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October 31, 1997
A Look at New York's New Jazz Clubs
Related Article Welcome to the Club: Jazz Swings in New Spots in NYC
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By BEN RATLIFF
The Jazz Standard
n the soigne end of the scale, there's the newest in town, the Jazz Standard, in what used to be the Rosenblum Perfume factory, on 27th Street at Lexington Avenue. At street level, there's the restaurant, 27 Standard, with a full wine list and a contemporary American-style menu; the chef is Michael Smith, who used to work at the Rainbow Room and the Hudson River Club.
Downstairs, the Jazz Standard has room for 150 patrons, a size comparable to the Big Five, with its own menu, running from pizza to caviar. (Two layers of insulation have been installed so the diners upstairs won't be disturbed by the music.) The ducts of the former factory on the ceilings and walls have been kept intact as part of the decor.
Since Birdland opened on West 44th Street with its all-star schedules, what's needed now is a club that showcases musicians signed to smaller labels or those about to break the surface of media attention. Accordingly, the Jazz Standard's owner, James Polsky, a former jazz drummer, has booked the room through January with younger musicians like saxophonist Don Braden, who plays there through this weekend; vibraphonist Stefon Harris; pianist Jonny King, and saxophonist Mark Shim.
Minetta Lane Theater
ess bound to the financial vicissitudes of the food-and-drink business is the jazz series at the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village.
The theater has excellent sound and seats 350, twice as many people as the biggest club in New York. When the house empties on weekends (the Minetta Lane currently has a successful long-running play, "Gross Indecency"), the jazz begins. On Monday, when the theater is dark, the music starts earlier in the evening.
Drinks are sold at the concession stand in the lobby. Tickets run as low as $5, and though the first few concerts had small audiences, Roy Hargrove's big band nearly sold out for two shows on a recent Sunday night.
The philosophy here is simple: "We're trying to make jazz attractive to young people," said Mike Kolker, producer of the concerts. Indeed, you couldn't otherwise hear Hargrove in a theater or a club at this price. But Kolker is also bringing in young band leaders like Greg Tardy and Omer Avital, and he plans to adopt the rock-club practice of having lesser-known bands open for big names.
The positive effect of the $5 ticket in jazz is nearly incalculable. If you've spent $20 to cross the threshold of a club and another $10 for drinks, you might feel too guilty to cheer; you sit still and absorb, trying to get every penny's worth. And it goes without saying that struggling musicians can't afford to hear their heroes at high prices.
"When I want to see the Joe Lovano-Paul Motian-Bill Frisell Trio at a club, I literally have to save money for a month," said Tony Malaby, one of the best young tenor saxophonists in town, who just gave up his day job selling fly-fishing gear. But if it's cheaper than a movie, you tend to let yourself go. As at Smalls, the bands feed off the energy of the crowd.
Bell Caffe, Jules, alt.coffee
"A lot of people are getting tired of waiting for calls," said saxophonist Tim Berne, who has formed his own record label, Screw Gun, and who's just as likely now to perform at the Internet Cafe in the East Village as the Knitting Factory, where his free-ranging music was almost exclusively heard.
At restaurants like the Bell Caffe and Jules, groups led by saxophonists Dan Willis and Michael Blake have been able to get regular engagements; this is how bands grow into maturity. The trumpeter Dave Douglas started a group out of a regular engagement at the Bell some years ago; it has grown into one of the more exciting trios in jazz, and it's called the Tiny Bell Trio, in the restaurant's honor.
Another good example is alt.Coffee, a cafe on Avenue A at St. Marks Place in the East Village. It's a friendly joint where loners read books and students chat for hours: a captive audience. Ted Reichman, an accordionist and composer, saw the opportunity there. For a year, with drummer John Hollenbeck and vibraphonist Matt Moran, he's been booking experimental improvised music and jazz into the club every Monday night for free concerts; he plans to produce a mini-festival there in January.
Reichman said he was "inspired by how things work in San Francisco and Chicago," where the do-it-yourself ethos has resulted in thriving performance scenes.
A band playing at alt.coffee can stretch out across a whole evening, make more money than at an established club, with the help of a tip jar, and draw greater interest from the regular habitues. One recent night, the cafe was standing-room-only for a performance of Hollenbeck's quartet, with percussion, voice, saxophone and steel guitar.
By contrast, although playing at the Knitting Factory still has an element of prestige (European promoters hold the club in awe as an imprimatur for new music), as many as five bands may play there in one night. A band can sometimes get overlooked; it's hard to create a following with a few performances there in the course of a year.
he Internet Cafe is another grass-roots success story. Nearly two years ago, the cafe's owner, Arthur Perley, asked saxophonist Hayes Greenfield to bring in music; now it's grown into a six-night-a-week schedule.
"They let musicians try out new things," said saxophonist Sam Newsome, who has played there with his band, Global Unity. The club is starting to present musicians like Ellery Eskelin and Marty Ehrlich who once played most of their New York gigs at the Knitting Factory.
For the last year, Chuck Clark has led a dynamic 10-piece big band at the Internet, full of excellent players like trombonist Chris Washburne and alto saxophonist Matt Hong. Like many of the bookings there, the group's sound mixes swing with odd rhythmic structures, harmony with dissonance. It's a territory that Malaby, who has also played there with his own groups, describes in jazz terms as "too outside for Smalls, too inside for the Knitting Factory."
About 60 feet long and 12 feet wide, the club has a middle area where the musicians play; waiters walk right through the bandstand. It feels a bit like home: The magazine rack is full, and the manager's golden retriever, Homer, sometimes takes naps in the bathroom.
Detour
nother hive for developing talent is Detour, a small no-cover jazz bar on East 13th Street in the East Village, which opened two years ago and now presents bands seven nights a week. Its owner, Art Zeidman, a working musician, was inspired by small jazz clubs in Amsterdam that had a casual atmosphere and vital music.
The bands are not paid, which prevents a lot of musicians from performing there on principle, but Zeidman has helped young players develop their craft, including Hong and trombonist Mike Fahn.
One musician characterizes it as "Augie's downtown," a reference to the Morningside Heights bar Augie's, where students escaping homework go to chat loudly, occasionally noticing that someone a few feet away is pouring his heart out for tips. But Detour has a small upright piano, which Augie's does not, as well as a less beer-slinging atmosphere.
Homefront
omefront, on the ground floor of a West 54th Street bed-and-breakfast, is modeling itself on the downtown lofts of a generation ago where disgruntled jazz musicians declared independence by producing their own concerts. A long, high-ceilinged room filled with sofas and comfortable chairs, it's a pleasant and relaxed post-dinner or post-theater hangout, with beer and wine for sale.
The style of the music booked there has varied dramatically, from the rhythm-and-blues gutbucket kick of James (Jabbo) Ware's Me, We and Them Orchestra, to Zusaan Kali Fasteau's wild and pancultural free jazz. As is the case with most of these places, it doesn't feel like a jazz club.
In the New York jazz scene, the Big Five shall remain and prosper, but perhaps only as one kind of jazz experience. It's time to take the old image, wipe it clean and start again.
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