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A couple weeks back, Nitzan Gavrieli \u2014 red-bearded, wearing a black suit with no tie \u2014 did as he does each Sunday night and sat down at the Fender Rhodes keyboard at Birds<\/a>. On this night, he was playing with bassist Sam Weber and drummer Dan Pugach (both Grammy winners), and the set included bebop throwbacks such as Dizzy Gillespie\u2019s staccato-sprightly \u201cGroovin\u2019 High\u201d mixed with experimental originals, including a number inspired by a drive along a Michigan highway. The crowd offered a mix of both downtown 30-somethings and grays while the cocktails were designed by Steve Schneider of nearby cocktail bars Sip & Guzzle.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aThere\u2019s just a real authenticity to the music,\u201d says Jack Smith, the club\u2019s general manager. \u201cToday we\u2019re so faced with technology and social media and just so much sound in our everyday life \u2014 there\u2019s something about jazz and being a top-level musician; to play the music you have to be good. You can\u2019t really fake it.\u201d<\/p>\n Within walking distance of jazz hubs like the Village Vanguard, Smalls, and the Blue Note, Birds opened on Downing Street in September. Sister-and-brother duo Naama and Assaf Tamir, who have run the Williamsburg staple Lighthouse for the last 14 years, built out a technically excellent space with a low stage so that the audience is on nearly the same level as the band. Schneider assembled a cocktail list filled with classics (martinis, an old-fashioned). As a package, it\u2019s meant to feel timeless, but Birds is part of a group of new spots, opened in the past year or so, that are offering a fresh take on the \u201cNew York jazz club\u201d concept and have become real showcases for the abundance of musical talent in this city.<\/p>\n The club is blocks away from Little Branch, where saxophonist Vito Dieterle has booked the nightly set for 20 years. He\u2019s also the music director at Midnight Blue<\/a> in Gramercy. It\u2019s owned by Jae Yang and bartender Takuma Watanabe of Martiny\u2019s<\/a>, the high-end cocktail bar two blocks away, and maintains the same emphasis on well-made drinks, like a lapsang souchong\u2013infused old-fashioned and a textbook example of a whiskey highball. Midnight Blue\u2019s long bar runs down one side of the black-and-white-tiled room, leading to small tables and the inset bar.<\/p>\n On the stage is a drum set from Japanese company Canopis, a 1940s Baldwin grand piano, and a now-rare Hammond A-100 organ. \u201cThey used to be a real big part of the scene, especially in Harlem and in Bed-Stuy back in the \u201960s and \u201970s, but they\u2019re kind of all gone now,\u201d says Dieterle, a self-confessed bebop guy who thinks Midnight Blue\u2019s space is particularly well suited to established musicians like Willerm Delisfort and Fuku Tainaka.<\/p>\n