Jazz drummer Lucky Thompson booked his first professional gig at age eight. “It was at this place called Tallie’s Paradise in South Philly that’s no longer there,” he says. “I used to live right down the street.” One day Lucky’s father, a regular at the bar, approached the bandleader, Chico Booth, who led open jams on Saturdays. “[My father] said, ‘Hey man, my son plays drums. Can I bring him down?’ And Chico said sure.” Though little Lucky had to kick the bass drum with his foot, his legs too short to reach the pedal, his first public performance was a success. “Chico was like, ‘Bring that boy back.’ I sat there and played and people just went crazy.”
The applause has yet to subside. Today Lucky, 51, is one of Philadelphia’s last living jazz greats, a rare extant representative of the city’s 1960s jazz heyday, which has since slid into the shadows of jazz boomtowns like New York and New Orleans. Lucky has worked with Will Smith’s father, Will, Sr., to produce music for his Philly Through My Ear recording label and served for 10 years as musical director of one of the last gems of Philly’s former treasure chest of jazz clubs, Natalie’s Jazz Lounge — that is, until the recent cessation of the bar’s legendary 60-year Saturday night jam sessions.
At 4003 Market St., Natalie’s is only three blocks from campus, but still off most jazz fans’ radar. Students’ reluctance to visit Natalie’s has resulted in missed potential for constructive crossover. Jazz cultivates bonds, as its signature spontaneity hinges on musicians’ ability to actively engage with each other, and differences in playing style lead to better music.
That’s why saxophone player Tony Peebles, C’03, who after earning a Master’s in jazz studies from the University of the Arts relocated to San Francisco to continue pursuing music, urged his private students to tap into the wealth of jazz mastery bubbling so close by. “The old people [at Natalie’s] are really encouraging, really into the idea of passing on the music,” he says. Peebles, who started playing at age nine, grew up sampling tastes of the jazz feast available at Natalie’s. When he was a teenager, his uncle who played guitar at the lounge would take him to the jam sessions. “I had no idea what I was doing, I would just start honking and tooting,” he says. “There’d be all these old ladies at the bar drinking whiskey and stuff, and they’d be telling me, ‘Keep blowing that horn, baby.’ It was a great kind of school.”
Senior Alex Ullman, a Penn Jazz saxophone player, is a former student of Peebles’s who has attended jams during the last three years in hopes of developing the skills necessary to perform at a more professional level. “I knew [Natalie’s] was a vital source I would have to tap in order to get it going for myself,” Ullman says. “I would go every Saturday night... Tony gave me the confidence to keep showing up.” After his initial intimidation, Ullman was able to absorb playing points not to be found in less authentic settings.
Peebles affirms the importance of jam sessions to a player’s growth. A certain casual, unspoken formula governs the jams — which typically feature a drummer, bass player, piano player or guitarist and horn players — in order to maximize the experience. “To limit the length of each tune, there are usually only two, maybe three horns allowed,” explains Peebles. “Anyone can call a tune, although since the horns usually play the melody, they’ll call a lot. A tune might be suggested then, if someone doesn’t know it, rejected in favor of another that everyone’s more comfortable with.” The sessions serve as fertile ground for improvisation, with each musician soloing while those in the background respond by echoing licks or feeding the soloist fresh material to vamp on. Until Natalie’s cancelled its jams last fall, these forums offered budding musicians and seasoned old-timers an opportunity for dynamic dialogue. The range of characters populating the place was, in the words of organist and Natalie’s mainstay Rich Budesa, “from Yale to jail.”
The beauty and power of the musical cross-pollination at Natalie’s stems from just that heterogeneity. The joint has a slightly decrepit character, with peeling wallpaper, a smudged-screen jukebox in the corner, sepia-toned photographs of former jazz idols cluttering the walls, smoke-choked air, and Ruffles chips and liquor serving as the only fare. But despite this ambience, Natalie’s cultivates a sense of homely comfort. “It was a nurturing environment because the clientele was very demonstrably appreciative of the music, and the other musicians, from Lucky down to the sit-ins, were typically really supportive of each other,” says Peebles. Even outsiders appreciated the vitality and warmth churning through Natalie’s. “Good music, good people, a funky old jazz club where the ghosts of Coltrane, Shirley Scott, Philly Joe Jones and Grover Washington Jr. could be felt,” recalls Peter Tobia, a Philadelphia Inquirer photographer who visited the lounge for a September 2004 story. “People came to play and share the music and have a good time.”
Undergraduates who have ventured past the “fine jewelry” street vendors and grimy storefronts to get to Natalie’s agree that mutually beneficial collaboration between Penn and the Philadelphia jazz world is lacking. Undeterred by the closing of yet another chapter in the city’s jazz narrative, nowadays Lucky, whose name stems from his mother’s difficult labor and delivery, is making efforts to salvage the fizzling spirit of local jazz. He teaches kids at the Philadelphia Clef Club and guest performs in the Penn music department’s classes. He seeks to foster the energy in young jazz players from Penn and other neighborhoods, and laments the cancellation of jam sessions at Natalie’s. “Philly was a Mecca back in the day,” he says. “Now a lot of the places where we used to play are gone.”
