Churchill Grounds – Atlanta’s Premiere Jazz Club

Churchill Grounds – Atlanta’s Premiere Jazz Club

There is one phrase that stands out when most people think about Churchill Grounds – “The Good Life”

At Churchill Grounds, we strive to promote the better things in life, helping to remind you of the classics of days gone by. At the same time, the musicians that play at Churchill Grounds play their own original compositions, and introduce you to the classics being created today.

America’s only true native art form – Jazz Music exemplifies our commitment to this cause. There is no other form of music that embodies the sophistication, eloquence, passion, spontaneity and emotion that jazz communicates to its’ audience. At Churchill Grounds we seek out only the most dedicated and talented jazz musicians to help maintain Jazz as a forefront in modern music. Our commitment to this art form is not only to accomplished jazz musicians such as Cedar Walton, Freddie Cole, Loston Harris, Chico Freeman, Donald Harrison, Marcus Printup, Philip Harper and Russell Gunn, but also to its’ growth and future by locally searching for the next Wynton Marsalis, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong.

Reviews:

Pros: Grown folks, mixed crowd, great Jazz band, good service, reasonable prices.

Cons: Not enough seating space. No dance floor, pay lot parking and walk.

FYI:  Candle-lit and intimate with someone you don’t mind cuddlin’ with. He/ she had better be cute! lol

One of my favorite places to go. It’s next to the Fox Theatre.

Churchill Grounds is my favorite place to go before (and after) a show at the Fox. The service is excellent, the lighting is dim, and the drinks are strong. They also pour one of the best pints of Guinness in the city.

And because they allow smoking inside, it’s adults only, all the time. I love escaping the crowded throngs on Peachtree and settling in at one of the cozy tables or grabbing a seat at the bar. [Warning: if you are sensitive to cigarette smoke, this place is not for you. Please don't go and cop an attitude; there are plenty of other bars to choose in the area.]

Edited: April 30th, 2011

Summer brews a mega assortment of concerts

In America, the name Kylie Minogue sparks vague recognition. Most remember her from the 2001 mirror ball smash “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.”

Edited: April 29th, 2011

Vince Guaraldi: A Remarkable Jazz Musician

Jazz music was blessed best with piano, and every pianist is a proud possesser of the telents he/she has ot. Vince Gauradi is one among those blessed people who could make magic on the instrument. The full name of Guaraldi was Vincet Anthony Vince Gauraldi. He was born on 17th July 1928. His origin was Italian and he was even known as an Italian American jazz musician.  His best works include the music he composed for “Peanuts” comic strip.

Guaraldi’s first recording was made in November 1953 with Cal Tjader and came out early in 1954. The early 10 inch LP was called The Cal Tjader Trio, included “Chopsticks Mambo”, “Vibra-Tharpe”, and “Lullaby of the Leaves.” By 1955, Guaraldi had his own trio with Eddie Duran and Dean Reilly. He then reunited with Cal Tjader in June, 1956 and was an integral part of two great bands that the vibraphonist assembled. The first band played mainly straight jazz and included Al Torre (drums), Eugene Wright (bass) and Luis Kant (congas and bongos). The second band was formed in the spring of 1958 and included Al McKibbon (bass), Mongo Santamaría (congas and bongos) and Willie Bobo (drums and timbales). Reed men Paul Horn and Jose “Chombo” Silva were also added to the group for certain live performances and recordings. He made a big splash with his performance with Tjader at the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival.

While searching for just the right music to accompany a planned Peanuts television documentary, Lee Mendelson (the producer of the special) heard a single version of “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” by Vince Guaraldi’s trio on the radio while traveling in a taxicab on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. Mendelson contacted Ralph J. Gleason, jazz columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and was put in touch with Guaraldi. He proposed that Guaraldi score the upcoming Peanuts Christmas special and Guaraldi enthusiastically took the job, performing a version of what became “Linus and Lucy” over the phone two weeks later. The soundtrack was recorded by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, whose other members were Puzzy Firth stand in bassist for band member Fred Marshall, who was ill at the time, and drummer Jerry Granelli. Guaraldi went on to compose scores for seventeen Peanuts television specials, plus the feature film A Boy Named Charlie Brown as well as the unaired television program of the same name.

Edited: April 29th, 2011

Earl Hines

Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl “Fatha” Hines, was “one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz”. He played piano in Chicago clubs in the 1920s, first as a soloist and later as a bandleader. He made several recordings with Louis Armstrong in the ’20s and ’30s, then joined Armstrong again in the late 1940s to tour with the All Stars. He made scores of recordings, including “Stormy Monday Blues” and “Second Balcony Jump,” toured the world and made records into the 1970s. Known for his great technique and talent for improvisation, Hines’ horn-like phrasing and rhythm influenced popular jazz through the swing era and into bebop.

he played piano in Chicago clubs in the 1920s, first as a soloist and later as a bandleader. He made several recordings with Louis Armstrong in the ’20s and ’30s, then joined Armstrong again in the late 1940s to tour with the All Stars. He made scores of recordings, including “Stormy Monday Blues” and “Second Balcony Jump,” toured the world and made records into the 1970s. Known for his great technique and talent for improvisation, Hines’ horn-like phrasing and rhythm influenced popular jazz through the swing era and into bebop.

