It’s been a few weeks since my husband and I have gotten out to a jazz show in our little Appalachian community, but this weekend we had a real treat. Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra band came to Roanoke, and after I overstuffed myself with wine and burrata, Brussels sprouts, frites, and a banana trifle at a favorite restaurant nearby, we took our seats in the sold-out concert hall.
When the 15 players came on stage — five saxophones, three trombones, four trumpets, drums, upright bass, and keys — they wore matching suits with tan oxford shoes, pale blue shirts, and silvery blue ties. It’s rare these days to see people dressed up, or musicians outside of a symphony orchestra coordinating their clothes. This choice of dress elevated the show before they played a single note: their uniformity gave the instruments and the music a non-distracting backdrop to stand out against. What class.
One of my favorite things about jazz shows, besides having little idea what I’m in for and the fact that jazz is mutable and improvisational so it’s always different and created right there in the moment, is when the audience is clearly into it, and they shout “yeah!” at random moments — the yeah or go on or that’s right just erupts out of them when they’re moved — and their contribution joins the soundscape as a part of the co-created music. It feels like what I imagine it feels like when people catch the spirit in church and shout Hallelujah, preach!, and thank you, Jesus.
Typically in our little mountain region, where most of the jazz crowd are white haired white folk, the audience is fairly subdued in their REI and Columbia outdoor gear outfits. We do usually get a few yeahs, but it’s pretty tame. The audience Saturday night really turned out though. Many of the men wore sport coats and spiffy shoes, and women wore dresses and shawls and pretty heels. And during the show itself, the audience was super into it, whistling and calling out in all the right places, and Wynton Marsalis loved it, chuckling a deep gravelly chuckle when he’d get on the mic to talk about the next song and someone would shout out “Obed!” (the drummer) or “I love you!” He told us we were a great audience, which he surely says to every audience, but still, I was proud of us when he said it.
The featured image was during the encore, when only a subset of the band came out to play a swinging New Orleans style song to close out the show.
Last night, my husband and I drove to the nearest city to see the Julius Rodriguez quartet. “City” seems like a generous word for what Roanoke is. It seems small to me. The population is nearly 100,000 and it has an airport that we fly out of when we travel, though, so I guess it’s bigger than a town. I say this to put into perspective how pleasantly surprised we were to discover that this small city has a jazz club. It’s not your traditional stand-alone jazz club downtown among restaurants and bars, but is an intimate room inside the Jefferson Center, a performing arts center a few blocks away from the bars and restaurants of Roanoke.
We’ve gone to several shows that are a part of The Jefferson Center’s Jazz Club series. I’ve not known any of the artists before showing up at the door, which is completely unlike how I used to experience live music. I’d go to a show because I knew the artist’s music ahead of time and wanted to see them live. With these shows at The Jefferson Center, we go and I get to experience something completely new to me. We’ve seen Bria Skonberg on the trumpet, G. Thomas Allen sing in his beautiful countertenor voice, Tatiana Eva Marie‘s French jazz, which made me want to go to Paris this summer (and we will!), and Sarah Hanahan on the alto sax.
I never know what to expect, and I am delighted every time.
Last night, the pre-show music included M.I.A.’s 2003 “Galang,” and other songs with hip-hop or funk sounds. I got excited because we haven’t gotten these styles yet. We’ve heard New Orleans style, vocal and blues standards, French style, and sax standards, but we hadn’t yet heard something funky or contemporary. The stage was set with both an upright and an electric bass, several keyboards — including a Keytar — instead of a piano, and a drum kit that included an electronic pad nestled in among the cymbals, snares, and toms.
I’m not a music critic, and I know nothing about music to be able to describe how they played or what they played. I only know how it made me feel, which was awed and energized, and full of joy. The music and the artists felt fresh and alive.
My favorite thing about this intimate little jazz club, besides the phenomenal sound, is that the musicians are only a few feet away, which means you can see every facial expression and gesture. I love to watch the band communicate. I love to watch them make eye contact to signal changes, nod, raise an eyebrow, smile, laugh, express surprise and delight during improvisation (they smile, laugh, and express surprise and delight a lot), call out to each other. I guess this is one thing I love about jazz, too — the in-the-moment creation of it.
