Twins Jazz, a club that helped bring jazz back to U Street NW during the resurgence of the area once known as D.C.’s Black Broadway, is closing permanently.
On Thursday, club owners Kelly and Maze Tesfaye posted a statement on Facebook saying the decision to close was difficult, but was made in consideration of people’s safety as well as long-term uncertainty for the business amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The statement reads as follows:
It has been an honor and privilege to serve the Jazz community in Washington, DC for 33 years. We came to this country from Ethiopia with a dream of owning our own business and for 33 years we have done more than we could have ever imagined. The decision to close was very difficult, however, we knew the safety of our patrons, musicians, and our staff was our top priority, and given the uncertainty of when we could safely open our doors, we decided to close our location permanently.
The Tesfayes — twin sisters from whom the club derived its name — first opened Twins Lounge, in 1986, in Sixteenth Street Heights. Featuring nightly music, that venue became a go-to for local jazz musicians and fans.
It closed in 1999 due to the city’s condemnation of the building where it was located. The Tesfaye sisters then opened Twins Jazz, in 2000, at 1344 U St. NW. Twins Jazz was part of a wave of jazz clubs that came to U Street around this time, including Bohemian Caverns and Jojo’s. The original Sixteenth Street Heights lounge reopened for a bit, but shuttered permanently in 2007. (Bohemian Caverns, located at 11th and U streets NW, has also since closed, and the space was taken over by new venues last year.)
Over the last two decades, Twins Jazz hosted many jazz greats, such as Reggie Workman, Oliver Lake, Winard Harper, Billy Hart, and others. Twins prominently featured local musicians; among them were Lenny Robinson, Kris Funn, Allyn Johnson, Nasar Abadey, Lena Seikaly, Tony Martucci, Jeff Antoniuk, and Steve Novosel. Pianist Amy K. Bormet organized early iterations of the Washington Women In Jazz Festival at the club, which gave available slots to up-and-comers and talented students on quiet nights.
But gentrification has had a major impact on jazz venues located in the U Street and 14th Street NW corridors. A lack of interest from new residents, increasing rents, and other issues led to the closures of Bohemian Caverns, HR-57, Cafe Nema, Utopia, and State of the Union.
Twins Jazz managed to outlast them all, but it could not survive the devastation that COVID-19 has wrought on the live-music and restaurant industries. Without a widely available vaccine for the coronavirus yet, it’s likely that more businesses will close, absent significant government aid.
Still, in their statement Thursday, the Tesfayes hinted at the possibility of a future for Twins Jazz.
“We are taking this time to reimagine how we can continue to serve the DC jazz community in a new and innovate way that provides musicians with a platform to perform and continues the legacy that Twins Jazz has established in Washington, DC over the past three decades,” they wrote. (DCist’s efforts to reach the sisters were unsuccessful.)
While the possibility of a new version of Twins Jazz may be tantalizing for local jazz fans, it’s too soon to say whether — or how — it will come to fruition.
