AXC Jazz Café

ArtsXchange Jazz Café: A40th Anniversary Tribute to Joseph Jennings | Featuring The Joe Jennings Quintet with Surprise Guest Artist! | 4 p.m. Oct. 13

Tickets: $40 in advance or at the door (includes a 1-year ArtsXchange membership); $20 for Current Members & students with ID

Doors open at 3pm | Concert will be followed by talk back and panel discussion | Closng Reception 6:30 p.m.

Relax and chill in an atmosphere reminiscent of the jazz clubs of old at the AXC Jazz Café featuring the legendary Joseph “Joe” Jennings! 

The concert will feature the Joe Jennings Heritage Music Ensemble and a surprise sepcial guest. The performance will explore original compositions by Joe Jennings as well as some compositions selected from the standard Jazz repertoire of the masters. Jennings will also explore different approaches to improvisation that he has been experimenting with over the past few years. Thus, influencing Joe and his musicians to express their ideas, concepts and emotions in different and personal ways.

After the concert, we invite the audience to a question-and-answer session concerning Joe’s involvement in the music and education community of Atlanta for the past 54 years. Panelists include moderator, Alphonso Sanders,Phd., founder of The BB King Museum, musician and educator; William H. L. Dorsey, an author and professor emertius at Atlanta Metropolitan State College; James Johnson, Phd, founder and director of the African American Music Institute, Pittsburg, Penn.; Lovell Hooks, jazz DJ on WRFG 89.3 FM radio; and Lamar Renford, musician and one of the founders and producers of the Atlanta Free Jazz Festival. 

As we enter the final quarter of our 40th year, we look back over the long list of esteemed and celebrated artists who are a part of the ArtsXchange journey.  One such artist is Jennings, who was among the original artists in residence at the Neighborhood Arts Center and after it closed, moved with Ebon Dooley and Alice Lovelace to the newly formed Arts Exchange in Grant Park.  There he set up a recording studio.