History of the Jazz & Music Club Porgy & Bess \' In the fall of 1993 Mathias Rüegg asked me, if I could imagine to establish a steady Jazzclub together with Ronald Deppe and himself at the former Fledermaus- (Bat-) Bar. This bar was hosting the \'Jazzherbst”(\'Jazz autumn”) at that time. On one side I felt honored by this offer (I was in my mid-twenties and have lived only for a few years in Vienna). On the other side I felt some skeptisism towards opening a modern Jazzclub at the site, where Austrian Cabaret was born; plus a plush environment with technical obstacles and bad infrastructure; at least it seemed worth questioning. I remember well those first concerts: the Erich Quartet with Reinhard Micko and Michael Fischer (7 paying visitors), the Trio of Nicolas Simion (5 visitors) or the performance of Mikulas Skuta (even less people, although we contacted many friends) and some other events with low attendance. The beginning looked like it would proof my earlier scepticism. But at once Max Nagl played in a (more than) packed place (the official capacity was set to a 100 people). The 3 day Portrait of Wolfgang Puschnig became a magnet. All of a sudden we noticed: The plush on the walls, we didn’t like in the begin- ing, contributed to a better sound of the amplified music. Unexpectedly two metal doors, which weren’t actually planed the way they were put there in the end, helped us to hide our activities at night from the people living in the buil- ding above. The municipal authorities let us pass. The customers felt comfortable and the musicians honored; at last I literally fell in love with this space. A couple of years later: Meanwhile P&B (Porgy & Bess) has advanced and grown to become a permanent part of the local and international Jazz scene. Seemingly impossible projects have been realized with big efforts of per- suasion (try to talk a piano player into helping to lift a tuned grand piano off stage, so his fellow musicians can find enough space on stage !) Nevertheless: The clock kept ticking and soon there was a date, when the lease would run out (limited to 5 years). And all of a sudden there was this opportunity to create a new and much more flexible space; a space, that can be transformed or simply set up completely new - especially to better serve & help pointing out the significance of Jazz, with a more adequate environment – a music, truely among the most important achievements of the 20th century. Regardless of some internal discrepancies, we decided to go for it. Christoph Huber