For Cobb, jazz is where heart is

Joyce Cobb

Everybody knows the headline on Memphis music: Home of the blues, birthplace of rock and roll. But if you read a little further, you discover that the story goes well beyond those two genres to embrace a host of others.

The city's jazz legacy, reaching all the way back to the earliest days of the form, has been particularly rich, spawning such seminal national figures as Jimmie Lunceford, Hank Crawford, George Coleman, Phineas Newborn Jr., Mulgrew Miller and Tony Reedus.

Joyce Cobb interprets lesser-known standards on her new album recorded with pianist Michael Jefry Stevens (rear) and his trio.

"Memphis has always been known to nurture jazz and to teach it," says singer Joyce Cobb. "But to make a living at it, you had to leave. They all come back eventually, but they had to go out and make a statement elsewhere first."

Not Cobb. For more than three decades, she has made herself heard right here, overseeing the local jazz scene and nurturing generations of young players. It hasn't been easy. A professional singer first and foremost, she readily admits she takes all kinds of gigs to make a living. But the singer, who celebrates the release Thursday on Archer Records of the new collection of jazz standards Joyce Cobb with the Michael Jefry Stevens Trio, says her heart belongs to jazz.

"When I first came to Memphis from Nashville, there were quite a few jazz clubs, but I could count the number of venues on one hand that are open to that kind of music now," Cobb says. "I guess we're going through a transition, but I really believe it will come back."

Originally from Oklahoma, Cobb arrived in Memphis in the mid-1970s, signed to a subsidiary of Stax Records as a country singer. Stax closed before she ever recorded for it, but Cobb stayed in Memphis, writing and recording for several years at Shoe Productions and recording R&B singles for the Cream and Waylo labels in the late '70s and early '80s.

Since then, Cobb's career has been varied as she has sought to make a living singing. She is a longtime voice instructor in the University of Memphis' Jazz Department. She ran her own club on Beale Street for a time, trying in vain to bring jazz back to the street. She hosted the syndicated radio program "Beale Street Caravan" and still has her own program on radio station WEVL FM 89.9.

And she has gigged incessantly, performing seemingly every type of music in every type of venue, from her longstanding regular Sunday afternoon jazz brunch gig at the brew pub Boscos in Overton Square to huge symphony pops concerts and touring theatrical productions like the acclaimed Center for Southern Folklore historical piece "Beale Street Saturday Night."

But her new collaboration with pianist Stevens brings Cobb back home musically.

Stevens is originally from New York, where over his 35-year career he has played with such acclaimed jazz combos as the Liquid Time Group and the Mosaic Sextet. He moved to Memphis in 2003 and has been a reinvigorating force on the scene ever since, staging concerts and curating a jazz series at the Bartlett Performing Arts and Conference Center.

Cobb doesn't recall her first meeting with Stevens.

"He just kind of appeared in my life like a Buddha or something," she says.

After playing a few gigs with Stevens' trio, which includes bassist Jonathan Wires and drummer Renardo Ward, Cobb was surprised to find the group signed to her friend Ward Archer's Archer Records label. The disc, full of lesser-known standards that have been popularized by the likes of Frank Sinatra ("If You Never Come To Me"), Carmen McRae ("It's Over Now"), and Fats Waller ("Jitterbug Waltz"), finds Cobb stretching her voice in ways she hasn't for years.

"I make most of my living singing Memphis music pretty straight ahead," says Cobb. "Michael reintroduced me to the freedom of making each song an art form in itself. He captures the concept of giving space to others to allow them to make their statements, which kind of makes the music float."

Following Thursday's CD release event at Amro Music, Cobb and the Stevens Trio will embark on a extensive tour that includes an appearance in September at the Al Sears Jazz Festival in McComb, Ill., and an October European stint with dates in Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland.

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Joyce Cobb with the Michael Jefry Stevens Trio CD release

6-9 p.m. Thursday at Amro Music, 2918 Poplar. Admission: Free.

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