It’s been 13 years since Calgary’s most established and most pivotal jazz club started. Beat Niq, located in the basement of the Grain Exchange building and brainchild of owner Rob Young, officially opened its doors in 1997. Since then, it has put down deep roots, establishing itself as a social hub, the destination of choice for internationally renowned jazz musicians and the centre of Calgary’s jazz scene.

But Beat Niq is at a crossroads. Due to the economic downturn of the last year, it is in danger of closing its doors for good. Plans are in place for a three-day gala event in support of the club. Fourteen bands will be performing September 10 to 12, with each of the three nights featuring a jam session to finish off the evening. Club owners and supporters have mounted the three-day event as a combination membership drive and fundraiser. Beat Niq, says Gerry Hebert, the club’s music director, needs to raise about $100,000 by the year’s end to keep the club alive.

Beat Niq started in what was originally the storage basement for the Piq Niq restaurant. As Hebert describes the humble beginnings, “I think fundamentally it was designed to be a social model for performance. Rob and Connie [Young, the owners] envisioned that from the start. Rather than just another bar that occasionally has music, the bar was never open unless there was music; it was as simple as that. You came with that condition from the start — this is a music venue where we’ll serve quality food and beverage to enhance the music experience.”

Over the years, Beat Niq has established itself as a home for local and visiting musicians. New York–based musician Curtis McDonald, for example, got his start playing upstairs at Piq Niq when he was only 11 years old. Now a graduate from a Calgary high school, McDonald sees Beat Niq as a unique Calgary venue. “It’s really unique because it’s a jazz club that also has some class,” he says. “They’ve been great to musicians. There’s always the prospect of making great music in a great room, with a stage, with an appreciative crowd and food and drink. So, aside from being a cool venue to play as musicians, it’s very much like friends and family — very warm, very home-like.”

Beat Niq has also proven very home-like beyond music circles. For Pat McGannon, agent and owner of the music booking agency PM Gigs, Beat Niq has special significance: It’s where he proposed to his wife and it was the site of his wedding reception. Beyond that, this former member of the Dino Martinis knows first-hand Beat Niq’s relationship with the music community.

“I think for all the musicians who have played there, local or out of town or wherever you happen to be from, Rob’s always been about the artist,” he says. “That’s really different from a lot of other clubs and pubs. I’ve booked artists clear across the country and you’re exposed to a lot of different styles and different attitudes when it comes to compensation and how people are treated.”

This focus on the artist has paid huge dividends for Beat Niq. It has become the place where many Calgary jazz musicians have established their careers, launched their first CDs and built relationships in the jazz community. One who knows this from Beat Niq’s earliest days is drummer Tyler Hornby, who teaches for the Mount Royal College Jazz Diploma Program.

“To see musicians and other touring acts perform at the club, it’s been a source of inspiration for myself and many local musicians,” he says. “Not only that, it’s actually served as training ground for younger and up-and-coming musicians to learn from more of the senior players.”

This opportunity for young players is also one of Beat Niq’s key achievements within the last decade. “We annually bring in a major guest artist, a sort of artist-in-residence, to perform with students,” says Kevin Wilms, director of the Calgary Association for the Development of Musical Education and head of the jazz program at William Aberhart High School. “Probably for the last 10 years it would have been very difficult for us to make that work without the support of Beat Niq. Although the student performances couldn’t happen at the Beat Niq, we were able to share the artist with the public and then have the artist perform at the Beat Niq. In turn, this raised money to support the high school project. It also brought not only credibility but attention to what we were doing.”

A community-building social centre, Beat Niq has also placed Calgary on the international jazz radar. It’s the place with a New York vibe, as claimed by such jazz greats as Wycliffe Gordon, Randy Brecker, John Riley and others. Wilms has heard this from these visiting giants, Hornby’s heard it and so has McDonald. Beat Niq has a reputation.

The three-day membership drive and fundraiser on September 10 to 12 is crucial for the club; if it fails, Beat Niq will close and Calgary will lose its longest running jazz club. As McGannon observes, musicianship at Beat Niq is “on par with anything else you could see in the world and they’re people who live right here in our city. It’s totally made us cosmopolitan.”

“When groups tour Western Canada, it’s the go-to venue in Calgary,” McDonald adds. “If Beat Niq left, I almost feel the jazz community would bypass Calgary because there wouldn’t be its scene, its vibe.”