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Reported by: Elex Michaelson
Email: elex.michaelson@sandiego6.com
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Ruggy said there is one place with near acoustic perfection in San Diego, Anthology in Little Italy. “The best sound in San Diego” he said.

The room is meant to transform you into another time and place–an “old-school” Chicago jazz hall.

Co-owner and Chicago native Marsha Berkson said “my husband has always dreamed of opening a music venue. I thought he was opening a dive bar and this is what I got.”

“From the minute you walk into this venue, your jaw drops, you are taken into a different place” she continued.

The room was designed with sound in mind, and Berkson said 98 percent of views have perfect sight lines.

The first few floors are set for dinner and music. The top floor is general admission to listen to the music.

Still, the venue feels intimate. “We’ve had hundreds of Grammy Award winning artists and they say this is one of the few places like this in the world…We’re very proud that San Diego has this very unique spot what artists consider in the world.”

Every Tuesday night, the house band plays jazz and R&B.

On the third Wednesday of every month, local favorite Charles McPherson plays saxophone.

Other than that, the artists rotate.

In June, Anthology plans on debuting a lounge menu where everything is under $10

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Click here for the full article.

On a recent night out at Anthology, which has officially passed the new-restaurant-survives-downtown test, I watched spring turn to summer in San Diego. Perhaps it was the fresh-tasting, locally grown fava beans and cherry tomatoes served with my salmon. Perhaps it was the smooth saxophone of the house jazz band that serenaded the other diners. Perhaps it was the young, vibrant crowd.

Whatever it was, Anthology’s getting it right.

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CLICK HERE to read the rest of the San Diego News Room article by Gina Giacopuzzi.

I write thank you for giving San Diego such a wonderful venue and outstanding music. I only recently discovered Anthology but have already enjoyed 3 performances, Al Stewart and then McCoy Tyner twice, on back to back nights.What a gift to see McCoy live! I have fantasized about what it would have been like to see the Coltrane quartet live and you probably got us as close as we will now ever get just last month in our home town. Bravo! - David

Even if one didn’t know Jeremy Pelt, it would have been easy–like being a contestant on TV’s “Identity”–to pick the New York jazzman out of the crowd gathered before the first set at Anthology, Little Italy’s new live-music supper club on “media night” June 19.

It was the custom tailored black suit, starched white shirt with French cuffs, gold and diamond studded cufflinks and “rude boy” fedora with a narrow upturned brim that gave him away.

So I moseyed over and asked the trumpet player to describe his particular musical genre as he sat at the bar drinking a glass of water and jotting some notes for the night’s performance on a bar napkin.

“Whatever pays the bills,” he said.

Pelt, 30, a Los Angeles native who graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston and moved to New York City in 1998, said he’s drawn inspiration from many jazz greats, including Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis.

After listening to him play with the same clear signature tone that made Davis famous, it was easy to understand why he was voted Rising Star on the Trumpet two years in a row by Downbeat Magazine. Pelt was accompanied by two members of Anthology’s house band, pianist Kevin Flournoy, whose resume includes performing with Gladys Knight and the Pointer Sisters, bass player Tony Muhammed, the band’s musical director, as well as drummer Greg Grainger of Acoustic Alchemy who sat in.

Talk about acoustics. At one point, Grainger cut loose with a drum solo that put every fiber of Anthology’s technologically advanced acoustics to the test.

I’m no music critic, but as one who listens to “Sing, Sing, Sing” on my Benny Goodman CD to get the adrenalin flowing on the way to work every morning, I think it’s fair to say that Grainger has all the hyperkinetic energy and talent of Gene Krupa, maybe more.

I spent the evening sitting on the edge of my front row seat. But with table seating for 250 on the first, mezzanine and second levels, there really isn’t a bad seat in the house, as none are more than 50 feet from the stage. The club’s total capacity is greater when you include the bar and outdoor patio lounge on the upper level

Club owner and real estate developer Howard Berkson has been quoted saying he expects “to own jazz in this town.”

Pelt says Berkson also has a good chance of putting San Diego on the map, as far as jazz goes. Open barely a month Anthology has already generated buzz in New York, he added.

“The more bookings there are, the more well-known it will become and ultimately more cats will want to come to this area,” he said.

Berkson isn’t staking the club’s reputation and business solely on jazz, however. Rock, blues, swing, soul and Latin music are part of the mix for upcoming shows. And the cuisine by famed Bay Area consulting chef Bradley Ogden and Executive Chef James Phillips–rock stars in their own right–also takes center stage.

Send tourism and hospitality, news to Connie Lewis via e-mail: clewis@sdbj.com.

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By by Lewis, Connie
San Diego Business Journal