Last week, while visiting Atlanta, I was introduced to a nice little jazz club on that scene called Kat’s Cafe. It is owned by Katarina Mia, a transplant from Prince’s purple state of Minnesota.
“There is a lot of great talent here in Atlanta, but it is very difficult to get booked in a club if you don’t have a great reputation and CD sales,” said Mia. The young owner, who is also a singer and percussionist, says she started the club eight years ago as an underground performance space for her musician friends.
She books aspiring and established musicians and singers in the Atlanta area and beyond. Many of these artists are her friends. As some of these local artists travel around the world, they spread the word about Kat’s Cafe being a hip platform to stretch your wings or sharpen your chops. “This is a place where musicians like to perform or just hang out and check out the music,” said Mia.
Denelta Perkins, a cafe regular, stated, “When Kat isn’t very busy, we coax her to get on stage to sing or do her percussion thing.” Unfortunately, that did not happen the evening I was there. Mia was the percussionist for the group Klymaxx, known for the soulful throw down.
Let’s not categorize Kat’s Cafe as a jazz club; it is much more. You know down South they like to jam. Sitting serene is cool at a concert, but in a club, some jamming is definitely going to happen.
During my visit, the set jumped off with some serious R&B funk. The special guest for the evening was Brooke Alford. “Artist of the violin” is her motto, as opposed to saying she is a violin artist.
She is a native of Atlanta but has since moved to Brooklyn, which is home to a host of great musicians. Her playing has traces of Noel Pointer. She crosses genres from jazz to R&B, funk and heartfelt ballads such as Alicia Keys’ “It Ain’t You,” or a rearrangement of “Summertime,” taking it up a few notes to an uptempo funk tune with a hard-hitting drum romp.
The violin is a romantic instrument in the classical realm that has advanced its reputation into jazz and funk. Alford’s violin strings dance with a funky rhythm, move to a jazz stroll and sing to the soul.
Her current album, “The Viosocalist” (Platinum Crown Music), has a cross-genre flow from the opening uptempo swing ballad of Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind,” to the dancing “Desert Traveler,” which has a Nile beat, a belly dance rhythm that rocks. Beyonce’s “Deja Vu” gets a treatment with strings but still reflects a hypnotic flow. On “Reason to Live,” Alford features vocalist Rashanna Harmon.
Her original “Twenty-Two” is just a heavy swinging violin at work. It’s
interwoven with swift melodies and melodic rhythms. The album boosts seven cuts, with two mixes of “Empire State of Mind.”
After Alford, “Baby Teddy Pendergrass” took to the stage. He wasn’t really a baby Teddy, standing approximately 6-foot-4 and weighing more than 200 pounds, but he had a touch of Teddy going on. On his original ballad “Show and Tell,” he took one of the birthday ladies to the stage and had her sweating with his big Teddy Bear moves.
The cafe’s three large TV screens had two displaying the live show and one over the bar that had the basketball playoffs on. It is a cozy spot open from Tuesday to Saturday with comedy Tuesdays and open mic Thursdays. For the weekends, reservations are recommended; last evening was sold out.
The menu offers light food: salads, wraps and pizzas that are tasty. Most New Yorkers won’t even go near a pizza out of the city, because the Big Apple is known throughout the world for the best pizza. Okay, it’s not the Big Apple, but the pizza won’t disappoint. When in the ATL, put Kat’s Cafe on the list.
This year seems to be the year for jazz films and documentaries. “Thomas Chapin, Night Bird Song,” a music documentary on the incandescent life of a jazz great by filmmaker Stephanie J. Castillo, was recently screened in Manhattan and will make its debut at the Monterey Jazz Festival in September 2016.
The film is a passionate, sincere documentary on the life of the multi-instrumentalist, composer and bandleader Thomas Chapin, who met death much too soon at the age of 40 from leukemia, in 1998.
He was a musician constantly on the edge, pursuing jazz from his own perspective, which took an abundance of swinging twists and turns. He was musical director for Lionel Hampton’s band from 1981 to 1986. His in-depth studies began in the 1970s, at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, under the guidance of saxophonist Jackie McLean. The film documents Chapin’s musical progression to a more deeper sound he was hearing that blossomed into avant garde.
Although he passed 18 years ago, his music lives on to inspire a new generation of musicians, and this film is a testament to his music and deep commitment to life, particularly to his wife Terri Castillo Chapin. They were married October 15, 1997, in New York Hospital while he was being treated. He died four months later.
“Thomas Chapin, Night Bird Song” is a romantic music story of Chapin’s great effort to navigate his music into the deeper waters of improvisation. The film’s interviews include pianist Kenny Barron, the bassists Dr. Larry Ridley and Ray Drummond, drummer Steve Johns (one of his regular band members) and jazz writers Gene Seymour and Bob Blumenthal.
This 150-minute documentary written, produced and directed by Castillo is an intoxicating story of love and music and music and love.
“Playing for me, is about changing my state of mind, moving out of my ordinary self,” said Chapin. “When you die … the melody remains. It’s the song of your life.”
The film’s website is www.thomaschapinfilm.com.