KEYED UP! and Cafe Bohemia: Bohemia After Dark
History of Bohemia
Café Bohemia was initially opened in 1955 by Jimmy Garofolo. He had owned and operated it as a restaurant, bar, and stage since 1949. In 1955, saxophonist Charlie Parker offered to play in the club to pay his bar tab, which unofficially began the room’s short life as a jazz club. Jazz greats including the Miles Davis Quintet, Art Blakey's original Jazz Messengers, and Kenny Dorham's Jazz Prophets have all played here.
Interview with Ken Fowser, Music Curator at Cafe bohemia
Background
“Bohemia reopened in 2019. I got involved at the end of 2022. Christine Santelli was running it before, pre-pandemic. They opened for 6 months and got a write up in the New York Times but then the pandemic hit. We reopened mid October 2022.
It’s been really great here on Wednesdays but it's particularly musicians in attendance. The word of mouth in the community has built a great reputation. Getting regular non-musical patrons is tricky.
We have invited guests that come and play in the later sets but I don’t like to refer to it as an open jam. We have labelled Wednesdays as “Bohemia After Dark” - if you are a musician it speaks to the lineage. The famous song by Oscar Pettiford of the same name implies a certain standard to the musical setting. In the nicest way possible, I don’t want just anybody to be able to come up and play - keeping up the level and standard is important.
We started with Wed-Sat but now open 7 nights a week. We just started Sundays and have Dana Stephens doing a Sunday residency. Emmanuel Michael is a great guitarist who is part of Dana’s band but also leads his own set. Last week was particularly incredible with the very sad passing of Wayne Shorter - we had musicians celebrating his life and his music. Trumpeter Andrew Wagner and Saxophonist Alex DeLazzari, both of whom went to William Patterson with me, are becoming a very strong duo and really kicking butt on the scene. They recently played in a sextet at Dizzy’s with bassist Jason Clotter for the late night set and are really tight with great arrangements. Jason is coming in and leading the same sextet here at Bohemia in May.
We have a lot of focus on younger up-and-coming musicians. That being said, we recently had Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts come in to host a workshop on a Tuesday last month. It’s really cool when he plays in the workshop you can actually see him trying out new music, with different bands, debuting stuff - almost seeing how he would rehearse. There is a greater explanation of concepts and playing around with different ideas. It’s been amazing to gain such an insight into a master musician.”
So what has drawn people to Bohemia?
"The history is a big part, it's smaller than Smalls as we seat about 40-45 people. It’s extremely intimate, it’s more of a listening room. It’s a similar model to early Smalls. Smalls was a club that I came up in when I moved to town. Smalls is a musicians club, run by musicians for musicians which caught on to a lot of jazz fans and the general public. So we are in that stage where musicians know about us but it’s time for the word to spread to everyone else. The location is also fantastic as we are near to so many other great clubs. We have guys coming over from Smalls on a Wednesday night which has contributed to Wednesdays being popular.”
Hank Allen-Barfield is the resident on Wednesday nights at the moment and he has enjoyed having different combinations of musicians play with him week to week.
“I have had nothing but positive experiences at Cafe Bohemia, it has quickly become one of my favorite clubs in the city to play and hangout at. It is such an important place for the community here, not only because of its special history, but also because it serves as another meeting place for people to get together and be involved in the scene. The work that KEYED UP! has been doing to keep the club moving lately is beautiful and much needed for all. And of course a big shoutout to Ken Fowser who makes all of it happen!” - Hank Allen-Barfield
Bringing recordings back to Bohemia
Though a long way off, Ken would love to bring recordings back to Bohemia.
"The historical recordings 'Live at Cafe Bohemia' are well known and some of the biggest names in jazz have recorded here: Mingus, Art Blakey among others. I would love (pending funding or investment) to rekindle that and start a “Live at Bohemia” record label but keeping focus on young emerging talent on the scene today that I don’t think is as documented as much as it should be. There are a slew of young musicians in their twenties and early thirties that are unbelievable and it’s pretty cool that this club is somewhere where they can be featured.
I got really into vinyl during the pandemic so I think it would be good to do something where we would stream it digitally but sell vinyl at the club. Even those without a record player could have a special piece of Bohemia.
The acoustics are great also. In this space, you can hear everything. Nothing needs to be mixed or turned up. We kinda got lucky with the natural acoustic and some curtains.
The room sounds so good, too, that it wouldn’t require a detailed mic situation. Minimal miking would still give us a great sound.
The other thing that’s unique is that we don’t have an acoustic piano, we use a Fender Rhodes. We have an A100 organ that we recently added. So it’s pretty much the only downtown listening room with an actual Hammond organ in it. The reason we don’t have an acoustic piano is due to how the stage is set up. For now it won’t work but maybe in the future. With The ’55 bar closing, that club only had a Rhodes. There is so much history of acoustic music at Bohemia but now there is more of an electric sound. There is also more of an open sound as some bands won’t have a chordal instrument at all. Last night we had a band called Continuum with an up-and-coming tenor sax player named Kendrick McAllister. They played with no chords - throwing back to the music of Max Roach in the fifties - a three horn front line with bass and drums. Having that unique sound here on show was amazing.”
Sponsorship
"As far as payment and sponsorship, it’s vitally important. We want to respect the musicians that play here but it is an extremely small space. My whole idea is keeping the quality high, pay these great musicians what they deserve or at least try to pay them in such a way. I wish we could pay them more but KEYED UP! helps immensely. We wouldn’t be able to have the band that we have without the support. That kind of branches out to the jazz community as a whole - it’s an unadvertised jam session. So musicians come along and hear great music, see personnel changes week to week and know they can be a part of something special. They want to sit in and be a part of it. It raises the level of the community as a whole to have a night like Wednesdays.”
Drummer John Iannuzzi - album out called “All In”
"The first thing is the rich history. Being jazz musicians we are very into the history of the music, particularly in New York - there were so many great clubs over the years and all the guys that inspired us made records here. The fact that Cafe Bohemia is open again now is a beautiful thing. The quality of the music here is great, we just need to shine a light on it and make sure we maintain that quality.”