An iconic jazz haven is born again.

It's a name I don't think I've heard spoken of in many years. And so when I learned that after many years, "Minton's Playhouse" was re-opening at its original address at West 118th Street in Harlem on the ground floor of the old Cecil Hotel, I was really delighted. Delighted that the unassuming little nightclub where Bird and Diz' and Monk and the rest of the greats and near-greats all went to jam was back in business after a fire in 1974 had shut it down.

Although I grew up in the Bronx and lived in mid-town Manhattan for over ten years in the late '60's, I'd never gone to Minton's. Birdland, the Five Spot, The Jazz Gallery, The Blue Note, The Half Note, Slug's, Sweet Basil, and the Village Vanguard are all the great jazz venue's I was lucky to frequent. But never Minton's. It was not very highly publicized at the time and there was little if any music of note being played there.

But now as part of the ever-burgeoning Harlem Renaissance, Minton's Playhouse is back up and running. The space retains its original diminutive, intimate size with narrow tables on either side facing the wall (not the bandstand as with the original Minton's). The dark, film noir atmosphere is a lot more stylish and formal than what I imagine it probably was like back in the '40's and 50's. There are classic life-size black-and-white photo murals of the very greatest of the Jazz Greats—Miles and Ella and Dizzy, Lady Day and Monk, Prez, and of course, Bird. Behind the bandstand, the original colorful mural depicting a small bunch of Be-boppers lolling around in a cramped room has been carefully restored.

On the Saturday evening we were there, a smartly-dressed quintet of older musicians were playing what one might call "easy listening jazz." It was pretty, melodic and not very much like the high-intensity Bop tempos that Bird or Dizzy would have been playing. Nobody called "Cherokee" or "Salt Peanuts." The patrons this Saturday night were talking and eating and the music was quite literally background. Luckily though the acoustics and the sound system were both quite good and even though our table was a fair distance from the bandstand, it was possible, for the most part, to listen and appreciate the music that was being played.

The band members were 90-year-old