San Francisco's newest jazz rookery, Easy Street (2215 Powell), is the first of a series of similar across-the-country clubs operated by a corporation that boasts Mr. Turk Murphy as an exec. Turk, of course, also blows tailgate trombone and leads his own S. F. Jazz Band, which merrily revives blues, ballads and bawdy songs culled from the bordellos of New Orleans and the cribs of the Yukon. Street's atmosphere is red plush carpet and cut-glass baroque; there's no grub to be had but plenty of good whiskey and rollicking jazz; also lacking is the usual west coast cover charge, but in its place is the more sensible minimum ($2.50 per). Hard by Fisherman's Wharf and the North Beach area, it's become a favorite after-dinner haunt that stays open from nine P.M. to two A.M. every night save Monday. When Murphy's boys pull out at the end of April, Kid Ory and his saints go marching in.
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Just opening its doors in Philadelphia is the lavish supper club C'est La Vie (1418 Spruce), complete with French Legionnaire in blue tunic and red pantaloons on door duty. The lounge on the first floor is an Empire garden where you and yours make brilliant conversation whilst sipping Dubonnet beside a fountain. A carpeted stairway leads you to the main dining room, a sumptuous red-draped affair with crystal chandeliers, antiqued candelabra and an inspired Canards Sauvages à la Presse, among other menu items. The back room, geared for brandy and after-eating ease, sports a piano bar whose proprietor tinkles everything from Kern to Khachaturian. No show or dancing here, though strolling fiddlers abound, and if you're the sort who can't give up Bilko, the waiter will lug a portable TV set to your table. Sunday, all is still.
