There's a World-Class Jazz Club in Your Backyard; An Interview With the Co-Owner of Smoke

By Tracy Zwick

Paul Stache founded Smoke, the jazz club at Broadway and 106th Street (aka Duke Ellington Boulevard) 25 years ago, transforming it from an illustrious “dive bar” called Augie’s, where some of New York’s finest jazz musicians had been casually jamming for decades, to a classy supper club with a connected bar that still draws some of the world’s best jazz artists.

Paul walked into Augie’s on his very first night in New York City in 1992, on a visit from his home in what was then West Berlin. Arthur Taylor and Cecil Payne were playing in a bar filled with thick smoke, Columbia students and jazz musicians hoping to sit in. Stache was immediately under its spell. He got a job as a dishwasher and kitchen helper, eventually working his way up to server then bartender. He moved into an apartment across the street with a friend. “I wanted to hear the music, and I wanted to work around the music, and working close to home is fun too.”

Stache got to know the building’s landlord, West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing, and after Augie’s shuttered, Stache said he “reached out to WSFSSH and said ‘I would like the music to continue. It will be a different place — I wanted to have more of a listening room – but it will be focused on and around jazz.” His pitch worked. “We just went for it,” he remembers.

Stache’s wife and co-owner, Molly Sparrow Johnson, is the executive chef, who not only completed a kitchen overhaul during the pandemic, but has also brought in fresh, local meats, seafood and vegetables, and added variety and dynamism to a menu that’s available during the day and during Smoke’s evening shows. She goes way back with Smoke too, having started as a bartender. Paul and Molly still live in the neighborhood, with their two young sons. Both boys play West Side Little League, which Paul coaches, and one is taking drum lessons. Fortunately for their neighbors, he uses the kit on stage at Smoke.

Paul Stache and Molly Sparrow Johnson. Photograph by Jimmy Katz.

WSR: How’d you get into jazz?

When I was growing up, Berlin was under Allied status, and the American sector had great jazz musicians coming through all the time. There were a couple of nice little jazz clubs where my dad would take me, beginning when I was old enough to walk. When I came to New York and walked into this room in what’s now Smoke and I listened to the music, it felt like home. It was the soundtrack of my upbringing. All the cats that I listened to on my dad’s record collection all happened to live in New York and play in New York.

It’s been 25 years since you founded Smoke. How are you celebrating?

The anniversary was in April, but we are celebrating all year! Jazz greats Harold Mabern and George Colman were at Smoke’s opening in 1999. Only George is still with us; he played the 25th anniversary, which was very special. He’s a giant of this music and it was important that he set the standard on opening night. Since then we’ve been trying to have a mix of people including many who’ve been playing here from the beginning of Smoke and even prior to that, when this space was Augie’s. But my goal is always to make the tent bigger and bring people in that have never played here before. We just had Vijay Iyer come through, who’s incredible. We have pianist Fred Hersch coming in August; he’s never played here before. The Branford Marsalis Quartet is playing in September, which is a debut.

NYC has a lot of great jazz clubs. What makes Smoke special and why the UWS?

Duke Ellington Boulevard is right here! Traditionally there’ve been a lot of jazz clubs on the UWS. Augie’s. Mickell’s, and West End Gate just to name a few. When I first came to the city there were many more jazz venues on the UWS, and even more right before I came. There’s a tradition of jazz in this neighborhood, but many clubs didn’t survive.

Molly and I have lived in the neighborhood since 1992. We’re raising our boys, who are 11 and 14, here. This is our community. This is what we call home so we want to do this here. Like so many people, we reevaluated things during the pandemic and we ended up expanding here. But we thought for a second that maybe this isn’t the most ideal space in some ways and knew it’d require a lot of construction to redo it in the way we wanted. We could’ve found another spot, but, to be honest, when you’re here for 25 years there’s such a loyal group of people who live right around here, who support their neighborhood jazz club, we felt it would be wrong to leave that behind. It’s our home base, it’s our history. It’s where we live, so we were happy to do this massive expansion when the pandemic was happening. It was a little crazy, just like it was 25 years ago!

What’s changed since Smoke’s post-pandemic reopening?

We were open 365 days a year before everything shut down. Now we’re open 5 days a week, Wednesday to Sunday, but that might change in the fall. We opened our sidewalk cafe, but we couldn’t pull it off when we had our hands full reopening the club. So Molly just reopened the sidewalk cafe for good a week or two ago. She made a great special menu; there’s a happy hour going on with drink specials and small bites and daily specials just for the sidewalk cafe that’s totally separate from the music. The music is only at night, but the sidewalk cafe opens at 5.

Where do you go from here?

That question’s been a real motivator to keeping Smoke going and keeping it at a high level musically. One thing we’d like is for people to walk in casually for a glass of wine on the way home. The lounge next door to our main stage listening room has a bar now and anybody can walk in anytime; you don’t have to commit to seeing a show. There’s no additional charge and there’s no minimum. Just come in! We’re always trying to get new people introduced to this music that we love, and sometimes paying a big ticket price at the door can be a deterrent. We broadcast the main stage music over the speakers in the lounge, and there people can talk without talking over the music. It’s a nice introduction and a nice way to experience a jazz club without having to buy a ticket to see a show.

Anything special coming up at Smoke that you can reveal?

In terms of food, a take-out menu is in the works! In terms of music, we have some important Smoke debuts coming up, including The Branford Marsalis Quartet, which is huge because he hasn’t played a club date in New York City in 7 years or so. He usually plays much bigger venues. We’ll be open 6 nights, including Tuesday for that. Legendary bassist Dave Holland is making his Smoke debut September 4-8.

Best celebrity sighting at Smoke?

Prince.

What’s your schmear?

Absolute Bagels’ everything bagel with whitefish salad.

Westside drag, westside brag?

Too many vacant storefronts! But also, two amazing parks (Riverside Park and Central Park).

What are your family’s UWS haunts?

Sal & Carmine‘s Pizza, Absolute Bagels, Citarella, which is also our seafood wholesaler for Smoke, Book Culture, Effy Hair Boutique, and Silver Moon Bakery.

If you could get one person or group who’s never played at Smoke to come for a few nights, who would it be?

John Coltrane!

The most listened-to jazz recording in your personal collection is … ?

Ahmad Jamal, “The Awakening”