Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's my love of music and food. Whatever it is, one thing is sure - I've always been a sucker for a jazz brunch. There's something special about a relaxing Sunday brunch with live music playing that just turns a ho-hum meal into something more, an event. Which brings TA and me over to One Longfellow Square on the 3rd Sunday of the month for their jazz brunch.
First, there's brunch. One Longfellow Square (OLS) is not a food venue, it's a music venue. There is an $8.00 cover charge (free for OLS members). There are no chefs slicing and dicing and no servers refilling your coffee. You can get a shot of booze in your coffee or a bloody Mary although I didn't see anyone drinking one but this is really about a spread on a couple of tables and some really good music. The cost for brunch is $5.00 for one big plate or $8.00 for unlimited trips to "the table". Although no one is cooking your food to order, there are quite a few options that are well worth your five bucks for the single plate which happens to be a really big plate. There are cakes and pastries. Quiche, which for some unknown reason I didn't try. A surprisingly very fresh fruit salad for Maine in January. Then there were bagels from Scratch over in South Portland with containers of cream cheese which I believe were imported from Philadelphia. Good coffee - the folks I asked didn't know where it was from but it tasted good and familiar so I believe it was local but I could easily be wrong. Add some tea and juice choices and I think you could do much worse at a much higher price point elsewhere around town.
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| Quiche, coffee and tea are out of the picture but for $5, hard to beat. |
The music. Disclaimer: I am as equally unqualified to review music as I am to review food. That being said, for brunch, they move the stage to the right (from the viewpoint of the audience) and set up cafe-like tables around the room with the food spread in the back. Where this differs from most jazz brunch's is in the make-up of the band and the selections they play. Your stereotypical jazz brunch selections usually consist of bland background music as you are normally there for the food with the music to lend a sort of coolness to the meal. At OLS, the band that John Clark has put together goes way beyond your typical jazz brunch trio playing out of a "fake" book (this should get me some street cred from the musicians out there). Besides Clark on Bass, last Sunday's band consisted of Frank Mauceri on sax, Carl Dimow on flute, Glenway Fripp on piano, and Peter McLaughlin on drums. These guys are legit musicians and are a real treat to listen to. The music consisted of mostly upbeat numbers from the likes of Mingus and Monk as well as several I had never heard of. Throw a few nice originals, mostly by Fripp, into the mix and you get a really good jazz fix. It's very lively and does not lend itself to chatting during the sets. They may make adjustments to their program in coming months and it's pretty informal so, for better or worse, you may be surprised by the show. The crowd was made up of mostly my demographic (age - 50's but very attractive) with some younger people sprinkled about. As those people would say, it was a chill group with one table sifting through the NY Times and at least one woman reading a book.
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| Dare you to find a cooler place to hang for a couple of hours on a cold winter Sunday. |
There you have it. For $26 two of us each had a Scratch Bakery bagel, some pastries, coffee, juice and a nice fruit salad (we missed the quiche which looked good). We also listened to a bit over two hours worth of good jazz played by excellent musicians. If you're planning on a quiet brunch with some "background" music, this is not for you. If you're really into some excellent jazz with a more than adequate buffet to go along with it or just want a change of pace from the other brunch's in town, on the 3rd Sunday of the month, this can be something worth trying out. No one is looking to turn tables so you can hang as long as you like. You'll be the cooler for it.
