An air of inevitability hovered over Milwaukee’s venerable Jazz Estate, after it ceased regular live music.– especially when owner John Dye stripped the word “jazz” from the night club’s name. “Rebranding” is the fashionable euphemism these days. There’s even a faint foul whiff in the last show — the popular “A Charlie Brown Christmas” — being performed by a band called the Commercialists. Now the doors of the reimagined high-end cocktail bar are shuttered, for good or worse, except for “special events.”

What of those once-beloved loyal neighbors, like jazz singer Jerry Grillo?

There’s some controversy about whether the jazz club’s demise was something the community failed, or the club itself.

For the record, the Commercialists include excellent players: keyboardist Anthony Deutsch, Bassist Clay Schaub and drummer Patrick Morrow.

For more on this story — as it unfolded — see my past coverage below: