Snapshot: The Rossonian Hotel, Leroy Smith, and Anderson & Selman
In 1929, when Alfred H.W. Ross and nine partners purchased the Baxter Hotel, renaming it the Rossonian after Ross himself, the establishment was just one of several hotels in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver. At one time or another, the Fairbanks Hotel and Café, the Herndon Hotel, and the Simpson Hotel also served patrons passing through Denver and Five Points (Goodstein 153). Many of these patrons were black musicians and entertainers moving back and forth across the country; perfectly positioned geographically, Denver, with its jazz-friendly Five Points neighborhood, was the ideal stopping place between the major jazz venues in St. Louis and those on the West Coast. Because of this, and because of its attractive triangular design in the Beaux-Arts style and its conspicuous position on Welton Street at the five-way intersection that gives Five Points its name, the Rossonian, by the mid 1930s, “emerged as a premiere gathering spot” for blacks in Denver (153).
Live music, usually performed by combos or individual artists, was commonplace in the Rossonian’s small downstairs lounge — for decades considered the city’s premiere jazz club. There was no room for dancing in the lounge; those present at the Rossonian were there solely to listen to the music. Nearly every jazz great from Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Dinah Washington to Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Lionel Hampton stayed at the Rossonian or played in the hotel’s lounge.
But rock ‘n roll had a small place in Five Points and at the Rossonian as well. From 1948 to 1960, toward the end of the Rossonian’s bright and palmy days, Leroy Smith, a Five Points resident and businessman, hosted “Rockin’ with Leroy,” a late-night radio show that aired on Denver’s KFEL and, later, KIMN and was occasionally broadcast from the Rossonian Lounge. With Red Prysock’s “Hand Clappin’” (the show’s theme song) playing behind him, Smith would greet listeners with his familiar introduction: “Live from the Rossonian Lounge in the heart of Five Points, it’s Rockin’ with Leroy!”
Smith played tracks by artists of the day, but also brought music to Denver on his return trips from Chicago, thus introducing listeners throughout Denver to new rock ‘n roll, jazz, and rhythm & blues songs they might not hear anywhere else. My father, one of the show’s regular listeners, remembers “Rockin’ with Leroy” fondly and Smith’s intro vividly; as a teen, he depended upon the show to unearth new music not heard on other stations in or around Denver.
Although Smith owned a record store, my dad bought his 45s and LPs from Anderson & Selman, another record shop on Welton Street. The shop allowed customers to listen to records (in private booths with record players and headsets) before ordering and then purchasing the discs. Most of my father’s records, the very records I grew up listening to as a kid — Little Richard’s “Miss Ann,” King Pleasure’s “Red Top,” Louis Bellson’s “Drumology,” and countless others — were purchased at Anderson & Selman after my dad first heard the songs on Smith’s show.
The Rossonian, along with Five Points, fell upon difficult economic times in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. In the 1990s and first decade of the twenty-first century, when the Rossonian was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the hotel received renovations that kept it structurally sound; still, promises that the Rossonian would one day “become the center of a renewed black culture that celebrated the golden years of jazz” never reached fruition (Goodstein 162). In 2019, however, a planned revitalization project in association with Denver native and basketball star Chauncey Billups had Denverites once again talking about and hoping for a Rossonian renaissance.
Leroy Smith died in 1989 at the age of 77; he was inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado Hall of Fame in 2018. But Smith’s legend rests upon more than being Denver’s first black disc jockey. Smith was also the first black game warden in Colorado and the first black member of the Denver Chamber of Commerce. His Rhythm Records and Sporting Goods Shop was, at one time, the third largest sporting goods company in the country while his Voter’s Club, a nightclub above his store, was one of Five Points’ favorite after-hours jazz spots (Stephens 94; Jazz). Smith was also a music promoter, booking black entertainers into places like the Rainbow Ballroom, the Denver Auditorium, Red Rocks Amphitheater, and venues as far away as Kansas City and Dallas. And when Muhammad Ali (then know as Cassius Clay) came to town in 1963 to sign the contract to fight Denver’s Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title, Smith served as Ali’s host and publicity man (Clay). Unfamiliar to many, Smith and his successes continue to influence and loom large over Five Points and the city of Denver.
The Anderson & Selman Record Shop was founded in 1952 by John Selman, who ran his store while working as an electrical engineer at Martin Marietta. Selman’s, the store’s name in recent times, was originally the Anderson & Selman Record and Radio Shop, sharing space with Anderson’s Beauty Salon at 2800 Welton Street (Goodstein 164). After 50-plus years in the retail record business, Anderson & Selman closed its doors in 2005.
The Rossonian Hotel, Leroy Smith, and Anderson & Selman are indelible parts of black, Five Points, and Denver history. But they are also an important part of my dad’s history and, by association, and through the love and power of music, a small part of mine.
Above piece excerpted from the forthcoming It’s Only Music: A Musical and Historical Memoir.
