Smokin’ Little Joint: Scat Jazz Lounge in Fort Worth

by Sarah Crisman

While looking for the best jazz club in North Texas, we stumbled into one of the greatest in the world. Aces!

Smokin' Little Joint is a series in which Crisman hunts down the greatest jazz club in North Texas.

FORT WORTH —

Tonight marked the second anniversary of the Scat Jazz Lounge, the little hideaway in downtown Fort Worth named one of Downbeat magazine's 100 Best Jazz Clubs in the World. Having been in a few jazz clubs myself, I am wont to agree.

First of all, downtown Fort Worth is gorgeous. It's like walking through your own private, shimmering metropolis. The architecture is unparalleled to anything else in North Texas. I've been to Fort Worth before, and maybe it's the holidays talking, but it keeps getting prettier every time I visit. It's clean, and the parking is free and within a pleasant walk from the club. I knew as soon as I turned the corner into the alley and saw the neon lights pointing me to the elevator that I was in the right place. I love alleys. They make me feel like a cat, and I always like to feel like a cat when I listen to jazz.

But I digress.

Once I stepped off the elevator into the lobby, I felt like I'd walked onto the set of a prohibition-era film. The whole room is very noir: dimly lit, with little chatter tables lined up around the dance floor and an adequate stage, roomy enough for a big band. Along the walls are cozy round booths, one of which I immediately commandeered as my own, and mine it will be forevermore.

The crowd was friendly and clearly enthusiasts of the good life -- one gentleman was even smoking through a long cigarette filter, perhaps to alert newcomers that "this here is a classy joint, see." It worked. I half expected to see Jessica Rabbit slink around the corner, honestly. Scat is cartoonishly sophisticated.

And the music! Adonis Rose (the band leader who decided that Fort Worth would be America's new jazz hub upon relocating here after Katrina and founding the Fort Worth Jazz Orchestra), hosts a weekly New Orleans jazz night each Wednesday. This week his Krewe of Swing joined him onstage, and followed through on their promise to make us feel like we were in the French Quarter. Adonis' drum solos have a surprising tendency to make my heart race while I'm sitting perfectly still, and the horn section is one of the best I've heard. They played two sets of standards and improvisations, including a rousing rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In." (Then again, that song always rouses me.) No matter, it was a spectacular evening. The staff is exceedingly charming -- but not in a smarmy way -- and I honestly can't wait to go back.