Mike Shaw & Matt Miller | 14 OCT 2025
For people who love jazz, jazz jam sessions, especially in Atlanta, are one of the most convenient ways to hear the music. Players include many of the area’s most admired musicians who come because it’s a great setting for trying out new ideas as well as to play with people you might not otherwise “jam” with. Which makes for another reason audiences pack jam sessions: Improvisation is what jazz is all about and jam sessions are the epitome of improvisation.
For musicians, jam sessions can be intimidating. Some are notoriously competitive. But they are also educational, testing the mettle of the established player as well as the aspiring student to see how they can blend in as well as lead, respond to something unplanned and unexpected, even overcome stage fright, for what you’re sure to find no matter the jam session is that there will be a sizeable audience eager to hear what you can do.
“The value of a jam session to a musician is the type of practice it offers,” offered pianist Kevin Bales, who occupies the keyboard seat at a jam session somewhere in Atlanta almost weekly. Bales is a jam enthusiast, not only for himself but for his students, for whom he believes the sessions offer incomparable opportunities to grow and learn. “Not that you go up to practice on people, but you can get up and try anything. You don’t need to be hired, you just show up and you get to play. You get to practice working with different people and adapting your playing to fit cooperatively with everyone, the true democracy of this music.”
A host of venues and styles
Two of Atlanta’s longest running jazz jams happen Wednesdays at the Red Light Café at 553 Amsterdam Ave NE near Piedmont Park under the direction of trumpeter Gordon Vernick, and Mondays at Napoleon’s Grill at 2836 Lavista Rd. in Decatur under the leadership of trumpeter Joe Gransden.
“It’s a listening venue,” Vernick spoke endearingly of the Red Light’s weekly Wednesday night jam session, which starts at 9:00 p.m. “When you go there, you sit and listen to the music, so much better than a lot of places where the music is an after-thought or backdrop.”
Vernick also uses the Red Light nights to advance his initiative as a professor of music and “coordinator of jazz” at Georgia State University, fostering young players through the Rialto Youth Jazz Orchestra, a program he created in 2011 to expose students to the full spectrum of jazz music and education.
“The only way to find out if you know a song is to get up in front of people and play it,” he said. “I absolutely do these jam sessions for the educational purposes.”
Goirdon Vernick Quartet at the Red Light Café. (courtesy of Georgia State University)
Gransden fueled his love for jam sessions growing up in the music business in New York, if not for the New York style of the jam sessions he often attended. “Some of them were cutthroat; the ones I attended were a battle. I promised myself that if I ever headed up a jam session, it would be welcoming to everybody. And the last thing it would be would be cutthroat.”
And so it is Monday nights at Napoleon’s, from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m., where Gransden directs the sessions and does his best to give everyone who wants to play the chance. There’s no cover charge, lots of free parking, and the food and drinks get high marks.
“We try to host the session in such a way that allows everyone to enjoy a relaxed, no-pressure vibe,” Gransden said. “We have musicians from 10 years old all the way up to folks in their 90s. All levels of players are welcome and our goal is to have musicians meet, network, and learn from each other. Lots of new friendships, bands, and collaborations have come out of our sessions at Napoleon’s.”
Another regular Monday night session starts at 10:00 p.m. at TEN ATL at 495 Flat Shoals Ave. SE. The program was curated by Sam Yi, who promoted jazz in Atlanta for more than 30 years as owner and operator of Churchill Grounds. Yi passed away in February 2025 and the Churchill Grounds Trio—Kenny Banks Jr. at the helm, drummer Larry Willson hosting the sessions, and bassist Joel Powell—is tending to the project mission of “keeping the Churchill Grounds vibe alive.”
Got an itch for jazz on a Tuesday? Try The Waiting Room, upstairs from Bon Ton, a Vietnamese/Cajun fusion restaurant and cocktail lounge at 674 Myrtle Street NE in Midtown. The Waiting Room hosts a jazz jam Tuesday evenings from 8:30 p.m. to “‘round about midnight.” Walking up the shag-carpeted stairs, visitors are transported into a space reminiscent of the Korova Milk Bar from the film A Clockwork Orange: orange shag, mirrors, and a glittering disco ball. The house band features bassist Evan Sarver and drummer Dallas Dawson with guitarist Patrick Arthur working as host and MC.
If Sunday is your favorite day to attend or join a jam session, try ASW Jazz Jam in the spacious American Spirit Whiskey distillery at 1000 White Street in the Lee & White mixed-use development in Atlanta’s West End neighborhood. Trumpeter Trent Patton hosts every Sunday afternoon from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m., leading a revolving house band of both up-and-coming jazz players and seasoned veterans. The music and sips are top notch.
Also on Sunday evenings, the Chairs Jazz Jam, which starts at 8:00 p.m., is the most musically eclectic entry on the list of Atlanta jams. Steps from the MARTA station at 2783 Main Street in East Point and up a flight of wooden stairs, Chairs is equal parts dive bar, pool hall, and throwback arcade complete with an old-fashioned photo booth. On a recent Sunday, the music consisted of R&B hits from the 1970s and ‘80s, including Michael Jackson’s “I Can’t Help It” and Bobby Caldwell’s “What You Won’t Do For Love” before venturing into covers as varied as Bobby Hebb’s 1966 hit “Sunny,” Erykah Badu’s “On and On,” and Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning.” Soloists made their way from the audience to the stage to join the house band anchored by drummer Daniel Harper and singer and MC Dre Antoine.
“People love coming to these jazz jams,” Bales said. “What seems like an internalized thing for the musicians, working with each other and trying to do something different, testing themselves on this and that, the audience finds that very entertaining. I think they also like it because there’s such diversity. You never know what’s going to happen. And usually most nights, they’ll be a moment or two of magic, the kind of magic that is only possible when you’re not controlling all the details.” ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Red Light Café: redlightcafe.com
- Napoleon’s Grill: napoleonsgrill.com
- TEN ATL: tenatl.com
- The Waiting Room: justkeepwaitingroom.com
- Gordon Vernick: thearts.gsu.edu/profile/gordon-j-vernick
- Joe Gransden: joegransden.com
- Trent Patten: trentpatten.com
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