After Guaraldi’s death, the music for the Peanuts series was composed first by San Francisco film and television composer Ed Bogas, who scored several Peanuts TV specials and motion pictures up to the early 1990s, along with Bogas’ future wife Desirée Goyette, and occasionally, Judy Munsen. Bogas also did his own arrangements of Guaraldi’s “Linus And Lucy” theme as a nod to the musician (most notably in It’s Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown and What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown!).

Edited: April 29th, 2011

Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed “the sound of surprise”. He was born on 21st October 1971, he was easily recognized by his puffed-out cheeks and unusual angular trumpet, Dizzie Gillespie was one of the key figures in the birth of “bebop” jazz. Nicknamed “Dizzy” because of his comical antics, Gillespie played trumpet in the 1930s in bands led by Teddy Hill and Lionel Hampton. Throughout the ’40s and ’50s Gillespie led his own bands, both big and small, and toured the world playing his complex and upbeat music. With Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis, Gillespie ushered in the era of brash, speedy, lopsided jazz known as bebop. In the 1950s he began using a trumpet with the bell angled upward at 45 degrees, a quirk which became his signature. He toured and performed right up to his death in 1993. Among his most popular tunes were “A Night in Tunisia” and “Salt Peanuts.”

In the late 1940s, Gillespie was also involved in the movement called Afro-Cuban music, bringing Afro-Latin American music and elements to greater prominence in jazz and even pop music, particularly salsa. Afro-Cuban jazz is based on traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms. Dizzy Gillespie was introduced to Chano Pozo in 1947 by Mario Bauza, a Latin jazz trumpet player. Chano Pozo became Gillespie’s conga drummer for his band. Dizzy Gilespie also worked with Mario Bauza in New York jazz clubs on 52nd street and several famous dance clubs such as Palladium and the Apollo Theater in Harlem. They played together in the Chick Webb band and Cab Calloway’s band, where Gillespie and Bauza became life-long friends. Dizzy helped develop and mature the Afro-Cuban jazz style.

Edited: April 29th, 2011

Shawn Jay from Field Mob faces cancer scare

MediaTakeout.com is reporting that Albany rapper Shawn Jay, from the group Field Mob, is facing a cancer scare. Read their exclusive report.

Field Mob: Shawn Jay (left) and Smoke.

On his Twitter account, Shawn Jay confirms: “april isnt my month…car wreck…now they wanna admit me to see if i have terminal cancer.bout 2 smoke n talk to god #NoFear”

Field Mob is considered to be influential in the southern hip hop scene as it developed in the early 2000’s. Ludacris took note of the duo and signed them to his Disturbing the Peace label. Their hits include the Jazze Pha-produced single “Sick of Being Lonely” as well as “Georgia” and “So What.”

Edited: April 28th, 2011

Jazz Fusion: Inherent Part Of Jazz

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the hybrid form of jazz-rock fusion was developed by combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments, and the highly amplified stage sound of rock musicians such as Jimi Hendrix. All Music Guide states that “..until around 1967, the worlds of jazz and rock were nearly completely separate.” However, “…as rock became more creative and its musicianship improved, and as some in the jazz world became bored with hard bop and did not want to play strictly avant-garde music, the two different idioms began to trade ideas and occasionally combine forces.” Miles Davis made the breakthrough into fusion in 1970s with his album Bitches Brew. Musicians who worked with Davis formed the four most influential fusion groups: Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra emerged in 1971 and were soon followed by Return to Forever and The Headhunters. Although jazz purists protested the blend of jazz and rock, some of jazz’s significant innovators crossed over from the contemporary hard bop scene into fusion.

Jazz fusion music often uses mixed meters, odd time signatures, syncopation, and complex chords and harmonies. In addition to using the electric instruments of rock, such as the electric guitar, electric bass, electric piano, and synthesizer keyboards, fusion also used the powerful amplification, “fuzz” pedals, wah-wah pedals, and other effects used by 1970s-era rock bands. Notable performers of jazz fusion included Miles Davis, keyboardists Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, vibraphonist Gary Burton, drummer Tony Williams, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, guitarists Larry Coryell, Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Frank Zappa, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and bassists Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke.

Jazz fusion was also popular in Japan where the band Casiopea released over thirty albums praising Jazz Fusion.Developed by the mid-1970s, is characterized by a strong back beat (groove), electrified sounds,[54] and often, the presence of the first electronic analog synthesizers. The integration of Funk, Soul, and R&B music and styles into jazz resulted in the creation of a genre whose spectrum is indeed quite wide and ranges from strong jazz improvisation to soul, funk or disco with jazz arrangements, jazz riffs, and jazz solos, and sometimes soul vocals.