In the final song of the set, Rodriguez, from his keyboard, conducted a live arrangement of an original called “Around the World.” Using hand signals, he communicated with the band how many of what to do when. He used his fist, he used three fingers, or four, or took both hands off the keys to flash nine or ten fingers. Their timing was impeccable. They executed perfectly what he signaled, and the whole thing just blew my mind. We gave them a standing ovation.
The saxophonist wore a Nintendo hat, which made me think of our son, and apparently it made my husband think of him, too. He texted our son a link to Rodriguez’s website, and when I looked at the link, I saw that the quartet will be at the Apollo in New York tonight and will play Blue Note later in the summer. I thought, how does this tiny no-name city of Roanoke bring these great artists in? I don’t know, but we’ll keep going to shows to keep the support rolling in.
When both kids started driving, my husband and I had more free time on evenings and weekends than we’d had in 18 years. We relished this freedom. We began going out to eat again. We went to nice restaurants, shared a bottle of wine, ordered appetizers, entrees, dessert, and coffee. We had such fun!
After a while, going out to eat became routine. It was the only thing we did with our evenings when we wanted to get out of the house. We’ve been married more than 25 years, and we’d sit across the table from each other like, welp, here we are again. What will we talk about at tables for two for the next 25 years?
On trips out of town, we started adding jazz shows to our evenings. On a trip to New York, we saw Ezra Collective at Blue Note and the Jean-Michel Pilc Trio at Smalls. In DC, we saw Julian Lage at the Lincoln Theater. In Montreal, we saw the Taurey Butler Trio at the Upstairs Jazz Bar & Grill. Each ensemble had a different vibe, each venue unique in personality.
As I wrote about in a recent post, I never thought we’d be able to find something similar near home. I thought we’d always have to travel to be able to enjoy live jazz. My husband searched anyway. A couple of years ago, he saw that Cécile McLorin Salvant was coming to our local performing arts center and got us tickets. He found another performing arts center in nearby Roanoke where we saw the Preservation Hall Jazz Band at Christmas, and Flutes Wine Lounge slightly further away in Lynchburg where we took the kids for a local Flat Five Jazz band’s Christmas show.
This past week was a treat for us, jazz-wise, after a long week with snow and ice and a power outage. On Thursday night, we saw the G. Thomas Allen Quintet at the Jazz Club at the Jefferson Center in Roanoke. If I closed my eyes and listened to the singing, I’d have thought G. Thomas Allen was a woman. He is the first man to have won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. His voice is rich and sweet and beautiful. The bassist, Julian, was dapper in his white turtleneck and blazer, and the pianist (Dennis) with his Irish flat cap. They played “My Funny Valentine” and several tributes to women in jazz. The crowd swung and shouted “yeah!”, and a woman behind us, who herself had a gorgeous, sultry voice, sang along to “Wouldja Couldja“.
Then Friday night, we stayed closer to home, where Grammy nominated saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin played at our local Moss performing arts center. WOW. Like all of the shows we’ve seen, I knew nothing about the musician, and she was exactly what everyone needed at the end of a long, hard week. She brought huge, unleashed energy, messages of hope and love, mixed hip hop, jazz, blues, played “My Favorite Things” and “Amazing Grace.” She and her band showed no restraint, and their vitality and sound filled the large hall.
I love this new addition of live jazz to our lives. Since I don’t know the musicians ahead of time, I never know what to expect, which makes it even more fun for me. Every night is a new experience. In addition to the music and the spaces it’s play in, the instruments are works of art, with their beautiful shapes and textures: the brassy gleam of the horns, the luster of the piano, the rich wood curves of the upright bass, the glitter of the drums, the blur of the drumsticks. The instruments have their own personalities that come to life when a musician starts playing them.
Sharing space and experience with other people who are there to appreciate the music, listening to the creation of art, and the musician’s personalities, talent, and love for their craft fill my cup. I’m so happy and grateful we can enjoy this in our own community.
Last Sunday night, my husband and I drove to nearby Roanoke for a jazz show. I didn’t look at who we were going to see — I figured I wouldn’t know who they were — I was just excited to go hear live music.
