Best NYC Jazz & Live Music Clubs

Music lovers, date-night planners and visitors chasing the real New York City sound can start with these jazz rooms in Greenwich Village, the West Village, Midtown, Columbus Circle, the Upper West Side and Bushwick. The Village Vanguard is the wedge-shaped basement where Coltrane, Bill Evans and Sonny Rollins cut live albums, with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra on Monday nights. Smalls Jazz Club runs sets into the small hours, and young players sit in at the after-midnight jams. Dizzy's Club sets its bandstand against a wall of windows over Central Park. Birdland, named for Charlie Parker, sits steps from Broadway, and Ornithology in Bushwick offers a laid-back neighborhood alternative with nightly sets and free jams.

Book ahead at the Vanguard. At Blue Note and Dizzy's, the late-night sets are a cheaper, more relaxed way in.