A small group had been at a (really fancy, oddly enough) bar named after some US state, perhaps Kansas? I forget.
We were watching a Champions League game, and after it was over my roommate Emma and I, and two guys in Emma’s program, Michael and Matt, all went in search of something significantly cheaper.

Michael and I didn’t want to go somewhere dime-a-dozen like Cien Montaditos (that is good if you’re trying to grab a cheap bite and a quick drink, but that wasn’t our aim this evening in question).
So the four of us wandered.
And wondered.

And wandered.

For probably close to an hour, the four of us traipsed the space in between the museum triangle all the way to Plaza del Sol, which is a bit of a walk on foot.
It was early February, so not particularly warm, and we had been in the mood for a drink for some time.
Just as Emma and Matt’s patience grew thin, Michael or I (I forget whom) spotted a sign above a door that looked like it led to nowhere. As a matter of fact, I think I said something like that, like how could this possibly be a bar? There is a store just around the corner…

Well, it was a tiny TINY jazz bar crammed into an old brick cellar.

There are many bars and restaurants throughout the city housed in old cellars and tunnel ways.
Tunnels were popular during the Guerra Civil (Civil War) in the 20s, and the cellars speak to a period when every home and restaurant kept local wine, cheese, and root vegetables on hand.

La Coquette was quite near Plaza del Sol, just off one of the streets.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/la-coquette-madrid

The night we went, whoever it was playing had the room PACKED, which didn’t seem like it would be hard– the place only sat around 40, but with how interactive their set was, I suspected either they played there quite regularly and all the regular patrons liked them, or they knew the owners and it had drawn a crowd.
It was pretty basic jazz, and quite good. The bar tender was grizzled, didn’t seem thrilled at having four American students in his bar, but when he realized we all spoke Spanish and weren’t there to get sloppy drunk he was happy to fill us in on what we’d found.

They have live music every night of the week, save for Thursday. They were in the cellar of what had once, long ago, been a restaurant, and he gave us the name of the band’s front man, who he clearly new when they dos besos-ed at the end of the night, though with time I’ve forgotten it.

It was a dark little joint (as you can tell from my photos), and the sound of the band really fills the space. This is not a place you go to talk.

There bar offerings were pretty general, nothing that stood out, but as we walked back up the stairs to leave, we crossed paths with the front man who had been loading up their equipment, and he winked at me and asked ¿Te gusta la musica, bella? which happily caught me off guard and had me stammering out some half-assed Spanish answer. Also, probably the only time I was openly flirted with in Spain, so praise God for musicians.