Swanky night out with Jazz It Up Philly

Take posh Center City restaurants and bars in need of off-night juicing. Mix with energetic promoters aiming to nurture Philly jazz and blues talents. Shake well and serve. What do you get?

"A throwback to the supper-club era of the '50s and '60s that's been great for business, that brings in a well-dressed and surprisingly broad cross section of people who hang in all night," Volvér general manager Robert Delarosa said. "It's a really swanky deal."

"The best floating jazz show in Philly," said Thomas Camarda, one of the partners - along with Charlie Bartlett and Tony Kauffman - in a movable spread of music they call Jazz It Up Philly.

This week, the promoters are touching down twice, first on Tuesday night with a multi-course feast of music and food at Prime Rib, 1701 Locust St., engaging the talents of almost two dozen singers, keyboardists, guitarists, and bands topped by the ultracool Jost Project. With hip singer Paul Jost, the group takes pop and rock classics on merry, impressionistic rides.

Then on Thursday, Jazz It Up will be back at Bar Volvér, front room of the Jose Garces venture inside the Kimmel Center, for Blue Thursday. Laura Cheadle and the Family Blues Band - 2014 Tri-State Indie Music Awards' Blues Band of the Year - is the big draw, working up a celebration of the late B.B. King.

"There's nothing else in town like it," said Becca Fischer, a "just turned" 29-year-old real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach and a Center City lifer who popped in for Jazz It Up (topped by resident music director/keyboardist Tim Brey's group), cocktails, and nibbles at Bar Volvér on May 14.

And Tuesday night, she'll be "dragging, willingly, my parents, their friends, and some of my friends" to the Prime Rib show, she said. "This is the only thing that could make me excited about the Memorial Day weekend ending. The settings for the shows are much nicer than your average jazz cafe. The costs are very reasonable." (Admission at Bar Volvér, which includes a welcoming glass of sparkling Spanish wine, is $10; Tuesday's bundle of dinner and show at Prime Rib is $125 and up.) "And what's great about this music is that it's not completely classic jazz. They have some things that are modern, more soulful, blues, and poppy. I brought friends to Volvér who don't know anything about jazz and they really liked it."

Philly Pops president Frank Giordano, a Jazz It Up scenester at the other end of the demographic range, said: "There's nothing else like this here. My closest comparisons would be in New York - Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel, where Woody Allen used to play; or Jim Caruso's Cast Party, a Monday-night thing at Birdland."

Camarda, 51, first laid eyes on his future twentysomething partners last fall when they were staging a show at the Hard Rock Cafe on Market Street. "I just liked the way they split the duties, worked really well together," Camarda said. "And they liked my idea of tapping into all the great young talent coming out of Philadelphia music schools. We did our first, sold-out, show a couple months later and have been growing since then." They've since teamed to stage networking parties as Ultimate Networking Event and have designs on building an artist development venture.

Fate also put Camarda in contact with Volvér general manager Delarosa when the latter was looking to do something special for New Year's Eve. Jazz It Up Philly brought in "the best crowd, the best night of the entire year," Delarosa said. "Jose Garces has always had a vision of bringing music into the room, given we're in the Kimmel Center. You might not guess it, but the space was specially built with wall treatments for good sound."

And Delarosa has a history. "I worked at Zanzibar Blue 20 years ago. What a great place, so serious about the jazz and the food. Since then, everywhere else I've worked - in Las Vegas, Miami, on cruise ships - I've gravitated to places with live music. When I came back to Philly to open Volvér, it felt like there wasn't much going on in this neighborhood, though the SLS Hotel [being built] across Broad Street could change that."

Volvér is now committed to hosting Jazz It Up Philly events twice monthly through the rest of the year. "Our biggest challenge was to overcome the stigma of being 'too expensive,' " Delarosa said. "Working with Jazz It Up has helped us enhance our image as a venue that provides value and entertainment."