The Club & Music Scene

If you're looking for a more interactive, tuneful night on the town, Washington offers hip jazz clubs, gay bars, warehouse ballrooms, places where you sit back and listen, places where you can get up and dance, and even a roadhouse or two. If you're looking for comic relief, Washington can take care of that, too (the pickings are few but good).

Many nightspots wear multiple hats. For example, the Black Cat is a bar and a dance club, offering food and sometimes poetry readings. I've listed each nightspot according to the type of music it features. The details are in the description.

The best nightlife districts are Adams Morgan; the U and 14th streets NW crossroads: U Street between 16th and 9th streets and 14th Street between P and V streets; north and south of Dupont Circle along Connecticut Avenue; the Penn Quarter, notably 7th and 8th streets and from Pennsylvania Avenue north as far as I Street; Georgetown; the area known as the Atlas District, which is H Street NE, between 12th and 14th streets; and Columbia Heights, an area east of Adams Morgan and north of the U Street district. As a rule, while club-hopping -- even in Georgetown -- stick to the major thoroughfares and steer clear of deserted side streets. I should add that you should be especially careful in Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights, where criminals sometimes prey upon drunk and otherwise distracted partiers as they leave bars and clubs.

Check out the monthly On Tap, another freebie found mostly in bars, but whose website, www.ontaponline.com, is essential reading for carefree 20-somethings. By the way, Thursday night is "College Night" at nearly every club.

Most of Washington's clubs and bars stay open until 1 or 2am Monday through Thursday and until 3am Friday and Saturday; what time they open varies. It's best to call ahead or check the website to make sure the place you're headed is open.

Comedy

The Warner Theatre and Harmon Hall at the Shakespeare Theatre also feature big-name comedians or troupes from time to time.

Jazz and Blues

If you're a jazz fan and planning a trip to D.C. in early to mid-June, check out the www.dcjazzfest.org for exact dates of the fabulous, 2-week-long DC Jazz Festival, which showcases the talents of at least 100 musicians in various venues around town, including blowout, free concerts on the National Mall. And if you're a jazz and blues fan and you're coming to town at some other time of the year, check out the following venues.

All That Jazz -- For a pleasurable evening's entertainment, you sometimes need look no further than the bar/lounge or in-house restaurant of your hotel. The genre is usually jazz, the performers are top-notch, and the admission is free. So if it's a Sunday night, you might want to plant yourself in the paneled parlor of the Hotel Tabard Inn to listen to bassist Victor Dvoskin play world-class jazz, usually accompanied by a guitarist or pianist. Every night's a good night at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel's lovely Empress Lounge: Weeknights, 5:30-7:30pm, enjoy happy hour cocktails and the music of a guitar soloist; Friday and Saturday nights, 8pm-midnight, kick back and listen to top jazz vocalists fronting fine trios or quartets. And every single night, starting at 9pm, the Phoenix Park Hotel's Dubliner restaurant is the place to be if you enjoy hoisting a pint to the tune of "Danny Boy" and rowdier Irish ballads, performed live by musicians with names like "Conor Malone" and "Andy O'Driscoll."

Electric Avenues for Live-Music Lovers -- Live-music venues are ever more popular in the capital, and one neighborhood is particularly noteworthy for the sheer amount and variety of fabulous music on tap on any given night: U Street NW, between 9th and 18th streets, and its side streets. Whether you're a fan of jazz, hip-hop, indie rock, or blues, you're bound to find something to please you just by strolling along the U and 14th street corridors, especially on a Friday or Saturday evening. Bohemian Caverns, Twins Jazz, U-Topia, the 9:30 Club, and the Black Cat are among the clubs listed in this guide. In another part of town that's come to be known as the Atlas District, live-music venues also are springing up along H Street NE, between 12th and 14th streets (though it must be said that this locale, especially at night, is pretty edgy). Three Atlas District music clubs are reviewed in this guide: the Red Palace, HR-57, and the Rock and Roll Hotel.

Gay and Lesbian Clubs

Dupont Circle is the gay and lesbian hub of Washington, D.C., with at least 10 gay or lesbian bars within easy walking distance of one another. Here are three from that neighborhood. (Also refer to Destination D.C.'s GLBT Traveler's Guide, available on the Destination D.C. website, www.destinationdc.org.)