Drive uptown on Broadway in Manhattan on a Monday night. The streets are all lit up in yellow, and there are students from NYU milling about. Park the car and cross the street to the West End Cafe. When you get inside you feel like you’ve got the wrong place. This is supposed to be a jazz club. To the left is a cafeteria counter. To the right is a circular bar. You walk across a hardwood floor between the two, headed for two pinball machines and a cigarette machine, and make a quick left into the jazz room. All of a sudden the cafeteria noise is filtered out as your eyes adjust to the darkness. There are rows of booths on either side of this room and tables scattered in the middle. At the far end is a bandstand, and there sits a baby-grand piano, and the gaudiest set […]

June 1982 Issue