A Night at Schwartz's Point

The light drizzle steamed off the warm blacktop, the only reminder that only hours ago it had been a summer day. It was cold now, humid in that way only the Midwest can master, a chill-to-the-bone fog, despite the 60 degrees of warmth. Lights flickered here and there, through dusty curtains in dreary alleyways, but the only real light to be had through the rain and night was the eerie green flush that barely illuminated the weary doors of the building across the street.

The glow meant that despite the decrepit exterior of the old-style Bohemian building, windows boarded and stones crumbling, there was breath inside.

We tap-danced across the pavement, dodging puddles and cars in an attempt to stay dry. We reached the door and the minimal shelter the tiny overhang provided. The place looked generally abandoned, except for the lonely light, with boarded windows, colorful graffiti, and a general feeling of condemnation. We shook out hair and jackets and pushed through the peeling planks of wood into Schwartz’s Point.

The jazz club in Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati, Ohio may not have big names every night of the week like some of its competitors, but it has a dark, sultry, speak-easy atmosphere that out-competes anything in its weight class, and the ones above it. The lights are low, the fabrics are rich and red and tired, the booze flows freely, and if you’re lucky, Ed Moss, the owner of and chief musician at the club, will allow a cigar to slip through.

The musicians get into the music, closing their eyes and swaying their bodies and improvising as only true artists feel how. They each have stories to tell, too, of a world of travel, of losing a liquor license, of a random jam session in Powell, Wyoming. “Where you all from,” cooed the singer, between songs and sips of Heineken. “Wyoming, you don’t mean the state, right?” We did, actually. “Wow, you guys sure had to travel far to hear good jazz, huh?” She laughed.

Ed once got lost in Wyoming, he said. “I was at a jazz workshop in Colorado. It was a bunch of kids; they didn’t know how to groove, ya know? They didn’t dig the music the way I did.” He took a long toke of his spicy cigar, breathing out slowly and purposefully. “So I drove north, ya know? Kept goin’. Met these guys with a band in Cody, you know Cody? And we drove out together. Didn’t know where to, just goin’. Ended up in the middle of nowhere Wyoming pulling a jazz concert at some party. It was real heavy.” In Wyoming, anywhere could be the middle of nowhere, and it all often felt heavy.

And Ed was a true performer. “I love filling my living room with people I don’t know” he said, gesturing his cigar smoke toward the door of his establishment. He lived just upstairs. “It makes me feel like I’ve done something today.” He lived to play, to feel the music, and though he sometimes seemed aloof with his audience, he really dig any time he got to get them to feel it, too.

And the music at “The Point” is to be felt. It’s rich and deep and desperate, full of passion and a sad nostalgia, a throwback to the days when jazz represented the angry, the disillusioned, the boozers and the bootleggers, the subcultures and the countercultures and Bugs Moran himself.

It’s fitting, really, for Over-the-Rhine, a place with its fair share of disillusionment, to have its very own speakeasy, though ironically those locals who could truly appreciate the music and where it came from are probably too poor to afford it. Though the neighborhood is dodgy and those who live and work there swear they’ve never had any trouble, it’s always said with a nervous smile and an edgy lilt to the voice, as if they’re not sure of that fact themselves. But it looks just right, and smells just right, and tastes just right and awakens something a little daring and a little dangerous and more than a little lustful in each of us.


Schwartz’s Point (check them out here) is a fantastic little jazz joint located at the oddly triangular intersection of Vine Street and McMicken in Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati. Tuesdays are the big nights, with a home-cooked buffet dinner and an entire orchestra of truly alive jazz musicians. Fridays and Saturdays are more intimate, with a crooner, Pam, a jazz singer with a day job. Come and introduce yourself to Ed Moss, the owner, a real beet of his own, with thick glasses and a cigar in hand and a flask of whatever ales you (in a homemade way) in a jacket pocket. We’d like to thank Ed and the gang for giving us a private performance a couple of weekends ago. It was one of the best jazz concerts I’ve had!