Jazz is America’s only original art form. It grew first in New Orleans, then rode the rails north as African-Americans fled Jim Crow. Kansas City was a hub, followed by Chicago, New York, and the whole country. The music spread globally, and today, there are incredible musicians and clubs everywhere, from London to Copenhagen, Tokyo to Tel Aviv. Atlanta also once had a great jazz scene with places like the Bird Cage, the Top Hat, and Donn Clendenon’s Supper Club. Martin Luther King Jr, Hosea Williams and Andrew Young would eat at Paschal’s and hear jazz at its club, La Carousel.
But with the withering of the Sweet Auburn neighborhood, jazz in Atlanta shriveled, too. Today there simply is no place for the extraordinary jazz talent that lives in Atlanta to call home. There are world-class musicians here and great jazz education programs but to challenge themselves and to perform in public they mostly hit the road or migrate to cities where they can more easily practice their craft.
This is both sad and ironic given that Atlanta is considered among the great music cities in America. The New York Times dubbed us the “hip hop center of gravity” and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has earned 27 Grammy Awards. But jazz is the lonely step-child in Atlanta’s musical family.
I don’t mean to discount what does exist. The Atlanta Jazz Festival just concluded its 46th year. Sam Yi’s Churchill Grounds was a haven until it closed in 2014. The Velvet Note does great things in a tiny space, but Alpharetta is far from the city’s core. There are weekly jam sessions at Napoleon’s, TEN ATL, and The Red Light Café, but by definition, jam sessions feature tunes everyone knows and mixes amateurs with the pros. The First Congregational Church, led by Senior Pastor (and jazz great) Dr. Dwight Andrews, has fabulous programs several times a year. But add it all up, and there just isn’t a real jazz home like there are in so many other American cities. And the bottom line is that Atlanta simply cannot claim to be a great city without a vibrant jazz club at its heart.
Thankfully, this is all about to change, thanks to local jazz musicians, devoted jazz lovers, community support, and one-spirited jazz musician/entrepreneur. Along with music degrees from Emory and Georgia State, Will Scruggs also has a business degree from Emory. With a resume that includes recording and touring with Natalie Cole, Scruggs has had great success as both a working jazz musician and as a real estate investor and is combining these skills to launch a new jazz club in Decatur to be called the Phoenix City Jazz Club.
Scruggs and his investors are under contract to purchase the Greene’s Fine Foods building in the heart of Decatur’s entertainment district. 141 Trinity Place was built in 1935 as the original Decatur Post office and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building will house not only the Phoenix City Jazz Club but multiple other related businesses. The jazz club will be the center of a universe of companies that will live in the building, including a restaurant, coffeehouse, music rehearsal and teaching spaces, an instrument repair shop, and a TV/recording/podcast studio. The plan is to flip the traditional jazz club model on its head by turning musicians and their patrons into the landlords of the property. For those who would like to learn more about Phoenix City Jazz Club, Will Scruggs, and his plans, click here or email will@willscruggs.com.
Another Atlanta organization has lent its weight to this venture. The Jazz Listeners Club of Atlanta was formed in 1945 and is made up of hard-core devotees of the art form and a few honorary members like composer/tenor sax legend Jimmy Heath and pianist/vocalist Freddy Cole, who both sadly passed away during the pandemic. Club President Monroe Banks says, “New York has the Village Vanguard. London has Ronnie Scott’s. New Orleans has Snug Harbor. It’s time that Atlanta has a jazz club to call our own, and that’s why we’re supporting Phoenix City.”
The Jazz Listeners Club hosted an event to support Scruggs on May 25, where their guests heard a presentation from him about his vision and were treated to a private concert where Scruggs was joined by Fareed Mahluli, Tyrone Jackson, Craig Shaw and Justin Varnes. Scruggs has more of these events planned. Email will@willscruggs.com for details.
Scruggs is not going at this alone. He has an impressive Board and supporters that include not just local and national musicians but also business leaders who are lending their expertise, including Andrea Hershatter, Senior Associate Dean at Emory University, and Doug Hooker, CEO of the Midtown Connector Park Foundation and former Executive Director of the Atlanta Regional Commission. Scruggs said he is most proud of the community that is forming around this project: “It’s inspiring to see so many musicians and enthusiasts coming together around this grass-roots effort to elevate and preserve this great art form. Thanks to the Jazz Listeners Club, tonight was a beautiful example of the community we are already building through Phoenix City.”
Atlanta chose the Phoenix as its emblem after the city was burned to the ground by General Sherman. Like the mythic bird, the city rose from the ashes to what it is today. Phoenix City Jazz Club will likewise grow Atlanta’s jazz scene anew and help make our city truly one of the best in the world.
Photos below by Kelly Jordan:
I love jazz but it is not America’s only original music. It was preceded by and developed out of the spirituals. Czech composer Antonin Dvorak made that observation about spirituals as America’s only original music at that time. The spirituals are the mother of so much music including jazz blues soul and their derivatives. I look forward to this new jazz club.
I was looking for Joe Jennings among the acknowledged musicians who have worked to keep jazz alive in Atlanta. He should be among those invited to contribute to this conversation and to the work of bringing together a larger community of musicians who can bring jazz into the communities rather than thinking of jazz as another category of musical events.
$4 million dollar building?
how?