On December 19, 2025, when Trombone Shorty blew the first notes of his horn in Aspen, it was more than just the start of one of the instrumentalist’s typically dynamic shows. This was a clarion call, a summons to music lovers to experience a new era of performance locally, and the culmination of a decade-long dream for Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS).

The concert marked the opening of the Paul JAS Center, an exceptional new venue on the Cooper Avenue Mall that is also the nonprofit’s first-ever permanent home. And it quickly became a resounding success.

That’s because—in addition to having a robust schedule, great acoustics, and comfortable seating—the Paul JAS Center fills a key niche in town. As Aspen increasingly caters to the uber-wealthy, places that welcome both well-to-do locals and those of more modest means have been on the wane. But this 140-person venue embraces all comers, especially with bar-area tickets that start at $30 and a reasonably priced menu.

“People seem to agree that this is a breath of fresh air and exactly what Aspen needed,” says Jim Horowitz, JAS’s president and CEO since the organization’s founding in 1991. It also helps that Tuesdays are programmed as locals’ nights, including open-mic sessions, dance parties, and trivia contests. Moreover, the center can be rented by other groups when no concerts are scheduled, adding to its role as a community resource.

After several years of success with its JAS Café series—featuring smaller shows on a much more intimate scale than JAS’s signature Labor Day and June multiday festivals—the desire for a performance center that JAS could call its own took root in 2015, says Horowitz.

Venues like a downstairs meeting room at The Little Nell hotel and the third level of the Aspen Art Museum routinely sold out for performers like pianist Monty Alexander, a cappella group Take 6, and vocalist Tierney Sutton. The art museum, in particular, which opened in 2014, proved an ideal setting in terms of layout. But, of course, concerts were a secondary use.

“As soon as we saw how well it worked, I was like, ‘We could do something like this [on our own] if we found the right space, and it could be amazing,’” notes Horowitz.

It took about three years for that to happen. After almost committing to another downtown location in 2017, JAS decided on the current property in 2018, when space next to and above the Red Onion became available.

Not only is the Red Onion legendary as Aspen’s oldest bar (dating to 1892, it has been closed for the past several years during a renovation that is still ongoing), but it also has a musical history. Notable performances included Billie Holiday, who played there for six nights in 1952, and other jazz artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Oscar Peterson, all of whom appeared at the venue in the 1950s. Tapping into the Red Onion’s musical heritage, says Horowitz, “was a huge win that we never even thought about in our wildest dreams.”

To renovate the property, which formerly included a street-level retail space and a warren of offices clustered around a second-floor atrium, JAS hired noted Aspen architect Charles Cunniffe, a founding member of the music organization, to execute the redesign. In addition to residences, Cunniffe’s firm has designed performance venues like the Theatre Aspen tent, a remodel of the Wheeler Opera House’s bar lobby, and Telluride’s Town Park Stage. But this project also included some particularly strong emotional ties, given Cunniffe’s long-term involvement with JAS. “There was a lot on the line,” he admits, calling it “a passion project.”

The second-floor area that would become the center’s main performance space had great bones: a “squarish rectangle” that Horowitz and team desired, as well as good sightlines. Plus, the ceilings were high enough to feel roomy but not so much as to sacrifice an intimate vibe. To home in on more specific details, Cunniffe, Horowitz, and Horowitz’s wife, Nicole, spent a week in New York City frequenting jazz clubs, sometimes several in one evening, to get a sense of what worked and what didn’t work. 

The aesthetics of musical instruments influenced the design palette, explains Cunniffe, with materials like unlacquered brass, blackened steel, and wood used in elements like lamps, mirrors, and wall accents. The industrial-style ceiling, with exposed mechanical systems, evokes a clarinet or similar instrument in which all of the working parts are easily visible, he adds. Tying everything together is an elegant, candlelit-like vibe, thanks to lighting that Cunniffe describes as quiet and soft.

Also playing off the music theme, two walls in the second-floor check-in area cleverly acknowledge donors with their names printed on replicas of record albums and cassette tapes (the center itself is named for local venture capitalist and JAS board chairman Andy Paul, who gifted $10 million to fund the project). Elsewhere in this area, as well as in the first-floor lobby, hang photos by Aspen photographer Steve Mundinger, who has captured the scores of artists who have performed at JAS over the years.

Of course, sound design figured prominently in the new space and was led by the Connecticut-based firm Jaffe Holden, which has worked on numerous performance and cultural spaces around the world. The acoustics of walls and ceilings have been optimized with a mix of sound-absorbing and reflecting surfaces, while certain elements are angled in subtle ways to modulate sound and eliminate echoes, explains Cunniffe. A floating floor keeps vibrations from affecting the ground-level store below. Additionally, a small recording studio overlooks the main seating area, primed for use by JAS students in the nonprofit’s active year-round education programs, which will also use the center as a classroom and performance space.

Surprisingly, renovating the second floor of a historic building (as well as adjacent spaces) didn’t pose any unforeseen challenges for the architect, who notes that the construction team salvaged as much as possible of the Red Onion building’s original brick walls, visible in the bar and entrance stairwell, as well as the front windows that face onto the pedestrian mall. The team also kept the skylights from the adjoining atrium (not historic), which now make up part of the ceiling over the stage and seating area.

After a successful first winter, with 30 well-attended concerts in three months (many at, or near, capacity), the Paul JAS Center is ready to metaphorically blow its roof off this summer, starting with the nonprofit’s signature multiday June Experience festival (June 26–28 ). The doors to the terrace outside the performance area will be opened for the first time, allowing music to spill out and down to passersby on the mall.

Thinking back to the opening Trombone Shorty concert, “it had a pinch-me quality that’s hard to put into words,” says Horowitz. “It was just the beginning, but there was a sense of ‘we did it.’ Now it already feels like home. It’s been stunning to see the impact it’s made, and humbling.”