You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Great Jazz Clubs Around the World - #30

Episode Date: March 1, 2018

In this episode, Peter and Adam talk about their favorite jazz clubs around the world. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Manus and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Today we're going to talk about seven great jazz clubs around the world. Now they're only seven total so you're going to want to hit all of these. That's right. You're going to do like a, this is not like, you know, major league baseball way when you've got to hit 32 or something. There's seven. And if you see another one or one of these that's going out of business, do not go into another one. I want to say we are totally kidding.

Yeah, we're joking. Go patronize all. Any club owners out there. that may want to book Peter and I. That's right. We're just kidding around. Wait, please, we want you to patronize. Do not patronize them.

Don't patronize. Patronize all your local jazz clubs. This is just seven because we're kicking around the internet and everybody wants to have lists of seven things. So we're trying to be cool and do the same thing, right? Oh, I legitimately want to know seven great jazz clubs. I know. I know.

I don't want to know six. I don't want to know eight. I want to know seven. All right. Well, I'm going to kick it off with what I think. I'm going to go out on a limb a little bit and say what I think is the greatest jazz club. not only that has ever existed, but the greatest that exists now in the future, in the past, ever. And that is the Village Vanguard in New York City.

It's a great little place on 7th Avenue, south right there by 12th Street. And anyway, the Village Vanguard, I mean, I played there, had the pleasure to play there quite a few times, heard many great recordings, iconic recordings made there, of course. It's got a great history that goes back almost 100 years at this point, which is pretty amazing. Max Gordon, of course, founded it. But the greatest thing I think about the Village Vanguard is that it never changes, or it changes very little. I know a few years ago they got rid of that loud old school cash register, and I heard that they actually started accepting credit cards recently. But basically, they keep the stage, the dirty old curtains behind the stage.

Everything kind of stays the same. Even when it's replaced, it's kind of replaced the same. So what you get is this incredible sound on stage for the musicians, incredible sound in every seat throughout the venue. I mean, one of my favorite places to sit there, a little pro insider tip for you guys, sit at the bar all the way at the end, the furthest away seat, which you would think is the worst seat. But there's great sound there. And that was Betty Carter's favorite place to sit. That was Cecil Taylor's favorite place. In fact, I saw them almost getting a fight over that seat one night.

That's amazing. I've loved it in there for that. But the Village Vanguard, you know, they book the right people almost all the time. I mean, you can kind of just show up there and don't even worry about who's playing and just know that you're going to have a great experience. Yeah, I mean, how many times have you done that where you're just like, oh, let's just go to the Vanguard. I don't really even know who's going to know who's going to know it. I always know it. I'm just saying you could do that if you wanted.

I have actually, when I lived in New York, I used to do that all time. Yeah, we'll just go to the Vanguard, check it out, see who's playing, and it's always killing. And sometimes you get lucky and you get to be right up front in one of the greatest jazz clubs in the world. But like you said, man, there's no bad seat in that place. Everything sounds good. Everything sounds like the records you've heard, you know, all the iconic records. It's the best jazz club in the world. I mean, I think, too, if you were like, you know, there's things, all the seats are great,

but if you want a special kind of thing, if you're a drummer, get there early, and you want to hear the drums sit on that bench kind of back there by the drums. You'd get a very special experience on that back bench couch thing. And for the piano, there's the other side. So there's specialized things, but yeah, it's all good. I got to see Paul Motion on that bench. It was incredible. It was incredible.

Nice. So let's go right down the street while we're in New York. New York, the greatest jazz city in the world, the iconic Smalls Jazz Club. This has become the hang for not only local New York hats, but international musicians coming through. And, you know, it's just an amazing late night. It is a quintessential New York basement jazz club. It's a smaller room than the Village Vanguard say, but they have all these great young artists, until late, late in the night.

They have jam sessions that go till whenever. I've been there at 5 a.m. before. I don't know if I should be even saying that. But it's truly one of the great jazz clubs in New York City in the world. And another thing they do is they have an awesome live feed. You can go check out on the internet, no matter where you are.

