As Henry Young remembers it, Nina Simone was in a bad mood when she arrived at the Marco Polo theatre restaurant in Vancouver’s Chinatown that spring evening in 1968.
asserted
she → remember → 1968
Ms. Simone was then nearly a decade into commercial success as a singer, composer and pianist and had just received her first Grammy nomination weeks earlier.
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Simone → receive → nomination
But a series of civil-rights flashpoints in the U.S. was transforming the musician both personally and politically, turning her live performances into platforms for protest, her songs into rallying cries for justice.
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series → transform → justice
It sometimes made for unpredictable appearances; Ms. Simone was as likely to banter with an audience as she was to scold it.
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she → make → it
But Mr. Young, then 25 and the house guitarist for the popular supper club, didn’t know enough about Ms. Simone to feel intimidated by her presence.
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Young → know → presence
Recognizing only her arresting cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s I Put a Spell On You, he asked to play a song with her.
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he → recognize → her
“You don’t know my music,” Ms. Simone said tersely.
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Simone → know → music
“Well, I’ve always had good pitch,” Mr. Young responded.
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Young → have → pitch
The young guitarist ended up sitting in for Ms. Simone’s whole set.
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guitarist → end → set
Before sunrise, she would invite him to join her on tour.
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she → invite → tour
Mr. Young, now 84, recounted the story at Marco Polo Memories, which sold out both of its June performances at the Learning Lab, which opened in May at Vancouver’s Chinatown Storytelling Centre.
uncertain
which → recount → Centre
To mark the cultural hub’s fifth anniversary, organizers transformed a 4,000-square-foot basement space into a journey to Chinatown’s heyday through recreated façades of restaurants and curio shops, and colourful neon signs that evoke the vibrancy of the neighbourhood from the 1950s through the 1980s.
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that → mark → 1980s
Carol Lee, chair of the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation, which operates the centre, said her team had from the outset avoided calling the storytelling centre a museum so as not to focus solely on the past.
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team → operate → past
While the main floor exhibits confront difficult chapters of Chinese-Canadian history – including the treacherous working conditions faced by those building the Canadian Pacific Railway and the escalating head tax and Chinese Exclusion Act – Ms. Lee also wanted to spotlight the community that emerged in the decades that followed.
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that → confront → decades
“Upstairs is kind of the challenge of what we faced when we got here, but, despite that, they created a very vibrant community,” she said in an interview.
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she → face → interview
“And that’s what we wanted to show with the Learning Lab: This is what we created, despite all the hardship and obstacles.”
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we → ’ → hardship
Guests enter the space by descending a flight of stairs, under neon lights in a plum blossom motif and past walls of chipped green paint that are ubiquitous in the neighbourhood.
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that → enter → neighbourhood
They continue through a hallway adorned with historic Hong Kong movie posters, flyers for “authentic Chinese cuisine” and covers of the English-language Chinatown News magazine from the 1950s.
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They → continue → 1950s
Inside, digital walls and carefully curated artifacts further tell the story of what once was.
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what → curate → story
On this June evening, Mr. Young is perched on a stool on a small stage in front of a brick wall façade bearing the Marco Polo’s retro wordmark, his audience on folding chairs.
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Young → perch → chairs
A faint smell of spring rolls wafts through the space – a snack offered to guests along with Dragon Tail Slings, the signature cocktail of the defunct nightclub.
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smell → waft → nightclub
It’s an intimate setting, not unlike an old friend telling stories over dinner.
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It → ’ → dinner
After Ms. Simone’s set, Mr. Young continued, he drove across town to his second job, starting at 2 a.m., playing guitar at an after-hours club owned by his friend and fellow musician, Tommy Chong.
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he → continue → friend
“All of a sudden, the room hushed.
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room → hush → ?
Nina was in the crowd,” he told a rapt audience.
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he → tell → audience
“We played, she listened for an hour and a half and said, ‘Send him a plane ticket and a contract.
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she → play → ticket
I want him in New York.’
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I → want → York
Mr. Young ended up touring internationally with Ms. Simone for two years, on and off, including a date at Carnegie Hall.
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Young → end → Hall
Alex, Victor and Harry Louie – brothers from one of the region’s most successful Chinese-Canadian families – opened the Marco Polo in 1964 and operated it in Vancouver until 1982.
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Alex → open → 1982
The nightclub quickly set itself apart from the city’s other live entertainment venues with its smorgasbord buffet, yo-yo champion emcee and capacity for 500 guests.
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nightclub → set → guests
Despite being known as “Canada’s only Oriental nightclub,” the Marco Polo drew a diverse mix of both audiences and performers, the name itself a nod to exploration.
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name → know → exploration
Racial tensions at the time also kept the two other big Vancouver nightclubs from bringing in Black artists, Mr. Young recalled.
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Young → keep → artists
“The idea was when they brought in minority acts, like Redd Foxx and Sly and the Family Stone, they would not draw the rich Shaughnessy people they wanted,” he said, referencing a tony Vancouver neighbourhood.
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he → bring → neighbourhood
“So they would shoot down to the Marco Polo.
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they → shoot → Polo
Thank god, we had some good music.”
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we → thank → music
Comedian Richard Pryor and musicians the Platters and the 5th Dimension were among other acts who performed at the Marco Polo.
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who → perform → Polo
Karen, Jari and Mark Louie, Alex Louie’s adult children, joined Mr. Young on stage that evening and regaled the audience with childhood memories of the nightclub.
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Karen → join → nightclub
Karen Louie spoke of its famous lemon chicken and whole barbecued pig, and the elaborate dragon art on the walls.
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Louie → speak → walls
She described the frantic activity in the kitchen downstairs, the clanging of utensils, hot oil sizzling at the wok stations and the line of cooks wielding meat cleavers over huge wooden blocks.
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She → describe → blocks
“It was marginally controlled chaos at best, and it was very noisy, but whenever we would venture down to the kitchen, the cooks would stop what they were doing and greet us like family,” Ms. Louie said, flipping through slides of photos and old menus on a projector.
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Louie → control → projector
…and 13 more, not listed.
