Venerable Pogo’s Tavern gets better with age

Friday, July 21, 2000 | 9:45 a.m.

"Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came ..."

-- refrain from "Cheers" theme (NBC, 1982-93)

Pogo's Tavern is a quiet neighborhood bar where, as a rule, the main entertainment is conversation among friends.

"Beer, Norm?"

"Have I gotten that predictable? Good."

On most nights (and days, too) a steady stream of regular customers trade barbs and stories while they unwind with a beer or a well drink, play slot machines and occasionally listen to the jukebox.

But every Friday, from 8 p.m. to midnight, the nondescript club at 2103 N. Decatur Blvd. transforms into a sit-in jazz joint, a place where talented musicians have been jamming for almost three decades.

On jazz nights Pogo's regulars often lose their home-field advantage to strangers who invade their turf to soak up the notes played by musicians whose names are not well-known to the general public, but who have been associated with such legends as Artie Shaw, Stan Kenton and Count Basie.

The neighborhood locals don't mind the trespassers. They're happy to share their space with laid-back interlopers for a few hours one night a week.

Besides, some of the weekly visitors may decide to stick around and become part of Pogo's extended family, people who know our troubles are all the same.

Early days, late nights

"Pour you a beer, Norm?"

"All right, but stop me at one ... make that one-thirty."

Pogo's didn't start out as a one-night stand for jazz fans.

The late Glen Jones, Clark County sheriff from 1943-55, opened the first bar at the location a few years after he left office. He named it the Old Mare and catered to cowboys -- there was even a hitching rail out front so customers could secure their horses.

The bar is shoehorned into a strip mall that hugs the west side of a stretch of thoroughfare that was in lonely desert country when the cinder-block structure was built.

Following a couple of changes in ownership, Jim Holcombe bought the club in 1968 and renamed it Pogo's.

"No rhyme nor reason," he said. "The name just suddenly came to mind."

Thirty-two years later Jones, the hitching rail and the cowboys are gone but Pogo's, Holcombe and a loyal group of customers are still here -- imbibers who drop by several times a week for a cold beer after a hot day at work.

"Can I draw you a beer, Norm?"

"No, I know what they look like. Just pour me one."

Although Friday-night jazz now rocks the walls in place of cowboy music, not much else has changed. Drinks are cheap. Friendship is free. And it still only costs 25 cents to shoot a game of pool.

The decor is not exactly haute couture, but then what self-respecting neighborhood bar likes chi-chi, unless it's a new kind of dip? Five slot machines stand at attention between two posts in the middle of the room, whose dark-brown, paneled walls are adorned with pool trophies, Budweiser beer signs and Oakland Raider banners.

On the south side of the row of slots is the bar -- a long, ovate structure similar to the one used in "Cheers," except for the 10 poker machines embedded in the counter. The bar area is the domain of the regulars, but they welcome tourists into their territory.

The major change in the tavern over the past 50-plus years probably was replacing eight years ago the original straight bar, an antique imported from historic Goldfield (182 miles northwest of Las Vegas) by the tavern's original owner.

Holcombe hated to do it, but said the old counter-top couldn't accommodate the new poker slots -- and slots account for a major part of the club's income.

On the north side of the room are booth-lined walls, a couple of tables, a postage stamp of a stage and a dance floor that isn't much larger. On nonjazz nights most of the space in front of the stage is occupied by the pool table.

The jukebox plays a variety of tunes, reflecting the diverse tastes of the customers -- some of whom have been regulars for 40 years. On the box are such artists as the Doors, Steppenwolf, Patsy Cline, Bobby Darin, Elton John and Frank Sinatra.

Cheers

"How's life treating you Norm?"

"Like it caught me sleeping with its wife."

Although the crowd is a mix of tastes, sexes, ages and professions, regulars leave their differences at the door and enjoy each others' similarities.

"Everybody sitting at this bar right now knows everybody's name," said Keith Owen, 43, who was among about 15 customers at the club early on a recent Friday evening -- a number that would ebb and flow as the night wore on. "They come from all different walks of life. We cut up and joke. We all help each other out.

"This is like a home place. Nobody's going to get bothered here, nobody's going to get hassled. It's better than 'Cheers.' "

Jazz-night customers include patrons such as 81-year-old George Martin, a retired airline pilot who has been a regular for 16 years. Others may be strangers who look young enough to be carded.

