The team at Jazz Lives recently shared a throwback that caught our eye – Jazz at Charley O’s? The legendary Penn Station libation station for in between trains or before games at The Garden?
Well, close – this is the Charley O’s that was once located at 713 8th Avenue, and was not only a sports bar and grill but also a Jazz Bar and Comedy Club in the evening, as well as a popular spot to go before a night out on the town.
Jazz Lives shares the following recollection of one night at Charley O’s.
Once upon a time, I lived in Great Neck, New York, a suburb forty minutes from midtown Manhattan. When in 2005 I found out that my hero Marty Grosz was appearing in the city, probably for a Saturday afternoon session, I checked the Long Island Railroad schedule, packed my cassette recorder, and went there. ”There” was not a jazz club but a hamburger / steak restaurant catering to tourists, where, wonderfully and atypically, hot jazz was on the menu. That place was Charley O’s.
MARTY GROSZ, guitar, vocal; JOHN BUCHER, cornet; JOHN BEAL, double bass, were the band, for the cavernous room. I had met Marty in September 2004 Jazz at Chautauqua, so I may have said a brief hello. I would come to know John Bucher from his appearances at the Cajun. I knew Beal only from recordings, but he was gracious. I asked for a table near the music but none were offered for a single mortal, so I went to the balcony, where I could see the band as well as hear them, admittedly from above and from a distance. (Now, I would know better and would have told the waiter that my three friends were arriving soon, thus earning a table closer to the music. I hope to be forgiven my falsehoods.)
I ordered food — something banal — then set up my recorder to capture the sounds, which were wonderful. I saved the cassette. (A year later, I would have purchased a video camera and a digital recorder, but in 2005 I was still living in a technological past. However,, it DID work.)
You’ll hear I DON’T WANT TO SET THE WORLD ON FIRE / WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS / THREE LITTLE WORDS / A HUNDRED YEARS FROM TODAY / Marty half-heartedly hawking CDs / SUNDAY (incomplete) //
I’ve left in the long intervals between songs because you can hear Marty providing the chordal roadmap for his two colleagues. Impatient listeners can scroll forward; imaginative listeners imagine themselves on the scene.
The room got much more noisy; perhaps my waiter, seeing my empty plate, hovered and said, “Will there be anything else?” and I took the check. On the way out, I thanked the trio and lamented the noise level.
There ends my saga of Charley O’s, sometime in 2005. But the music! Better than the hamburger deluxe and much fresher, even eighteen or so years later.
Charley O’s closed some time ago. John Bucher, that gentle man, has left us. Messrs. Beal and Grosz are still laying it down, although slightly less frequently.
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