zazie
ideal "underground" jazz experience
The Fat Cat jazz club, games room, and bar is the ideal place for an "underground" experience. First, it is literally underground: you enter Christopher Street and walk down some stairs to get to a huge local room. The first thing you see when you enter is a bar to the left, but then you can discover pool tables, foosball, ping-pong tables, chess, and backgammon sets that are spread over a vast area of this area. It seems scattered, but on the other hand, there has been an attempt to clean up a nice corner with a piece of carpet and a second-hand sofa. In this corner the jazz bands play; some are better known or more acclaimed than others.
With a concert program for every day, I guess a gamut of bands is normal. When I went, there were three spectators, and the rest of the audience were vaguely listening. Listeners should perceive the sound of music as something that has been given as much attention as a tennis strategy or a chess move. Of the three listeners, we made up two of them, and the third inspired us. We created a self-portrait out of charcoal and a large sheet of music, that was pretty well done. Finally, it's a very peculiar place where you can drink a beer, listen to music, or play all kinds of games in the New York underworld.
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