Tom Gruenwald has frequented Pogo's once or twice a week for four years. The Wisconsin native spent 15 years in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, where he owned several video stores before becoming tired of "living on a rock in the ocean" and retiring to Nevada.

"This is a true Las Vegas neighborhood bar. It's not a chain," Gruenwald said. "I like the way I'm treated here."

Owen -- one of more than 20 second-generation patrons -- attributes the club's peaceful ambiance to Holcombe, a large, soft-spoken man with a tough inner core who will evict anyone from his bar who causes trouble, even if the troublemaker is a friend.

"This has nothing to do with friendship. I can be friends with you, but if you get rowdy, I'll throw you out the door. It's no big deal," Holcombe said.

It's the attitude he instilled in his bartenders, most of whom have been with him for a long time. Mary Whitefield has tended bar at Pogo's for 10 years, and even though she is half Holcombe's size and has a pleasingly soft smile, no one challenges her.

While Holcombe can be tough, more often he's a gentle giant.

"Jim's got a heart of gold," Owen said. "He'll bend over backwards to help you. He's helped me out a million times when I needed it."

But Owen knows if he causes trouble, he will be thrown out -- even though he has been a customer for more than 20 years.

All that jazz

On jazz night, as the musicians begin drifting in, the pool table is covered and pushed into a corner. The light that hangs down over the table is tied close to the ceiling to open up the view and make room for dancing.

Holcombe says that when he bought the club it wasn't his intent to book jazz every Friday night. He doesn't claim to be an expert on music of any type. In the early days he tried different kinds of bands on different nights.

"It just evolved," he said.

What evolved is a band of four paid musicians, usually old-timers who aren't doing it for the money but for the love of jazz. Any number of unpaid artists drop by during the evening to jam.

At the heart of the weekly sessions is 79-year-old drummer Irv Kluger, who took over the band after its leader died 16 years ago.

Kluger is constantly in motion -- on stage and off. Recognizing he is getting older, he sold his motorcycle last year and bought a mountain bike. Late at night he swims in his backyard pool. He talks incessantly, like a man who has a lot to say and not much time to say it. And he cuts up with the younger crowd.

Between sets he mingles, sharing with patrons tales from his more than 65 years as a professional musician -- regaling them with stories about friends such as the late Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich.

When he's at the drums he is in his element -- and ageless, playing with almost the same enthusiasm and vigor he had at age 13, when he performed in a New York City club for $2.50 a night.

For four hours he and his players draw from a vast musical library in their collective memory to entertain their appreciative audiences, and themselves. They don't know what direction the music will take when they step on stage.

"I play to satisfy myself first," Kluger said.

Many different players have shared the stage since he became director. Some have died, some moved away. Currently, his band includes Irv Gordon on tenor sax, former concert pianist Stuart Aptaker and bass player Chuck Kovack.

Gordon, 67, came to Las Vegas in 1955 and played jazz in lounges until forced to find better-paying employment to support his family. He ended up with the house band at the Stardust hotel-casino for 20 years.

"I gave up jazz to do that, for the pension," he said.

Gordon retired seven years ago and returned to his first love.

"I won't do anything but jazz now," he said.

Patrons never know who might show up to accompany the band, standing off to the side of the stage to jam -- sometimes competing with dancers for space. Recently it was trombonists Brian O'Shea, who also plays at the House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino, and Jimmy Dell.

Dell, 76, was with the Goofers, a group that started out with Louis Prima in the 1940s.

"I just come in to keep my chops up," Dell said.

Not all the entertainment comes from the musicians. Tap dancer Susan Abbott frequently pops into the club on jazz night, straps on her tap shoes and gives the audience a brief sample of her talent.

"There is nothing like dancing to live music," said Abbott, who teaches tap at UNLV and the Community College of Southern Nevada.

Although altercations at Pogo's are rare, a sit-in clarinet player recently took offense at a comment allegedly made by Gordon and slugged him in the mouth.

True to his word, Holcombe banned the cab-driving clarinetist from the club -- even though the musician was his friend.

Kruger was indignant over the assault against his saxophonist.

"You don't hit a horn player in the mouth. That's how he makes his living," Kruger said.

And at Pogo's, you don't hit the customers either -- not if you want the regulars to continue to be glad that you came.

Jerry Fink is an Accent feature writer. Reach him at jerry@lasvegassun.com or 259-4058.

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