[Dixielandjazz] New Venues for Jazz?

[Stephen G Barbone]

Anyone in the USA doing gigs like these?  Seems like a spin off of the  
Retirement Home gigs that are so plentiful, except this one is for  
young people.

Cheers,
Steve barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


March 29, 2010 - NY Times - By Ben Sisario
Going Clubbing by Staying at Home


The crowd was about 50 strong, dressed somewhere between postwork  
casual and preclub glam, when Nicole Atkins plugged in her guitar on  
Friday evening and began to play. She hawked her CDs between songs,  
and the sound system was run by a Knitting Factory employee — all  
pretty typical for Ms. Atkins, a New Jersey-bred songwriter who has  
reams of critical acclaim but is still struggling for her big break.

Yet this was far from a typical gig for her, or for the Knitting  
Factory. For one thing, she was not performing at that club, but  
rather in the cavernous, softly lighted atrium of Ohm, a gleaming new  
residential tower on 11th Avenue in Manhattan, the latest luxury  
outpost in the real-estate frontier between Chelsea and Clinton.  
Facing west as she played, she could watch the sunset through the  
glass walls of the building’s exercise room.

“You know what would be really cool,” she remarked between songs, “is  
if somebody could get up on the Cybex up there and entertain me while  
I’m entertaining all of you.”

The concert represents a new connection between two forces that have  
often been at odds in New York: live music and high-end real estate.  
Last year the Knitting Factory moved to Brooklyn after being priced  
out of its longtime home in TriBeCa, but its cool factor is still a  
valuable draw in Manhattan: the club has been hired by Douglaston  
Development, the developer of the complex, to book twice-monthly  
private shows there to help attract affluent young tenants. Ms.  
Atkins’s show was the first.

The 34-story, 288-unit building, at the corner of 30th Street, opened  
in February and is about 25 percent rented, said Nancy Packes, a  
marketing consultant to the developer. Monthly rents start at about  
$1,900 for a studio and $3,600 for a two-bedroom. The architect was  
Stephen B. Jacobs, who designed the Gansevoort hotels in New York and  
Miami Beach; the building has the look of a boutique hotel, with  
multicolored fluorescent lights set into the walls and giant  
television monitors in the lobby playing abstract, screen-saver-like  
shapes.

Speaking before the show, Ms. Packes said that the building’s  
proximity to the clubs and bars of Chelsea helped define a target  
clientele: people in their late 20s to mid-30s, probably unmarried,  
“on their first or second job” in high-paying or creative fields.

“This is not for people in their 50s, people with kids,” she said.  
“It’s for young people whose true religion is music.”

Much of the crowd on Friday was right within that demographic. Amy  
Kapnick, 29, had moved from a similar building in Midtown, lured to  
Ohm by its youthful identity.

“You’re not going to have elderly people, people with six kids living  
in the building,” she said. “You’re going to have other young  
professionals looking to have a cool environment to live in.”

Her friend Liz Stiles, 28, lives on the Upper East Side and was  
unabashedly jealous of Ms. Kapnick’s new digs. “I live in baby- 
carriage city,” she complained. “I went out last weekend. I tried  
having a phone conversation, and babies were screaming. I couldn’t  
even talk on the phone.”

Buildings like Ohm could be seen as one reason that many live music  
spaces — the Knitting Factory, CBGB, Tonic, Luna Lounge and Fez — have  
shut down or left Manhattan.

But the idea to use live music as an attraction to sell property was  
hatched by Seth Rosner, who besides working with Ms. Packes (he is  
also her son), is the owner of Pi Recordings, a highbrow jazz record  
label whose roster includes Vijay Iyer, Anthony Braxton and Marc  
Ribot. Mr. Rosner said that having the shows gave the building an  
important competitive advantage in a down economy.

“It’s a different city now,” he said. “Less people renting and less  
people buying means you have to do more to make your product more  
distinguished.”

Jeffrey E. Levine, the chairman of Douglaston Development, put it even  
more succinctly: “Being the better mousetrap saves the day.” He had  
his family in tow for the show. For refreshments he served beer and  
brought in hot dogs and knishes from his favorite deli in Queens.

The hot dogs, and the music, were a hit on Friday, although a sweep of  
the room revealed that not every new Ohm resident was likely to step  
out for a 1 a.m. D.J. set. Will and Nicola Brown, who moved from the  
English countryside, said the main attractions for them were their  
apartment’s amenities and floor-to-ceiling windows, not the distance  
to any bar.

“We’re not clubbers,” said Mr. Brown, 32, who works in human resources  
at Goldman Sachs. His only concern about the music, he said, was that  
it would be “too heavy” and go too late. Like a real club, in other  
words.

For the first night there was no such danger. Ms. Atkins, who lives in  
East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in an apartment that she described as  
“the polar opposite of this place,” played a 35-minute acoustic set in  
which she relished the atrium’s natural reverb, and she was done by  
8:20 p.m. The shows are free for residents, but Mr. Rosner said the  
musicians were well paid. He declined to give specific figures, but  
said that the budget for the year, with 24 planned shows, was more  
than $60,000, counting production expenses and artist fees. The next  
event is planned for mid-April, but the Knitting Factory says it does  
not have an act confirmed yet.

Ms. Atkins said she was grateful for the job. But she raised another  
point that residents may have to contend with: the willingness of  
musicians to take part in the series, and to take part in the  
building’s marketing plans.

“At gigs like this I kind of feel like hired help,” she said. “The  
music is a decoration, part of trying to sell something.”

“But,” she added, “there are worse ways to make money.”