Kansas Smitty’s: Reviving The Jazz-Era Bar On Broadway Market

Jazz bars seem to be the definition of cool. Often the venues take a no-frills approach: making its interior the definition of dark and moody and allowing music to set the ambiance of the space. One new jazz bar is turning a familiar concept into a new-feeling one. Kansas Smitty’s has done two things that are exciting to design aficionados and music lovers alike: they’ve turned a venue into a bar and a bar into a destination for locals and tourists alike to enjoy music from the bar’s eponymous band (“eight jazz-addicted twenty-somethings who run their own bar”). An impressive cocktail menu adds even more originality to the venue. Kansas Smitty’s cocktail menu boasts an array of delicious mint julep drinks and many variations on the original bourbon-based recipe and live music is the draw to this space. Something Curated interviews Jack Abraham, manager of Kansas Smitty’s and producer of Live & Unamplified on how the bar-meets-band got started and find out what came first, music or making cocktails?

Something Curated: Tell us how you started playing together, when you became a band and how many members there were when you started. How did you all meet?

Jack Abraham: “The band first came together properly around the end of 2013 and there’s; always been a core group of eight people but that can fluctuate depending on the show, music, and who’s in town. Everyone met through music and shows and jams around the London late night music and club scene.”

SC: Which came first the bar or the band? Where were you playing before you opened Kansas Smitty’s?

JA: “They both arrived at the same time, at least conceptually. One couldn’t have existed without the other. We played all over london from our own parties at The Peckham Liberal Club and Vault Festival to Servants Jazz Quarters, The Vortex, Ronnie Scott’s, The 606, Wilderness Festival and our Friday night residency at The Arch Gallery on Cambridge Heath Road is nearly a year and a half old now.”

SC: What roles do each of you play in running the bar and did you have to organize yourselves in terms of making sure that everyone had a role at work and on stage?

JA: “We never wanted the bar to be a vanity operation. We all have high standards! The Kansas Smitty’s House Band is essentially the office so there’s usually at least one of us about but we have a great bar team who look after the day to day (shouts to Jasmin, Ana, Jo and Victoria) and our Juleps were designed by a good friend and cocktail conspirator Sean Fennely who is a master of his craft. Mostly, the band needs to stay out from behind the bar (not that they can’t be trusted—well some of them) but the role of the band here is simply to use the bar to work, write and record new music in the bar. It’s around the band that the little thing we have going on spirals around. Our work is always on stage and what happens offstage is a reflection of that.”

SC: Where did the concept come from?

JA: “The collective need for it to be brought into existence.”

SC: What’s your favourite thing on the menu? Is there are drink you’d like to add?

JA: “Love our Jesuits Bark Julep (rum infused with grapefruit peel, lemon peel, cinchona reduction, pimento seeds and cloves) we’ll be refreshing the menu in the new year and i really want to get our Smitty’s version of a traditional New Orleans sazerac on the menu.”

SC: Have any famous people visited to date?

JA: “We have Stephen living directly above us and he’s beyond legendary round these parts.”

SC: Has Kansas Smitty collaborated with any other bands or notable jazz musicians we might not be aware of?

JA: “The bars defining purpose is to be a place to bring together all the people, artists and musicians we meet and to make new, original works. So in answer to your question – yes and you’ll be amongst the first to know when we put it out.”

SC: Where do you like to spend time in London? What are some of your favourite bars?

JA: “We recently discovered Basement Sate in soho on our Basement Tapes Tour and we immediately fell in love with those guys. If you’re stuck for a nice spot in soho any night of the week just go there. We’re also getting hyped about our friend Helgi who is about to open his first bar over on Mare St later this year so keep an eye out for that. Finally a Smitty’s interview can’t pass without mentioning Climpson & Sons coffee. I have lost track of how many times their coffee has saved our bacon.”

SC: What makes the jazz scene unique in London compared to Paris or any part of the U.S. (New Orleans for example) What does London offer you compared to any other city?

JA: “London is a good place to find work as a musician and there’s a lot of people here from all over the world to learn from and make connections with that can take you anywhere globally. New Orleans is like mecca for jazz but over here we can be bit less sacred and a bit more irreverent to the traditions and so perhaps that gives musicians here more room for manoeuvre to make new music and loose some of the baggage that grand, huge and powerful traditions can get weighted down by and I mean that in the most positive way.

SC: What is special about the location of your bar? Why Broadway Market and what made the location appealing? Tell us about how you came to lease/own the space.

JA: “The people make it special. London fields gets a lot of stick but there’s a genuine broad community here and people look out for one another that’s rare in any major city anywhere on earth. Broadway market was bit of a revelation as we were looking in south london for our venue for most of the preceding year. In 2014 Byron, who runs Off Broadway the bar under which we are situated, opened up a new Hawaiian restaurant over in Gillett Square called POND (you should go) and when it was a building site he asked us if we’d want to throw a party in it. So of course we did and Smitty’s Backyard BBQ happened(now immortalised on the KSHB’s record by Pete Horsfall in “Backyard BBQ blues”) So when Giacomo bumped into Byron and he said that the previous tenants of the Off Broadway basement were leaving we thought this is too perfect an opportunity to miss. So we met, signed some paper and got painting and decorating. 11 days later we opened.”

SC: What’s your ethos for Kansas Smitty’s? Is having a bar named after the band a great to cross-promote? How does the bar show off the band’s personality?

JA: “We’re a friendly, local, neighbourhood jazz bar. The bar is informal and, depending on the night, both intimate and raucous. We try to keep the ticket prices low or non-existent wherever possible and the drinks as tasty as we can. It’s a reflection of the band’s desire to reach as many people as possible, give everyone the best possible experience wherever the night takes them and without requiring them to have read the right books or bought the right shoes.”

SC: What projects and future events or gigs are you playing over the next few months or in the New Year?

JA: “Every month we host our own Late, Late show and open up until 3am with the band playing all night (this is one of the raucous ones!) next one of them is December 4th & 5th. We’ve also just placed our bead order from our man in China for Mardi Gras 2016. Which we’re running as part of Vault Festival for the third year running. Keep an eye out for early bird tickets to that.”

SC: Are any of you local residents to Broadway market?

JA: “Giacomo, the house band’s leader, lives five minutes away, doesn’t let that stop him being late for meetings at the bar of course.”

SC: What are your favourite restaurants or coffee shops you visit on your time off? What are you favourite other places to go to in and around Broadway Market and/or Hackney?

JA: “Here’s a quick list: Climpson & Sons (I’ve talked about these guys already but they’re the best. Yep.), Stories (good live music on Saturday afternoons, burgers are killer too, Mother Clucker (some damn tasty chicken), Mussel Men (we’re there every Sunday playing and eating some of the best seafood in town), The Arch Gallery (we play there every Friday. It’s a jazz rave, 10pm  – 1 a.m.”