When we climbed the stairs inside The Jefferson Center, we expected to be directed into the 925-seat theater where we’d seen the Preservation Hall Jazz Band play a Christmas show. But instead, the usher guided us to continue down the hall to the end, where a bar was set up, and then to turn right through a corridor that snaked into a small room with maybe ten rows of folding chairs and a raised stage at the front. The ceiling was high — 20 or 30 feet above us — and long, black folds of fabric draped all of the walls. Two tables stretched along the back wall to offer up cheese plates, cake and cookies, and coffee. It felt cozy and intimate, like a little jazz club.
At 7 o’clock, the lights went down and the band came out. A tiny woman sat at the wooden grand piano to our left, two men took their places at the back of the stage on bass and drums, a silver-haired woman strapped on her saxophone, and a woman about my size entered last, trumpet in hand, and took center stage. Nobody spoke. She put the trumpet to her lips in the quiet. It sparkled in the spotlight. And when her music came out, I was blown away.
A woman trumpeter led the band. As I listened to this big sound come out of this small woman, walls fell down for me. Last night, I put on a Blue Note Edition jazz playlist on Spotify while my husband made dinner. I scanned the artists on the playlist, and as I scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled, I saw maybe 3 women’s names. In 90 songs.
My heart soared as I watched her play. Every image I have of trumpeters is of men. I have no ambition to ever play the trumpet, but it’s hard to describe how meaningful it is to see someone who looks like you do something cool like this. I fell in love with her.
After a couple of songs, the bandleader introduced the band, and she introduced herself. “I’m Bria. Just google ‘Bria trumpet,’” she said with a smile. “It’s easier than trying to spell my name.” I did just that when I got home. Her name is Bria Skonberg, from Chilliwack in British Columbia.
She is fun, humble, and charming, and she is radiant on both trumpet and vocals. With each song, my heart grew bigger. She mentioned that she’d become a mom in the past five years, which made me love her even more. She sang an arrangement of John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy,” which I used to sing to our son, and I had to get out my handkerchief to wipe my eyes.
At the end of the show, after we thought it was over and everyone was putting their coats on to leave, the lights went down again, and the band came back out with a special guest: a girl trumpeter from a local high school. Bria counted off, and gave the stage to the 17 year old. As the young trumpet player improvised and began to look a little nervous, I fell another layer deeper in love as Bria sensed her nerves, led her, and led the band to support her by calling out guidance, pulling the band together with eye contact and gestures and smiles, and near the end of the song, leading a call and response with their two trumpets. The audience rose from their seats and gave the student a standing ovation.
The sound in the space was clear as a bell, and the show was intimate, with maybe only 100 people in the room. It turns out the venue has a whole jazz series: Jazz Club at Jefferson Center. We’ve got tickets to a couple more upcoming shows. We had no idea we’d find a jazz scene in our little Appalachian mountain community. And Bria Skonberg is now in regular rotation on my Spotify.
We had a big birthday over the past weekend — my husband’s 50th — and I surprised him with a trip to New York to hear some jazz. We live in a small town. At home, our weekend evening entertainment consists mainly of going out to eat. When our kids were younger, and dining out alone together happened once or twice a year, those dinners were a major occasion. They were special and rare. Now that the kids have their own lives, my husband and I find ourselves at restaurants thinking, welp, here we are again.
So last weekend we went on a trip where our evening entertainment wasn’t to sit at a table and eat. Instead, we had music: two jazz clubs and Hadestown on Broadway. On my husband’s birthday, we had 10:30pm tickets to see Ezra Collective play at Blue Note in Greenwich Village. Since the show started later than our usual bedtime, we grabbed pizza at Song E Nepule in the West Village, then coffee and cheesecake at the bar of a packed restaurant further up the street before heading over to Blue Note to get in line for a good seat. It was a chilly night and we watched the Village pulse as people spilled out of restaurants and bars and queued outside of comedy clubs. We were pretty close to the front of our own line, and when the doors opened at 10pm, we selected seats not right up next to the stage, but about 15 feet away. We were packed shoulder to shoulder at the little two-top tables pushed together to make as efficient a use of space as possible.
