Late yesterday evening, after a day of difficult meetings, Farhad our Azeri friend thought that it would be nice change for my traveling mates and I to listen to some Azeri Jazz to help chase away the blues.
Farhad brought us to the appropriately named Jazz Club, which is known to be the first jazz club in Baku, and is located at the end of the Fountain Square on Aziz Aliyev Street. This underground club, with its smoky sultry ambience, offers live jazz music which starts after 8pm. The band at the club was made up of gnarly, extremely talented, old men who obviously love what they do. There were hardly anyone at the club, save for a couple romancing in one corner, three patrons from Brunei and their Azeri friend, and waiters who are jazz lovers, but still the musicians played with such obvious passion that I had goosebumps.
I don't have much in the way of recording equipment so the ol' Sony Cybershot movie clip feature will have to do. My apologies for the image and sound quality and the length of the clip, but I thought the band deserves a spot.
Perhaps there are newer, trendier and fancier Jazz clubs in Baku, complete with diva singers, but these jazzy old musicians needed no fancy digs, nor divas, to help me find the beat in Baku. And find the beat I did.
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