A pair weeks again, Nitzan Gavrieli — red-bearded, sporting a black go well with with no tie — did as he does every Sunday night time and sat down on the Fender Rhodes keyboard at Birds. On this night time, he was enjoying with bassist Sam Weber and drummer Dan Pugach (each Grammy winners), and the set included bebop throwbacks corresponding to Dizzy Gillespie’s staccato-sprightly “Groovin’ Excessive” combined with experimental originals, together with a quantity impressed by a drive alongside a Michigan freeway. The group provided a mixture of each downtown 30-somethings and grays whereas the cocktails had been designed by Steve Schneider of close by cocktail bars Sip & Guzzle.
“ There’s only a actual authenticity to the music,” says Jack Smith, the membership’s normal supervisor. “Right this moment we’re so confronted with know-how and social media and simply a lot sound in our on a regular basis life — there’s one thing about jazz and being a top-level musician; to play the music you need to be good. You possibly can’t actually pretend it.”
Inside strolling distance of jazz hubs just like the Village Vanguard, Smalls, and the Blue Be aware, Birds opened on Downing Avenue in September. Sister-and-brother duo Naama and Assaf Tamir, who’ve run the Williamsburg staple Lighthouse for the final 14 years, constructed out a technically glorious area with a low stage in order that the viewers is on almost the identical degree because the band. Schneider assembled a cocktail checklist stuffed with classics (martinis, an old school). As a bundle, it’s meant to really feel timeless, however Birds is a part of a gaggle of latest spots, opened up to now yr or so, which are providing a recent tackle the “New York jazz membership” idea and have change into actual showcases for the abundance of musical expertise on this metropolis.
The membership is blocks away from Little Department, the place saxophonist Vito Dieterle has booked the nightly set for 20 years. He’s additionally the music director at Midnight Blue in Gramercy. It’s owned by Jae Yang and bartender Takuma Watanabe of Martiny’s, the high-end cocktail bar two blocks away, and maintains the identical emphasis on well-made drinks, like a lapsang souchong–infused old school and a textbook instance of a whiskey highball. Midnight Blue’s lengthy bar runs down one facet of the black-and-white-tiled room, resulting in small tables and the inset bar.
On the stage is a drum set from Japanese firm Canopus, a Nineteen Forties Baldwin grand piano, and a now-rare Hammond A-100 organ. “They was an actual large a part of the scene, particularly in Harlem and in Mattress-Stuy again within the ’60s and ’70s, however they’re sort of all gone now,” says Dieterle, a self-confessed bebop man who thinks Midnight Blue’s area is especially nicely suited to established musicians like Willerm Delisfort and Fuku Tainaka.
The acts at Shut Up on the Decrease East Facet have additionally included longtime and well-established musicians, like drummer Andrew Cyrille, in addition to extra experimental musicians like trumpeter Peter Evans, who just lately performed what co-owner Daniel Gaynor describes as a “doom-metal set.”
Gaynor, a filmmaker, opened Shut Up in June 2024 along with his enterprise companion, Solomon Gottfried (the 2 met in highschool at Michigan’s Interlochen Arts Academy), and the vibe can at occasions really feel like an impromptu get-together — which is at the very least considerably intentional. “A few of my favourite exhibits have been in mates’ basements or simply at some studio with a bunch of musicians, which is cool, however it feels sort of culturally gate-kept,” Gaynor says. “I’m like, Effectively, why don’t I simply do it in order that the remainder of the world can come and hold and see it?”
Whereas in some jazz golf equipment the music primarily serves as ambient sound for the bar, Shut Up is undeniably music-forward with a bar area up entrance and separate room (with one other bar) for the bands the place the lights are dimmed and voices hushed as units are performed in order that the music will get its deserved consideration. This yr alone, Gaynor and Gottfried have seen greater than 550 performances within the area, with two one-hour units, a late-night set, and a jam session six nights per week.
“I take what I do right here as type of just like the duty of my lifetime,” Gottfried says. “I’m actually interested by it as not attempting to create a way of what jazz was or a replication of jazz from 1960, however jazz as this residing, respiration artwork type of right now.”
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For those who want to learn in print, it’s also possible to discover this text within the November 3, 2025, subject of
New York Journal.
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For those who want to learn in print, it’s also possible to discover this text within the November 3, 2025, subject of
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