The show itself was possibly the most joyful musical experience I’ve ever had. Because the club is small (200 seats), and we were so close to the musicians, it was intimate. We were all part of an experience together, rather than just watching someone perform on a stage. Because we were so close to the musicians, I could watch them interact with each other, watch how in sync they were, how despite making music through five separate bodies and five separate instruments, through the music, they were one body. They communicated without words, just eyes and music and giant smiles. And that’s what filled me up the most: how much fun they were having. It was obvious they loved what they were doing, they were completely present in that room with each other and with us, making music was playful and fun and a delightful surprise each time one of their bandmates soloed, and their joy was infectious. They’d watch each other and feel each other’s vibe and burst into happy open-mouthed smiles. I listened to an interview recently with the actor who plays Roy Kent on Ted Lasso, and he talked about sport. He said “I think sport is there so men can say I love you without saying I love you.” As I watched Ezra Collective make music together, I thought, they are saying I love you without saying I love you.
Saturday night, we went to a different kind of jazz club. Where Blue Note was bumping, and everyone on their feet at the end, and the music high energy and loud the night we went, and the club is at street level and has windows and tables and seats 200, the place we went Saturday night, Smalls, is a tiny basement jazz club with seating capacity for 74. We had tickets for a 7:30 set with the Jean-Michel Pilc trio, with Jean-Michel on piano, Ari Hoenig on drums, and François Moutin on the upright bass. We stood outside an unobtrusive, beat up door with a beat up sax above it and a tiny awning that said “smalls” as we waited to go in, and when the door did open, we walked down a set of stairs into a small room with maybe 6 rows of 10 metal folding chairs. We sat close to the piano, ordered martinis before the set, and listened to the hum of everyone talking. The drummer was there tuning his kit when we sat down around 7, and the bassist and pianist showed up about 5-10 minutes before the set began. At 7:30, Pilc was smiling at what I assume was one of his friends in the corner, put his finger to his lips and quietly said “Sh, sh, sh,” and the room went silent.
I don’t know how to describe the experience. I can’t describe the experience. Every person in the room was riveted to the music, which felt like it was being birthed in that space, in that moment, and as witnesses to it, we as the audience were part of its making. The only sounds besides the music were the quiet shaking of a cocktail shaker under the bar or the spritz of the bartender opening a beer. We were rapt. For an hour I was transported, I don’t know where and I don’t really care. All I know is I was moved to tears and I don’t know what they did to make that happen. I definitely felt awe that night.
On Sunday, our flight was at 9pm and we had to check out of our hotel by 11:30am, and I knew we’d be fried and tired of walking after three days in Manhattan, so I got us matinee tickets to see Hadestown, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and of Hades and Persephone, at the Walter Kerr theater. Our son had gone to NYC with some friends over his spring break, and they went to see Hadestown, and he loved it and said it was one of the coolest things he’d ever seen, and he wished he could see it again. So on Easter Sunday, after happening on Radio City Music Hall, and Rockefeller Center, and throngs of people in Easter hats outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and a walk through Central Park among the flowering trees and tulips and daffodils and horse-drawn carriages, and after sitting in Times Square and eating hot dogs and falafel, we made our way over to the theater and saw Hadestown, where a trombonist and other musicians were on stage with the actors, and where we got vocals and a story in addition to the music, and where we got to sit in a really cool theater, and where I cried at the end because I didn’t know it would end that way.
In addition to all the music, we also experienced about a million other things, as seems to happen on a visit to New York City. You can’t walk a block without seeing something iconic. We stayed near Washington Square in Greenwich Village, which meant we got to walk through the park every time we went anywhere, and experience its vibrance day and night.
Washington Square HotelWashington SquareCharles Dickens’ deskCeilings in NY public libraryInside NY public libraryNew York public libraryGrand Central and Chrysler buildingSt. Patrick’s CathedralCentral ParkCentral Park on EasterCentral Park on EasterCentral Park on EasterCentral Park on EasterSt. Patrick’s Cathedral on Easter
Butterfly Mind 