The smell of clove cigarettes and hot jazz music filled the air at the corner of 6th St. and Van Buren Ave. as I approached Friends & Co. last Thursday night.

After turning the corner, three young jazz fans were standing in front smoking and talking under the starry night trying to keep warm in the brisk October climate.

Upon entering the bar, a wave of warmth and groovy melodies enveloped me as jazz tunes fluttered into my ears.

It came as a relief, leaving the cold, clammy October night behind and entering the lively and vibrant bar.

As the warm spirits and cool jams filled the bar, there were about six people rotating in and out of songs jamming together on the stage.

After some observation, four or five musicians would take breaks from performing, drink and socialize and then return to the stage where somebody else would switch out.

Justin DeAngelo, keyboardist/pianist and graduate student, has been playing for almost 17 of his 25 years of existence.

“Basically, everybody that plays here plays at the Eastern groups, either the combos or the big band,” DeAngelo said. “That’s the school setting, we do concerts at school, but this gives us a chance to play outside of school, experiment new ideas, bring stuff you’ve been working on that may not be like, in the learning aspect of it all, it may be just more fun.”

And it certainly appears more fun than say, a classroom setting would be.

Performing at a bar on a weeknight gives these musicians a chance to relax and expand upon what they learn at school among their peers.

“Here, we mix it up,” DeAngelo said. “It’s a lot more straight ahead, back-to-back at school, a lot more literature oriented, and here there’s a lot more groove-oriented things.”

The musicians that perform at Friends & Co. every Thursday are not necessarily an organized band with a name, so much as they just come to jam.

“We just go up there and pick a tune and we all just play over it. It’s just like jamming,”said Garrett Schmidt, drummer/trumpet player.

Anybody is welcome, and for the most part, the same musicians return week after week to perform, said Josh Marcus, saxophonist

Mike Gherardini, owner of Friends & Co., said he enjoys the Thursday-night jam sessions and is looking to broaden the musical scene at his bar in the future.

“It’s a very relaxed schedule, it’s laid back enough to where everybody’s just having a good time,” he said. “Play ’til whenever they’re tired of playing or whenever the pizza guy shows up.”

The atmosphere at Friends & Co. certainly is relaxed, full of warm spirits and smiling faces. Looking around, there is not one person in the entire bar that appears to be having a bad time.

“It seems like everybody has a pretty good time,” Gherardini said. “That’s the most important thing.”

And it is not only jazz music that Friends & Co. has to offer.

“What we’re trying to do up here is get a wider variety of music, not just stick to one specific genre, but I mean, just try to dabble in all of em so that there’s something for everybody,” Gherardini said. “I mean, you might not like classic rock, but don’t worry, you because there’s something else going on.”

The music continues to flow out from the front of the bar into the back, where Gherardini is working on opening an additional part to Friends & Co.

After checking out another room in the back with an even larger stage, I notice bassist Bryce Peake is taking a break.

He tells me how he started playing is slightly different than some of the other musicians.

“There used to be a jazz trio that played up here that I had played in,” Peake said. “And we decided to do something a little more funk-esque because it seemed like it’d be a little more of an appeal to people. We do a lot of stuff. Influences like (Herbie) Hancock and the Headhunters, Kool and the Gang, Average White Band, you know. Just a whole wide variety of stuff.”

This jazz jam band can often be heard in the Charleston town square.

“We’re up here every week. Every Thursday,” DeAngelo said.