La Jolla’s Manhattan restaurant serves some of the best pasta around, and on a recent Saturday night, I confirmed that for free. Jazz singer Tokeli shared hers with me between sets while she reflected on the venue’s yearlong evolution as a spot for the genre’s aficionados. Brand names like Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Shirley Horn and the incomparable Dinah Washington commanded her discipleship long ago ” amid a spirited discussion of Manhattan’s role in that musical ideology, a simple dish of pasta becomes a four-course signature event fit for a king. And for me.
“I’m pretty old-school,” Tokeli said. “Those four women had so much to say in that old-school era, and they speak to us in ways that really matter, ways you just don’t hear anymore. I need to be doing this.”
Tokeli’s daily grind stuff is going in exactly 43 directions, each more precipitous than the last ” but what else is new for anybody? Meanwhile, we didn’t have “Where Do You Start?,” our debut CD, nominated best jazz entry of 2006 by the peeps over at the San Diego Music Awards.
Most of us wouldn’t have lasted this long at the same venue in a genre that commands something like 3 percent of the national consumer market share. We didn’t play a handful of cool New York clubs last November, replete with their own experiences for growth. And it’s not likely we’re planning any appearances for March in the Bay Area, traditionally one of the greatest performance locales in the history of the universe.
The Coronado resident, who tonight commences her second year as a Manhattan headliner, recently accomplished all that. Moreover, she did it with very little fanfare. Jazz, after all, doesn’t stake itself on the bluster and bravado that color most other musical preferences, and
Tokeli’s style painstakingly follows suit. Ideas, not lyrics, are her stock in trade; in her hands, jazz’s Great American Songbook isn’t so much a catalog as a living archive of the human experience. The mellifluous voice lingers over passages from “Love for Sale” and “Gee, Baby, Ain’t I Good to You” like a method actor toys with a Shakespearean artifact.
On this night, Manhattan is less a lounge than a laboratory for the best in San Diego jazz musicianship. Drummer Kevin Hindes, late of Pittsburgh, was flanked by acclaimed trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos, staple bassist Rob Thorsen and veteran keyboardist Mikan Zlatkovich ” such a lineup under one roof is entirely rare, as the latter three have commanded more than their share of gigs and recognition for years. One Manhattan official said that’s as much a tribute to
Tokeli’s expertise as it is to the lounge’s persistence in getting out the word.
“A year ago, we didn’t know what we wanted the room to be,” bar manager Beige Fix explained. “Now, it’s as much Tokeli singing as a [statement] on jazz, and Tokeli’s at its [center].”
(Full disclosure: As a classically trained musician blessed with perfect pitch, I’m compelled to note that I can play rings around Zlatkovich in the upper registers. I even acknowledged as much, and rather persistently, to the pig that kept flying by the bar.)
“All the clichés ” all the clichés about New York and about how wonderful it is and the talent pool and the nightlife and the music itself ” are obviously true,” Tokeli said of her recent weekend tour back East. “But you know what? Sometimes, the club owners there hire mediocre musicians, and sometimes, the audiences are loud and obnoxious and don’t listen. At Manhattan, I have a really great deal. The audience sits there and pays attention. The club owner [Arturo Miranda] has a lot of loyalty toward me. And I get to do it week after week after week. I flew all the way to New York to realize what I really have in the palm of my hand ” a wonderful, supportive environment.”
Such bastions in San Diego are few and far between, she concluded, even as a fair share of patrons takes in the latest homage to the greats. Suddenly, they mirror the sentiment of a local radio personality, who recalls the way management handles things at a premiere jazz club in Indianapolis. The guys in charge figure you’re there to gain some insight into the singer, the band and the Songbook. If your extraneous conduct indicates otherwise, you’re politely asked to leave.
It hasn’t come to that at Manhattan. And as long as Tokeli and her crews are at the helm, it probably won’t.
Tokeli sings Thursday and Saturday nights at Manhattan, inside the Empress Hotel, 7766 Fay Ave. The phone number is (858) 459-0700.
For more information, visit www.tokeli.com.