Philly Jazz scene is jumpin' again

Few experiences rival a first night in a jazz joint - especially when you're still in high school and have no life.

The sign outside Chris' Jazz Cafe at Broad and Sansom Streets.Read morePATRICK McPEAK / Staff Photographer

by Erin Arvedlund, Staff Writer

Published Aug. 12, 2016, 7:15 a.m. ET

Few experiences rival a first night in a jazz joint - especially when you're still in high school and have no life.

In 1987, I held my breath listening to the Divine One, Sarah Vaughan, perform at the Academy of Music, the velvet balcony seats digging into my shins.

She represented the music of an older generation, but I was completely smitten with her naughty basso that then thrilled to the top of her crazy range. This woman has lived, I knew.

Newly in love with jazz, I persuaded my senior-year beau to take me to Zanzibar Blue, when it was cooking hot music and dishes that Philadelphia hadn't ever tasted, like salt-'n'-pepper crème brûlée. He and I didn't last, but the jazz lit my flame.

In the 1990s, my postcollege crowd began lounging around Chris' Jazz Cafe, owned by Christ Dhimitri between 1989 and 1999. He featured high-end chow and shushed us when we laughed - loudly and drunkenly - as Joe Lovano blew a shimmering horn, as Philly native Christian McBride plucked his double bass and, to paraphrase the Fugees, strummed our souls.

Then, a drought. Clubs such as Ortlieb's and Zanzibar stopped featuring jazz. Or closed.

Yet, hard-core fans and musicians continued jamming underground, at haunts like La Rose and Alma Mater on Germantown Avenue, and in wacky venues like the Chinese restaurant Square on Square on Chestnut Street.

"It's like the sun behind the clouds," says Bob Perkins, longtime DJ for WRTI-FM (90.1) at Temple University. "The venues in Philly ebb and flow. The music never goes away."

Still, I remembered crying in my drink when Ortlieb's closed in 2010 and then reopened - without jazz. So I was thrilled to discover a jazz renaissance emerging in Philadelphia now, with clubs anchored by haute cuisine restaurants.

Chief among several new venues in Center City is South (600 N. Broad St.), owned by the Bynum brothers, who ran the Zanzibar Blue of my youth. Others include Relish in Mount Airy, Paris Bistro in Chestnut Hill, and Warmdaddy's, which caters to blues fans. Plus, millennial bars are now taking a chance on jazz, such as MilkBoy, Time on Sansom Street, Franky Bradley's, and Heritage in Northern Liberties.

So, has jazz returned to Philly?

"It never left," says Homer Jackson, who formed the Philadelphia Jazz Project with David Haas, philanthropist and jazz buff, to build an audience for jazz. "It's unfair to tether the success or failure of jazz, or any art form, to the fortunes of business."

Trombonist and Temple grad Ernest Stuart is one native Philadelphia musician who, after Ortlieb's closed, felt compelled to do something kick-ass. So in 2012, Stuart's Kickstarter campaign financed the Center City Jazz Festival, now an annual event in April.

"I wanted a festival that focused on quality of musicians, not just big names," he says. "Is there a renaissance in Philly jazz? I'd love to start that rumor."

He's now running Monday-night jam sessions at Franky Bradley's and recently played at Tasker House, a residence at 1520 Tasker St. whose owner, Anthony DeCarlo, hosts jazz house parties open to the public.

Michele Lordi, a mother of three, brings jazz to Abington - that jazz hotbed? - with performances at the Vintage Bar & Grill there. She appears at the Paris Bistro & Jazz Cafe, Chris' Jazz Cafe, and Art After 5 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Recently, Vintage hosted Philly guitarist Sonny Troy and tenor sax ace Larry McKenna. Older players meet young players, sometimes as young as 10, on her bandstand, Lordi says, "something that Philadelphia used to have on almost every corner, but is mostly gone now."

Drink and food. Jazz musicians agree: Millennials "like to drink," says Jackson.

That has made venues such as Heritage, Time, and MilkBoy ideal for the twentysomethings who are willing to pay up (as I was at that thirsty age) for a spicy whiskey with a side of downbeat.

The Jazz It Up Philly organization also brings live jazz into venues that never hosted before, including the Vesper Club and Cibo in Center City. Old standbys, of course, are the Prime Rib - solo jazz piano each night of the week - and Square on Square, where the All-Star Jazz Trio have a weekly gig.

Nonprofits like Jazz Bridge and the Jazz Sanctuary also book more than 100 concerts each season.

"It's a new day out there," says Bruce Klauber, who fronts the All-Star Jazz Trio, "in that jazz is being disseminated in ways other than the traditional jazz club."

With top-notch jazz schools like the University of the Arts, Temple, and Rowan University, "the level of jazz talent is absolutely incredible," Klauber says.

Savory dishes also attract new jazz fans. The Bynum brothers' restaurants, like Paris Bistro, South, and Relish, offer everything from hot, flapper-style jazz to music for the adult hotel-bar crowd.

Harry Hayman manages the Bynum brothers' venues around Philadelphia and is working with the developers of the Divine Lorraine Hotel to open a cocktail bar featuring jazz.

"We're enjoying a lot of business from development on North Broad Street," he says, "especially with the new residents, doctors, lawyers, and suburban people moving back into town."

South features national acts like Kandace Springs, a vibrant and soulful Prince protégée, and Grace Kelly, a young Asian American sax player who dyes her hair blue and purple. "Kandace is bringing a lot of eyes and ears on jazz," Hayman says, "as is Grace Kelly. They're the new young lions of jazz."

Check out the Clef Club of Jazz on South Broad, founded as a social club in 1966 out of the Local 274 musicians' union. Over the years, it morphed into a nonprofit that teaches students about jazz and the city's native jazz sons and daughters, such as McCoy Tyner, who played with John Coltrane; saxophonist Archie Shepp; Kenny Barron, who left Philadelphia for New York; and Jimmy Heath, now in his 90s.

Jazz ladies from Philadelphia include Sumi Tonooka, Monette Sudler, Terry Klinefelter, Kendra Butler, and Denise Montana, who sings Sept. 14-18 at Warren Oree's Philadelphia United Jazz Festival. Venues for the festival include South, Relish, Warmdaddy's, and Paris Bistro, says Eric Mintel, whose quartet will play the festival.

"Jazz has grown a lot over the years. And, yes, it dropped away, but it's reenergized," Mintel says. "Jazz artists are their own worst enemy," he added with a laugh.

Whether it's "Stella by Starlight" or "On Green Dolphin Street," a jazz soloist plays us a piece of his or her life, who loved them, whom they loved.

So Philly has always been a jazz cauldron. I just needed to find the flame again.

earvedlund@phillynews.com

215-854-2808

@erinarvedlund

Finding Jazz in Philadelphia and Environs

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Jazz Hubs

Jazz Bridge (www.jazzbridge.org).

Jazz Near You (www.jazznearyou.com).

Kimmel Center Jazz Season and Jazz 100 series (www.kimmelcenter.org/jazz).

New Jersey Jazz Society (www.NJJS.org).

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Art After 5 series (www.philamuseum.org/artafter5).

Temple Performing Arts Center (www.templeperformingartscenter.org): Click on "Rite of Swing: Jazz Cafe"; also see the Temple University Jazz Band.

WRTI-FM (90.1) (www.wrti.org) Plays jazz 6 p.m.-6 a.m. daily.

WRDV-FM (89.3) (www.wrdv.org) Warminster/Hatboro; 107.3 Philadelphia; 97.1 Bensalem. Plays jazz on weekdays.