Since its inception in 1981, Blue Note has become one of the premier jazz clubs in the world and a cultural institution in Greenwich Village. Owner and founder Danny Bensusan had a vision to create a jazz club in Greenwich Village that would treat deserving artists with respect, while allowing patrons to see the world's finest jazz musicians in a close, comfortable setting. Artists who had stopped playing in jazz clubs decades before, such as Sarah Vaughn, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, Stanley Turrentine, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, and Tito Puente, soon called Blue Note home.