JAZZ
URBANE CAFE

The Jazz Urbane Cafe is a record label, performing collective and an urban arts venue that spotlights the local and national artists who define and celebrate the diverse cultural traditions that make Boston a unique and global city. In this interview, Ujima sat down with Jazz Urbane’s team, Bill Banfield, Nia Grace, and TuRahn “Rahn” Dorsey, to learn more about their origins, jazz music, and their membership in the Ujima Good Business Alliance.

On Jazz Urbane Cafe’s Origins
Nia Grace: I am currently the co-owner of Darryl's Cafe and Kitchen and the Underground Cafe and Lounge. I got my start in hospitality. My first job was that of a cashier as well as a waitress. Since then, I spent about 10 to 12 years here in the City of Boston doing development work, organizing, fundraising, volunteer management, and marketing for community organizations. About five years ago, or maybe six years ago, I came to Darryl's and moved into ownership. During that time, I met Bill Banfield, who was doing a residency there called Jazz Urbane. And so that, to me, was my introduction to the collective. 

I had a chance to also meet his partner, Rahn Dorsey. And in the last few years, right before the pandemic, I remember sitting down with Bill, maybe before hearing about Jazz Urbane Cafe. And it was just a matter of conversations. He's a friend, so there was no consulting here. I love the project and I've always wanted to see it succeed. However, I can be most helpful. Maybe those words rang true. During the pandemic, he had reached out. I felt really comfortable lending my services and my support as an operations manager. So that's how I came to the team. 

Bill: It happened very organically. That’s why I think there’s a beautiful team here. Because I actually wanted to envision bringing a newer generation, beats, and perspective.

I had to get with the program. I'm a little older than Rahn. So I said, “Rahn, we need to create a synergy between a generational voice of my group of musicians and what's going on.” I knew Rahn was doing more contemporary things because he's a musician as well. And of course, he's also from Detroit. So when I got here, I said, “Could you help me merge these ideas together, in a musical kind of format, that will be palatable for the contemporary marketplace?” And I wanted Jazz Urbane to be a modern Harlem Renaissance idea. That brought in poetry and dance, cool and hip, but at the same time, had the sophistication of jazz music. In that definition, also, we would work in restaurants and merge the music with the food services.

And so the short end of this is, we created the record first, which was called the Jazz Urbane. And then we needed a place to actually play the record. I don't mean digitally, I mean, actually, the musicians play. So we approached Darryl’s, at the time, with a wonderful young lady, very well known now, Esperanza Spalding. And we went in there and started doing a series of concerts every Monday night. It turned out to be so successful because there's a blend of older musicians, younger musicians in Darryl’s, and that was named by the New York Times as one of the best Monday night jam spots in the country.

But, we had this wonderful partnership. Nia would also help us to groom some of our acts. So Rahn and I produced the record. We had created the idea. We created the model. Then Rahn and I asked Nia and Darryl, at the time, if we could place that model in Darryl’s. And that's where it all started to come together. We’re talking about a 16-year partnership, actually.

On the Jazz Urbane Cafe
Nia: For me, Jazz Urbane is a creative center. I'm a creative. I like to do my thing in the kitchen. I like to do the same thing behind the bar. And I like to put groups together on stage, to see and share that. [The Jazz Urbane Cafe is] a creative center that focuses on food and beverage and hospitality as well as musical entertainment and education. I think that if I had to say it in one sentence, that's what I would say every single time.

It's our third space. It's something that has been needed. It's something that is, you know, welcomed by many. You know, we don't have a sit-down restaurant, really, in this neighborhood of Roxbury. We do not have a lounge, really, in the neighborhood of Roxbury. And it's the geographic center of the city of Boston, yet it does not get all of the same heraldings as it should. And so, to me, I think that the Jazz Urbane is also really critical to the revival of Nubian square.

Rahn: So, that's incredible. That's hard to follow. You know, maybe what I will add to it is that this should be a portal to instant rootedness in Roxbury.

When you walk through that door, there should be no question about this being the place where you belong. When you walk through the door there should be no question about you being reflected in the space. You being able to have the kind of agency, as an artist, as a patron, as a worker that helps to define what that space is. And to give it a flavor that is uniquely Nubian Square, Roxbury, and Boston.

I think we've long lamented in communities of color and Boston that we do not have our own spaces. So I think this is both about revival but there is an afrofuturist kind of bent to it as well. That is still imagining what communities of color and Nubian square, in particular, can be.

