The now smoke-free Smoke Jazz (www.smokejazz.com/) is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I stopped by on a no-cover night in April 2003 to catch regular performers "The Hot Pants Funk Sextet." The Hotpants' front line was a little weak, but drummer Joe Strasser was solid-fonky and a wild Wurlitzer solo by Jeremy Manasia made the night worthwhile for me. Manasia lives in a world where Bud Powell plays fuzzed-out wah-wah fusion, and I'd like to spend more time in that place.

Smoke is your standard dark, cramped little jazz spot. It was pretty crowded the night I was there but, fortunately, the people-watching was occasionally hilarious. We spotted a rather sullen young woman who looked like she'd been dragged there. There were, in fact, two of these grim-faced girls with their arms crossed, and a third who was subtly bobbing her head up and down, apparently the guilty party who'd forced the other two to come along. They left in short order, hopefully to find some hot guys at a fun, wild bar. Like, with body shots and stuff. I was told that on earlier visits our companions had spotted Yoko Ono and Kareem Abdul-Jabar. I was hoping to have some kind of celebrity encounter of my own, but my wish never came true, even though New York is crawling with celebrities (and sewer-rats).