Jazz clubs I’d most like to visit

I don’t travel much beyond Ireland and the UK – in the last dozen years I have only been abroad on a couple of occasions, once to Norway and more recently to Germany.

But it got me thinking: where would I go as a jazz fan, given a lot of background knowledge and ideas, if I were to venture forth?

The short list below is strictly off the top of my head, based on what I know from reading about various jazz clubs and hearing recordings made in certain ones. The latter can sometimes give a far more accurate idea of what a place is like than its website or the romantic accounts of its mystique, even though mystique is usually the main currency.

My criteria, in order, just for the avoidance of doubt, to give a little shape to the bucket list:

1. Sheer fame
2. Quality of programming
3. Famous recordings made there
4. Likelihood of me ever making it there

All are ranked on a scale of one to 10.

Village Vanguard, New York

Fame: 10/10

Quality of programming: 10/10

Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano and John Patitucci are coming soon, for example.

Famous recordings made there? 10/10

Tick your pick. Beyond the fairly obvious Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins and Wynton Marsalis recordings – reader: there are dozens – I like this recent one above. Marcus is back in October.

Likelihood of me ever making it: 5/10

I have stood outside it once, during my first trip to New York in 1999. But that doesn’t count! During that brief trip I only managed to do two things: attend a Kenny Kirkland memorial concert at the Beacon Theatre featuring Sting, and interview Jeff “Tain” Watts.

The only New York clubs I have been to are Iridium, where I heard Billy Cobham, and a hotel place called Feinstein’s, where I heard John Pizzarelli.

Keystone Korner, Baltimore

Ain’t nowhere to run to, there ain’t nothing here for free
– Randy Newman

So after the Village Vanguard, and staying in America for wish list purposes, where would I go? Totally off the top of my head, in an ideal scenario, and from what I know of the clubs after reading about them down the years: Keystone Korner.

Why? Because Todd Barkan runs the place, I like his taste. I know this because I once read a wonderful Kathy Sloane book about a place in San Francisco that Todd used to run. He also produced one of my favourite Ian Shaw albums In a New York Minute on Milestone that had Cedar Walton and Iain Ballamy on it among other luminaries.

Fame: 6/10

Not so much for the club itself as it is still relatively new, perhaps, but because of the Keystone name and the aspiration of mine to high tail it out of New York for the first time ever over there to discover somewhere else travellin’ light. I also love the reggae lilt and Randy Newman lyrical thrust of the Nina Simone interpretation found on ‘Baltimore’ – hardly a tourist board ad for the city notwithstanding past or indeed present (I’m not in the business of shilling for anyone on this blog but if there is appreciation for something it’s honestly meant & not just typed out in bad faith or performatively).

Quality of programming: 7/10

Looking at the website now, Stanley Clarke, Monty Alexander and Joshua Redman stand out at the high end. Like most clubs, though, it has its purple patches and quieter spells.

Famous recordings made there: 1/10

I haven’t heard of any recordings made there so far apart from a Stanley Cowell (1941-2020) recording made there 6 years ago not long before the Strata-East co-founder died.

Likelihood of me ever making it over there: 3/10

But you never know.

Fasching, Stockholm

Beyond America, then?

I like the sound of Fasching in Stockholm. It’s a city I have never visited but I’d like to take a flight there one day as I dig the films of Ingmar Bergman whose lurve-the-early-oeuvre material (erm, quick caveat: not an ideal first Tinder movie date choice unless your new pal is a 21st century Simone de Beauvoir – if so grrreat but sticking with the Swedes Flickorna is a better bet) features stark urban scenes of the city that are morbidly inspiring.

Fame: 6/10

Quality of programming: 4/10

The brilliant Redman-ite Paul Cornish is there soon, but the programming is sometimes patchy.

Famous recordings made there: 2/10

Famous is stretching it a bit and I am disregarding the reliably cheesy Nils Landgren Funk Unit‘s efforts there but take a gander at what straightahead stalwarts the Stockholm Jazz Ochestra did for interiors setting foot in the spot so swing lingeringly.

Likelihood of me ever making it: 2/10

Arthur’s, Dublin

It’s not an every night of the week place for jazz, but there is plenty going on in this pub. I like some blues too and there sometimes is blues there scanning the shows.

Fame: 8/10

On the Irish scene mainly it’s known hence the eight. Is it internationally known? Probably not really but it’s the best known Irish jazz club to operate since JJ Smyth’s. As far as I know the only 7 day a week jazz club that operates anywhere on the island of Ireland is Bert’s in Belfast which I quite like although the programming is fairly wayward there at times because it is a restaurant first and foremost. It resembles what very upmarket Belgravia spot the Bosidale do stylistically with the food at the same very high if not quite so expensive level. When ex Teatro, Botanic Avenue doyen Kyron Bourke, Katharine Timoney or Derry’s own John Trotter are on it’s a bit better A&R wise.

Quality of programming: 5/10

Famous recordings made there?

It’s not famous but go on 1/10 as I quite like what Ätsch (guitarist Matthias Winkler, pianist Graeme Bourke, bassist Eoin O’Halloran and drummer Hugh Denman) did there in a Metheny-esque vein down in the Liberties there in 2018.

Likelihood of me ever making it: 7/10

I’m in Dublin once in a while, although the last time was 2019, so the chances are higher than for any of the clubs above. The only live venues I have visited to review there were Cymande at the simpatico Sugar Club, a showcase at the Project Arts Centre and over at the International Bar where to go all Joycean for a moment it was even better down there “along warm Wicklow street dawdling.”

Zig-Zag, Berlin

I haven’t been to Berlin since the 1990s and it was only to a concert hall. From what I see online, the programming at Zig-Zag seems better than at A-Trane, although it’s not brilliant at the moment apart from Peter Bernstein, who is coming up.

Fame: 5/10

Quality of programming: 7/10

Official famous recordings made there: 0/10
But YouTube does the venue proud though so look at a gig Mahavishnu Orchestra and Bitches Brew great, an influence on trip hop icons Massive Attack, Billy Cobham performed there in May above to the delight of the assorted throng of some understandably delighted clap-a-long Germans wrapping their shell-likes around the Panamanian-Yank’s classic ‘Red Baron.’

Likelihood of me ever making it: 3/10

• Let us know your bucket list choices of great spots that ideally you’d rouse yourself to head out to and tear yourselves away from binge watching Inside Lidl at Christmas for the 16th time. It doesn’t have to be located in a famous big city, could be in the country, and perhaps the sort of place that is even allegedly a bit crap but nevertheless you like the idea of. Perhaps it’s a tiny hall somewhere that you’d peel off from Dalston and go off to Hull and back for a bit of bebop. Or travel the extra mile to deepest Dorset in pursuit of agreeable noodling and a pleasant more mirth than merde laden evening, pardon the French, in Shitterton.