Subway

Appelt built the programme largely around American mainstream jazz. Performers included Dexter Gordon, Horace Silver, Johnny Griffin, Tommy Flanagan and Art Blakey, as well as Chet Baker and Max Roach. Stan Getz reportedly dismayed some fans by processing his sound electronically. Chet Baker's 1980 appearances survive on records such as "Down – Live in the Subway Club".

The quality of the concerts soon drew radio, which recorded performances. From 1984 the broadcaster WDR even brought its television cameras into the club: directed by Dieter Hens, "Jazz im Subway" became the first TV series to air live recordings from a German jazz club. Television fees and requests broadened the line-up further, bringing artists such as Archie Shepp, McCoy Tyner, Dizzy Gillespie, Joachim Kühn, Freddie Hubbard, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Tony Williams, Ray Brown and Abdullah Ibrahim. In 2000 the Rockpalast festival series "Crossroads" was also filmed here.

The club closed in November 2001 for a refurbishment and reopened in 2002 with a new concept. Jazz concerts stopped for a time; instead the programme turned to music acts and DJs from genres such as hip-hop and electro. From 2002 to 2017 the Beatpackers Party with DJ Cem was a Thursday fixture for the hip-hop and rap scene, and despite its small size the club drew international names like DJ Hell and Hans Nieswandt on Fridays and Saturdays.

Since 2008 jazz has reclaimed Subway. For several years the KLAENG collective staged its namesake festival here each autumn, and since summer 2013 the stage has usually belonged to the Subway Jazz Orchestra twice a month on Wednesdays.