Pete Douglas, founder of Half Moon Bay’s Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, died on July 12 at age 85. After Army service, Douglas worked in San Mateo County as an adult probation officer. He purchased an abandoned beer joint on the ocean in Half Moon Bay, called the Ebb Tide Coffee Shop. By 1958, Douglas was inviting beatniks, local artists, and coastsiders into his joint, hosting private impromptu music jams and ceaselessly renovating his building and music room, which eventually evolved into the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society.
After becoming a registered non-profit for the musical arts in 1964, Douglas began presenting regular jazz and classical programs to the public. National and local jazz luminaries such as Betty Carter, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, McCoy Tyner, Bobby Hutcherson, Art Blakey, Cal Tjader, Vince Guaraldi, Etta James, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Freddie Hubbard, Benny Carter, and Milt Jackson, to name just several of thousands, played at the Bach over its 50-year history. Notables in the classical music world such as the Kronos Quartet and Mariano Cordoba performed as well.
Douglas gave the Bay Area and Northern California a much-needed alternative and distinctive venue in which local and touring musicians could perform. As the San Francisco Clubs in North Beach were closing down in the late 1960s, the Bach was a perfect beach experience that reflected the nature of the curator.