Jazz night «Night of the Soft Paws» at Blake's House of Jazz

   The club describes its Saturday set through a collision of fragility and force: a fine, almost watercolour delivery and a voice that opens to full power when it needs to. For the main night of the week that is a choice in favour of depth rather than volume.

   The singer is Nguyet Ha, one of the club's resident vocalists, alongside Blake — the one whose name is on the sign outside. The evening is billed as intimate, and it belongs to the club's standing Soft Paws series, fixed in its weekly schedule.

   The club takes the second floor of a building on Nguyễn Hữu Huân, a couple of blocks from Hoan Kiem lake and the Old Quarter. Over four years it has built a reputation as a jazz room rather than a bar with music: it keeps a standing cast of residents, vocalists and pianists who take this stage week after week.

   A Saturday in a room like this suits anyone who wants an evening with the music at the centre and the conversation around it. Book a table ahead — weekends leave the fewest seats.

   Of the whole week this is the night built around a voice, and it is best heard close to the stage.