TODAY’S CREATIVE LOVING PROFILE
Atlanta jazz for beginners, pt. 2
Located in the building that houses the Fox Theatre on Peachtree Street, Churchill Grounds is our city's premiere location for listening to live jazz in Atlanta. It's an unpretentious venue, smaller than one might imagine, but it serves as a haven for fans and performers of straight-ahead jazz. On this night, pianist Gary Motley is leading a quartet that includes saxophonist Fareed Mahluli, drummer Bernard Linnette and bassist Neal Starkey. The foursome perform the Ray Noble gem, "Cherokee"; "You Stepped Out of a Dream," which was popularized by Oscar Peterson; a bossa nova reading of "My Funny Valentine"; Miles Davis' "Solar" and others.
The performance is riveting. Motley's solos are warm, eloquent, but economical. Mahluli, goateed with glasses and wearing a brimless hat called a kofi, plays in a style both brisk and lyrical. Linnette, perched behind a small drum kit, plays with his head up, listening closely and accenting the musical statements of the soloists. Occasionally he gives Motley a conspiratorial glance, grinning as he adds a timely rhythm punch. Bearded and bearlike, Starkey's upright bass lines bind rhythm and melody.
Jazz performance is a means of communicating emotions through musical statements. It requires a shared covenant among the musicians and with the audience, an understanding that the songs are worthy of exploration and that the musicians have made a commitment to speak through their instruments -- thus earning the right to explore -- and be heard.
It's not surprising, then, that a successful jazz repertoire features many old standards. It's not that the songs are better merely because they're old; it's that these particular songs have survived for generations because they provide the foundation for emotional communication by musicians.
"Jazz allows the greatest amount of room for creativity, spontaneity, but with all due respect to the given -- that is, the title, the form, the structure [of the song]," says Linnette, who studied jazz at Rutgers University and has worked with Freddy Cole, Cedar Walton and Little Jimmy Scott, among others. "This music allows me to express the things that I feel, whereas with other styles of music, you've got to stick to a certain rhythm or beat. In jazz, any one person can initiate a totally different direction. You can start out with a ballad and end up in 4/4 time or double time or 3/4, which changes the color, the meaning," he says.
The quartet will fully realize this spontaneity several times before the night is over, particularly on a ballad that closes the second set, a tune that evolves organically into a vigorous, joyful swing rhythm. Motley, acting as something of a musical tour guide, pauses for a moment over the insistent groove to ask the crowd's indulgence, as the song has clearly taken a new direction. No one complains.
The third set is even more loose and spontaneous, featuring two young guest artists, Zack Colwell on tenor sax and Kay Ishibashi on violin. The latter puts the crowd into a frenzy on Thelonious Monk's "Well You Needn't." The duo is part of the traveling Kaleidoscape show that recently appeared in Centennial Olympic Park.
Overall, it's a profoundly impressive performance, but not an extraordinary one. That is to say, this is the caliber of talent and performance that Churchill Grounds attracts on a regular basis, in part because it's one of the only places for straight-ahead jazz artists to perform locally. As "the only game in town," says saxman Mahluli, Churchill Grounds has successfully maintained a venue that hosts local and national artists. By the same token, it can secure Atlanta's top players while paying them from the door receipts and while doing little or no advertising, he says. Mahluli notes that fellow jazz musicians share a frustration with the economics of local performance and with the competition for gigs. "It does not make for a situation where there's a commitment [to the music]," says Mahluli, whose group, the Mahluli Workshop, held a Wednesday night gig at the club for 15 months.
Of course, the struggle by jazz musicians to be financially compensated for their commitment to the music is as old as the music itself. That's not to dismiss their plight, in Atlanta or elsewhere. However, on a night such as this, it is hard for a listener -- and hopefully for the performers as well -- to walk away feeling anything but fulfilled.
The Gary Motley Quartet performs again at Churchill Grounds, Dec. 22. The Bernard Linnette Sextet, which also includes Motley, performs at Churchill Grounds, Dec. 29-30. Motley's new CD, Compassion, is released Dec. 1. Churchill Grounds is located at 660 Peachtree Street; 404-876-3030.
Time Out: Happy 80th birthday (Dec. 6) to jazz pioneer Dave Brubeck. In a career that began in the mid-1940s, Brubeck has been an integral figure in shaping the course of jazz. His compositions range from the inventive ("Blue Rondo a la Turk," in 9/8 time, for example) to the mellifluous ("In Your Own Sweet Way," "Summer Song," to name a couple). In the '50s, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, with Paul Desmond on alto sax, was one of the most popular jazz groups in the world, introducing distinctive, unorthodox rhythms into the milieu. Also, his was one of the first interracial groups to play Southern college venues. Today, Brubeck tours the world as a jazz artist, composer of both secular and religious works and as guest artist/educator in school music programs. He will celebrate his birthday with performances in London; he has a new solo piano CD, One Alone, on Telarc Records and another new release due in February.
Jazz venues, performers, radio programmers and others are encouraged to e-mail or mail schedules, recordings and news to Bryan Powell, 830 Josh Lane, Lawrenceville, GA 30045-3156.