Edited: April 28th, 2011

Jazz In Its Early Times

The decade of 1920s marked huge advances in the music industry. The phonograph record became the primary method of disseminating music, surpassing sales of sheet music and piano rolls. The music industry, ever keen to discover new ways of making profits, realized that record, sheet music and piano roll sales could all be tied together. The “song plugger” was born: a person who worked to make sure his company’s tunes would be performed by dance bands or by singers, live and on records, ever hopeful of a “hit.”

The decade marked the beginning of independent (or indie) record companies, smaller operations that weren’t afraid to take a chance on music and artists that the bigger companies shied away from. Some of the great early jazz, blues and country performers appeared on indie labels like Gennett, Paramount and Okeh.

Toward the end of the decade, radio went from being an expensive novelty into a major purveyor of inexpensive entertainment. With the beginning of the Great Depression, phonograph and sheet music sales would plummet and radio would become the most important medium in the music industry. As a result, indie record companies went bankrupt or merged with the bigger companies, and similar operations wouldn’t emerge again until the late 1930s.

By the late 1920s motion pictures had gone from silent to sound, creating another medium for the sale of sheet music and phonograph records. Soon Broadway and Tin Pan Alley songwriters would be exercising their craft for films. From its beginnings in the early 20th century jazz has spawned a variety of subgenres: New Orleans Dixieland dating from the early 1910s, big band-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop from the mid-1940s, a variety of Latin jazz fusions such as Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz, free jazz from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz fusion from the 1970s, acid jazz from the 1980s (which added funk and hip-hop influences), and Nujazz in the 1990s. As the music has spread around the world it has drawn on local, national, and regional musical cultures, its aesthetics being adapted to its varied environments and giving rise to many distinctive styles.

Edited: April 28th, 2011

LILLIAN HARDIN- Jazz Was Her Life Line

Jazz is a music genre that is blessed with equal number of female artist along with male artists. And it comes to the ladies section of the club; Lillian Hardin is the name one cannot forget. The outstanding contributions of this lady have taken jazz to places. She was born on 3rd February in the year of 1898 and she got her graduation from Fisk University. She was a pianist and composer for most of the important jazz bands from New Orleans. Hardin’s compositions include “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue”, “Don’t Jive Me”, “Two Deuces”, “Knee Drops”, “Doin’ the Suzie-Q”, “”Just For a Thrill” (which became a major hit when revived by Ray Charles in 1959), “Clip Joint”, and “Bad Boy” (a hit by Ringo Starr in 1978).

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Hardin worked mostly as a soloist singing and playing piano. In the late 1940s, she decided to leave the music and become a tailor, so she took a course in tailoring. Her graduation project was to make a tuxedo for Louis. It was displayed prominently at a New York cocktail party she threw to announce her new field of endeavor. “They looked at Louis’ tux and all the other things I had made and they were very impressed”, she recalled, “but then someone asked me to play the piano. That’s when I knew that I would never be able to leave the music business.” Louis wore Hardin’s tuxedo and she continued to tailor, but only as a sideline and then only for friends. Her shirts, which friends received regularly on birthdays, proudly bore a label with her mother’s name, “Decie”, and beneath that, “Hand made by Lil Armstrong.”

After playing for a time with Sugar Johnny’s Creole Orchestra and Freddie Kennard’s Original Creole Orchestra, Hardin joined King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band in Chicago. In 1924, she married the band’s newest member, Louis Armstrong. After encouraging Armstrong to step out on his own, Hardin was a leading contributor to her husband’s Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings. During the 1920s, Hardin also led her own band at Chicago’s Dreamland Cafe.Following her divorce from Armstrong in 1938, Hardin made a number of appearances in Broadway shows and worked as a Swing vocalist. Hardin returned to the Chicago nightclubs in the 1940s and continued to record into the 1960s. She died in 1971 during a memorial concert for Louis Armstrong.

Edited: April 28th, 2011

Live music picks: April 29-May 5

Philadelphia's Man Man – from left, Honus (Ryan Kattner), T-Moth (Jamey Robinson), Chang (Billy Dufala) and Pow (Chris Powell) – brings its outrageously energetic live show to the Variety Playhouse April 30. Photo: Michael Persico

TODAY THROUGH MAY 7
500 Songs For Kids
In 2007, tireless man about town and musician Josh Rifkind started a fundraiser that combined 500 artists with Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 best rock songs. This year, each artist takes on one of the 500 greatest feel-good songs of all time. There are always surprises and the impressive list of artists includes local and national acts (check the foundation’s website for each night’s scheduled performers). The money goes to Rifkind’s Songs for Kids Foundation.
Nightly through May 7. $10; $20 May 7. Smith’s Olde Bar, 1578 Piedmont Road NE, Atlanta. 404-875-1522.

TODAY
Todd Snider
Nashville’s Snider can be snarky and snide, but he’s also witty, observant and even poignant. Of his latest studio …

Edited: April 28th, 2011