This past Sunday evening, July 31, 2016, the nearly twenty-year run of Atlanta's longest continuously operating jazz club, Churchill Grounds, came to a glorious but ultimately sobering end. Since April of 1997, when the club first opened its doors, Churchill Grounds has been a labor of love. The name is curiously the combination of two things that Owner Sam Yi loves, Churchill size cigars and coffee grounds. This Atlanta institution was situated adjacent to the Fox Theater at 660 Peachtree NE in downtown Atlanta. Mr. Yi's admittedly naïve motivation for such an endeavor? Maybe it would be fun to have a place where local musicians could play and you could make a little money providing a platform for the music that you love. Simple and admirable enough, but hardly the kind of business plan that would inspire a flock of financial supporters to your cause. That didn't seem to bother Yi, a mild mannered business man, who was surprisingly passionate about the music and who decided to live his life immersed in it. On Sunday night, in an emotional farewell, he recounted how this endeavor required that he spend much of his life over the last twenty years at the club, putting in countless hours there, often at the expense of his family. Poignantly looking back over the years it was obvious that given the chance, Yi wouldn't have changed a thing.
It was his employees who worked there, the musicians who played there and the patrons who respectfully listened there that collectively became his extended family. He thanked them all with an emotion laden goodbye.That family even included two homeless men that became permanent fixtures outside the club's front door. One of them, "homeless Joe," offered his own tearful adage from the stage, saying how much he was going to miss seeing Sam and the steady ebb and flow of the club's patrons. I suspect what Joe will miss most was his visibility. Sam and many patrons didn't look past Joe, but acknowledged his humanity. They didn't judge him, but looked at him as a soul who was just down on his luck. They didn't castigate him as a nuisance, but greeted him with dignity, including him as part of the extended Churchill Grounds family. It was Sam Yi who provided this space where people who recognized the power and inclusiveness of the music were able to congregate and commune with one another.
And of course there was the music; it swung, it bopped hard or it grooved straight ahead, it fused wildly or it whispered softly and it often funked you to the bottom of your soul. The music wasn't merely entertainment, it was history, it was creativity, it was a social compact and inclusiveness. Churchill Grounds became the go-to place in Atlanta. The place where musicians of all levels, professional and acolyte, could come and practice their skills, hone their craft, commune with each other and connect with their audience. It was the hometown stage for legends like the late Cedar Walton and the venerable Freddie Cole. It was the sometime residency for current standouts like Russell Gunn and Joe Gransden. It was a stop off joint for visiting celebrities like Wynton Marsalis or Harry Connick Jr. It was the proving grounds for a new breed of firebrand like Morgan Guerin, Kenny Banks Jr., the Harper Brothers and Darren English.
photo by Morgan Guerin
The life of a musician is hard enough in today's society where the arts in general are valued so poorly. Professional musicians often have to supplement their income by teaching, travelling extensively or taking other work. Churchill Grounds provided that home based waystation for many of Atlanta's finest jazz musicians. Jazz musicians in particular have chosen a road that becomes ever more challenging in this modern world. Despite jazz being the only recognized original all American art form, the audience for this music has shrunken and grayed