You go down a narrow staircase, the temperature rises by three degrees, and the music arrives before you see the band. The cellar is low, vaulted, packed. Under the stone arch, a swing band plays as if the century had not moved on.
Caveau de la Huchette has been a jazz cellar since the late 1940s. Generations of Parisians learned to dance here; generations of musicians played their first serious gig on this tiny stage. On a Friday night, the dance floor is the size of a dining table and somehow holds thirty people.
What makes it special is not nostalgia. The musicians are young, the dancers are young, and the music is played to be danced to, not admired from a chair. Go late, wear shoes you can move in, and do not expect to leave before the last set.
