Simply Tula's

I was right about jazz being a dying breed, but as I venture forth, I have high hopes for the genre. In an evening at Tula's restaurant and nightclub, I was exposed to an encouraging jazz community, quite different from that of Jazz Alley.

The first thing my cohort (recall Jazz lesson No. 2: Bring a friend who knows jazz) said about the establishment after we had settled at our table, which was shared with strangers in the close quarters, was, "Now this is a place for people who love jazz."

I quickly began to understand the difference between people who like jazz and people who "like jazz." The latter is a more highbrow community who prefer jazz because of the prestige floating around its culture. The former, and the type of environment I found at Tula's, is a group of people who embrace jazz because they love it and feel it. And they'll go wherever they need to go to find great jazz.

I felt much more comfortable at Tula's, where the dress was semi-casual and the room was tucked away in the city as though hiding from the crushing hand of the 21st century, coming to wipe jazz out of existence ... well, at least it felt that way.

The wooden ceilings were dark green and the glass-topped tables matched, packed close so as to get as many people into the small room as possible. The walls, adorned with photos of musicians and framed pictures of Van Gogh paintings reminded me of dad's den. The Christmas lights, while sometimes tacky, were a fine addition to the low lighting: Cute, warming, moody.

There were only two downfalls I noticed about having a small space. One was that some seats were faced away from the band, leading to chair-turning or neck-wrenching. At times, the acoustics were just a bit too loud, because the music was played through a loudspeaker, which surprised me. This may have been so patrons were able to maintain light dinner chat.

The menu, while a little pricey for a college student's budget (~$8 for appetizers and ~$15 for entr[HTML_REMOVED]s), was homey and had variety ranging from cheeseburgers to Soulaki, a Greek lamb dish. It's well worth it for a once-in-a-while indulgence.

The drinks were a bit weak, maybe because I looked liked a little girl playing dress-up (Jazz lesson No. 3: You never feel overdressed when at a jazz club, so overdo it, it's fun) in my black dress and smeared on dark lipstick. That was fine for me, but my friend gave the so-so face.

The piece that really brought the whole evening together was the performance itself. The band, the Greta Matassa Quartet, was just great. Minus my expectation of a male vocalist, or none at all (Jazz lesson No.1: Expect nothing certain), it was exactly what I had hoped jazz to be.

Matassa, a Seattle native, had an incredibly gorgeous voice, which made me want to be her. The bassist was quick-fingered and the drummer had amazing rhythm; I had to tap out the beat myself to believe he was staying in one time signature. The pianist was just lovely [HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED] like a piano should be.

The quartet performs at Tula's a few times a month, so if you're heading out for your first experience, I'd suggest trying to catch their show.

[HTML_REMOVED] Jen Ludington

arts@thedaily.washington.edu