When Jeff Campbell, founder and executive director of Emancipation Theater Company, was approached by Denver City Councilmember Candi CdeBaca in 2021 about creating a play on the history of the Rossonian Hotel, he knew the story was worth developing. But he had no interest in a typical production recycling well-worn ideas about the city’s legendary jazz lounge in the heart of its historic Black neighborhood.
“The story’s been told a lot, and for people who have an interest in jazz and Five Points, it’s nothing new,” Campbell says. “The history is well documented, so the trick is to make it interesting for folks who already know the story, as well as for folks for whom this may not be the type of story they would necessarily be interested in or drawn to.”
CdeBaca’s pitch laid the groundwork for In the Pocket: The Ballad of Bobby Trombone, a sold-out collaboration between Theatre Artibus and Emancipation Theater Company running Feb. 9-25 at The Savoy Denver. The play depicts a fictionalized account of Black life at midcentury in the renowned jazz hotspot, told through the eyes of three Rossonian staff members — including the hotel’s head concierge, Bobby Trombone, played by Campbell.
The script was initially developed as a series of radio plays in partnership with KUVO and University of Denver student William Dewey under the title Back Room at the Rossonian in 2015. Campbell was tapped to act in the production, but it was delayed due to a number of issues, including the death of actor and founding member of the Black Actors Guild, Corin Chavez.
After Chavez’s passing, Dewey passed the script along to Campbell. It remained dormant until Campbell’s conversation with CdeBaca inspired him to revisit the script. Once he reread the play, he felt now was the right time to produce it, so he created a funding proposal for the project through the City and County of Denver Arts & Venues agency and got to work revising the text.
“The characters from the original radio play are mostly intact,” Campbell says. “I switched one character from being an elder bellhop to an aspiring trombone artist to bring in the jazz element. [Dewey] had done some really good research on the neighborhood and the time itself. The historical element was already there; I brought jazz into the play.”
For research on the music, Campbell watched documentaries about the neighborhood’s jazz legacy, studied books like Laura M. Mauck’s Five Points Neighborhood of Denver and interviewed several documentarians to add anecdotes about the era into the show. Campbell worked closely with collaborators Meghan Frank and Buba Basishvili of Theatre Artibus, with whom he had previously collaborated as co-producers of Recipe, a play about the history of food in Five Points, to identify areas in the script where they could further develop the plot.
To get feedback on the story from local audiences, the team held a staged reading at Savoy Denver in June 2020. Campbell incorporated audience reactions as he fleshed out the supporting plots and love story, as well protagonist Bobby Trombone.
“Bobby is an archetype of a disgruntled musician past his time,” Campbell says. “He works at the Rossonian, encounters the greatest jazz musicians of all time and is looking for his opportunity to catch their attention. I’ve seen this person all my life, and, in a lot of ways, I am Bobby Trombone myself. I identify with the emotions and memories Bobby embodies about having to work hard to be noticed and taken seriously in the music industry.”
To help put a unique spin on the music Bobby would have experienced at the hotel, Campbell called on local veteran hip-hop producer Akil to create original tracks for the production.
“The music has a jazzy hip-hop style,” Campbell says. “Instead of having a band, I wanted to make stuff in the studio so it would feel more like the vintage era of television, where you’d create these recorded tracks and the vocalist would sing the lead live. So, I recruited [Akil] to make these tracks that combine jazz and hip-hop to create this beautiful past-meets-future vibe.”
Campbell is happy to perform the piece at Savoy Denver because the space has an out-of-time feeling that complements the play. “Not only is it a beautiful venue, but it’s also very reflective of that jazz era,” he says. “The Savoy was the perfect place to tell the story; it’s in Five Points, has the right architecture and look to it, so it just made perfect sense.”
Suggesting a robust public appetite for the project, the upcoming run of In the Pocket: The Ballad of Bobby Trombone is currently sold out. But for those lucky enough to have snatched their tickets, Campbell hopes to instill a deeper appreciation and understanding of suppressed Black histories like the one animating this remarkable slice of Denver’s storied musical past.
“Come if you love jazz or want to support stories that are being prohibited in classrooms,” he says. “I hope folks gain the value of storytelling as well as empathy for people that go unrecognized.”
ON STAGE: In the Pocket: The Ballad of Bobby Trombone by Jeff Campbell. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. through Feb. 9-25, Savoy Denver, 2700 Arapahoe St. Sold out.
