# Bobby Minicucci longtime owner of legendary Niagara Falls jazz club: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2023/09/02/bobby-minicucci-longtime-owner-of-legendary-niagara-falls-jazz-club-video/
- Published: 2023-09-02T00:02:15+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Bobby Minicucci, owner of Ontario House, the long-running jazz mecca in Niagara
Falls, picked up his phone in August 1988 and it was somebody from Woody Herman’s
Young Thundering Herd. The 15-man big band was heading west after a date on Cape
Cod.**

“They wanted to stop here and they wanted to play,” Mr. Minicucci told The Buffalo
News. “I explained the size of the club and we came to an agreement. … No, there’ll
be no room to dance, but we should have enough room for the band. We had the Fredonia
Jazz Ensemble in here and that’s 22 guys.”

The club was renowned worldwide. Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Chuck Mangione
and others came by after their gigs elsewhere in the area to listen and sometimes
sit in. James Brown brought his whole band. Comedian Dick Gregory stopped in and
took the microphone. Mr. Minicucci greeted them all with a welcoming grin and an
ever-present cigar.

![Ontario House owner Minicucci left lasting mark on local jazz scene | Local  News
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The club at the corner of Main Street and Ontario Avenue, known to its fans as O-
H, closed in 1992 and was demolished three years later, but its legend lived on.
An outdoor concert, the Ontario House Jazz Reunion, was started on the site in 2005
and was held annually for several years.

In 2009, Mr. Minicucci received “Keep Jazz Alive” awards from the State Assembly
and the U.S. House of Representatives. He was inducted into the Niagara Falls Music
Hall of Fame in 2019.

He died July 6 in Kenmore Mercy Hospital from complications following a fall a month
earlier. He was 89.

Robert Michael Minicucci was born in Niagara Falls, one of four children of Italian
immigrants. His parents, Frank and Julia Minicucci, began operating the National
Grill on Ontario Avenue in the 1930s, then acquired Ontario House during World War
II. In his Hall of Fame biography, Mr. Minicucci said that his father bought it 
for his older brothers, John and Albert, as something they could come home to after
they served in the war.

![TD Niagara Jazz Festival | 10th Anniversary Season!](https://i0.wp.com/niagarajazzfestival.
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Mr. Minicucci worked in the restaurant as a boy. After he graduated from Niagara
Falls High School in 1952, he studied at Pratt Institute in New York City and intended
to have a career as an artist, but was called back to help when his father became
ill.

Following his father’s death in 1956, his mother turned the business over to him
and worked in the kitchen. Renowned for her meatballs and known to everyone as Ma,
she attracted a loyal clientele.

Mr. Minicucci brought in the crowd at night, presenting touring artists, as well
as up-and-coming local players like Spider Martin, Ronnie Foster and Bobby Militello,
for whom the Ontario House stage was a launching pad. He often let them practice
there during the day.

As a boy, jazz great Joey DeFrancesco would wait at the door for a chance to play
on the club’s Hammond B-3 organ. Keyboardist Richard Kermode, who played with Janis
Joplin, rehearsed his jazz band Milestones there for three months in 1979 before
taking it on the road.

In Mr. Minicucci’s Hall of Fame bio, the late keyboardist Ron Corsaro, who played
the club as a teen in the 1950s and continued until it closed, is quoted as saying:

“Anyone who wanted to play jazz, you hoped and prayed that you would get the chance
to go there and get your start. And in my case, and a lot of cases, some of those
jobs were our first jobs playing jazz.”

“I gave them encouragement and it became tremendous for musicians,” Mr. Minicucci
told an interviewer in 2006. “I’m so glad I had a part in their (lives). You need
a place to learn your trade. You need a place to start.”

The club thrived in the 1950s and 1960s. Ontario Avenue was a lively entertainment
strip, particularly popular with Canadians escaping the restrictions on alcohol 
in Ontario at the time.

Ontario House also was a favorite with sports figures such as basketball great Calvin
Murphy, who was among the students who came in from nearby Niagara University, and
members of the Buffalo Bills, including O.J. Simpson.

By the late 1970s, however, the street had fallen upon hard times. News contributing
writer Samantha Dean described the North End locale as “fairly seedy” and “dimly
lit” when she visited in 1978, but found Ontario House one of its bright spots. 
Nevertheless, Mr. Minicucci told her that business was so poor that he was hiring
musicians only occasionally.

![Top 10 Best Live Music Venues in Niagara Falls, ON - August 2023 - Yelp](https://
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“People regard it as the wrong end of town,” he said. “Lot of the lawyers and judges
come for lunch, but that’s about it.”

One of the people who came in the 1970s was Maureen Stewart, who went on to work
there as a waitress and became his companion. They were married in 1987.

Mr. Minicucci had a vast collection of jazz records and he spun them when the musicians
were on break. He also filled the walls of the club with his paintings of musical
greats such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra.

In the 2000s, he took part in an oral history project run by the Niagara Falls Public
Library and donated paintings and other memorabilia to its collection.

In addition to his wife, a longtime administrative assistant in the State Assembly
and Tops Markets corporate offices, survivors include five daughters, Lauren Minicucci
Palmer, Lisa Minicucci Hoy, Lynn Minicucci Velasco, Rebecca Tichner and Tecia Monroe;
and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

![Bobby Minicucci, 89, longtime owner of legendary Niagara Falls jazz club](https://
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