Bar, club and restaurant closures are the background music of the 21st century. News of them is ever present, inescapable. Pay attention to the noise and it will certainly distract you. It might even drive you crazy. For this reason we’ve learnt to blot it out, remaining unaware, for the most part, that the music continues to play.
There are moments when something wakes us from our stupor. A symbol is dropped. The record skips. Some notes are just too jarring to ignore. This is how it felt on Thursday, 11 April when I heard that The Jazz Bar, an Edinburgh institution, was closing its doors with immediate effect. Suddenly, I could hear the music, a catalogue of recent closures that begged for attention.
Working as a food writer, you became accustomed to closures. They are a fact of the industry. One that is common, necessary. Without them a city’s hospitality scene becomes flabby, an overabundance of mediocre establishments obscuring what’s sharp and defined.
That being said, there is something seriously amiss when a famous venue that’s routinely packed becomes financially unviable. In circumstances such as these we lose more than excess fat; whole limbs are hacked away.
In a post on Notes I said that The Jazz Bar was an honest venue. I did not mean in terms of price although entry and drinks were always more than reasonable. The Jazz Bar was honest in how it approached its role as a venue for a music genre that’s been pulled in a hundred different directions.
By its nature, jazz is many things to many people. It’s the allure of a past age as much as an expression of the here and now. It's both La La Land and Kind of Blue, Chet Baker as often as it’s Alfa Mist.
Somehow, The Jazz Bar managed to cram all this divergence into a space not much larger than a two bed flat and did so without a hint of kitsch or desperation. Instead, The Jazz Bar oozed an ease and style that has all but disappeared from modern hospitality.
There were no overly sweetened cocktails designed to invoke Fitzgeraldian escapades. Nor was there any of the affected aloofness that so often squeezes the fun from the genre. It was simply a good bar that hosted great jazz.
Anyone who has visited The Jazz Bar will know that the room was never packed with purists alone. Alongside them were tourists, sceptics, beatnik wannabes and more than a few students too preoccupied with playing out their own Stone-Gosling romance to listen to the music. But, miraculously, it worked. The clientele coexisted, enjoying themselves for a variety of reasons, none of which impinged on the others.
The variety of music likely helped. As did the strength of the drinks (negronis were free poured). Yet, I can’t shake the feeling that The Jazz Bar managed to capture something special during its tenure in the city. I have no idea what it was, but I know I'll miss it now it's gone.