The elusive jazz music of Hanoi...

"Of all the gin joints in all the world..." we walked into Jazz Club Minh in Hanoi. After two nights of searching we followed a clue written on a scrap of newspaper by a man whose only English seemed to be the word "Finished"....and we were thoroughly rewarded. It really was like a scene from a movie, ascending the three flights of stairs to an elegant glass door which, as you reach it, is pulled open for you to release a wave of fantastic jazz music. A smiling server gestures us to a table right down the front, where we could reach out and touch the band we were so close. Settling in, I look over and see that one of the sax players (there were three), making this wonderful music with such intensity, is wearing Crocs. You just know this is going to be a good night.

And it was. We sat there drinking lemon iced tea cocktails and Vietnamese beer while people at the tables around us filled the air with a very jazz club haze of cigarette smoke (it stung the eyes a bit and can't have been very good on the second hand smoke front, but it was atmospheric, you have to give it that). Part way through the evening the band brought up a former student of of the lead sax player's to play with them; and this young man, probably 17 or 18, spent the rest of the night up there with his shiny, new looking sax in the midst of the older musicians whose saxes looked so well loved they'd probably been playing those same ones since they were his age.

During the band's break we were treated to two piano performances by a very young girl and boy, escorted by their parents and dressed in crisp, white attire, playing like concert pianists. At the end of their performances, while everyone clapped, they took small, formal bows and returned to their parents without a word. We still don't know if it was all pre-arranged or if if it's just something they do there.

At the end of the night a taxi ride through the winding streets and rushing traffic of Hanoi's Old Quarter deposited us back at our hostel; and while I don't really know anything about jazz music, I know I'll always remember that jazz music.