The Scene is in Brooklyn | Barbès
“…Coleman is symbolic of the shift. One of the core members in a closely knit circle of musicians who defined the downtown jazz scene in the 1980s and ’90s, he celebrates his 50th birthday this week with a pair of concerts. They won’t be in striking distance of his tenement apartment, near the former residences of Allen Ginsberg and Charlie Parker. Instead, two Brooklyn venues will host: Barbès in Park Slope and the Issue Project Room, a nonprofit space on the Gowanus Canal in Carroll Gardens where events are staged in a renovated concrete silo.
“It was amazing when Barbès started,” said Coleman, once a regular at the Knitting Factory, a sprawling TriBeCa club that made its name with avant-garde jazz but now rarely books it. “The fact that it built so quickly into a scene made a lot of sense. I never thought of Park Slope as a happening place, but Barbès gave it focus.”
The shoebox-shaped bar was opened in 2001 by a pair of expatriate Parisians, Olivier Conan and Vincent Douglas…” [Newsday]
