Sunrise on Sunset

Chris' Jazz Café is singing a new tune and hoping for happier hours.

by Shaun Brady

Michael T. Regan NEW BLUE: Under the direction of night manager Ron T (left), Chris' Jazz Café on Sansom Street has been striving to fill the post-Zanzibar Blue void and make a scene in the early evening hours.

Shortly after 5 p.m. on a recent Thursday evening, the sound of saxophonist Ian O'Beirne's debuting quartet, Hypercube, has to flow past an entire room full of empty tables to reach the dozen or so pairs of ears at the other end of Chris' Jazz Café. A lineup of regulars chat at the bar, a pair of public defenders sit by the front window swapping stories, a young couple lean in to whisper to one another across a small table on the opposite wall.

Chris' may be right around the corner from where its now-defunct former competitor, Zanzibar Blue, used to host a relatively booming happy hour each day on Broad. But tucked away on Sansom, a parking garage its only real neighbor, the club is a far less intuitive after-work hang. For the longest time Chris' seemed content to accept its fate, simply spinning CDs to fill the hours before the first act took the stage at 8. But last summer, at the behest of night manager Ron T (for Talton), they inaugurated the Sunset Sessions, booking a variety of young acts to help draw an early crowd.

Half an hour into Hypercube's set, the number has grown slightly, to around 20, with a few of those tables now occupied. Sunset Sessions has grown slowly over its eight months, Talton admits, but the previous evening's performance by local soul singer taragirl had set a record with 86 people.

If taragirl doesn't quite seem to fit the bill at a club with "jazz" in its name — and which hasn't taken the same liberties with that title as many so-called "jazz festivals" have — that's entirely intentional, Talton says. "I am bending the rules a bit. I think we're a music club, and I find that there's not a platform for R&B and soul in this town right now, so I mix it up. That's my personal taste, and I think for happy hour it's a little more interesting than jazz in that it's not so much a listening thing as it is a feeling thing, a vibe. I think after work people are looking for a party atmosphere and typical jazz is not that."

Kennedy Desouza IS ALL THAT JAZZ? R&B singer Maylyn Murphy performs at Sunset Sessions — one of Chris' recent forays just outside the jazz world. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

O'Beirne's quartet, then, is something of an anomaly at a time which more often finds the stage occupied by funk bands, smooth jazz combos, blues acts or soul singers. Talton's booking has strayed as far afield as French accordionist Jacques Pellarin and will soon host Latin jazz-inspired vocalist Venissa Santi. He encourages the artists he books to devote at least half their sets to original music.

"I thought it would be great for these artists to have a platform where they could develop a following, test out their music and perfect their bands," Talton says. "Anybody can play a cover. I don't want to put jazz down, but when guys come in here at night and play 'Autumn Leaves' and 'In a Sentimental Mood' over and over again — we need new music and we need an outlet for these people."

Though born in Pennsauken, Talton took a circuitous route to end up at Chris', with nearly two decades in Europe before starting at the club as a waiter three years ago and becoming night manager in 2007. A self-proclaimed "thespian," Talton studied at Philly's Freedom Theatre as a teenager before heading off to New York at 19, ending up performing in off-Broadway theater. A tour as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar took him to Europe for six months in 1987; after returning to New York for two weeks he headed overseas again, as Hud in Hair, and this time he stayed, settling in Cologne, Germany, the midpoint of a touring circuit that ranged "from Sicily to Scandinavia."

While in Germany, Talton's attention shifted from theater to music. "I stood in the audience in a huge theater one day and thought, 'Wow, those people look so small,' and I just got more interested in writing and singing my own songs."

But more often than not he found himself singing other people's songs, fronting cover bands and doing wedding gigs with material from Barry White to Prince to James Brown. He also took the occasional gig as a backing vocalist for musicians passing through town, citing names like Cher, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. But after 16 years, he says, "I got tired of singing 'Sex Machine' and 'Papa Was a Rolling Stone,'" and that, combined with personal reasons, led him to return to the States.

Talton sees Sunset Sessions as his first step towards opening his own booking and management company. He regularly offers advice to the young performers he presents, and says that some of them may even begin performing some of his tunes. "I try to give them as much of my experience as I can as a performer," he says. "I've had a great time doing what I've done in my life. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I guess this is my way of giving back."

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

Sunset Sessions, Mon.-Fri., 5-7 p.m., $5-$10, Chris' Jazz Café, 1421 Sansom St., 215-568-3131, chrisjazzcafe.com.