Monday Night Jazz Brings the Beat to North Nashville

Even in a city like Nashville that’s brimming with music, Monday night is generally thought of as an evening when precious little of interest happens. The organizers of Monday Night Jazz are working hard to disprove that notion. The event, which recently launched its third iteration with a move to North Nashville restaurant and market The Local Distro, has become a festive occasion that offers not only one of Nashville’s most diverse and energetic live music sets, but also art on display (including audiovisual work), wares from an array of vendors and food from local sources.

Monday Night Jazz is a display of impressive and versatile area talent that draws an enthusiastic audience, eager to enjoy performances and socialize in person again after a long pandemic-induced stretch of streaming shows and self-isolation. But the series’ creators — trumpeter Fredrick Weathersby and saxophonist Stefan Forbus, who met as students at Tennessee State University, and who organize the event with Local Distro owner William Radford — view it as part of an overall campaign to improve conditions and provide more opportunities for musicians and the Nashville arts community as a whole. At the same time, they’re able to bring great entertainment and cultural presentations to Music City.

“Stefan and I envisioned this series as something different and special from the beginning,” Weathersby tells the Scene. “We wanted it to be open to the entire musical community, and we wanted to attract both the longtime jazz fan and people who don’t even necessarily consider themselves jazz fans. We’ve included in our performance mix hip-hop and spoken-word artists, vocalists across the board, old and young artists, men and women — people who represent the broad spectrum of artistic excellence. They’re all part of what we’re trying to do here: spread the jazz message and get folks to understand that you can enjoy this music on all levels. It’s open and out there for everyone.”

Doors open for dinner at 7 p.m., and the show usually starts around 8 and runs roughly two to two-and-a-half hours. Rather than breaking up performances into tight, short sets, Monday Night Jazz is organized as a free-flowing, continuous event with a core unit of instrumentalists. Other players and guest vocalists get called onstage — sometimes before a song starts, or sometimes as it’s being played.

The material spans the idiomatic gamut. On the night I attended, song selections included “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Unforgettable,” “The Girl From Ipanema” and “Summertime.” There was also the smooth-jazz staple “Friends and Strangers,” Bobby Caldwell’s R&B hit “What You Won’t Do for Love” and Ray Charles’ vintage R&B classic “Night and Day.” For a change of pace, they included the Elvis Presley rocker “Return to Sender,” and closed the night with Herbie Hancock’s huge crossover hit “Chameleon.”

A lengthy list of participating vocalists includes Olivia Reese, Kevin Cory, Cassius and Eli Smith (who perform as The Smith Brothers), Alysha Hinton, Matthias Lamparter, Keith Profitt (better known to local rap fans as Remsteele), Talisha Holmes and Darryl Van Leer. Besides the duo of Weathersby and Forbus — who released an outstanding album called The Real Deal in 2020 — and members of Forbus’ group The Combo, other musicians who’ve been part of Monday Night Jazz include pianist Michael Corder, guitarist Chris Dooley, bassist Justin Kimball and drummer-percussionist Jameel Aziz.

The Local Distro’s Radford, another TSU grad whose establishment has been at its present location since February 2019, sees Monday Night Jazz as a foundation for adding other events, like a future Friday Night Jazz event. Moreover, community-focused events like this are an integral part of his business.

“We weren’t just interested in this being a place where musicians just come and play and get money,” Radford says. “For the last three months since this began here, it’s another step in our overall plan of making The Local Distro a community spot for artists, a place where vendors and food entrepreneurs and creators can come and have their items or foods sold, and a place where the musicians are running their spot and hosting the event instead of just being absorbed into the machinery or the backdrop.”

Weathersby also sees Monday Night Jazz as a springboard to an expansion of jazz activity both in North Nashville and throughout the region. He and Forbus are discussing launching a similar event in Murfreesboro, as well as developing a partnership with other groups like Nashville Jazz Workshop, which is working toward opening its new headquarters on Buchanan Street, not far from The Local Distro’s location on Garfield Street.

“We see jazz as an inclusive, diverse and broad music, and that’s what Monday Night Jazz has shown,” Weathersby says. “We’re getting a great response and are thrilled at what’s happening here at the Distro.”