Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Getting Dizzy?

“Dizzy’s,” explains Chuck Perrin, “has always been an artist-driven space.” He offers this on a Saturday morning as an explanation for why he is setting up a stage, chairs, and sound system in the Culy warehouse rather than in Dizzy’s home of the past three years, the San Diego Wine and Culinary Center in the Harbor Club Towers. “The artist controls what goes on,” he says, the artist in this case being local jazz trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos. “Gilbert had eyes to come back to a space where he used to host a jam and try it again.”

Of late, the Dizzy’s founder has staged at least five different shows in these East Village warehouse spaces. The Culy is really part of three large spaces that are interconnected. The Jack Dodge space faces onto Sixth Avenue and opens into the Culy on Seventh Avenue. Perrin has also produced shows in the cavernous space next door that is now called the Walter Keller. This, he says, is where the original Dizzy’s was housed, along with a packing company and a design firm.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“Cold turkey” is how he describes the closing of Dizzy’s three years ago. “The City came in one day and said, ‘You can’t do any more shows in here.’ It was just like that,” he says, even though he’d already been producing live jazz there for seven years. “This building was on their list to be retrofitted.” Within months, Dizzy’s was up and running in the Harbor Club Towers. Any complaints?

“People always have complaints about a venue,” he says. “But it’s fine. People seem to like it over there, especially those who like to have a glass of wine with their jazz.” (The original East Village location had coffee and cookies but no alcohol license.) “It’s a little more upscale. It’s not exactly what I had in mind for the Dizzy’s experience,” he says, “but my main concern was just to keep doing it, to keep it happening.”

Perrin admits that a few musicians have complained about acoustics and that the equipment load-in at the Harbor Club Towers is more difficult. “There’s pluses and minuses,” he says, “for both [venues].”

Perrin explains the Dizzy’s brand. Long considered to be an homage to jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie (it is, in part), the truer meaning is what Perrin calls “an orientation to the world, to put people in a place where they’re free to have their own ideas and free to react in any way they want to what’s going on.... I don’t own any buildings. The shows happen wherever we can get them to happen.”

Place

Dizzy's

4275 Mission Bay Drive (in the showroom at San Diego Jet Ski Rentals), San Diego

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Gonzo Report: Downtown thrift shop offers three bands in one show

Come nightfall, Humble Heart hosts The Beat
Next Article

Five new golden locals

San Diego rocks the rockies

“Dizzy’s,” explains Chuck Perrin, “has always been an artist-driven space.” He offers this on a Saturday morning as an explanation for why he is setting up a stage, chairs, and sound system in the Culy warehouse rather than in Dizzy’s home of the past three years, the San Diego Wine and Culinary Center in the Harbor Club Towers. “The artist controls what goes on,” he says, the artist in this case being local jazz trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos. “Gilbert had eyes to come back to a space where he used to host a jam and try it again.”

Of late, the Dizzy’s founder has staged at least five different shows in these East Village warehouse spaces. The Culy is really part of three large spaces that are interconnected. The Jack Dodge space faces onto Sixth Avenue and opens into the Culy on Seventh Avenue. Perrin has also produced shows in the cavernous space next door that is now called the Walter Keller. This, he says, is where the original Dizzy’s was housed, along with a packing company and a design firm.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“Cold turkey” is how he describes the closing of Dizzy’s three years ago. “The City came in one day and said, ‘You can’t do any more shows in here.’ It was just like that,” he says, even though he’d already been producing live jazz there for seven years. “This building was on their list to be retrofitted.” Within months, Dizzy’s was up and running in the Harbor Club Towers. Any complaints?

“People always have complaints about a venue,” he says. “But it’s fine. People seem to like it over there, especially those who like to have a glass of wine with their jazz.” (The original East Village location had coffee and cookies but no alcohol license.) “It’s a little more upscale. It’s not exactly what I had in mind for the Dizzy’s experience,” he says, “but my main concern was just to keep doing it, to keep it happening.”

Perrin admits that a few musicians have complained about acoustics and that the equipment load-in at the Harbor Club Towers is more difficult. “There’s pluses and minuses,” he says, “for both [venues].”

Perrin explains the Dizzy’s brand. Long considered to be an homage to jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie (it is, in part), the truer meaning is what Perrin calls “an orientation to the world, to put people in a place where they’re free to have their own ideas and free to react in any way they want to what’s going on.... I don’t own any buildings. The shows happen wherever we can get them to happen.”

Place

Dizzy's

4275 Mission Bay Drive (in the showroom at San Diego Jet Ski Rentals), San Diego

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Live Five: Sitting On Stacy, Matte Blvck, Think X, Hendrix Celebration, Coriander

Alt-ska, dark electro-pop, tributes, and coastal rock in Solana Beach, Little Italy, Pacific Beach
Next Article

Trophy truck crushes four at Baja 1000

"Two other racers on quads died too,"
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader