Letting the dust settle

Playa Jazz Café

The Proof

Trumpets and coffee. Sunrise and old pianos. Hands mid solo. People laughing. People crying. One week a year, this is what it looks like.

A band mid set under a geodesic dome, trumpet and keys and guitar and drums, with Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane posters pinned to the canvas behind them.
Daytime set, under the dome · 2017
A dancer hangs by both hands from the dome frame above the stage, beside a John Coltrane Blue Train poster.
Hanging from the rafters · 2017
A night set inside the dome, its struts traced in orange and blue light, a saxophonist mid phrase while the audience sits on the ground.
The dome after dark · 2019
A portrait at night, electroluminescent wire glowing at the collar, green laser lines overhead and a blurred field of coloured lights behind.
El wire and green lasers · 2019
Cabro at night in a black top hat with dust goggles pushed up on the brim, a red brocade jacket, and a bow tie strung with tiny lights.
Cabro!! Top hat, goggles, LED bow tie · 2019
The camp at night, the words JAZZ and CAFE in warm bulb lettering either side of the entrance, dozens of lit bicycles parked in front.
JAZZ. CAFE. And a great many bicycles · 2022
A keyboardist in a straw hat and red scarf plays a keyboard mounted on a battered road case stencilled BLAME CANADA, a trumpeter alongside.
Blame Canada · 2022
One player leans over another’s shoulder to guide their hands on the neck of a pink bass, while a barefoot guitarist plays alongside in the dust.
A bass lesson nobody scheduled · 2023
A guitarist with eyes closed mid phrase on a sunburst hollowbody, barefoot, both feet caked in dried playa mud.
Eyes shut, feet filthy · 2023
A bare foot propped on a chair rung, playa mud caked over it and dried into thick cracked plates.
What 2023 did to everyone’s feet · 2023
Sparky, grinning, draws a drink from the tap of a blue cooler into a dented metal mug.
The bar is open. Sparky delivers. · 2023
A keyboardist in a gold sequinned cap and orange bandana grins and points across the tent from behind the keys.
Pointing at someone who soloed well · 2023
The tent packed with listeners on chairs and on the ground, the bar running along one side and the players at the far end.
A full house, mid afternoon · 2023
Someone in a floral dress fires a propane torch into a caged fire sculpture at night, the bulb lit word JAZZ glowing behind them.
Lighting the fire in a very good dress · 2024
The camp under a violet night sky, JAZZ and CAFE in warm bulb lettering, bicycles with illuminated wheels parked across the sand.
Purple hour · 2024
A portrait in the tent: a black newsboy cap, a bright blue question mark earring, and a paint splattered top, smiling back over one shoulder.
The earring is asking the real question · 2024
A portrait during build week: a grey outback hat, round purple sunglasses, and a Pikachu print shirt already thick with dust.
Build week formalwear · 2025
A portrait at the camp: an olive bucket hat, long hair, and a Playa Jazz Café yin yang medallion dated 2023 and stamped 6 & E.
Still wearing the 2023 medallion · 2025
The camp structure at dusk, a two tier deck and a ribbed dome outlined in pink light, the mountains still visible behind.
Build week, nearly done · 2025
A guitarist in a patterned bucket hat plays a cherry red hollowbody with eyes closed, a bass waiting on a stand alongside.
Bucket hat, cherry hollowbody · 2025
A keyboardist in a ball cap and sunglasses at the keys, the same battered road case still doing duty as a stand.
Same road case, three years on · 2025

Tap any frame to see it properly. 21 photographs, 2017 to 2025.

This is a fraction of it.

Over two decades of nights live on the camera rolls of the people who were there. If you shot the club in any year, send us the frames.

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Are you upset you missed us at Burning Man? Go ahead and complain. We promise we won’t listen.