Sleepy Jazz Scene Shows Signs of Awakening

A recent Sunday afternoon jazz matinee at Café Royale was a sleepy affair. About 15 people, most of them middle-aged, sat around this ramshackle downtown San Francisco bar sipping tea and wine while a saxophone, drum and bass trio played a mellow mixture of mostly standards. The noise of rustling bags of pistachios and yogurt-covered pretzels, which several audience members had taken along for snacks, accompanied the polite applause at the end of each number. Anyone who stopped by the Café Royale that afternoon to take the pulse of the local jazz scene would have reason to declare it faint.

Clichés about jazz’s being a dying art form — the province of a generation reminiscing about the “good old days” of smoky clubs...

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/arts/music/16sfculture.html