Harlem Jazz Clubs

Some of our long-time visitors -we’ve been around since the turn of the century- have been missing our big list of NYC jazz clubs, and the content we used to include about each club. As it turns out this information was lingering somewhere in the dark web ready to be resurrected – so here it…

Then on June 22nd, the triumphant return of Emily Braden and Tommy Campbell to the series – this time together!! Harlem Jazz Singers Showcase and Jam My Airbnb concert series continues tonight with Irene Blackman’s Band.  There are a few tickets left and they are good for both sets.  Dinners are available at Gin Fizz Harlem so bring an appetite – the food is getting rave reviews.   Next Week (June 15th) I’m presenting the irrepressible Ayana Lowe and her quartet.  Secure your tickets in advance as these shows have been selling out. By the way, I’ve expanded the series to include a monthly downtown show in celebration of Billie Holiday at Zinc Bar, Last week’s show with Melanie Charles was a screaming success.  Stay tuned for the July 3rd line up. https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/219838 

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…

Fridays will never be the same.  There’s no place like Harlem and there’s no other vocalist series like this one in the clandestine Gin Fizz – a speakeasy hidden in plain sight. Tickets in cooperation with AirBnB Concerts.  Singers Showcase   March 16, 2018 at Gin Fizz Boncellia Lewis with Shareef Clayton, trumpet Hilliard Greene, bass Frank Fallon, drums Paul Odeh, keys Gin Fizz,  308 Lenox Ave. (125th / 126th Streets).  2 /3 Subway to 125th Street.  Doors: 6:30. 1st set: 7PM.   2nd set: 8:30PM   It’s almost impossible to find someone who doesn’t love Billie Holiday.  Her voice, her phrasing, her songwriting, her commanding presence, and her life story all compel us toward this devotion.  Lady Day stands alone as a figure in popular culture who has left her mark on generation after generation of artists and music lovers…

  Is Billie Holiday Street Next?   In the current climate of social and political upheaval and the potential for national soul searching, there is no better representative of America’s promise outpacing America’s flaws than Billie Holiday. I’m about to set off on a year-long Billie Holiday kick. Hopefully, the end result will be a street-naming in Lady Day’s honor. You can’t help loving Billie Holiday for her talent, courage, perseverance, individualism, good humor, and her unparalleled ability to make you feel things deeply when she sang. Let’s begin this in 1939… At 24 years of age she was cracking open the civil rights movement by delivering nightly riveting encores of Strange Fruit to packed houses at the proactively integrated Cafe Society in Greenwich Village. Where did that song come from and what was it about? The song is credited…

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…