The Listening Room - WKTV Journal

Max Colley latest release, “Jubilee”, includes Jimmy Cobb, Jon Faddis and others. Locally, he has played with the Grand Rapids Jazz Orchestra, The Truth in Jazz Orchestra and Gumbo Nuveau, as well as leading the Max Colley III Quartet. (Supplied/Max Colley III)

By K.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org

The Listening Room, one of Grand Rapids newest music venues, will debut a new jazz series this week when the Robin Connell Trio, with opening night special guest trumpeter Max Colley III, hits the stage Saturday, Jan. 4.

While the venue, located at Studio Park at 123 Ionia Ave SW, is definitely new, having opened late last year, the idea of jazz in an intimate setting where sipping a cocktail and listening to some jazz in small club setting, is perfectly old-school.

“It’s a wonderful venue for those who love live music and enjoy listening … It is designed such that it could very well function as a jazz club on a par with NYC clubs that require people to refrain from talking,” local pianist Robin Connell said to WKTV. “The (venue general manager) … described it to me as ‘a music room with drinks vs a bar with music.’ … (and) he is bringing in an eclectic mix of genres, including some jazz.

“This (new) series is loosely based on what I did at The Harris Building four years ago, which was loosely based on the old style jazz club that hired a ‘house’ trio to back touring artists such as Charlie Parker & Billie Holiday,” Connell said.

The jazz nights will start at 7:30 p.m., with doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are $12, with open seating, drinks available for purchase, and a parking garage attached — “So no outdoor hassle (park on 2nd floor to walk right in),” we are told.

Connell’s “house trio”, which will usually have with Rob Hartman on bass and Keith Hall on the drums, are scheduled to feature Colley and his trumpet to open. From then, the monthly series will have Ivan Akansiima, on guitar and piano, on Feb. 6; Paul Brewer, on trombone but also a fine composer, on March 7; and wrapping up the initial winter series on April 1 with Carl Cafagna on woodwinds — “Almost all of ‘em and vocals, too!” Connell says.

Max Colley III, according to his website, received music education degree from Central Michigan University, has studies with the likes of Jon Faddis, and has won awards including outstanding soloist at the Aquinas College, CMU and Montreaux-Detroit Jazz Festivals, and won the Jimmy Forrest Memorial Scholarship.

In 2016, he released the recording “Jubilee”, which includes Jimmy Cobb, Faddis, “and many other jazz luminaries!” Locally, he has played with the Grand Rapids Jazz Orchestra, The Truth in Jazz Orchestra and Gumbo Nuveau, as well as leading the Max Colley III Quartet.

And while Connell is looking forward to the series and all her guests, she is also looking forward to playing the house piano.

“I played there Dec. 15 in a collage type concert … I was the only jazzer in a wonderful lineup of singer songwriters,” Connell said to WKTV. “After I waxed on about the piano, a woman reached out to me and said the piano had been her grandmother’s. A man nearby then told me the piano had been his mother’s. So I realized then that I was meeting the owners of Studio Park since I knew it was their piano in the club.”

For more information on the jazz series and all concerts at The Listening Room, visit listeningroomGR.com or call 616-900-9500. For more info on Max Colley III, visit maxcolley3.weebly.com . For more information on Robin Connell, visit robinconnell.com .

By K.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org

When it comes to supporting America’s military veterans, sometimes all you can do is listen to their stories. When you are as talented a singer/songwriter as Mary Gauthier, you can go one step further — listening and then retelling those stories in powerful and moving ways.

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier will perform at Grand Rapids’ The Listening Room on Dec.13 in support of Rifles & Rosary Beads, an 11-song collection of songs co-written with U.S. veterans and their families that “reveal the untold stories and struggles that veterans and their spouses deal with abroad and after returning home.”

(A fairly new venue in town, The Listening Room is located at Studio Park, 123 Iona Ave. SW. Tickets are still available.)

“My job as a songwriter is to find that thing a soul needs to say,” Gauthier said in supplied material about her interactions with veterans through meetings of SongwritingWith:Soldiers. “Each retreat brings together a dozen or so soldiers and four songwriters, three songs each in two days. We don’t have a choice. We have to stay focused, listen carefully, and make sure every veteran gets their own song. And we always do.

“None of the veterans are artists. They don’t write songs, they don’t know that songs can be used to move trauma. Their understanding of song doesn’t include that. For me it’s been the whole damn deal. Songwriting saved me. It’s what I think the best songs do, help articulate the ineffable, make the invisible visible, creating resonance, so that people, (including the songwriter) don’t feel alone.”

SongwritingWith:Soldiers is a non-profit program that facilitates retreats bringing professional songwriters together with wounded veterans and active duty military.

Each song on Rifles & Rosary Beads is “deceptively simple and emotionally complex”. From the opening “Soldiering On”, with the line “What saves you in the battle/Can kill you at home”; to “Bullet Holes in the Sky” — “They thank me for my service/And wave their little flags/They genuflect on Sundays/And yes, they’d send us back”. And it is not just male veterans who have told her their story: the song “Iraq” depicts the “helpless horror of a female military mechanic being dehumanized and sexually harassed by fellow soldiers.”

With now 10 albums in her catalogue, Gauthier is no stranger to musical audiences, especially country music audiences — her classic track “Mercy Now” was included in Rolling Stone’s “Saddest Country Songs of all Time”. In her official biography, she states that “no stranger to pain or demons herself, Gauthier has used songwriting to work through addiction and childhood abandonment as an orphan, but this is the first album where she has focused solely on experiences other than her own.”

Mary Gauthier, with special guest Jaimee Harris, is Dec. 13 at 7:30 p.m.. Tickets are $27. For more information on this show and the venue, visit listeningroomGR.com.