Monday is the slowest night of the week for clubs, but on a recent Monday more than 800 people packed the House of Blues. They came out for the Damon Williams Comedy Jam, a monthly competition that brings together black performers from across the country. The Chicago area’s last two Afrocentric comedy clubs–All Jokes Aside on South Wabash and the TNT Comedy Hook in Lansing–closed recently, but Williams thinks he’s onto something big with the jam. “The beauty of this concept is that we’re not dependent on big names, because we have grassroots underground support,” says Williams. “As long as we keep bringing quality shows, the word-of-mouth success will follow.”
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It’s an uphill battle for comedians of any color, with clubs closing left and right. The Comedy Hook closed in August, after a fire, and All Jokes Aside shut its doors this summer when promoter Raymond Lambert’s seven-year lease expired and the Chicago Housing Authority exercised an option to expand its adjoining office space. But Williams and his partner Reggie Banks have built on the success of their first three jams with a canny mix of street flyers and radio appearances, and their ability to draw a large crowd willing to pay a $15 cover proves there’s still an audience for black stand-up. Williams thinks the competitive format is a big drawing card, promising verbal face-offs between the more mainstream comics on Black Entertainment Television and the blue comics who appear on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam. “It’s interesting to have both styles in one forum,” says Williams, “because there’s traditionally been a dividing line in comedy between people who were ‘TV clean’ and those who choose to work with more graphic language. Even though TV’s language restrictions have eased over the last five years, here the audience can really decide which style they enjoy more and who brings more ideas to the stage.”
The next Damon Williams Comedy Jam is at 9 PM Monday at House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn; for information call 312-527-2583 or 312-923-2000. –Carl Kozlowski
