Seattle's Jackson Street jazz clubs flourished from World War II up until the early 1960s, when the Civil Rights movement broke down barriers barring African Americans from living and working in the larger community. Seattle-born photographer Al Smith was a familiar figure in the clubs, often taking pictures of patrons and friends, then returning the following week to sell the prints housed in the souvenir folders he had made for the occasion. According to his family, Mr. Smith had the printer include the slogan "Stay With Your Party and Our Service is Yours" on the Basin Street Club folder, a reference to the club's rule aimed at keeping patrons at their tables to discourage quarrels. The Basin Street Club was located on Maynard Avenue South and South Jackson Street in the basement of the Bush Hotel. It was opened in 1940 by Davey Lee, a former railroad dining-car waiter, said to have won the money to open the club at one of the neighborhood Chinese lotteries.

This souvenir folder includes a photo of ten patrons around a table at the Basin Street Club.

Caption information source: "Al Smith Sr., photographer, historian - Central District resident captured '40s jazz scene," The Seattle Times, September 4, 2008, p. B7; and "Doors Closed Tight on Old All-Night Spots," The Seattle Times, September 13, 1961, p. 2. Caption information source: "Jackson Street Memoirs: Strolling Through Seattle's Jazz History," by Todd Matthews, http://wahmee.com/ej_paul_debarros.pdf