Tucked away on a narrow street in Providence, Rhode Island, is a quaint and unassuming building wedged between two classic multi-family homes.
From a distance, it could be mistaken as someone’s house, with a big closed-in patio. But as you get closer, you can hear music pulsating inside: melodic saxophones, the heartbeat of a bass and the soul and energy of drums, piano, flute and guitar.
Welcome to the Courtland Club.
It’s a performance venue, social club, restaurant and bar. Inside, you’ll find a full house filled with a loyal community of musicians and jazz lovers. They pack the venue on Courtland Street each week to take in an energetic performance session called “Sunday Jazz.”’
For music lovers in Providence, the club is a spot for musicians to come together in music and community. It’s also a showcase for some of the area’s top jazz talent.
This year, several musicians from the Courtland Club were invited to perform at the internationally-acclaimed Newport Jazz Festival, one of the largest jazz festivals in the country.
Celebrating its 70th year, the prestigious festival is the premier event for jazz musicians and jazz lovers. Famous musicians have performed through the decades — people like Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone.
In early August, Courtland Club musicians joined star-studded headliners like André 3000 and Carlos Niño, Brittany Howard, Nile Rodgers and Chic, Laufey, Noname and more. The Courtland Club musicians wanted to bring the essence of their Sunday Jazz jam sessions to the festival’s stage.
The group put together for the festival was fashioned in the tradition of an old school “all-star” band, said Jason Shechtman, owner, founder and director of the Courtland Club.
“We want to put together something dynamic that feels like a big sound,” he said. “Drums, bass, guitar, keys, two saxophones, flute, and vocals. And that's the band we came up with.”
The all-star Sunday Jazz team included Leland Baker, Dan Liparini, Noah Campbell, Marcus Grant, Kweku Aggrey, Alexandria DeWalt and Michael Carabello. They all have a history of playing at the Courtland Club, as well as playing as standalone artists across New England.
Individually, the musicians have been preparing for Newport for over a year.
But they only had a few sessions together this summer to get ready.
Getting to the stage meant a lot for the musicians: not only to represent jazz, but also New England, the jazz culture within the region and the community they’ve brought to life throughout Providence.
“Jazz means community,” DeWalt said. “Jazz means empathy. Jazz means ‘I dare you.’ Like, for me, it challenges me to think beyond what I believe to be true.”
'My Rhode Island family’
The Sunday Jazz musicians’ first rehearsal for the Newport festival was, naturally, on a Sunday morning at Courtland Club. They started playing promptly at 11 a.m.
They were just two weeks away from their big performance.
As they rehearsed, Courtland Club workers were prepping the restaurant quietly for the day.
The musicians formed a circle, immersed with one another, trying to figure out the different notes and placements of a tune.
With the way the group was seamlessly riffing, collaborating and improvising solos, you would have never guessed that this was their first festival practice.
“It’s like a family reunion,” Grant said.
“Yeah, it’s like family,” DeWalt said. “You feel seen, you feel heard, everyone’s listening intensely. You get to know each other by playing, like I’m getting to know Michael more by just hearing him play.”
Carabello added: “I feel like I become better friends every time we play together. It’s like playing in the park or playing on the playscape. Like we get to play and share smiles and food.”
Grant chimed in: “And we get a little deeper every time.”
“Yeah and I always look forward to that,” Carabello continued. “Like this is my Rhode Island family.”
There’s a lot of pressure as they prepare for Newport. This is everyone’s first time playing on a main stage.
“It’s kind of so overwhelming that I haven’t even really thought about it,” Aggrey said. “There’s just so much history in the festival and I think that so much of the music that we play is about kind of celebrating history and thinking about it really carefully.”
DeWalt admitted she was nervous.
“My parents are coming!” she said. “They’re flying from Houston to come to the festival and be a part of it.”
A final sendoff
The night before the start of the jazz festival, the Courtland Club hosted a special last-minute Thursday Jazz Jam as a way to celebrate — and as sort of a send-off for the musicians. It featured live music from the Sunday Jazz group, along with a DJ set.
