Cada Vez and the Imax Jazz Cafe

by Alan Greenblatt

Out on the scene: Saturday we were walking to dinner on U Street NW and noticed a new place that had just opened up. Cada Vez is located in a building with a neoclassical facade just off of 15th Street. It used to be a Muslim temple, if I remember. Now it's a restaurant and conference center decorated with a big slide-shaped waterfall that dumps out into a fish tank.

They dropped $4 million on the place, supposedly. The restaurant is a square room lined with high-backed booths -- a couple of them have Internet access, in case your conversation lags, I guess -- and no less than three bars. The food was pretty good, mostly fish, in the unfortunate $18-$28 per entree range.

The place has a lot of techno lighting -- there are four massive pillars that lit up at one point, for that flattering day-glo McDonald's effect -and metal railings and TVs. It would be easy to imagine the place becoming the trendy New Yorkish place that people hereabouts often cry for, a late-night spot with flashy drinking crowds. It's also easy to imagine it going under fairly quickly, particularly in this new stay-at-home economy.

The Ricky Lozo Trio was playing Latinish jazz on Saturday, a few tunes by Jobim and Ellington. They're going to have music either four or five days a week, I forget, including our old pal Nap "Don't Forget the Blues" Turner appearing during Sunday brunch.

There's music Friday nights at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, live jazz trios featuring many of the area's best mainstream players. This past Friday, Chuck Redd played vibes, Tommy Cecil bass, and Howard Alden came down from New York to play some guitar.

The "Imax Jazz Cafe" is a domed cafeteria where you can buy buffet-style meats and Asian noodles and oily tapas. Most people seemed interested in eating and yapping. The acoustics are actually pretty good, but Chuck and the guys didn't compete with the crowd noise, playing gentle ballads quietly.

Eventually, the fans all congregated near the bandstand and this seemed to energize the musicians -- especially Alden, who had really been mailing it in for a while. He was playing an 8-string and he has an unerringly swinging way with a melody, playing solos that are long strings of single notes rather than chords. Alden and Redd played some synchronous lines together, creating a sound that was agreeably light and old-fashioned, an aural Deco. They played a good mix of mostly familiar songs, ranging from "How Deep Is the Ocean" to Charlie Parker's "Confirmation." It wasn't bad, for free.