On Ujima’s Community Standards
Rahn: When we were ready to get this project off the ground, we knew that we needed partners and co-owners.

Shout out to our friend, Greg Shell, who is helping us as a business advisor and helping to support the fundraising on this. Greg and I said the first organization we need to go to is the Boston Ujima Project. And the reason we landed there was because this team was of the conviction that we needed to start from a place of community ownership.

First and foremost, in that, we wanted to make a pledge that this would be a venture that to the best of our ability is majority people of color owned.

But we also needed to figure out a way to change some dynamics about the way that investment happens in Boston. We wanted to figure out, “How can we open this up in a way that would allow for other investors to be a part of this?” Investors who might want to operate at smaller thresholds or who may have a variety of interests but may not be able to play at the scale of some of the larger investors. We wanted to make this an opportunity that was open to the neighborhood, open to a network like Ujima.

I will also say that where the community standards are concerned, Ujima pushed us in a very positive way to think about what our standard business practices would be.

For anybody who has seen the community standards, they are unabashedly about creating economic justice. They are unabashedly about making sure that we honor people's time and labor and their worth in the world. And so it did a lot of thinking for us immediately that we did not have to do for ourselves, honestly. It was just about co-signing, something that is undeniably right.

But I think Ujima has recognized, by even asserting the standards, [this] is oftentimes difficult to do in a challenging and complex economy. In an economy that does not tend to favor or privilege people in communities of color. So you know, we wanted to sign up to be a part of the solution.

I think we've long lamented in communities of color and Boston that we do not have our own spaces. So I think this is both about revival but there is an afrofuturist kind of bent to it as well. That is still imagining what communities of color and Nubian square, in particular, can be.

On Jazz Urbane’s Community Benefits
Nia: Well, I think that when I think about being in business, being an entrepreneur, making sure that I'm based here in Boston, there’s just a greater responsibility that we're taking on here. We, in fact, probably could have pitched this business and concept model in many other neighborhoods, and possibly not even in the city of Boston, and might have gotten some of the same kind of support.

We need to start at home by creating jobs. But jobs that are also meaningful. The restaurant industry is one that has allowed more African Americans the opportunity to actually build wealth and has seen the most minority managers in terms of the industry nationwide. So for us, that's very critical.

You know what I mean? We are an industry that is CORI friendly, as well. So whether you are on the musician side, or on the service side of it, we're not going to let your background kind of deter you from earning and from being a contributing member of society, because that’s what you desire to be.

And so I think it's really important that people who look like us are the ones operating these businesses. Because I think that we are going to do what's best for our neighborhoods.

We have a lot of talent that funnels through our different higher education institutions here, and some are locally grown. But what happens so often is they come through here and then they're out. They haven't figured out a way to make a living. Therefore, they may aspire to be artists, but then maybe take up a second career only because they didn't really have that opportunity to do an externship.

And so to me, a Darryl’s, a Wally's, a Beehive, and now a Jazz Urbane Cafe, is going to serve as an opportunity to really nurture the technical education that a lot of our town is getting. So that maybe they'll want to stay here in Boston, and continue to make it a richer and more vibrant neighborhood or city. But Bill, do you want to jump in?

Bill: Two of the tenents of our philosophy have to do with the cultivation of arts and education. [Boston] has always been the citadel of arts and education for the country. That's where everybody comes to train. And what we find out is I work in, we all work in, other cities. I'm at the Smithsonian now. I do things in cities all over the country.

Arts is transformative. So one of the things that Nia was saying is also the artists that come to train here go away. Jazz Urbane is a home for the artist. It's a home for the arts, so the artists can have a viable place. When I was here we didn't have many places. When we say jazz, we mean the larger “Jazz [concept].”

Jazz also means all the kinds of art including classical arts and poetry that come out of that gray paradigm. But guess what? There are no jazz clubs, large scale, that house national and local acts in Boston. Not one. So the Jazz Urbane becomes that kind of opportunity, too. So our young artists can train here. And artists from all over the world can come to Nubian and have this opportunity to do something in the center of Boston.

We want that to be a place where people can see and feel the arts as well. So you talked a little bit about the design capability of our spaces, we're continuing to work with our designers. It itself is a museum. It's a place where people can see art projected on the walls, on the screens, electronically, and get that feel. When you come in, you're going to be having the best food in the city. You’ll also have the best arts and community space possible in Boston. That's what we believe. So those are another part of the tenets of our kind of rollout that we want to provide. And we want to share that with Ujima. ◼︎