Amazing Johnathan venue’s best hope

There's this place you may have heard of but probably never visited.

It's hard to find and confusingly known by a couple of names, the Harmon Theater or Krave nightclub. It may be the worst venue in Las Vegas.

Except that, in some ways, it's one of the best.

The room opened in 2000 as the Blue Note jazz club, in the Desert Passage mall (now Miracle Mile) next to the Aladdin (now Planet Hollywood). The first week, the 15-piece Duke Ellington Orchestra outnumbered the 12 people in the audience.

So much for a jazz club in Vegas.

Except that watching the band, I thought, "This is so cool. There's nothing else like it on the Strip." Casinos have theaters with auditorium seating. And a few old-school showrooms packing you at long tables with strangers. But nothing with club tables and little candles, like you see in the movies.

I also had trouble finding the place that first night, learning you have to walk outside the mall and back in from the sidewalk. "Somebody needs to sledgehammer a hole through the kitchen, if that's what it takes to connect from inside," I thought.

After the Blue Note came Krave, a gay club that stood a fair chance of being sought out because of its niche appeal. But the club tried to run ticketed shows in the evening and created a confusing dual identity.

"Tease," "Shag With a Twist" and "Fashionistas" -- which closed Friday -- were worthy efforts that made the most of their club staging. But audiences aren't used to seeing shows in bars, and management never figured out how to set a festive atmosphere and turn the setting into a positive. The place always seemed gloomy, quiet.

Now comes The Amazing Johnathan, the venue's best hopes yet of becoming viable. The comedy magician has a twofold reputation on the Strip: He sells tickets, and he doesn't get along with casino folk.

After a feud with the Sahara, "I went down and saw the remodeling job they had done and the location and couldn't figure out why this wasn't the hottest venue on the Strip," he says.

Any stand-alone venue has a lopsided battle against casino marketing budgets, foot traffic and the ability to "comp" customers. But Johnathan says he has "had enough of being unappreciated for the killer business I bring to a casino. ... I'm sick of the overall indifference casinos treat their entertainers with nowadays."

Johnathan will be the litmus test for the Harmon's viability, at least until CityCenter opens across the street. Then, who knows? The "new urbanism" of people actually living in condos on the Strip might make the notion of a stand-alone jazz club an idea that was merely ahead of its time.

Mike Weatherford's entertainment column appears Thursdays and Sundays. Contact him at 383-0288 or e-mail him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.