Just shy of a couple of months old, The Dragon Upstairs is enjoying an already typical weekend-greeting full house — this night, it's accented somewhat by First Friday revelers.

Manny Grafia Sr. graciously allows my partner in Night Stuff and me a couple seats at his primo table. Grafia is a spry sixtysomething who drives in from Hau'ula on Fridays to stop by the cozy, retro-cool downtown jazz lounge.

We chat as jazz vocalist Ginai and pianist/multi-instrumentalist Pierre Grill once again stake their claim on the night.

"It renews the building but still retains the feel of old Chinatown," Grafia says of The Dragon's music, patronage and decor — the last of these described by owner Hank Taufaasau as "Chinese kitsch." "It's a distance for me. But it's worth it, definitely," Grafia says.

Taufaasau opened the downstairs Hanks Cafe Honolulu in 1998 with live jazz but tuned it out when, in his words, "it couldn't draw flies." The desire to host live jazz stayed with him, though. So when a wave of jazz-themed nights at other Honolulu venues surfaced in recent years, Taufaasau re-imagined his idea of an intimate, stand-alone Chinatown lounge — this time featuring a live fusion of Hawaiian and jazz musical styles.

Designed and built by Taufaasau, with imaginative interior decor choreographed by his wife, Laura May, and downtown artist Roy Venters, The Dragon Upstairs is the wonderful result.

Taking a large, stairwell-climbing wall painting of a dragon — left behind by the loft space's former tenants, Sharky's Tattoo — as initial inspiration, the trio scoured Honolulu for The Dragon's other Asian kitschy curios.

The room's retro-mod furnishings, vases, miniature lamps, votive holders and dozens of tchotchkes were found at Honolulu craft fairs, auction houses, warehouses and garage sales. Dragons of various colors, sizes and construction hang on walls, rest on shelves and peek out of crawl spaces. Antique picture frames fitted with mirrors hang on The Dragon's scarlet-and-gold walls.

The room's centerpiece — oversized, wall-hanging Chinese theater masks smartly illuminated from within by Venters — came from a shuttered downtown museum that was going to trash them. Taufaasau built the lounge's impressive Brazilian cherry wood bar himself, as well as two tiers of seating that overlook the room, a floor-level performance area and evening activity below on Nu'uanu Avenue.

Ginai and Grill, who have held court at The Dragon on Friday nights since the lounge's mid-July opening, share a terrific musical chemistry that's a joy to watch.

Cooly sassy and brassy with crowd-pleasing personality to spare, Ginai moves through a set of jazz and pop standards ("All Of Me," "Love," "On Broadway") in marvelous voice, dishing on her career and chatting up patrons between songs. Tall and lean, with a head of unruly hair taking cues from his animated body movements and facial contortions, the crafty Grill proves part wild man, part smooth lounge lizard behind his stand-up piano.

Scanning the casually dressy twenty- to sixtysomething crowd for a suddenly-not-there Manny, I find him gracefully twirling a young girl to "Take Five" on his own makeshift dance floor.

When Ginai and Grill find a jazz groove in "Beautiful Kaua'i" that brings goose bumps and wild applause, I understand Taufaasau's "Hawaiian jazz fusion" goal for The Dragon.

"Don't wait until First Friday to come to The Dragon," cooed Ginai, after knocking out a luscious cover of Alicia Keys' "If I Ain't Got You." "Make us a habit."

Say "hi" to my new hero Manny for me if you do.

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.