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Turn your home into a concert venue

Musicians enliven even low-key parties

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Art Bowman clears away the tables and chairs in the den, drags out the folding chairs and transforms his Lawrenceville home into a concert hall. A musician walks in with a guitar. About 40 people show up, lay down $20 a head and share the covered dish they’ve brought.

Together they all partake in a cozy evening of intimate, high-quality music.

Known as “house concerts,” these evenings are a growing phenomenon around the country —- and here in metro Atlanta.

Just a few weeks ago, Bowman, by day a self-employed writer on accounting trends, hosted the Wrights. They’re a couple —- Adam from Newnan and Shannon from LaGrange —- who have appeared at the Grand Ole Opry about 20 times.

Bowman let it be known that the couple likes vegetarian food, and that made them feel welcome as they mingled and ate before the show. The Wrights’ dressing room was the upstairs guest bedroom. They offered their sweet harmonies, bittersweet ballads and fun rockers beside the big-screen TV and the fireplace.

“It’s really a house party that features musicians,” Bowman said.

For performer and audience alike, house concerts offer meaningful shows untainted by the distractions of clubs, where the music often competes with bar blenders, pool players and chatter buzz.

Bowman makes it clear: This is a listening venue. If you want to talk about the kids’ soccer game, go outside.

While house concerts have steadily grown more popular over the last decade, such shows have long been around. In the ’60s, they were called “rent parties” to help starving musicians drum up money to keep a roof over their heads, said Fran Snyder, who operates a Web site that brings together hundreds of players and house-concert hosts.

A decent payday

In a way, today’s house parties are bringing music back to its American roots, where people got together to share songs on a porch or in a living room, he said.

In metro Atlanta, house concerts take on different tones. Mary Jo Strickland hosts jazz artists in the living room of her cottage home in Decatur.

Like many of these hosts, Strickland is a social person who loves to entertain. She hosted her first house party a decade ago when she asked a Florida musician friend to “christen” her new piano.

People like being near the music, she said, even if they have to sit near the fridge.

“You can reach right out and touch the artist,” said Cam Graham, an east Cobb County resident who enjoyed seeing and speaking to a favorite artist of his, singer-songwriter Susan Gibson, at a local house concert.

That show was on an outside deck, and when some neighborhood kids climbed atop the fence and called out to the gathering, Gibson made up an impromptu tune about climbing fences and playing basketball.

For performers, these shows have grown from being fill-in spots between club dates to their big-money show in the town.

“I just got back from three house concerts in Utah where I made $4,000,” said New York singer-songwriter Amy Speace, who has played house shows in Atlanta. “They are like the underground railroad for a performer.”

On a good night, a performer can earn $1,000 playing a house party, including the sale of 20 or more CDs. Many earn only a few hundred dollars at a club.

The artists, Speace said, are incredibly grateful to the concert hosts, who are often enthusiastic music fans who don’t pocket a dime. (That’s also how hosts say they avoid breaking zoning codes in residential areas.)

Andy Ditzler, a 42-year-old library employee who plays in his own band and loves to bring friends together over music, built an extra room onto his Grant Park home for house concerts.

At his shows, the house lights really are the house lights, and the best seat in the house might be a cushion tossed on the floor.

As for Bowman, he’s always wanted to dip a toe into the music business. He likes to tell how in college he “almost managed a band.” Later he wrote music reviews for local publications.

Now he gets to run his own show with professional touring musicians. After the concert by the Wrights, the young couple, like many of the performers booked by Bowman, slept over.

And in the morning they all talked over bagels and coffee.

STRIKE UP THE BAND

For more information on the Bowman house concerts: www.myspace.com/bowmanhouseconcerts

Mary Jo Strickland has formed a nonprofit that helps people host jazz house concerts: www.soja-events.org

 
 
GOOD WORKS

Jazz students will improvise with donated instruments

By SANDRA ECKSTEIN
seckstein@ajc.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/05/07

Most people, when their kids go off to college, tuck away no-longer-needed musical instruments along with other high school memorabilia.

Now a local jazz organization is hoping parents will drag those trumpets, flutes and other items out and donate them to a summer camp for young jazz musicians.

(pictured at summer camp last year)
The Georgia Youth Jazz Orchestra is seeking instruments for this year's
sessions in June.

"We decided, as a jazz group, that we need to support people like professor James Patterson at Clark Atlanta University," said Phil Clore, co-founder of the Southeastern Organization for Jazz Arts.

In February, the group launched an instrument drive that runs through April 29.
"We'll take pretty much any instrument, from brass and woodwinds to a guitar or triangle," Clore said. "We'll take a piano if it's in good enough shape."

The instruments will go to Patterson's Duke Pearson Summer Camp and the Georgia Youth Jazz Orchestra, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this summer."We teach them jazz history and theory as well as play," said Patterson, who has taught music at the college for 45 years. "We try to saturate them in as much music as we can."

This year's camp for elementary to high school students runs June 11-15, culminating in a jazz concert.
 
(*added by SOJA:This year's camp is June 11-15, 2007 in the Park Street Music and Arts Complex. The camp ends with a 90-minute Jazz Concert for parents and other guests.)

 Patterson said some students learn on school instruments, so they don't have an instrument to bring to camp.

In addition to the instrument drive, Clore said they've also planned several jazz concerts to raise money for sheet music, instrument repair and scholarships to the camp. Concerts are scheduled for April 15 at Paris on Ponce, April 22 at Studio 281 and April 29 at Clark Atlanta. The concerts are free, but donations for the summer camp are requested.

Donated instruments can be dropped off at Paris on Ponce at 716 Ponce de Leon Place in Midtown (404-249-9965) Wednesdays through Sundays, noon-6 p.m. Information: www.soja-events.org.

*This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser.
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/living/stories/2007/04/04/0405lvgoodworks.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
 
 
Contact: Phil Clore
SOJA, Southeastern Organization for Jazz Arts, Inc.
678-576-9922
THE SOUTHEASTERN ORGANIZATION FOR JAZZ ARTS, 
ANNOUNCE THE "DONNEZ VOS INSTRUMENTS" CAMPAIGN
 
Atlanta, Georgia -February 5, 2007


George and Judi Lee, owners of Paris on Ponce and Phil Clore, Board President of SOJA, the Southeastern Organization for Jazz Arts, are announcing a musical instrument collection campaign called "Donnez Vos Instruments" (translated "donate your instruments"), in support of the Duke Pearson Summer Camp and the Georgia Youth Jazz Orchestra, directed by Clark Atlanta University Music Professor, James Patterson.

"As the owners of Paris on Ponce and Le Moulin Rouge, Judi and I have always personally sponsored the Arts and we especially know how important it is to encourage young people to stay in the momentum of musical education. This is our way of supporting Professor Patterson and the Duke Pearson Summer Camp."

"This campaign, "Donnez Vos Instruments", will provide an opportunity to encourage families who struggle financially to purchase a musical instrument for their budding musician. We are asking the community to donate anything from a tuba to a piccolo or a harp to a triangle", states SOJA Co-Founder, Phil Clore

All donations of musical instruments, large or small, can be dropped off at Paris on Ponce 716 Ponce De Leon Place (the big orange building near City Hall East) beginning February 14th from Wednesday to Sunday from 12 noon to 6 PM.

The campaign will end Sunday, April 29th. A receipt of donation is available upon request.
For more information:

Paris on Ponce
716 Ponce De Leon Place
Atlanta, Georgia 30306
404 249 9965
info@parisonponce.com
http://www.parisonponce.com