Smoke, New York’s jazz hub, will enter its 26th year in 2025. As founder and owner Paul Stache points out, many clubs come and go within a few years. So what characterizes Stache in Smoke’s quarter century?
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 unbreakable and normal clientele that comes to pay attention to music,” he says.
As Stache and I talk over Zoom, it’s all about this, about building and maintaining a place where the world’s most productive jazz musicians need to play.
Steve Baltin: Congratulations on the twenty-fifth anniversary.
Paul Stache: I signed the lease in 1998 and opened the doors in April 1999, so yes, time flies. I like, “Holy shit, 25 years, how did it go?” » But here we are, yeah.
Baltin: I guess when you opened Smoke in 1999, you were looking for something very different than what you were looking for when you were 25 years older and had all that other fun and all those relationships with musicians.
Stache: I think that’s true. I think when I came here 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 first opened Smoke, 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 Golson of the world, as well as George Coleman and Harold Mabern. 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 talked to Al Foster the other week and we were trying to figure out who else is up in the Hudson Valley. It seems like half the New York jazz scene lives in the Hudson Valley. You got Dave Holland up there, you got Al Foster up there, you got I think Joe Lovano is up there. Kevin Hayes was coming in this weekend. It’s just a lot of musicians who moved out of the city because the city has become unaffordable, Lorenzo Tujá. And so that’s definitely having an effect. I find myself now more so than ever, not just being a presenter, but also being a travel agent. I actually just got off the phone right before this zoom and needed to book a hotel because yeah, you’re right. People are not in New York the way they used to. So that does have an effect on us as well for sure.
Baltin: Are there those artists for you that really define Smoke that have grown with 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 become 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 this 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 think Smoke’s role is 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 that it’s easy to fill up a jazz club five nights a week with shows, a lot goes into it. Part of the reason for longevity, New York places can be very, not just New York, I’m sure too, trendy and a place is big for a couple of years and then it’s not and then it’s gone, right? So, I think building on a neighborhood and audience and a community and a New York crowd and presenting music for New Yorkers is what’s worked for us. But I would be remiss if I would not give much of that credit to some of the phenomenal musicians that come through here. We just had Brandford Marsalis come through the club. We had a few weeks prior, Brad Mehldau come through and Dave Holland, we just closed a run with Cyrus Chestnut. We have Joe Lovano coming in next week. We have Ravi Coltrane playing the club, opening our Coltrane Festival. We’ve been very lucky in the sense of what we’ve been able to present. We feel very fortunate and we’re just grateful for the opportunity to be able to present such great artists. It’s a labor of love. It’s the music that we love and the music that we want to hear. There’s a lot of work in between, sure, but New York audiences also know what they want to see. We’re grateful for the support from 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. Although we are a little bigger now, we have an 80-seat space. It’s an 80-seat space with no real green room. We have a little workplace that I give to the musicians when they feel the need, just relax, step aside, step away for a moment. But all of that comes together in a way in the audience. So I think the feedback that artists get from audiences is a little more immediate, a little warmer, and a little more intimate here than other places. During the break in filming, the artists meet with everyone else in the lounge next to the bar. It is an intimate feeling. I think that has something to do with it. The other thing I think about, without patting myself on the back too much, is that I have strict criteria for what a concert hall should look and smell like. I think in many cases about the way music is offered. If I have a mistake. I think my partner, who is the executive chef, shares this sentiment: in some ways we are a bit of a perfectionist. If you feature Brad Mehldau, you better make sure you have the most productive piano you can find. And Ron Carter, you better make sure the bass has the sound formula to play, that it sounds as smart as Ron Carter sounds. And those kinds of things are important. I think artists appreciate having a collection of microphones, a sound formula, and a sound engineer who cares about it and can access it, because let’s be real, the audience that comes here is their life set. They practice for hours a day. They play music all the time. So if you’re going to place them in a room, make sure they look good and sound good.
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