The Minor Key

01 / The story of this place

Make time for these

The Minor Key was a jazz coffee house in a converted storefront on Dexter Avenue at Burlingame, with a high tin ceiling and a catwalk from which fans could look down on the band; admission was collected at the door. In its short life it presented John Coltrane's major Detroit appearances as a leader, as well as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Cannonball and Nat Adderley, Stan Getz, Ramsey Lewis, Maynard Ferguson, Oscar Peterson and Detroit's Yusef Lateef, and without a liquor-and-dinner format it let working people hear top jazz up close. It closed after only a few years: in 1963 per The Concert Database, though some sources describe 1959–1961 as its main run.

1. John Coltrane as a leader
2. Catwalk above the band
3. No liquor-and-dinner format