It’s the new(ish) big jazz venue, and it’s in, of all places, the wilds of Canary Wharf. It's curious, and encouraging, that anyone has the nerve to open a large new jazz venue anywhere, and in the midst of economic gloom, but they have. The venue for music is the size of Ronnie Scott’s but it is more than a mere music venue – it’s a good-quality restaurant with a cigar bar, a terrace (handy for smokers) and a huge whisky bar - an “amber wall of liquid gold” as they charmingly put it, from £5 to £2,500 for a Macallan 1937 double shot.
The vibe is determinedly masculinist – stuffed deer heads on the wall and the red and tartan decor give it a gentleman’s-club atmosphere – Scotland mixed with Havana. McFloridita. Soft-core art photos of tastefully disrobed girls as well as archive shots of top jazzers and Bogart and Bacall add to the retro feel. If it all sounds like a haunt for testosterone-fuelled City boys that is pretty accurate. The friendly guy behind the bar said that trade noticeably goes up when the stock market has risen that day.
Even last night, when the City boys weren’t there so much, there was a decent crowd for a Buena Vista tribute night – a band led by Omar Puente who were adequate without being stunning – but they do have top-notch artists coming in regularly like the great veteran Cuban pianist Chucho Valdez and up-and-coming Brazilian singer Sabrina Malheiros (pictured right) this month, even if the tendency is not exactly for the cutting edge, to put it politely, like Acker Bilk and Kenny Lynch. For your more bracing jazz, you’ll have to remain in Dalston at The Vortex or Café Oto. Actually, for hard-core east-London arts trendies nervous about getting out of their comfort zone, you can get to Canary Wharf on the spanking new overground from Shoreditch High Street and be there in a jiffy (change onto the underground at Canada Water and it’s one stop to Canary Wharf).
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