LEGO Jazz Club

David

Jun 4

Earlier this year, I wrote about putting together the first LEGO set that I had ever bought for myself, this classic Mustang.

I had an absolute blast building this kit and even before completing it, I knew it would not be my last. As such, I joined the LEGO VIP club to receive periodic e-mail announcements and to get early access to new kit releases. And in December, I got a VIP e-mail about a new release that interested me very much—in fact it seemed the perfect one for me to buy next.

It was these special edition buildings that my nephew's children showed me last year that convinced me that I should buy and build some LEGOs of my own. Each year for the past 16 years, LEGO has released a new kit and as can be seen in the photo above, my nephew's kids have obviously been collecting them for many of those years. The kit that was being newly released this year was a Jazz Club—which just so happens to be my favorite genre of music.

Being a LEGO VIP, I was able to purchase it online from the LEGO store prior to it being released to the public. When it arrived early in January, I was once again amazed at how big the box was. But given that it has almost 2,900 individual pieces, it should not come as a surprise.

At that time, I was building a doll house for my sister so into the closet the box went until April when I finished constructing her doll house. When I opened the box and emptied it out, I discovered 22 individual plastic bags filled with colorful parts and numbered from 1 through 15.

And while the Mustang instruction booklet was over 200 pages long, the one for the Jazz Club was over 300 pages long.

The assembly was broken down into three main steps of five numbered bags for each of the three floors of the Jazz Club (some steps included two bags of the same numbers, thus the reason there were 22 bags total).

Next door to the Jazz Club was a wood-fired pizza parlor.

Employing the technique, I learned from my two grandsons that live in Seattle, I emptied out the one or two bags for each of the 15 individual steps and organized them by color to make finding the needed pieces easy.

As I worked through the individual steps, it was interesting to see the building begin to take shape as I added more and more bricks. I was really amazed at the forethought and creativity that the designer had incorporated into this kit. At first, I was not sure what I was building in the middle of first floor until it revealed itself as a bathroom with a water-like filled toilet and even a roll of toilet paper (for what jazz club would be without a toilet for its patrons).

Once I had worked through most of the first-floor bags, I had the finished jazz hall complete with musical instruments and the pizza parlor with a wood-fired pizza oven (the toilet is now hidden beneath the stairs to the second floor, just visible inside the open brown door).

Once I had finished with the two number 5 bags, I had the first floor complete.

As I worked through the #6 through #10 bags, I finished the second-floor jazz club office.

And interestingly next to it, I discovered above the pizza parlor, was a tailor shop complete with sewing machine and rolls of colorful LEGO fabric.

Placing the second floor on top of the first floor, I had two-thirds of the building complete. And I was pleased that I had not run into any missing pieces or any other snags along the way. But that was to change shortly when I began working on the third floor.

Notice anything wrong with the instruction page below versus my built structure?

All the pieces to the right of my structure should have been light grey but instead there were two light and two dark grey pieces left. It was when I looked more closely at this page that I realized I had used the missing two light grey pieces at the far right whereas the picture showed they should have been the dark grey. It was fortunately an easy fix to swap them out and progressing with the steps, I had an almost finished dressing room complete with mirrored make-up table, couch, and sheet music for singer warmups.

But when I got to these two pages in the instructions…

…I did not have the needed pieces from the emptied out #12 bag (note all that was left were those three small pieces above the book).

I searched the box but did not find another #12 bag. I pondered what to do but then thought maybe the needed pieces were in bag #13. I opened it up and did find all of the pieces I needed but then I was not sure if they were needed somewhere else. I looked ahead through the rest of the steps for bag #13 and confirmed that I would not be "robbing from Peter to pay Paul." So, I added the missing pieces to complete bag #12 and then proceeded with completing bag #13.

At this point, all that remained were the two roof structures.

Bags #14 and #15 completed the roof tops which included a garden green house on the rooftop of the Tailor shop where the pizza chef grew fresh ingredients for his tasty pizzas.

As I flipped through the last few pages of the instruction book, I came across this page that showed the individual pieces included in the kit.

This is just one of five pages of individual pieces. Scanning these pages, I was awestruck by the incredible production savvy LEGO had obviously developed. One can gain a real appreciation for the meticulous manufacturing process LEGO employs to ensure that not only all of these pieces are packed into every box, but that the pieces needed for individual steps are each accumulated together in individual bags.

As I closed the instruction book and looked upon my finished Jazz Club, I got a real sense of satisfaction having completed the kit.

I thought it was interesting thinking back to my childhood in the 1960s, that upon my first exposure to LEGOs, I had built a house. Coming full circle, I had now completed a very sophisticated building with lots of little interesting features. And to be able to see the interior detail, the roof and each floor is easily removed as there are only a few studs sticking up at the top of each floor to secure the next floor in place.

When I first saw this 2023 kit, I knew it was the perfect next LEGO kit for me to build. Even before I had finished building it, I realized the fun I had could be extended by adding additional buildings to "my LEGO block." Looking at the back of the box, it seemed the 2022 release of the Boutique Hotel (building on the far right) would be a perfect addition and so I purchased it.