The scene was vintage New York: a cosy jazz club on one of the city's hippest streets, packed with music lovers bellying-up to the dimly lit bar.
But as the crowd swelled, it was impossible not to notice the strong middle-eastern presence.
Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew, mixed with the flow of excited American English.
New York jazz has always been a fusion of black, white and whatever, but the 29-year-old musician Amir ElSaffar is developing a style that is genuinely unique, and also - given his background - dreadfully poignant.
The eclectic audience gathered together at Rose Live Music, were there to hear a musical fusion that combines the centuries-old classical tradition of Iraq - known as the maqam - with the free-flowing spirit of contemporary jazz.
ElSaffar grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and became a talented classical trumpeter.
His Iraqi father had introduced him to the maqam at home, but it was the lure of jazz that first took him away from the world of Bach and Beethoven.
After the New York-based performer won an international jazz trumpet competition, he decided to use the money to immerse himself in the music of his ancestral homeland.
Tragic past
In 2002, as war between the US and Iraq looked increasingly likely, he travelled to Baghdad to learn as many of the complex 56 melodies that underpin the maqam form, as he could.
"Once I started getting into the music, it was impossible to leave," he said.
"The maqam is the only thing that brings me sanity - every time I look at the news, my heart gets broken"
"I saw it as if I don't do it now, I don't know when I'll have the chance to come back."
The maqam enjoyed its heyday in the early 20th Century, where singers and instrumentalists would improvise around the micro-tonal melodic configurations for hours on end, in the numerous coffee shops of Baghdad.
Besides the music, there is poetry, which frequently invokes the bloody and tragic past of Iraqi society.
Like much else in present-day Baghdad, the maqam has suffered due to curfews and sectarian violence - many of the dwindling band of masters have gone abroad.
Melting-pot
But ElSaffar is convinced that the art form will not only survive, but also act to remind all Iraqis of their sophisticated shared culture.
"You can see it in the repertoire itself," he says, leaning forward, unblinking.
"You have melodies of Persian descent, and Turkish descent. Melodies of Bedouin - and all the different backgrounds of Iraqi society were represented by the singers and performers.
"You had Jewish musicians, and Muslim and Christian singers. And people of Turkmen background, and Kurds. It was a real melting-pot," he added.
After several years of hard study, including time spent with his Baghdad-based teacher - the only one left alive who has mastered the full repertory - ElSaffar was ready to unite the two halves of his Iraqi-American persona.
Apart from singing, he learnt the Iraqi version of the stringed dulcimer, the santoor.
Two Rivers
The starkest and most moving example of his melded Maqam-Jazz, comes through the trumpet, which he uses intermittently, to replace the vocal melody line.
Working with a small band of musicians who are equally capable of crossing-over between middle-eastern and western instruments, he has composed a musical suite called Two Rivers.
It is harrowing to absorb, but full of as much beauty as pain.
He says the burden of being both Iraqi and American during the continuing occupation is lessened by the music he creates.
"In Iraq they don't say melody; they say spiritual essence. I would say it's the only thing that brings me any sense of sanity right now," said ElSaffar.
"Every time I look at the news, my heart gets broken. The Maqam has been something for me to always go back to.
"This is the truth and this is ultimately what Iraq is about."
Future generations
The climax of the show is a song that used to be called Baghdad, but has now been renamed Blood and Ink.
It refers to the destruction of the city by the grandson of Genghis Khan, in 1258, an event that is still seared on the consciousness of modern Iraqis, whatever their sect.
The Tigris ran black with the ink of thousands of books, following the destruction of the Grand Library by the Mongol conquerors.
The crude parallels between then and now are obvious, but ElSaffar is sure that the cultural heart of Iraq, which is catalogued in the thousands of words and tones that make up the maqam, will continue in the generations to come.
In some ways, the job is easier for the new musical masters of the 21st Century than ever before.
"The fortunate thing is there are recordings. We can always go back to the recordings and piece the repertoire together," he said.
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