Late last Friday night, Chicagoans were streaming into the Wild Hare, a landmark reggae club in Wrigleyville.
As the band Flex Crew played its buoyant music, young men and women swayed freely on the dance floor to a joyous beat, the palpable optimism of the sounds inspiring smiles all around.
But the fun-loving scene at the Wild Hare – which has been presenting reggae on North Clark Street for 25 years – will end May 15. That's when Ethiopian owner-musician Zeleke Gessesse will close his widely admired club and prepare to open a new one in his homeland.
In essence, a major chapter in Gessesse's life – and in reggae music in Chicago – will come to a close.
"We came to Chicago as political refugees from Ethiopia – it was a tough time and there was civil war," says Gessesse, remembering the arduous journey he, a brother and a bandmate endured to get here in 1978 (including several days of trekking through the African desert).
"I think now is a good time to go home and get involved in the transformation of the country."
Ethiopia, says Gessesse, is now booming economically, its surging population of citizens under age 35 making the place ripe for his planned Wild Hare Ethiopia.
"There is not a club like this in that country," says Gessesse, 53.
Alas, without the Wild Hare, there won't be one in Chicago, either.
"It's really the only club – aside from maybe Exedus and some offerings here and there – where you can hear reggae on a daily basis," says Carlos Tortolero, program manager for the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture. (Tortolero refers to Exedus II, at 3477 N. Clark St., which presents reggae four nights a week).
"It's definitely a huge loss," continues Tortolero. "The thing about the reggae scene is that it's never been a rarefied art form. It's commercially accessible, and I don't think it's ever been well respected.
"But Zeleke has been committed to present the music in an authentic fashion. Zeleke is one of the true representatives of the form."
Gessesse came to the music early, forming a band when he was a teenager in Ethiopia and later enjoying success there with his brother and others in their group Dallol. After fleeing Ethiopia, they picked up the pieces of their lives and their music in Chicago, where relatives already lived.
In the early 1980s, the band was signed by reggae icon Bob Marley's record label Tuff Gong and toured with Ziggy Marley & the Melody Makers through most of the decade.
When Gessesse noticed that a previous incarnation of the Wild Hare was being put up for auction, he and his partners scraped together funds to acquire the place in 1986, instantly turning it into a sanctuary for reggae.
"It was tough at first, because there was a little stigma in the club about drugs and all that," says Gessesse. "The neighbors were tough at the time: They were very organized and all over us."
Back then, North Clark Street was far from the music-and-nightlife hub it is today.
"It was Metro on one end, Wild Hare on the other end, with the Cubby Bear in the middle – it was definitely not an entertainment space at all," says Michael Orlove, director of music programming for the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture.
"Over the course of time, it garnered not just a regional but a national and international reputation as one of the premier venues for reggae and Caribbean music."
In part, the club's ascending reputation owed to the investment Gessesse, two brothers and their partners made in the physical space, expanding it with renovations in 1992 and 2006. But Gessesse also proved adept at bookings, his roots in reggae enabling him to attract artists such as Rita Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Toots and the Maytals, Freddie McGregror, Shabba Ranks, Barrington Levy and many more.
"He had credibility among those folks," says Tortolero.
During the current recession, Gessesse concedes, business has been down from the peak years of 2004 through 2006.
When he began to receive offers from government and business contacts in Ethiopia to return, he says, he began to wonder whether the time had come to pick up where he left off more than three decades ago. Because he has been traveling to Ethiopia regularly during the past 10 years for his work with the non-profit One Love Africa, which builds schools in the country, Gessesse saw new promise for the country, he says.
And with his kids graduated from college, he felt ready to embark on the next phase of his life, bringing a Chicago institution to the country that inspired it.
Not surprisingly, Gessesse during the past few weeks has been feeling "very emotional," he says. "There are couples who met here and married and bring their children.
"But sometimes reality takes over emotion. It's kind of sad, but we have to move on, to do more things."
For details on the final shows at the Wild Hare, 3530 N. Clark St., visit wildharemusic.com or phone 773-327-4273.
South Side sessions
The musical offerings at the L26 Restaurant & Lounge, in the Chicago South Loop Hotel, continue to intensify.
Chicago flutist Nicole Mitchell and owner Tony Glenn have been collaborating on the jazz bookings, the room now presenting jam sessions led by saxophonist Rajiv Orozco and trumpeter Marquis Hill at 9 p.m. Thursdays.
And the non-profit Hyde Park Jazz Society has moved its Sunday-night shows from Room 43 to the same venue, with the James Perkins Quartet playing 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. this Sunday.
Admission to each event is $5-$10.
In addition, singer Dee Alexander will lead her quartet at 10 p.m. April 29 at L26; admission is $15.
At L26 Restaurant & Lounge in the Chicago South Loop Hotel, 11 W. 26th St.; 312-225-4545 or chicagosouthloophotel.com.
To read more from Howard Reich on jazz go to chicagotribune.com/reich.
Twitter @howard reich