The venue was filled. Tables were filled with longtime fans and new ones, too, as well as the musicians’ family members.
The Courtland Club is a reflection of the past, present and future of jazz. And it fills the gap left from the Acacia Club, a popular jazz social club that burned down in 2020.
After the fire, and as people emerged from COVID-19 lockdowns, the Courtland Club worked with saxophonist Leland Baker to launch regular weekly jazz sessions.
“It feels like Black church, not exclusive just to Black people, but Black meaning like a way of expressing something,” said DeMarcus Pruitt, a regular attendee and former DJ set performer.
Courtland Club has been able to attract prominent hip-hop and rhythm-and-blues musicians like Large Professor and Ishmael Butler.
The band and audience feed off each other, creating a lot of energy in the venue, said Kayla Campbell, manager, server and bartender at the Courtland Club.
“There have been some really wonderful nights here where people will get up and start dancing, and I think it really spurs the band on,” she said. “People will look around and see one person kind of getting up and moving, and then more people will do it, and it gets more and more people out of their seats. And I think that's really cool.”
At the send-off event, members of the Sunday Jazz group performed songs they were going to play at the festival.
The audience included musicians’ family members — like DeWalt’s mom, father, aunt and uncle.
Dan Liparini said he’s been attending the Newport Jazz Festival since he was a teenager.
“It’s been something that has always been a huge, huge goal of mine and dream of mine to play,” he said.
And it’s especially meaningful because he's going to Newport with this group of musicians, including Baker, who he’s known since he was 13.
“Just honored to be a part of the history of the festival and honored to do it with this fine group of people,” Liparini said.
Time to perform: ‘Ready to preach’
On a Sunday morning in early August, the Sunday Jazz musicians gathered on the festival grounds in Newport. They held a final rehearsal and fine-tuned their instruments.
Golf carts escorted the musicians to a trailer. Inside, they were giddy. Michael Carabello said he was excited to be in sync with the other musicians.
“We should name our band NSYNC,” he said. “That’s a great band name!”
Baker said he was feeling inspired.
“Ready to fellowship as we always say,” he said. “Ready to preach. It’s what we do. We bring another thing into existence that’s not normally felt on a daily basis as humans. Music is a gift.”
It wasn’t until moments before the show that the mood started to change. The musicians got quiet. Campbell practiced his soprano saxophone outside the trailer, alone.
Then it was time to head to the stage.
Attendees began to pour in, snapping pictures. Family members approached a barricade to talk and send well-wishes.
With family in the front rows, and concertgoers wearing “Sunday Jazz” shirts scattered in an overflowing crowd, Sunday Jazz performed.
For 50 minutes, the musicians performed — all original music, filling the stage with passionate tunes. So much was said with each note, with each face scrunch, with each passing glance — moments for only the musicians to know.
Offstage, Shechtman, the owner of the Courtland club, was recording as if he were a proud father. In the crowd, various members of the Sunday Jazz family were doing the same
At the end of their performance, the crowd offered up a roar of applause and a standing ovation.
After the show, several of the musicians seemed to be in disbelief — a look of "what just happened?" seemed to flash across their faces.
Still on stage as he packed up his equipment, Grant let out a high-pitched “AHHHH!” when asked about how he felt playing the festival.
“I just blacked out for 50 minutes!” he said.
Aggrey said: “I’m still buffering.”
Musicians greeted loved ones and friends with hugs, taking in the moment.
“I am so proud!” Noah Campbell’s mother, Araina, told him.
Campbell said it felt surreal to be part of the festival.
"Not only just the rich musical space, but the history, the dynamics that shape the music for as long as the festival has been running,” he said. “It does feel really powerful that we’re all able to represent not only just New England talent, but what the sound is of this community and the sound that we’ve all produced coming out of our various backgrounds.”
Meet the musicians
Here's a look at some of the Sunday Jazz members:
