Articles by Gordon Polatnick

         With almost every important jazz musician from around the world spending at least some portion of their career here in New York City since the 1910’s, we are blessed with a jazz tradition that is deep and varied and has only grown in stature to this day – only slightly dinged by the pandemic.  I have noticed a craving for live music and am happy to report that the clubs are starting to thrive again.       As someone who has been actively seeking out live jazz nightly in Manhattan for over 25 years, (with my explorations having started sporadically in 1983 when I graduated from college and moved back to NY), I can say with authority that there is something here for every type of jazz fan.  You just have to know what type…

The light at the end of the tunnel report – We are finding it difficult to pull together jazz tours that can get to three clubs a night within 4-5-hours as we did prior to March 2020.  In March 2021 we were able to start touring again – taking guests to live jazz performances in…

     As we head into the 9th month of pandemic deprivation, we are not confident that jazz life will ever resemble pre-COVID status.   All music venues struggle against all odds to remain in business during this extended lockdown.        Performers and performance venues were likely hit the hardest as precautionary health…

The Jazz Church by Gordon Polatnick Originally published in the Haight Ashbury Free Press circa 1995  Sometimes I think I’m the only one who understands what true religion is.   It’s that cozy state of mind where nothing is more apparent than the unassailable fact that each of us belongs here on Earth, and is deeply…

     If you’re a hopeless romantic pining for a sepia toned, 100 year ago version of New York City you will marvel at how well-preserved Harlem still appears to be.  If coming from the laughably tall and thin sky-scraper race to the clouds on 57th Street, it’s strangely comforting to note that the buildings…

Everyone is asking the same question and dealing with the same conundrum: Is indoor jazz clubbing out of the question during COVID in NYC, and if not, how does it work?  New York got hit so hard at the start of Covid that the lockdown period was followed by a very prudent and organized phased…

We woke up to the devastating news of a deadly fire last night in Harlem on the set of a Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Willem Dafoe, Leslie Mann movie called Motherless Brooklyn.  With that kind of star power glaring their vision, what reporters so far have overlooked is that the charred set of this movie was in the defunct and deserted St. Nick’s Pub which closed 7 years earlier this same month. As Harlem jazz fans wake up to this news through word-of-mouth, I wanted to resurrect an article I wrote nearly 10 years ago, describing the uptown jazz scene when it was truly in it’s 21st century heyday – when St. Nick’s Pub and the Lenox Lounge were still swinging and Earl Spain was still the proprietor of the Uptown Lounge at Minton’s Playhouse.  St. Nick’s Pub…

New York City: Affordable Live Jazz Clubs In Manhattan (Where you can hear the greats from Greenwich Village to Harlem) By Gordon Polatnick I started Big Apple Jazz Tours with the understanding that jazz is at its best when musicians and audiences are sharing an intimate, interactive experience that feels like it could go on forever, and that something unexpected is bound to happen.  There are wonderful, famous Manhattan clubs like the Village Vanguard, Birdland, Blue Note, Dizzy’s, Iridium, Jazz Standard, and Smoke, which regularly present legendary performers in intimate settings but must clear the house between sets – stifling the spontaneity to some extent.  These are great venues but they don’t tell the whole story.  Jazz fans in New York have become used to plenty of options that you may not be aware of yet. New York has been home to the majority of legendary jazz…

Hi, folks, this is Gordon Polatnick, of Big Apple Jazz Tours.  There are a few things that I’m inexplicably geeky about that I want to explore in this blog.  Most are jazz related, and most of the jazz relates to jazz history as it relates to people and places rather than notes, chords, harmonies, and time…