Why the second set is different
The first set is for the dinner crowd: full room, full menu, an audience that booked a table. The second is for people who came for the music, and musicians play differently to a smaller, later, more attentive room. Sets run shorter, solos run longer and the running order tends to be abandoned.
Where it applies
Almost everywhere with two sets. The Village Vanguard, Ronnie Scott's, Duc des Lombards and Blue Note Tokyo all run the pattern, and in every case the later ticket is cheaper.
Listening rooms
Several clubs in this guide enforce silence during the music, and it is the single thing that separates a jazz club from a bar with a band. Ronnie Scott's will have a word with you; Tokyo audiences enforce it by example, which is more effective.
Where to sit
Not at the back, and not directly in front of a speaker stack. In a room of under two hundred, the side walls two thirds of the way forward give the best balance, and every engineer mixing that room agrees.
The city variable
Tokyo finishes before the trains stop, around half past ten. New York starts its late set at half past eleven. Barcelona has not really begun at either time. Check what "late" means in the city you are in before you plan dinner around it, using the city page for hours.