He explains how the other jazz bars that remain — including Chris’ Jazz Café, 23rd Street Café and Ortlieb’s Jazzhaus — offer evidence of the increasingly commercialized nature of jazz, the emotional spirit having been somewhat sapped. “The younger musicians today try to intellectualize the music,” says Lucky. Peebles offers a similar appraisal: “Now it’s all been codified and written in countless books and taught at the college level.” Penn’s course register pleads guilty, with offerings like “Jazz Style and History” and “Literatures of Jazz.” “I’m all about the education, but being a good musician is about the soul, about what you’re feeling,” says Lucky. “You got to love it to live it and you got to live it to love it.”
Jazz as an art form demands an internal commitment to the music. It’s a peeling back of one’s public image to probe the strange unquantifiable world of emotion and passion that is jazz. As famed trumpet player Louis Armstrong put it, “You blows who you is.” Lucky tries to articulate this centrifugal nature of jazz: “You can play in [tricky time signatures] 7/8, 9/8, but who cares? The average listener doesn’t know an E-flat from a B-flat, they know what sounds good, what they like, when they can tap their foot, move their head. If they ain’t tapping their feet and shaking their head, you ain’t doing it right. You ain’t swinging.”
Aside from the initiatives being taken by Lucky to breach the barrier between on- and off-campus jazz, various university groups are also striving to cultivate this network. SPEC Jazz & Grooves, for one, works to encourage jazz appreciation by organizing shows featuring acclaimed headliners like Branford Marsalis, Miles Davis and most recently Medeski Martin & Wood.
Another jazz outlet for Penn students is the Penn Jazz Ensemble. The 16-member big band was formed in 1973, offering students with a strong jazz background an opportunity to polish their musicianship and perform both on and off school grounds. Junior Andrew Rogers, the group’s business manager and drummer, says Penn Jazz has worked to reach out to the surrounding musical community. “In the past we’ve played gigs at West Philly schools and community fundraising events,” he says. “We have strong jazz advocates who stay abreast of the Philly jazz scene and encourage and fund visits to various shows at numerous clubs. We’ve been known to invite visiting performers to do master classes, too.”
There are also options for Penn students who are interested in studying jazz but wary of diving headfirst into the wider city scene. The music department now offers a jazz and popular music minor that involves both classroom and hands-on work. Also available within the department for course credit are eight Jazz Combos in which musicians receive guidance from professional instructors and perform in department-sponsored concerts and at other university-wide events. The program also offers private lessons on jazz instruments through the Blutt College House Music Program. “Students can take private lessons with professional musicians from the Philadelphia area without leaving campus,” explains Michael Ketner, director of performance for the music department. Lucky serves as the drums instructor. As far as jam session opportunities, Ketner says the department is hoping to expand in that direction. “Several [students] have indicated an interest in working on their improvisation skills in a separate setting,” he says.
Philadelphia jazz still has a sound presence, and Penn jazz aficionados are not at a loss for avenues to make contact with the surrounding scene. The city’s jazz will never completely crumble, given its rich heritage and deep roots. “A lot of the big jazz icons have connections with Philadelphia,” says Peebles. “John Coltrane, the Heath brothers, a whole bunch of people. There used to be a really big scene. Attests Lucky, “You look at all the jazz artists and can go right down the line and check them off, Philly Philly Philly Philly.”
Not only did Philadelphia once serve as a stomping ground for jazz royalty, but its progeny developed a patentable “Philly sound” that marks the City of Brotherly Love’s breed of jazz as original. “We had this thing called the Philly bop that Philly Joe Jones created,” explains Lucky. “It was like playing kind of behind the beat... No one else plays like that.”
Philly jazz in its uniqueness, then, will never be outstripped by other cities’ jazz scenes. “There’s definitely that kind of myth about New York,” says Peebles. “There are a lot of really great players in Philly as well, and you’ll find that a lot choose not to just be another drop in the bucket in New York, [but to] have a little bit more time, a little bit higher quality of life and get to live in Philly. Philly has a scene, too.”
After committing his career to preserving and advancing Philadelphia jazz, Lucky believes that the city can stand its musical ground. Lucky says, “I tell my students when they say they want to go to New York, everybody from New York ain’t from New York. They migrate from all over. When you come from Philly, they know you’re from Philly. Like I said, we ha[ve] our own culture and our own way of hearing the music and playing the music.”
Outsiders may link Philly to cultural icons like the cheesesteak or the Liberty Bell. But steeped in jazz tradition and foundational to the very development of this American music, Philly is also defined by its jazz culture and will not cease to be. Peebles recalls Lucky’s quote at the end of every Natalie’s jam session: “It’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s about the music.”
