New York City jazz hotspot Smoke begins its twenty-sixth year in 2025. As founder/owner Paul Stache points out many clubs come and go in a few years. So, what does Stache attribute Smoke’s impressive quarter century run to?

Know what you like and stay true to that formula. “It’s improvised music. And I think at the end of the day, that’s what I like. Those are the benefits I get from booking the club and ultimately what people are looking for. “I think there is a very unwavering and normal clientele that comes to pay attention to the music,” he says.

As Stache and I talked about over Zoom, it’s that and building and maintaining a venue the best jazz musicians in the world want to play.

Steve Baltin: Congrats on the recent twenty-fifth anniversary.

Paul Stache: I signed the lease in 1998 and opened the doors in April 1999, so yeah, time flies. Like, “Shit, 25 years, how did it go? But here we are, yeah.

Baltin: I think when you opened Smoke in 1999, you were looking for a much more different detail than you were looking for when you were 25 years older and had all this other experience and relationships with musicians.

Stache: I think that’s true. I think when they brought me to New York, when I opened Smoke, I was 25, and when I moved to New York, I went to New York, the jazz clubs were what made me feel at home. I grew up around jazz. My father was a big jazz fan and had a gigantic record collection. And when I opened Smoke for the first time, I learned that many of those legendary musicians I grew up listening to now live in New York. So I spend a lot of time researching to find out who is still in New York and who will be able to play. I booked the Benny Golsons of the world and the George Colemans and Harold Maberns. There were many legendary listens. I was surprised by all those legends who live here in New York, Buster Williams, all those other people who are nearby. It was natural for me to call those cats first and go from there. In fact, I laid the musical foundations for the club and ebooking. Above all, show the legends of this music. Clearly, after 25 years, he is surely right. You make new connections, you meet other musicians. People ask me, “What kind of music do you book electronically on Smoke?” » For me, the most important thing is that it is intelligent music. And I try to make the store as big as possible. And, obviously, there is a sure audience that has an aesthetic that also reaches Smoke. Obviously I need to offer what other people need to hear and what they like, but first and foremost, for me, it has to be really intelligent music. And when George Coleman and Harold Mabern opened the club in 1999, you set a popular and pretty high bar in terms of what was offered. But there’s clearly a lot of smart music in New York. People ask me, “Why don’t you open another Smoke somewhere else?” I said, “You know what? This will be difficult to do. The pool of New York musicians is very broad and there is a lot of skill here. Of course, it’s never easy, but it’s less difficult in New York because of the skill here.

Baltin: What has the scene been like throughout your 25 years?

Stache: I was talking to Al Foster the other week and we were looking to find out who else is in the Hudson Valley. It turns out that part of New York’s jazz scene lives in the Hudson Valley. You’ve got Dave Holland up there, you’ve got Al Foster up there, and I think Joe Lovano is up there. Kevin Hayes would be coming this weekend. There are many musicians who left the city because the city became unaffordable, Lorenzo Tujá. And that definitely has an effect. I position myself now more than ever, not only as a presenter, but also as a travel agent. I really picked up the phone right before this zoom and needed to book a hotel via email because yes, you’re right. The people of New York are like they used to be. So this affects us as well, that’s for sure.

Baltin: Are there any artists for you who define Smoke and who grew up in the club?

Stache: I think Emmet Cohen started coming here to play when he was [young] and it’s been really fun to watch him grow into the musician he is now and it’s just wonderful that he’s still playing at the club for a few years. times a year. Gregory Porter, I don’t forget meeting his manager Paul Ewing before many people knew how incredibly skilled Gregory Porter is. He handed me a CD and I said, “I don’t normally do e-books about artists on CDs. ” » But Paul Ewing insisted that I check it out. So I did it. I brought it without delay, I don’t forget it, Gregory Porter and his organization ended up in a normal residence on Thursday nights. I think they played at that residency for two or three years, I mean. Gregory is notoriously a massive star now and with good reason. I’m probably missing other people here. Clearly there have been many wonderful musicians who have come along and noticed many skills expand and grow. Orrin Evans started betting here very early, Jeremy Pelt. Many musicians began to emerge in their teens or twenties and have now become artists. In some ways, it’s been a lot of fun to be a part of this adventure.

Baltin: What do you consider the role of Smoke to be for artists?

Stache: I’m a music fanatic; I’m not someone who seeks to highlight artists. I seek to offer a position that allows music to flourish and artists to expand their music. And sometimes, when it works for them, it’s amazing. We feel fortunate to be a part of it.

Baltin: What do you attribute Smoke’s longevity to?

Stache: I’m not saying it’s easy to fill a jazz club five nights a week with shows, it’s a lot. One of the reasons for the longevity is that put options in New York can be very, not just New York, I’m sure too, modern and a position is big for a few years and then it stops being big and then it disappears, right? ? He doesn’t? So I think leaning on the neighborhood, the audience, the network paintings and the New York audience and presenting music for New Yorkers is what worked for us. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a lot of those credits to some of the phenomenal musicians who come through here. Brandford Marsalis has just passed through the club. A few weeks ago we had Brad Mehldau and Dave Holland, we just closed a race with Cyrus Chestnut. We have Joe Lovano next week. We have Ravi Coltrane hitting the club, opening our Coltrane Festival. We were very fortunate in the sense of what we were able to present. We feel very lucky and grateful to have the opportunity to showcase such wonderful artists. It’s a hard labor of love. It’s the music we love and the music we need to hear. Of course, there are many paintings between the two, but New York audiences also know what they need to see. We are grateful for the artists. Well, it’s funny though because, you know, again, I know.

Baltin: What have you heard from artists about why they’re playing Smoke?

Stache: I think the intimacy of the room has something to do with it. Even though we’re a little bit bigger now, we’re an 80-seat house. It’s an 80-seat house without a real green room. We have a little office that I give to musicians when they feel like they need a little, just relax, step aside, step away for a moment. But It’s all sort of intermingled with the audience. So it’s the feedback that I think that the artists get from the audience is a little bit more immediate and a little bit warmer and a little bit more intimate here than in some other venues. On the set break the artists hang out in the lounge next door to the bar along with everyone else. It’s an intimate feel. I think that has something to do with it. The other thing I think, without trying to pat myself on the back too much, but I have a high standard for what a music venue should look and smell. I think in many cases, the way that music is presented. If I have one fault at times. I think my partner, who is the executive chef, we share that sentiment, we’re a little bit of perfectionists in a way. If you’re going to present Brad Mehldau, you better make sure that you have the best piano up there that you can find. And Ron Carter, you better make sure that that bass has the sound system to play through, that it sounds as great as Ron Carter sounds. And so kind of things are important. I think artists appreciate it if you have a microphone collection and a sound system and a sound engineer that care and that there is some getting to it, because let’s face it, the audience that come through here, it’s their life. They practice hours a day. They play music all the time. So, if you’re going to present them in a room, make sure that it looks right and it sounds right.

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