Jazz clubs worldwide do not as a rule exclude non-members. Most are open to the public and merely offer discounts to customers willing to cough up a membership fee.
Hong Kong, however, has one striking exception to this rule, and it is to be regretted that this exception is the only venue in town offering the opportunity to listen to live jazz most nights of the week.
Bert's, in the basement of the Foreign Correspondents' Club, is generally the exclusive preserve of FCC members and their guests. But later this month it will throw its doors open to the public for the first official FCC Jazz Festival - something organisers hope will become an annual event.
According to Paul Bayfield, convenor of the organising committee, the programme is timed partly to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the first FCC - in the Sichuan capital Chungking - and partly to allow the club to make a contribution to the general 'let's try to get over Sars and everything else' movement.
'One of the great homes for jazz in Hong Kong has been the FCC, never more so than during the Sars-induced shutdown of Hong Kong, when there were almost no outlets for jazz. The FCC never closed its doors and helped keep some of Hong Kong's great jazz talent from leaving these shores,' Bayfield says.
Pianist Allen Youngblood, who doubles as the club's musical director, confirms this, although he also says that many musicians have left town for greener pastures. 'There are only three places in Hong Kong presenting jazz regularly and two of them are in this building - Bert's and the Fringe Club. There's also the Blue Door, but now that's only once a week, and that's it,' says Youngblood.
Bert's - named after the late Bert Okuley, a club member who was a distinguished foreign correspondent and a gifted jazz pianist - presents live jazz every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evening and an early evening solo pianist or guitarist on every weeknight.