Punk may be dead but Jazz is back!
The Renaissance is tens of thousands of miles away from Harlem, and only a few blocks from Pyat Uglov (Five Corners) on the booming Zagorodny Prospect.
St Petersburg's Jazz Philharmonic Hall is located at 27 Zagorodny Prospect, and it's impossible to miss the vintage sign.
Before the show, patrons mill in the posh bar of the remodelled Hall, once the showroom of notorious pre-Revolutionary ceramics tycoon Igor Kuznetsov. The hall is now a showroom for the history of jazz, displaying posters and playing old films of jazz performances, but that is only where the atmosphere begins.
The crowd was extremely upscale at the Friday night performance I took in, and drink prices reflect it.
Artistic Director David Goloshokin circulates like the quintessential party host, along with the other performers.
The pre-performance mingling feels like a gathering of old friends because that is exactly what it is: among the students and couples and the occasional tourists is the city's devout corps of jazz enthusiasts, some of whom remember the days when audiences and the performers were always in fear of being discovered by the KGB.
Moving on in to the very center of the action, the performance hall is a serendipitous architectural mish-mash.
Built by the Soviets to be a small theater, the refurbished venue feels intimate while seating over 200.
The eclectic collection of chairs and tables of different shapes and sizes effectively recreates the underground feel while complementing the attentive mood of the crowd.
With a low balcony and plenty of nooks and crannies, even the big tables feel private, but instead of creating a speakeasy atmosphere, it still somehow feels oriented toward the music.
Even if the furnishing might suggest a quiet dinner, the fans won't allow it.
Be prepared to get caught up in the almost religious enthusiasm of this crowd.
This revival has got a firebrand preacher for a band leader and a devout congregation. They literally buzz with anticipation before a performance and it's a rare night when the legions of the faithful don't insist on several encores.
St Petersburg was where jazz made its first inroads into Russian culture back in the 1920s, when the city was called Petrograd.
But the "subversive music called jazz" was frowned upon by the Communists because of its Western origins and its emphasis on unorthodoxy and individual improvisation.
Jazz survived underground -- venues were secret, advertising was word-of-mouth, and audiences were necessarily small.
It was during this period that two bands came to the forefront of the local jazz scene. The Leningrad Dixieland Band, formed between 1957 and '58, and the David Goloshokin Band, formed 10 years later, played the two most popular styles in Russia, Dixieland and mainstream jazz.
The formation of a Philharmonic Society devoted to jazz was an idea that members of the two bands had been throwing around since the art form became legitimate under Gorbachev's reforms.
"It allows the musicians to play music for listeners instead of dancers," explains Mr Goloshokin.
The inspiration for a Jazz Philharmonic was the famous American producer Norman Granz, who organized "Jazz at the Philharmonic," proclaiming jazz to be a "serious and highly spiritual musical art form."
The Jazz Philharmonic Hall was opened on January 1, 1989, with the financial support of the local government and business community.
The city donated the building, the refurbished ceramics showroom, built in 1916 by the industrialist Kuznetsov, and a Soviet-built cinema from 1936.
It was the first time in the history of jazz that local government sponsored jazz musicians -- the municipal government pays for all the costs of their operation within St Petersburg.
Mr Goloshokin is a huge fan of this arrangement. "It lets us play what we think is best instead of what will sell tickets: we can be artists and not have to worry about the bills," he said.
Since its inception, they've used the Hall to bolster the international recognition of the two bands.
During the last decade, they were allowed not only to play official venues in Soviet Leningrad like the Dzerzhinsky Cultural Center, the Estrada Theater, and the Leningrad Concert Hall, but to travel abroad to Europe and North American Jazz Festivals.
Now they have the facilities to host international stars and jazz festivals like "Autumn Rhythms."
Young St Petersburg jazz fiend Oleg Timofeyev (right)
and the old blues hound dog of St Petersburg, David Goloshokin, play those
syncopated changes.
"The American jazz stars who visit love the atmosphere; the hall is so intimate and the crowd is so attentive. We can only afford to pay them a little and they still come," brags Mr Goloshokin.
And the biggest festival is still to come.
Last year they founded a yearly summer jazz festival, "White Nights Swing," at the concert hall that featured Russian and international jazz stars.
This June, the festival expanded to include performances in the street and on a ship in the port.
For next year, St Petersburg's cultural institutions have been recognized by the European Union's Cultural Committee as one of Europe's "Best Artistic Societies."
This means Brussels will financially support the local government's commitment to maintaining the city's word famous ballet, theatre, and music in the form of a huge artistic festival called "Europe in St Petersburg," which means bigger venues, more publicity, and more big international stars for the jazz festival.
The Philharmonic Hall also has the resources to cultivate talent and increase recognition locally.
They perform free educational concerts for children once a month, provide steep discounts for pensioners and students, invite the city's amateur jazz performers to practice with them, and host a yearly thematic competition for young jazz musicians.
In 1994, the theme was Duke Ellington, and this year auditioners are restricted to compositions for the piano.
The 1995 competition takes place November 20th.
Regular tickets to this living museum of jazz cost $6.50 for foreigners. Performances are almost every night of the week, and usually begin around 8 pm; see the Music Guide on page 13 for details.
Go early on weekends because the place fills fast with regulars.