#6 V for Village Vanguard

There was a time when I was listening to Bill Evans Trio’s “Live at the Village Vanguard (1961)” and thought there must be an actual village somewhere, a weird confusion for the Village Vanguard – which is the hall of fame, the sacred place, the Madison Square Garden, and the Tokyo Dome of jazz. Now, visit https://villagevanguard.com/ and you’ll be welcomed by the default WordPress logo. 

The VV is usually scheduled weekly – same artist, Tuesday to Sunday, 2 shows per night, besides Monday as it’s for the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra since 1966. I’d click the “Ravi Coltrane Quintet” Oct 22-27, to enjoy the Saxophone sound by the son of John Coltrane. Click [Tickets] which gets you to.. https://villagevanguard.squadup.com/2022.html, which is a very nice inheritance of a web development in 2022, perhaps. Joke aside, the list of musicians is remarkable, filled with world-renowned jazz musicians more densely than any international jazz festivals – Fred Hersh, Brian Blade, Joe Martin, Marcus Gilmore, Jason Moran, Christian McBride, to name a few.

The 2022.html shows all the ticket purchase links regardless of their availability, so you’d need to click “Get Tickets” to scratch the lottery. Oh no, it’s Sold Out! Don’t worry, let’s check out the other nights! But - if you go back by the back button, the whole webpage disappears. Oh no!! Apparently, we’re supposed to scroll up and click the “< Back” on the top left, to safely get back to the good old 2022.html, filled with a list of every scheduled artist x 6 days x 2 shows. Yes, just 168 more lotteries to scratch..

On the show day, be there at the 178 7th Ave S in the West Village at the scheduled time or 30 min or 60 min or 75 min earlier, depending on your mood, enthusiasm, weather. One line for have-tickets, the other for have-nots. Seats are first come first served, there’s no food menu but quite some drinks. Wines are okay, beers are beers, this is where I go for Macallan. The acoustics of VV is mysteriously great, it brings you amazing piano and bass sound even at the very very back seat. That said, I won’t forget the drum sound of Tyshawn Sorey, the living drum god, propagated through nothing but air to my ears sitting on the first row.

After the first set – if the second set isn’t sold out – you might be able to stay seated for your own encore of the whole show. Usually, I’m not that lucky, and the Morandi across the street was surprisingly accommodating without any reservation for a small group, and their Frittelle di Ricotta was lovely! Chewing and coming back home, I’d be recalling the buzzing horns, the sizzling rides, the chords, how they were braided together in the historic venue.. while checking out the good old 2022.html once again, perhaps.

Keunwoo, at JazzBuzz.OOO