Mark Wedel decided he needed to get out of the house.

As a freelance arts and entertainment writer in Kalamazoo from 1992 to 2015, Wedel had weekly events to cover. But in recent years, he has been very inactive in seeing local shows. Probably all due to that pandemic thing. 

Kalamazoo's nightlife struggled, too, for a couple of years after COVID. But now there seems to be a resurgence. R'n'B bands and hip hop DJs at Dabney & Co. LGBTQ+ friendly dance and drag parties at the Club Vortex. Local punk rock and metal bands at the old Edison Neighborhood bar the Sugarbowl Bar and Grille.

Larger, long-standing venues like Bell's Eccentric Cafe and The State Theatre have been back to business, too. But Wedel wondered about the smaller venues, the more unique events. 

He wondered, what's happening in town? Why don't we know about it?

Oh, right — he's a journalist, it's kinda his job to get out of the house, to see if there's really a nightlife in Kalamazoo. So, let's start a series for Second Wave, to take regular looks at where people are dancing, grooving, mingling.


KALAMAZOO, MI — It's a Friday evening at Dabney & Co. 

No outside light is getting in. No TVs around the bar or anywhere. Chaka Khan is playing from the sound system. Friends, wife, and I are in the B.B. King nook, on the couch under a wall-size photo of the blues legend. A server puts a Sazerac in my hand. 

Fran DwightPatrons enjoy the 'big city vibe' at Dabney & Co.The cocktail is in one of those substantial glass tumblers one's parents might've gotten out for cocktail parties in 1974. With that thought in my head, the night's band, the Andrew Fisher Quartet, introduces themselves. They glide into Bobby Caldwell's 1978 smooth romantic soul crooner, "What You Won't Do for Love," and I sink into the upholstery. Relax. 

What year is it? 

Just moments before we were stressfully discussing the political situation of the summer of '24. Suddenly it's the '70s. We always like to think that now is the most crisis-ridden era, but back then? Vietnam's end, Watergate, inflation, the gas crisis — how did our parents chill out from the news?

Fran DwightThe Andrew Fisher Quartet outside of Dabney & Co.The group is from the Benton Harbor/St. Joe area, and had only played Kalamazoo once before. Fisher has that deep, rich, big voice that can croon romantic R'n'B, or shout and growl, and take the audience to church. The band — Dustin Lowe on bass, Glenn McFarland on drums, Bruce Anderson on keys ± extend songs by going into jazzy breaks, but can also dial up the funk.

Fran DwightThey aren't pure '70s. The quartet covered Erykah Badu, and got the deep soul/funk out of Blackstreet's 1996 rap/soul hit "No Diggity," getting some excitement out of the '90s kids in the audience.  But then they slip backward again in time. Bill Whithers' 1980's "Lovely Day,'' smoothly fit the band and singer like a glove, but one can tell they have the urge to go further back, later covering Whithers' 1972 smoldering groove, "Use Me." 

Big city vibe

In the set intermission, my wife told me what she likes about Dabney & Co. is that, inside, it doesn't feel like you're in Kalamazoo.

Fran DwightWhen Fisher and his quartet were done for the night, I turned to the nearest table to ask a couple what they thought.

Tamika and Lenell Amos live in Detroit. "We came to Kalamazoo to celebrate our anniversary. Five years of marriage," Lenell says. 

Fran DwightLow lighting and no windows helps create an intimate atmosphere at Dabney & Co.Tamika chose the club for their night here. "To be honest, I was looking for a Black experience," she says. "It was a great experience."

That day they ate at Edison's soul food restaurant, Ty's Joint, took a look at the Caribbean Festival happening downtown, then grooved to live retro R'n'B in a Black culture bar. 

Being from Detroit, are they surprised this is in Kalamazoo?

"I am!" Tamika says.

Creating a new kind of KZ nightlife

Dabney & Co. owner Daniel May was out of town that weekend, but we caught up with him a few days later.

"It's about creating the nightlife that has been missing from Kalamazoo for so long," May says.

Fran DwightHis intent was to create "that big city vibe" in Kalamazoo. Before starting his own bar, May was promoting hip-hop nights and Juneteenth celebrations around town. He decided that he needed a place where "everything, from the decor to the music to the lighting, transports you. And that you don't feel like you're in Kalamazoo anymore at all."

When thinking of music, May was inspired by BB King's Blues Club in Memphis and the nightlife of New Orleans.

Music — live bands playing jazz, R'n'B, blues, and DJs playing hip hop, funk, old and new deep cuts — was a big part of May's vision.

"A lot of venues, when they do music, they create it as background music, right? Compared to here, where there's a lot of music going on, you have to pay attention."

May notes that live music clubs have diminished since COVID. "We're at the forefront of bringing back this pre-pandemic life that people had." 


"I wish those days, would, come back once more...."

"If you haven't noticed, we love Stevie," Fisher tells the Dabney crowd about the group’s Stevie Wonder fixation.

The original brick and wood of the old Kalamazoo Ave./N. Rose St. storefront, plus the blackout curtains behind the band, make a warm acoustic space for that '70s vinyl sound. 

Fran DwightThe club is divided in two, with music in the dining room playing to people at tables, and the bar on the other side of a brick wall. People on that side can talk, do their thing, but an open archway ensures they also hear the music. Reservations are required to get a table, but there's no cover most nights.

The crowd this night is made up of all peoples, Black and white, sharply dressed or casual, old and young. People in the music room were dancing and grooving in their seats. 

Fran DwightA couple of patrons heading into Dabney & Co.A person at the bar can be seen through the archway. Very sharp in an androgynous pink suit and hat, they're hard to miss, dancing at the bar. Later, they're dancing in the archway, drawn into the band's space.

Fisher and Quartet have a contradictory style that tells people to sit and relax, but also to move.

After getting his shout and growl out for Stevie Wonder's 1973 gritty classic "Living for the City," Fisher and his band groove into Billy Preston's "Will It Go Round In Circles" from the same year. 

Dabney & CoFisher ups the energy, gets people out of their seats to stand and move. The closer was the fittingly living-in-the-past 1976 Wonder hit, "I Wish." "I wish those days, would, come back once more...."

Go here for upcoming Dabney & Co. events. And for more grooving, check out the Kalamazoo Blues Festival, returning to the Arcadia Creek Festival Place on July 27.

Editor's Note: This story is part of a Southwest Michigan Second Wave series, Kalamazoo After Dark, that explores the known and the lesser-known nightlife options in the city.

Fran DwightMark Wedel, left,with wife and friends at Dabney & Co.