The Blue Wisp

Like the wooden barns with big tobacco ads, the all-jazz club is
vanishing from the American landscape. The Blue Wisp Jazz Club in Cincinnati, Ohio, created in 1977, is among the nation's oldest. Since
2000, the club has been in a former cellular telephone storefront on Eighth Street. The club's co-founder, Marjean Wisby, was a club fixture
until her death in 2006. For almost 30 years, the club has housed the venerable Blue Wisp Big Band, led by former Stan Kenton drummer John von Ohlen. Over the decades, the club has mirrored the economic changes in jazz. With few touring jazz acts these days, the Blue Wisp maintains a close relationship with the jazz faculty at the University of Cincinnati.