Yet this full-time jazz club has a unique character which is as much a reflection of the individuality of its creator as its dedication to modern avante-garde jazz. Bennetts Lane seats only sixty people and its owner, Michael Tortoni, a Melbourne stockbroker by day -- wants to keep it that way. For Tortoni, Bennetts Lane is a kind of 'jazz laboratory' where the focus is on the music and musicians rather than the audience.

While many international jazz artists know about Bennetts Lane -- and sometimes phone if they are going to be in town to check out if it is okay to call in and have a play -- most of the local population have never heard of the club and would have trouble finding it in the labyrinth of tiny backstreets and deadend lanes at the city's centre. Even with the aid of a street directory, No. 25 Bennetts Lane is almost invisible. The only external sign of what goes on behind its austere warehouse exterior is two discrete overhead lights at a narrow roll-a-door.

And the jazz isn't for everyone -- no classical, rhythm and blues or salsa. Whenever trad jazz features, it's always trad 'with attitude'. Bennetts Lane focusses on original tunes, the modern and cutting-edge. 'I'm mainly interested in what musicians are doing with their instruments,' says Tortoni. 'The club is really a personal view of what jazz should be about and where it is going.' This level of intense commitment may explain why Tortoni manages to tap into the best musicians in Australia and the world -- he is already taking bookings up to 2001.

While Bennetts Lane may not cater for all tastes and talents, it is far from being exclusive or elitist. 'Anyone who respects and enjoys music is welcome,' says Tortoni. 'On a weekend at least 80 per cent are new people coming through the door. There's no set crowd that I market to, or that I try and attract. I don't rely on a certain set of people coming. I just leave it totally up to the public. It has to stand on its own feet -- there are no gimmicks, no nothing. We just open the doors and cater for those who are interested in what we do.' And thousands have come through those doors since this seven-night-a-week club opened in 1992. Saturday night is peak traffic time with a constant flow of sightseers and regular jazz devotees. Most only stay an hour or so, except when the likes of Wynton Marsalis call by -- then it's 100 shoulder-to-shoulder or packed to the rafters.

From time to time the club becomes trendy and Tortoni moves in to move the sightseers on. 'The club was never set up to capture high volume drinkers,' he says. 'We want an audience but we want the right kind of audience -- the wrong crowd will ruin it for the right crowd.' Around midnight he'll turn on a hardcore jazz group which quickly 'cleanses' the club of the simply curious. 'These people have got plenty of other places to go to, like pubs; Bennetts Lane is a listening venue,' he says.

Tortoni lives above his club in a spacious, (sound proof) New York-style loft apartment -- a life-style quite removed from his beginnings as one of eight children in an Italian family who arrived in Australia with 'just a suitcase'. In the 70s, when he was only seventeen, he played bass in a heavy metal band called Taste. The band cut their first album with Warner Brothers in 1973 and their first single made it into the national charts. Taste split in 1977 and Michael went on to study classical bass at the College of the Arts, learning how to read and write music rather than just play it by ear. In the long term, however, he decided a musical career wasn't for him, eventually becoming a director and stockbroker at Shaw Stockbroking. When the local property market collapsed in 1991 he was well placed to buy the warehouse at No. 25 Bennetts Lane, which took him twelve months to redesign and refurbish.

At the end of a twelve-hour day as stockbroker, Tortoni still finds time to be a hands-on owner. While Bennetts Lane has a day-to-day manager, the club is still very hard work 'and not all that glamorous. We have around 130 musicians come through every month and they take management. It's a small place but there's a lot of traffic here.'

Although Bennetts Lane pays its way and has a life of its own, the quality of that life depends on Tortoni's self-sufficiency as a stockbroker. 'Money buys you freedom to own a jazz club,' he says. There are no grand, entrepreneurial plans for expanding Bennetts Lane. Far more important to Tortoni is preserving the club's independence and sustaining it as a unique jazz environment for other musicians. Nevertheless he does have a few side projects in mind -- a Bennetts Lane Record label based on a library of live digital recordings made at the club, and establishing a Bennetts Lane Scholarship Trust for musicians. All he has to do is find some free time.