In the before time, you could catch the Jeff Elliott Jazz Jam at SOhO Restaurant & Music Club about once a month. Then it became one of those things you wished you could do just one more time, like seeing a departed loved one or riding your bike on the sidewalk with no hands. Well, it actually happened. On September 12, Elliott and a couple of handfuls of virtuoso musicians created the sweetest Sunday afternoon a music lover could hope for.
It was like being in an octopus's garden. For one thing, Elliott was playing trumpet and keyboards at the same time; his simultaneous multi-instrumentalism always kicks off the magic.
Another way it's like being in an octopus's garden is the three-dimensional nature of the Jazz Jam experience. (Four-dimensional if you count time…). Elliott is also a rock musician, besides his considerable accomplishments in the jazz world, but here there's no wall of sound, no stupefying full-body yang clang. The audience isn't pressed flat against the stage. Musicians come and go between the stage and the tables, making the stage and floor one space, with really interesting music flowing around, between, and among you. Not much dancing but some conversation, some laughter, and a whole lot of intent listening going on.