The New York jazz landscape has always been defined partly by its underground, with the tacit understanding that such a region is usually zoned for experimentation. That's as true as it ever was, but it's an incomplete truth because of all that it overlooks. One case in point would be the Ear Regulars, the traditional jazz cohort led by the trumpeter Jon-Erik Kellso and the guitarist Matt Munisteri every Sunday night at the Ear Inn, on the westernmost edge of the South Village, near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.
The weekly stand is coming up on its third year, and it's still touched by a spirit of affable contrarianism. There's nothing forward-looking about the Ear Regulars, but neither is there anything didactic, self-important, preachy or defensive. Mr. Kellso and Mr. Munisteri specialize in small-group swing and Dixieland, music regarded as old-fashioned even 60 years ago. But the clarity of their enthusiasm and the caliber of their execution add up to a present-tense transaction.
Context has something to do with it. The Ear Inn is a beloved old drinking house with its own clientele, and the band, wedged into an alcove near the door, doesn't disrupt the metabolism of the place. Sundays first set was accompanied, typically, by a background hum of conversation. (A Mets game played on one of the televisions over the bar.) Yet there was an attentive hush in the immediate vicinity of the musicians, who had no problem projecting without a sound system in a manner both intimate and casual.
The weekly stand is coming up on its third year, and it's still touched by a spirit of affable contrarianism. There's nothing forward-looking about the Ear Regulars, but neither is there anything didactic, self-important, preachy or defensive. Mr. Kellso and Mr. Munisteri specialize in small-group swing and Dixieland, music regarded as old-fashioned even 60 years ago. But the clarity of their enthusiasm and the caliber of their execution add up to a present-tense transaction.
Context has something to do with it. The Ear Inn is a beloved old drinking house with its own clientele, and the band, wedged into an alcove near the door, doesn't disrupt the metabolism of the place. Sundays first set was accompanied, typically, by a background hum of conversation. (A Mets game played on one of the televisions over the bar.) Yet there was an attentive hush in the immediate vicinity of the musicians, who had no problem projecting without a sound system in a manner both intimate and casual.
