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What’s it like as COVID-19 Phase 4 allows jazz clubs like Andy’s to reopen

When Chicago guitarist Andy Brown headed out for his gig Wednesday night at Andy’s Jazz Club, he realized he’d forgotten something.

“I was so excited as I walked out of my house, I was halfway to my garage when I realized” what he had left behind, Brown told the audience during his first set.

“My guitar.”

So he rushed back inside to get it.

That’s what happens when you haven’t played a concert gig in 3-1/2 months.

But Brown and his bandmates – pianist Jeremy Kahn and bassist Joe Policastro – clearly have been practicing during the shutdown, judging by their exuberant performance at Andy’s, which reopened last weekend. Each instrumentalist packed so much melodic content and rhythmic drive into their solos, it sounded as if they were unleashing a torrent of pent-up musicality. Which, of course, they were.

“I was sort of planning for this period,” said Brown in an interview. “The game hadn’t even begun till this past weekend,” when Phase 4 of the state’s reopening plan allowed clubs to reopen at 25% occupancy.

“Before, the game was on pause. As of June 26 … game on! I’m feeling really excited, I’m feeling really happy. I’ve been working like an athlete … but nothing can be like the real deal.”

Just before the first set, pianist Kahn said he had “mixed emotions” about venturing into a club to perform for an audience for the first time since the pandemic started. There’s a certain degree of risk involved, though surely less than, say, going to a grocery store, considering the limitations on audience size.

“But this is what I love to do,” Kahn added. “So that side of me has won out.”

Not that Brown and Kahn have been idle during the shutdown. Brown has been livestreaming performances with singer Petra van Nuis, his wife. Kahn has been performing with Chicago jazz musicians on his front porch.

But in jazz, the club performance is what it’s all about.

As the musicians took the stage, the sound system was playing a most appropriate single: Frank Sinatra’s recording of “It Started All Over Again.”

Then someone turned down the dial, and Brown’s trio launched into Django Reinhardt’s “Douce Ambiance” in a full-bodied, rhythmically buoyant fashion. The band sounded big and brawny, notwithstanding the plexiglass shield at the front of the stage. Kahn’s characteristically fat chords buoyed Brown’s saucy phrases and easy-breezy tempo.

“All right, we remembered that after three months!” Brown exulted after the first tune ended.

So it went in this wholly extroverted set, the trio taking a muscular approach to Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Favela,” tapping deeply felt sentiments in Pee Wee Russell’s “Pee Wee’s Blues,” and throwing off fast flurries of notes in Joe Pass’ “Catch Me.”

Everything, in other words, was bigger, faster or slower, bolder and bluer than on an ordinary night.

The audience was small – just about a dozen listeners – for the opening set, but these musicians played as if they were making their debuts in Carnegie Hall.

That’s how a comeback ought to sound.

Andy’s Jazz Club, 11 E. Hubbard St., is open for music and dining Wednesdays through Sundays; phone 312-642-6805 or visit www.andysjazzclub.com.

Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.

hreich@chicagotribune.com