Chris' Jazz Cafe: Hot and cool for 20 years

It's nearly midnight on Friday night. The owners of Chris' Jazz Cafe, Glenn Gerber and Mark DeNinno, are hanging outside, jabbering with several players readying to enter their weekly late-night jam.

There's a throng of players, young and old, at the door. Inside, drummer and jam leader Jason Faulkner, saxophonist Victor North (the venue's Tuesday open-mike host), and others bear down on hard-driving cool-blue riffs, from "My Shining Hour" to "Monk's Dream." While audience members hang at a bar worn by countless elbows and scored with cigarette burns, musicians make their way into the kitchen's back hallway to practice before their shot on a stage where internationally known jazz greats such as Pat Martino, Joshua Redman, and the Bad Plus play.

"By 2 a.m. we'll have to throw like 80 people out because they can't stop digging what's going on - those on stage as well as the audience," DeNinno says with a laugh, still in his work clothes as executive chef of Chris'. "I love this," he says, smiling.

DeNinno and Gerber are beaming not only because they dig a packed house or appreciate the music. They do both, for sure. What's most to love is that they're celebrating Chris' 20th anniversary Friday and Saturday, a solid but bittersweet accomplishment when you consider that, at present, this is the only nightclub in downtown Center City that books only jazz. In particular, Alan McMahon programs live shows that feature the clean mainstream sound of bop, post-bop, and hard swing that just happens to be this city's jazz signature.

"I model our booking after the Village Vanguard, a live version of the classic Blue Note label," says McMahon, who has been booking Chris' since before Gerber bought it in 1999 with two partners. (DeNinno became co-owner in 2002.)

"It's Chris' brand, sure, but this Philadelphia sound originated in the '50s and '60s with the likes of Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley, and Jimmy Smith," Gerber says. "One of our objectives is to make sure there's an outlet for this style in Philly. As the only full-time jazz club in Center City, we feel a responsibility to keep it alive." Gerber, in particular, would love to book avant-garde jazz but agrees with DeNinno and McMahon that their signature sound is king and that experimental jazz is tough on a dinner-and-drinks audience.

Philly was long well-regarded for its jazz rooms, spaces such as Pep's and the Showboat. Throughout the '80s and '90s, Zanzibar Blue and Ortlieb's Jazzhaus were hallowed homes to live jazz until each closed down within the last 10 years.

McMahon and DeNinno agree that Zanzibar grew too expensive after its move from 11th Street to Broad, and Ortlieb's lost its zest after original owner Pete Souder sold it in 2006. "Zanzibar was high-end, Ortlieb's was the clubhouse, and we were comfortable in the middle, until they both folded," DeNinno says with genuine sadness.

Today, LaRose and the Loft in Germantown, Mango Moon on the Main Line, and Le Cochon Noir on Parkside Avenue book live jazz - but they're not downtown. The Clef Club books jazz, but it's open only sporadically. The floating Ars Nova Workshop presents avant-garde jazz in non-nightclub settings. The Kimmel Center books jazz, but that's hardly a club. Lucky Old Souls will change the equation a bit when the bar/restaurant opens on 17th and McKean Streets in South Philly in (it is hoped) 2011. But as far as jazz in Center City goes, Chris' is the last jazz-bo standing.

"Some healthy competition would be a good thing for musicians, fans, and Chris', too, but it's a good thing there's a venue downtown with live jazz six nights a week," says Matthew Feldman, the guy looking to open Lucky Old Souls. "Aside from Ars Nova, no one but Chris' books well-known, out-of-town jazz musicians on a regular basis."

Internationally renowned chanteuse Jackie Ryan agrees - especially since she has sold out Chris' during two separate appearances there. "It has a certain vibe that only places that have been around a long time have, soul perhaps," she says. "The only other club that touched me like that was Ronnie Scott's in London, which has been around for 40 years. I think Chris' outlasted most other venues because Al McMahon and the rest of the staff have a strong sense of what they want their club to say to the world."

Here's a brief history of Chris': Chris Dhimitri opened the 1421 Sansom St. spot (it was the Pub throughout the '70s and '80s) as Chris' in 1990, and booked local guitarist Jimmy Bruno and saxophonist Larry McKenna to run it weekends. By the late '90s, McMahon - who had been booking live jazz brunches at 12th Street's now-closed Bistro Bix - was hired to bring more live players to the mix.

"I brought my guys, like trumpeter John Swana, saxophonist Eric Alexander, and a bunch of young cats from the Criss Cross label," McMahon says. "Chris' was basically a restaurant with some jazz until the new owners came in. That's when a few nights with the same bands turned into six nights a week, 700-plus bands a year, two shows nightly."

McMahon laughs about how lawyer Gerber and restaurant consultant DeNinno bought the venue and turned a hole in the wall with a beat-up piano into a world-class jazz club by giving him money to book bigger progressive names, adding a sound system and a baby grand. "There was no stage when we got there," DeNinno says. "Just a ramshackle setup in the front corner of the room."

Along with new staging and an affordable fine-food menu, McMahon mentions how Chris' reached out to local college music programs, welcoming young lions from the University of the Arts and Temple. Many of those students, along with local musicians playing staid dinner-show gigs, make up most of Chris' famed jam nights.

"The kids who are learning get to show off their new chops, the working musicians whose gigs get done early have an outlet to let loose, and everybody stays fresh," says saxophonist North, who has been running Chris' Tuesday jams since the mid-'90s. "It's a tradition that goes back to bebop and Minton's Playhouse in Harlem. All we need is chicken and waffles and we're set."

For Chris' 20th-anniversary weekend shows with favorites young and old (North, Eric Alexander, Bootsie Barnes, Larry McKenna), a glass of champagne will suffice.

See CHRIS' on E3

Chris' Jazz Cafe,

1421 Sansom St.

Information: 215-568-3131, www.chrisjazzcafe.com

Friday: The All Star Band. Two shows, 8 p.m. and 2 a.m.

Tickets: $20 per show.

11:15 to 2 a.m.: Victor North and Jazz Jam. Tickets: $10 ($5 for students with instruments).

Saturday: The All Star Band. Two shows, 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. Tickets: $25 per show.

11:30 p.m. to 2 a.m: Ken Fowser/Behn Gillece Quintet.

Tickets: $10.

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