First Congregational Church, UCC
Atlanta, GA – USA
September 5, 2025
Kevin Bales, piano; Mace Hibbard, alto sax; Justin Powell, trumpet; Paul Creel, bass; Terreon Gully, drums; Devon Gates, guest vocalist.
Mike Shaw | 11 SEP 2025
Given the origin of the word “jazz,” it’s at least mildly ironic that some of the best jazz venues in Atlanta are churches. On that leading edge has been First Congregational Church, UCC. And the Friday night, September 5, performance of the 2025 edition of the series known as First Friday at First “Live Jazz” served only to enhance the venue’s reputation: five brilliant musicians led by pianist Kevin Bales, masters of their instruments and the genre, each improvising through torrid lines and rhythms to unite in producing one beautiful and appropriately inspirational sound.
The Reverend Dwight Douglas Andrews, a musical theorist, composer, and pastor of First Congregational, who founded and administers the church’s jazz program, introduced the performers as a gathering of “virtuosos.” And the audience agreed: heads nodding in approval throughout each song, throughout each solo, focused and spellbound, recognizing the brilliance, appreciating the sound as well as the knowledge and skill it takes to produce such sounds.
Bales, an internationally acclaimed pianist with an extensive discography and list of awards, was joined by Mace Hibbard on alto sax, Justin Powell on trumpet, Paul Creel on Bass, and Terreon Gully on drums.
“They are all world-class musicians, masters of their instruments, tenacious players,” Bales said of the players he gathered for the evening’s concert. “Moreover, each has a unique voice that transcends even mastering an instrument. It is the most important thing, being fearless and comfortable with risk-taking on stage. And it works because they all listen to each other as they’re improvising, like a conversation at a dinner party. And the audiences love it, seeing us having fun and airing our souls, being real on stage.”
True to their art, the group did not rehearse before the concert. In fact, several of the players drove in from outside Atlanta the day of the performance. Their preparation was limited to a list of songs and recordings Bales had sent them as “reference points,” he said. “We just want to play and see what happens. I picked songs I wanted to hear them play.
“We did have some what-I-call ‘rigs’; they’re not charts but an outline of what a song is going to be about. If I write a bass line or a horn line, it’s just a suggestion; they can change any part of it to make it their own. The last thing I want is for them to defer to me.”
The resulting program was eclectic, to say the least, opening with “YoYo” a Haitian folk song Kevin played with salsa bands as a youngster.
They followed with “When Will the Blues Leave,” an Ornette Coleman composition, not bluesy in terms of sorrow or heartache, Bales explained, “just in its 12-bar blues form. There’s no instrument on the Coleman recording playing chords, so there’s a lot of freedom in it, a lot of things Mace and Justin could play with.” The song provided one of the highlights of the evening as every time the audience thought it had come to its thundering conclusion, and began their own thunderous applause, drummer Gully would re-enter with a phrase to set the group to playing out the ending again—and again, and again, each time with enough of a conclusion to have the crowd thinking it was time to applaud, through 6, 7, 8, maybe more endings.
The set continued with “Roy Allan,” a ballad Roy Hargove wrote for a family member, father or grandfather, that swings but with a haunting subtlety, and concluded with “Delfeayo’s Dilemma,” a composition Wynton Marsalis wrote for his brother trombonist Delfeayo. “It is the most challenging song we did,” Bales said. “The drums, bass, and I knew it well, and the horn players were ready for it.”
A second set opened with the jazz standard, “Caravan.” The song typically rides a single chord through a long introduction, but “I have a way I like to do it in terms of changing chords, so I wrote out chords for us to play over.”
As unscripted as the performance was, the biggest surprise of the evening was an invitation by Bales to a member of the audience to take the stage. Devon Gates, the young jazz singer Kevin met as a 13-year-old and who at 21 is a recent Harvard graduate, stunned the audience with mastery and expression. Ella Fitzgerald would have applauded her scat and Minnie Riperton her range.
“Devon is one of the best young musicians I’ve ever met—and she plays bass as well as she sings,” Bales said.
Gates chose that evening to sing “I Like to Take My Time” from Bales’ 2019 album Beyond the Neighborhood[1], featuring jazz arrangements of the songs of Fred Rogers—yes, Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, for which he composed all the music.
“Anytime she wants to sing, I’m on board,” Bales said of Gates. “She’s brilliant, and all about the band and the music, not about being a star.”
Fittingly, the evening in the Church’s Commons concluded with Bucky Green’s song and prayer, “Goodbye, be good to each other.”
A note about jazz at First Congregational Church
Rev. Dwight Andrews (courtesy of Emory University)
Since 1994, he has served as an associate professor of music theory at Atlanta’s Emory University, where he teaches “The History of Jazz” and “Sacred Music in the United States.” He was the first Quincy Jones Visiting Professor of African American Music at Harvard University in 1997, and has received the Pew Trust/TCG Artist Residency Fellowship, a Mellon Fellowship, and Emory University’s Distinguished Teacher Award.
First Friday at First is a part of Andrews’ “Jazz Ministry” at First Congregational. COVID-19 caused a cancellation of most of the 2020 program, but it resurfaced in 2021 with a Return to First Friday -Video Jazz Series, then the Return to First Friday at First – LIVE” for a limited 2022 Jazz Series, and an expanded series in 2023. The current 2025 Jazz Series consists of a full season of 11 jazz concerts. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- [1]Beyond the Neighborhood: beyondtheneighborhood.com/music
- Kevin Bales: kevinbales.com
- First Congregational Church, UCC: firstchurchatl.org
Read more by Mike Shaw.
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