Getting Jazzy with Anderson Ward Grubb

LEGO® designer, Anderson Ward Grubb, takes us behind the Jazz Club’s doors, for some fascinating insights into the stories and secrets within the newest modular building.

Bursting at the seams with intricate details, cheeky storylines and inventive building techniques, LEGO Modular Buildings are nothing short of brick-built genius. LEGO Designer Anderson Ward Grubb, one of the designers behind the Jazz Club, tells us how the team collaborates to create these incredible sets.

How was it decided that this new model would be a jazz club?

There’s two reasons: one is practical and one is more emotional. Practically, the stories we want to tell with modular buildings need to fit into a relatively small space. Once you build in all four walls and stairs, space disappears so quickly! Jazz clubs are often not very big venues, so it made sense in that way.

Emotionally, jazz—and the idea of a jazz club—is very evocative. Think of cool music, exciting evenings out on the town, a vibe of a bygone era with lots of style and energy. We don’t just want the modular sets to offer the joy of building, but also the joy of taking a trip to a bustling, happening town…and a jazz club fits right in with that idea!

It’s not just musical entertainment that this venue has to offer…we also spotted the magician minifigure with his bunny and top hat. But isn’t magic and jazz an unusual combo?

Actually, no! Small performing-arts venues will often host a variety of different types of shows in order to have a full schedule and keep the patrons entertained all night…and sometimes the ones that don’t quite fit are pushed to the late-night acts. I’ve been in some of those late-night acts myself! This set is a little nod to the folks who perform whenever and wherever they can to practice their craft and make a name for themselves.

Also, the magician offered us the chance to add in a white bunny, which we could then link with the vegetable garden on the roof where carrots are being grown especially for the rabbit. We love including cute animals in the modular buildings.

Modular buildings always have such a clever way of telling stories through their design! Can you tell us a couple more narratives that are playing out in this model?

Well, the key story with the Jazz Club is that every space is related to what the main character—the singer—would do when getting ready for her performance. She could pick up her dress from the tailor, get changed in the dressing room, meet with the manager in the office, grab a bite to eat before the show and, finally, perform in the club.

There are other small stories that link to previous modular buildings. One of my favorites is the squirrel that has made a nest of leaves on the roof. Those leaves match the ones that have fallen onto the sidewalk outside the Bookshop, so perhaps that’s where the squirrel got them! Another one is the art piece that’s hanging in the dressing room. It’s made in the same style as the art from the gallery in the Boutique Hotel…so we imagine that’s where the piece was sold from.

My favorite open-ended story, and one that I hope that fans imagine their own answers to, is that the Jazz Club has its own little ticket booth where one should buy a ticket to see a show. But the club opens right into the pizza shop! So what if a customer buying a slice of pizza were to just walk into the club without paying? Maybe the club manager and the pizza chef have a deal where buying a slice of pizza gets you into the show? Maybe it’s all one big business…I’ll leave it for you to decide!

It seems like you had a lot of fun designing the set and coming up with all the stories. Do you have any other fun memories from the design process?

We spent a lot of time brainstorming what should be happening on the very, very top floor of the building…and some of the ideas were pretty wild! At one point, we wanted to play with the idea of a ‘back room’ of a club, but then with a twist. Someone even suggested that we have dogs playing a game of cards around a table! That would have been fun, but maybe a little too out of character for the modular buildings.

Did you plan on adding in a pizza shop and a tailor from the start?

We had many different ideas for what the smaller spaces around the Jazz Club could be. One fun idea we had was to make every room somehow related to making music, sound or noise. In that scenario, the apartment at the top would have had a character who couldn’t get any sleep because of all the sounds! Ultimately, though, we landed on the idea that every space should be related to our main character, the singer.

What aspects or elements of this set are your personal favorites?

One of my favorite things about this set is the incredible minifigure line-up that it comes with…particularly the newly decorated pieces for the jazz singer and her bandmates! Our graphic designer, Ashwin Visser, designed those with a lot of love and care. Big applause to Ashwin for those! Another part of the build that I love is how the main entrance is built. I thought it would be fun to orient parts of the build to be at diagonals throughout the model, which introduced a lot of neat building aspects…for example, how the main entrance is built, and how the desk in the Manager’s office comes together. They’re fun because they show that LEGO pieces don’t always have to be at right angles.

Is there anything else new or noteworthy about the Jazz Club?

Absolutely! The string bass element is new for this set. It was developed for LEGO VIDIYO™, but it never made it into a set, so it was really kismet that we started the Jazz Club just as this piece became available. Also, the arch element built into the pizza oven is a new LEGO element that was designed primarily to be a wheel arch on LEGO cars and trucks.

Plus, the pizza slice has a new print! The old one is going to be retired, so it was a great opportunity to design a new one. For a while, we even considered being very controversial by making it a pizza with pineapple on it. Then we could have at least one minifigure with a grossed-out face in response! But ultimately, we wanted to make a print that could be useful in many future sets, so we went with something a little more…appealing.