not-for-profit organization in plush quarters at 60 E. Balbo Drive, featuring Ernest Dawkins’ New Horizons Ensemble.
1999 The club emerges as a key focal point for Chicago’s first World Music Festival.
2002 The colossal Puerto Rican percussionist Giovanni Hidalgo attracts standing-room-only crowds.
2004 Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians celebrates its 40th anniversary at the club.
2006 HotHouse board suspends Horberg, who never returns to the club.
2007 The management of the club issues an e-mail plea for funds.
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hreich@tribune.com
