You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Jazz Clubs In NON-JAZZ towns - #89

Episode Date: April 28, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam list their favorite jazz clubs in non-jazz towns. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Today we're going to give you seven jazz clubs in non-jazzy places. But jazz is everywhere, dude. How are we going to find a non-jazzy place? We're trying to get it all over the world here.

What are we doing? Well, this is actually from one of our listeners' questions that we're going to hear in just a second. So maybe he'll give us a little more clarity on us. Okay, cool. Here we go. Hi, Peter and Adam. A friend just hit me to the... the podcast a few weeks ago.

So I've been binge listening and it finally caught up. I love that you have listeners submit suggestions about podcasts, but even more, I love that you actually use them. One of the episodes I really enjoyed listening to was episode number 30, seven great jazz clubs around the world, especially since I was listening to it on a Saturday morning after I just saw Ellis Marcellus at Snugg Harbor while in New Orleans. And I had been to all the clubs in the list and couldn't agree more. I was wondering if maybe for one episode you can list your seven great jazz clubs in non-jazz places.

An example like Rudy's Jazz Room in Nashville. I'm hoping there are some thriving scenes and some unfamiliar places. Again, thanks so much for many great hours of listening. Take care. Sasha Elliott, Washington, D.C. All right. Thanks so much, Sasha. That's such a cool question.

and thank you for your kind words about the podcast. I'm glad you enjoyed those that we talked about. So I think when you say non-jazz places, you mean like not New York, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans. I think that's what you're saying, right? Yeah, yeah, it sounds like it. Yeah. So, Adam, you had a great idea about one starting in Italy.

Why don't we start there? Yeah, one of my all-time favorite places I've ever played. It's in this little medieval town in Italy. It's between Bologna. and Sienna in a town called Ferrara. And it's called Jazz Club Ferrar. It's in a 15th century guard tower along the wall of the city, the 15th century wall of the city. And so it's this round tower and you're up in the crow's nest of the tower.

That's where the stage of the club is. And you have people all around you on top of you, in front of you. It's in this, you know, this circle. And it is a very special place. some of my favorite concerts I've ever played have been at Jazz Club Ferrar. People there are awesome, great piano. They are huge promoters of jazz. They love it.

They have it playing all the time. And they bring in tons of musicians from everywhere. I've heard about it. I've never been there. I've been in that area, though. So I really want to go check in on that, even if I don't have a gig next time I'm there. And then bonus is, Ferrara is known for its pumpkin ravioli, and it's, like, outrageously good. All right, podcast canceled.

Let's get on a plane, buddy. Jazz and pumpkin. That's right, man. Nice. Okay, so for number two, I'm going to go with a beautiful, wonderful club with some amazing folks in Santa Cruz, California. That's a non-jazzy place, I guess. I think so, yeah.

A pretty hippie place. Yeah, yeah. But that's the Kuwumba. Kuwumba Jazz, I believe it's called, or even maybe Kuwumba Jazz Center. But it's a club right in downtown Santa Cruz that's been there for, I mean, at least, I first played there in maybe 90, 3,000. but I wouldn't be surprised if it went back to the 80s or 70s. But it's like a community organization.

I think it's kind of a co-op thing. And they get great, you know, so-called national, international, local, just great musicians. They're great groups. They're not really open like every night, but they have, they're regularly scheduled things. And it's, you know, you play two sets, small stage. They've got really, really great California wine. That's like the entire bar, just wine. they have like kind of small amount of food specialties in between sets,

but it's really people coming just to hear the music. And I played there just a couple of weeks ago, and the weather was beautiful, and they had like the doors open. And as the sun is setting during the first set, you know, the music's kind of spilling out to, you know, a little patio area where people for the next set wait. And it's a real kind of California vibe. A lot of love, a lot of just, you know, love of the music and love of life

and the weather's great. Very special place. So if you're in that area, check that. Kulumba. You know, I think that's going to be a common theme on this list is like a lot of love, you know, in places where maybe it's not as metropolitan and there's not a huge jazz scene for the players to get into and for people to maybe know a lot about it. There's usually someone there who loves this music so much that they put their heart and soul into a venue and bring in people from other places. And it's really an awesome thing about this music. Yeah.

Got to appreciate it. So that brings me actually to the Cafe Carp in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, Wisconsin. And it's not specifically a jazz club. They do a lot of singer-songwriter stuff and bluegrass, and it's in a tiny town in Wisconsin. It's in a gorgeous spot right along the river that cuts through the middle of this beautiful little town. And it's run by two really fantastic people who just care about the music so much, and they bring in jazz musicians. And it's a tiny little room, a wooden room that has all the seating is old church pews.

and it's always crowded when you play there and the whole town comes out and you just get a really good feeling like you say like you feel the love, you know, and people appreciate it. Really great place to play. Every time I play there, I always think to myself, I wish I could stay another couple of days

and, you know, listen to music here as well and just hang out. Someday I'm going to make that happen. But big shout out to the Cafe Carp and Fort Atkinson. And where is Fort Atkinson? It's just west of Appleton. Ah, okay. Well, I do know Appleton. Where's Appleton? You might ask. Appleton is just west of Green Bay, I believe. Lawrence University, I know, is in Appleton. That's right. And yeah, it's a beautiful and super highly cultured part of the country. It's true. And, you know, a lot of, you just love of the arts and music and jazz, classical, a lot of things up there. Yeah, even in the small towns, people care about the arts up in Wisconsin. Shout out Wisconsin. Yep, yep. And then, except for the way you guys voted that last election. Not a shout out for that.

Ouch. Shade. Okay. Next, okay, I'm going to go to Tokyo, Japan, and the Electric Jinja Club. Hello. So I don't know if I can say Tokyo's really a non-jazz place, because I think we had a club there on our jazzy places list. Tokyo is a jazz city for sure.

