If you were lucky enough to have seen Adele play her first Chicago show at Martyrs in 2008 or got coveted tickets to the Rolling Stones’ surprise show at Double Door in 1997 or saw U2 at Park West in 1981 before they broke big, you have Jam Productions to thank.
One of the country’s longest-running and largest independent producers of live entertainment, Jam is a rarity in the music industry landscape, untethered to a large corporation, having built an empire taking risks on booking “newbie” bands that eventually became megastars.
Founded in Chicago by Jerry Mickelson and former co-partner Arny Granat in 1972, with some employees who have spent decades with the company, Jam provides much of the behind-the-scenes that’s helped make Chicago an epicenter of live music.
Now marking 50 years in business, Jam has given many local music impresarios cause to celebrate its efforts to making Chicago a world-class music city.
“For an independent promoter celebrating 50 years, that’s a big deal, especially when you consider the cultural and musical influence,” says Joe Shanahan, founder and owner of Metro, Smart Bar and GMan Tavern, who remembers working with Jam Productions during the first year after Metro opened in 1982 to book the infamous punk act The Plasmatics.
As a fellow independent owner and operator (and one of the leads behind the Chicago Independent Venue League), Shanahan says the camaraderie between the two entities is paramount.
“It’s been a long-term business relationship that stands the test of time,” he says. “I don’t think there’s a week that I don’t communicate with Nick Miller or Andy Cirzan” — talent buyers for Jam.
Shanahan says he often compared notes with Jam during the pandemic as shows were being canceled or rescheduled.
“That personal touch has been so important,” he says. “They breed community and cohesiveness.”
The people who work for Jam are known as rabid music fans who want to find tomorrow’s stars.
“No matter how big a show they are putting on, these are people that know an amazing amount of music beyond what they are booking or what might make them money,” says longtime WXRT host Lin Brehmer. “They are people I can talk music to all day long.”
The radio station got its start in 1972 with Jam’s late-night programming. Jam went on to support the yearly WXRT Holiday Jams. Brehmer says Jam even put together a soccer game at one point — with The Kinks.
Chicago rock photographer Paul Natkin — whose famous shots of Bruce Springsteen and Ozzy Osbourne with Randy Rhoads have graced countless magazines — agrees.
“They know music better than anyone on the planet and can make a decision — even if no one’s heard of a band,” Natkin says. “They book them because they know they’ll be big one day.”
He points to examples including Journey, Van Halen and Foster The People.
Natkin says Mickelsen gave him inside access in the 1970s, when he was starting out to shoot shows at Jam-booked venues including the Riviera, the Vic Theater, Park West and the former Ivanhoe Theater.
“I would not be doing what I’m doing if it wasn’t for Jerry,” Natkin says. “He had some kind of weird foresight that someday these pictures would be important.”
Many of those images can be seen inside the Riv, which is undergoing a massive “refresh” to painstakingly restore original details of the 100-plus-year-old building.
“He is really understanding how the grandeur adds to the value,” Sarah Wilson, executive director of the Uptown United / Uptown Chamber of Commerce, says of Mickelson. “He’s really showing that with all the work he’s doing in the Riv right now and investing in it to give it a real taste of what it used to be.”
She’s also looking ahead to whenever Jam might finally unveil its rehab of the long-shuttered Uptown Theater, which the company owns.
Its venues also include the “new” Double Door, which was shut down in Wicker Park in 2017 and has taken up the old Wilson Theater space, aiming to open this fall.
The way the neighborhood is shaping up with all of these concert halls is “almost a repeat of Wicker Park,” Double Door owner Sean Mulroney says.
“They are an amazing company and really the last holdout of the large but smaller agencies that have done magical stuff in this town,” Mulroney says.
He remembers Jam helping book the Double Door’s first show — Lloyd Cole in 1994.
And then there was the secret show that The Rolling Stones played at the venue in 1997.
Mulroney says many of his old staff are now working to help refresh the Riviera.
“All the local folks who have had things slow down due to COVID — Jam is employing them,” he says. “Jerry has made such a big impact. Jam is one of the big dogs in a very tight community, which is music in Chicago.”