You can see who's playing at Smalls. I think every night. Yeah, I think so. It's pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit, I don't know if they've changed since last time I looked at. It's a little bit of like security.

camera vibe because, you know, the cameras are just sort of there. But if it was slick, that wouldn't be a very small kind of thing. That's right, that's right. It gives you a great, the sound is good, and it gives you a great sampling of it, and it really makes you want to go there and experience it live, which I think is what it's all about. Totally, totally. Okay, so for number three, I'm going to jump over to Chicago and the Green Mill, and this

is such a cool club, old school kind of cocktail bar vibe. I don't even know what that means, cocktail bar vibe. They have cocktails and it's a bar and it's a jazz club. I don't know. It's just a Chicago institution. You know, Chicago being one of the great jazz towns ever, both in terms of great musicians that were produced there, but also so many great musicians that stay there.

So there's always been a great combination of venues that support the local musicians that are really international-level musicians by all means and also the other musicians coming through town. And then that's a club. There's other great clubs in Chicago, the Jazz Showcase, and some other places, but the Green Mill, I think, is one that's known, but it's not on everyone's radar, so I want to put it on your radar today. Awesome. Now we're going to go to the other side of the world, Tokyo, Japan, the Cotton Club.

This is one of my all-time favorite places to see jazz, to play jazz. And, you know, if you don't know it, you should know. Tokyo is a premier jazz city. Absolutely. There is a lot of great music happening every night. Right. A lot of Americans that play there, a lot of Americans that live there. And a lot of great local Japanese musicians as well. And the Cotton Club is spectacular. I've got I've had the chance to play there a couple of times and it is always a great experience. The audiences are always super into it and it's a cool, it's just a cool vibe. It's a cool room. Yeah. And I mean, the thing that's great there as well as at the Blue Note and actually pretty much every venue I've ever worked at in Tokyo is that the staff, the engineers, like the piano,

technician, everything is operated on such a high level that it really presents almost a perfect situation for you to perform it. Some of the things at the New York clubs that maybe fall by the wayside sometimes. They're a little rougher. A little rougher on the edges. It's not like that there, you know, you really are playing on just, I mean, the Cotton Club is a beautiful Steinway that's just like tuned by an amazing tuner every day. It's amazing. Yeah, and it's a great thing. And also, I would just say, too, that, you know, Japan has a really, at this point, I love large group of really good players. And for a long time, they, you know, like from a lot of different countries, would come

to New York or maybe L.A., and then there'd be a little bit of a dearth of good players in Tokyo. But now, a lot of them are still coming to the States, but they're also, you know, the Cotton Club and these other venues are bringing them back regularly to play. So it's not just American players that are there. It's the top Japanese players. Yeah. And there's a bunch of good small clubs where a lot of good jazz is happening by the local

cats, too. Yep. Alfie. I don't remember any of their names because it was the night. I was having, but it was a fun time. Yeah, a bunch of places. Actually, Alfie and Body and Soul. I want to give a big shout out to both those,

because those are amazing, smaller clubs. Okay, next, let's go to Europe. Let's go to specifically the United Kingdom. Now, would they want you saying that's in Europe? You know what? I think we've got a couple more months where they're still part of Europe, as far as I know, but, yeah, pretty soon or not. So now this is Ronnie Scots in London.

Ronnie Scots has a lot of history because of Ronnie Scott, who was a great saxophonist, iconic player, kind of an ambassador for British jazz for many years. And I actually got a chance to meet him before he passed when I first played at Ronnie Scots in 1991. And in fact, at that time, he still had two or three clubs. The one in London was always down in Soho on Firth Street, not First Street, but First Street. So British. Yeah, it was the original OG location. But I played, now then, I don't think they're doing this anymore.

I don't think any clubs are doing this anymore. But the first time I played there was for two weeks straight with Betty Carter, 1991. I think we were off on Monday maybe or Sunday. Wow. Those are the days. Yeah, they regularly booked, like, especially the big singers like that. And, you know, they've changed the club a fair amount since then.

It's the same location, but they've reoriented it. but it's still got, you know, great sound in there, great audience. I mean, London being such a great music town and performance place and jazz, a lot of history there, and I love it. That's awesome. Well, now let's bring it from around the world back home. This is our home, our local club here in St. Louis. Actually, it's about, I don't know, 50 yards from where we're standing right now across the rally.

We are looking out the window at it. We can see it from where we're standing. Yes. It's jazz at the bistro. It's also, I think now it's called the Faring Jazz Bistro, but locals know it is Jazz the Bistro, and it is one of the most beautiful clubs you will ever see in your life. They redesigned it a few years ago. I know, Peter, you had a hand in consulting with that a little bit.