It is actually jazz city. But Electric Jenga is in a neighborhood that, well, actually is known for its jazz club. It's a little bit rupungi. But it's more for its kind of bar scene and, like, it's the all-night section. Well, really, I mean, Tokyo is like an all 24-hour city. I mean, that's just the way it is. But Rupungi's a lot of nightlife restaurants. I mean, it's kind of considered the seedy part of Tokyo, but it doesn't get that

CD. I mean, it's pretty clean. It's pretty chaotic for Tokyo, but it's not like. And they're like, it's the dangerous part because occasionally there's like a sort of drunken fight without any guns or knives or anything, you know. It'd be the nice neighborhoods in some cities in America. Exactly. Exactly.

But the electric jinge is a really cool bar and live music venue. actually don't have live music every night, but they're starting to have it more. And it's just like one of these little Tokyo spots. You've got to kind of know where to get there. It's down in the basement. And you go down and, you know, there's the small bar. There's always music playing, whether it's live or on recordings. They got a bunch of LP collections.

They play a lot of different styles. Just super cool place. But when there's jazz happening there, it's great because, you know, like you mentioned at the joint in Ferrara, like everybody's like right on top of you. And I played there a couple times just sort of sitting in. with different people. And, you know, there's people behind you in front of you, around you at the bar. They can reach out and touch and hear and feel.

It's a real intimate kind of space where you can feel the music, both as a musician and as a listener. That's great. And it's got a great name with a very funny, you know, Japanese smelling. It's electric, but I think it's like electric with just a K at the end. And then Jinja, which not Ginger, but I think they were trying to say ginger. Yeah. Jinja. I love playing music in Japan.

I love being in Japan. If any of our listeners haven't had the opportunity to go to Japan and maybe you're thinking about it, don't hesitate on taking that step. It's a great place. Yep. So I'm going to switch it up. I'm going to talk about it very much a Jazz City, but maybe one that's kind of slept on a little bit,

and that's Kansas City, Missouri. That's our rival to the West here from St. Louis. Kansas City is one of the best jazz towns in America, and maybe you don't know that because it's kind of a small town, but the scene right now is popping. And there's one of the best jazz clubs I've ever been into anywhere. It's called The Green Lady Lounge. It is fantastic.

There's two floors of music happening with some really, really fantastic musicians that live in Kansas City. I'm talking about guys like Herman Mahari, Peter Schlam. I mean, like really, really good players. You could see there a few times a week. I got to play there a couple months ago, and I was just blown away by how much fun I had. You walk into the Green Lady Lounge.

It's almost pitch black. There's just these dim red lights behind the bar. You can barely see anything, except the stage where the musicians play is lit brightly from above. And so even before we played, you know, the crowd was way into it because we looked amazing.

They present the music in this way that makes you look like a superstar or something. You're already winning. You're already winning, as opposed to, you know, you get to some clubs and there's a TV with a baseball game going on behind you or something. You know what I mean? So it is a pretty special place.

I highly recommend if you're a jazz tourist, you know, do not leave Kansas. There's a couple other places in Kansas City that are worth visiting too. So you can actually make a little weekend out of it. But yeah, check out the Green Lady. Kansas City Rising. So I think we're on, that was, what is that, 1,045? So this is number six of our seven jazz clubs and non-jazz places. And I'm going to go with the Bim House.

in Amsterdam. Amsterdam actually, you know, actually does have quite a bit of jazz history and connection, too. So we're really stretching the limits here. We're covering a lot of jazz. Well, like we said, jazz is everywhere, man. Yeah. I mean, if you can do Kansas City, I can definitely do Amsterdam. Totally.

So the Bim House, and now I'm just looking at the spelling of it, B-I-M-H-U-I-S. You know, I'm not, my Dutch is not great, as in it doesn't exist. But maybe it's Bim-H-H-E-S or something. But I always, it was always sounded like Bim House to me. And I played there quite a few times over the years and they moved. It's actually not even really a club anymore, but they still call it the Bim House. It's sort of a, well, it's kind of a big club or a small theater, beautiful that they built kind of outside of the city center of Amsterdam.

Not far, but like a 10-minute walk. But the original location was just like, you know, a teeny little, again, everybody's on top of each other, great club with just great players and, you know, great scene and everything. and the new one is it's like a really nice small performing art center where they sort of kept that club feel in that small theater thing. And great audience there, great folks that run it with really interesting programming. So if you're in Amsterdam, that's definitely something to check out. That's awesome. Well, Sasha, I hope this list lived up to your – was that six?

That was seven. No, that's one, two, three, four. Come on. Why don't we bring it back to Missouri for number seven? All right. So I apparently can't count today. but are seven and a half, six and a half, whatever. This is Murray's in Columbia, Missouri.

It's a tiny little jazz club. Yeah, I like Murray's. I like Murray's too. I've had some good gigs there. Columbia, Missouri, if you're not familiar, is the home of the University of Missouri. The Tigers. Yeah, it's kind of a small town. There's really not a lot going on, no offense, Columbia, besides the university.

Yeah. But they do have this jazz club that brings in world-class artists, and it's a really cool spot to hear some music. And good food. Good food. Good food, good drink, really nice. I mean, that's an instance of actually a great transformation of a restaurant. And I don't think it's always a club, right? Like with live music, I think it's an occasional thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's kind of an interesting thing on this list because, you know, this can be done very badly and has been done very badly, but they do it well there where they kind of transform a restaurant into a club. And they've got some nice physical things that make that happen there. And like a real club, like, you know, you could see like Brad Meldow there. Exactly. It's cool. Yep. It's cool. Well, if you go to any of these places, you'll hear it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast.

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