I did not have a hand on the actual remodeling or anything, but yeah, just a little bit of advisement. But, yeah, I mean, it's a wonderful, modern room, but really done right, you know. They improved, I mean, the old club was great. But they improved every aspect of it. The sound, the sight lines, the feel for the musicians on stage, the sound there. I think that they added some capacity or at least reoriented in a way that really made sense. And great sound system, great folks over there. Yeah, it is really world class.

If you're ever through St. Louis, first of all, send us a message and say hi. But second of all, you've got to check out the bistro if you're a jazz fan at all. It's amazing. Yeah, and also at this point, it's one of the few clubs outside. outside of New York and really almost nowhere else. It's one of the few clubs that still books, regular touring, complete groups. Pretty much week in and week out for multiple nights.

I mean, a typical week over there, like this week, Benny Green is playing with his trio. And they're swinging it. They're swinging hard. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, four nights. It's not two weeks like we used to do it, Ronnie Scouts. But I mean, most places, even like, you know,

nice clubs like the Jazz Alley in Seattle, and Yoshis in San Francisco. You know, typically they're booking one night, two nights, maybe three nights. But, I mean, Jazz at the Bistro is hidden in with four nights, which is great because you get that kind of old school thing of, like, sometimes a newer group or maybe a group people aren't familiar with or come on Wednesday, and there's not a lot of folks there, but if they do really well, word starts getting around town, and then by the weekend it's packed

because people are like, oh, did you hear such and such down at the beach, or no, how does she sound? She's actually really good, good saxophone player. And then everyone, there starts to be kind of a moment. Totally, which is fun. Yeah, totally. So is that six, one, two, three, four, five, six? We're hitting seven, right?

We're hitting seven. Okay, so for seven, I'm going to kind of grab, oh, no, it's my turn anyway. Good, okay. Seven, I'm going to go with, I know I said the Village Vanguard was my favorite. Well, no, the Village Vanguard number one is the greatest jazz. Backpedaling, backpedaling. No, no, I'm a backpedaling a little. I think what I said is the greatest.

It is. Now, this last club, I think, is my favorite, or at least has the most sentimental value to me, And that's Snug Harbor in New Orleans. And partly it's because it's the club and the stage that I've played more music at over the years than any other place anywhere. And even though I haven't played there regularly in many years now, there was a time when I was just constantly playing there. And I mean, I was being part of the history of the club and the ownership and, you know, George Brumann, who was the original owner who passed away about 10 years ago, just an amazing soul and person that really built the place up to what it is. and Jason Patterson, who's still there. It's just a special place.

And, I mean, it's a New Orleans place. It's got, like, hidden rooms and patios, and it's in the Fabric Marini. It's not in the French Quarter, but it's in, like, what the French Quarter used to be. Nice. And it's just a great place. You know, really cool stage, two levels,

kind of an outer thing. Good food, good drink. And, you know, it's different music every night, but just the best of New Orleans players. And then they're always bringing in great touring people and Brazilian musicians, very eclectic. very eclectic lineup, but cool stuff.

And also you're in New Orleans. You're in the greatest jazz city. I mean, it's the home of it. And I would just say, because a lot of people get a chance to travel to New Orleans, it's a great tourist town, and people go down there for conventions and things.

But like, if you can only go to one club, go to Snug Harbor. And I mean, a lot of people know that now, and it's definitely a tourist there, but it's kind of like the vanguard in that it's like the tourists in the know. Right. You know, in general, I think what happens in New York now

is like, you know, the blue note, which is great. It's good, yeah. But that's where, like, people go, they think they're going to a historic club, but it opened in, like, 1983 or something. It's not the original blue note records, you know. But the vanguard's, the real deal,

the same thing with Snugg Harbor. Oh, and I just, I got to mention, Snook Harbor, Ellis Marcellus has been playing either every Friday or Saturday night there for, like, 30-plus years, so catch that while you can. Reason enough to go. Well, thank you for joining us on today's episode. Please leave us a rating if you liked it.

Only if you liked it. Don't leave us a rating if you didn't like it. Right. Run fast if you didn't like it. And if you have an idea for a topic for one of our episodes, go ahead and leave that in the comments. Please, because we're about to run out. I can tell you that right now. Just daily podcast, dude.

It's a lot of pressure, man. Adam and I, we're like, you know, 5.30 in the morning, we start texting each other. What are we going to do today? That's it for today's episode of You'll Hear It. We'll be back tomorrow, but if you need more information, you can go to you'll hear it.com.