The music? Bold. The crowd? Huge. This East St. Louis venue empowers Black musicians

It’s around 8 p.m. on a Thursday in a dimly lit lounge in East St. Louis.

Photos of nearly 30 musicians on the walls closest to the entrance greet you. On the left, there’s a bar. Aside from a few people smoking cigars and conversing, the place is mainly quiet and empty. After all, Game 1 of the NBA Finals just started, and St. Louis’ Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics is playing in it for the first time. So, of course, the game is playing in the background.

But farther down the left side of the small room is the stage where another display of local talent is about to perform. Tonight’s act? East St. Louis-bred saxophonist Kendrick Smith and legendary St. Louis jazz fusion band Tracer.

Smith, along with his band (the Kendrick Smith Quartet, who were away this Thursday), is the house artist on Thursday jazz nights at Local Legends, a live music venue in East St. Louis. The venue, which recently celebrated its third anniversary, has created a unique space for Black musicians in the metro-east to grow and hone their craft—a space that’s rare for artists to find in the area.

Local Legends’ mission of fostering a community of local talent is especially crucial during June for Black Music Month, an annual recognition of Black musicians and their contributions.

As a child, Smith said, he doesn’t remember there being a spot that had weekly jazz nights like Local Legends. That’s part of why this year, the saxophonist formed Build a Yes, a nonprofit music society aimed to create more opportunities for jazz musicians in the metro-east. Smith’s gig at Local Legends, which started this year, prepared him to lead the organization.

“Being a director of that has really kind of taught me to have values and what kind of values you bring to people, so playing at Local Legends, I’m really trying to think about what am I bringing to people and how is this helping the community,” said Smith, who lives in Belleville. “Local Legends has taught me in a sense that sometimes you have to come to where people are a little bit and you have to be a little unapologetic with the music that you bring and maybe explain it a little bit, especially when it’s something a little foreign.”

Smith’s performance with Tracer is like watching magicians in action. The 31-year-old saxophonist effortlessly blends with the skill and precision of the band that emerged in the late 1970s. Each musician feeds off the energy from the other. The audience doesn’t know what will happen next.

Throughout the first set, which featured songs from jazz doyens like Thelonious Monk and Oliver Nelson, the band plays as if they’re in awe of what each musician can contribute. As if they are strangers to each other’s music, though that’s not the case.

The piano, played by Ptah Williams, is in sync with the bass, played by Darrell Mixon, is in sync with drums, played by Gary Sykes, is in sync with Smith on saxophone. Still, each instrument somehow has its impressive solo moments.

The ingenuity is met with people in the audience walking to the tips jar or keenly staring at the band, as if they’re trying to make sense of what they just saw because they, too, would like to possess the same level of talent.

“When you have a bunch of people who are skilled in a field even when you put them together without a structure, it’s still organized because everyone kind of knows where to go,” Shawn Taylor, one of the two founders of Local Legends, said about performances there. “You just didn’t rehearse it. You just play it. You feel it, which is typical of what being an expressive musician is. It derives from jazz. We call out a form and you give a time, a signature and a key, and you just start jamming.”

Creating a platform

The improvisational element of Local Legends is a quality that characterizes its inception, too. Taylor (who plays the bass guitar) and the lounge’s other owner, Corey Allen (who plays the saxophone), met in 2001 while performing at Saint Paul Baptist Church in East St. Louis. Allen would often be hired for other gigs even though he didn’t have a band. Taylor remembers a time when Allen accepted a gig at a wedding, and the couple expected him to have a band.

“Then (Corey) came to church and asked if I could put a band together, and I was like, ‘How are you going to take a gig and we don’t have a band?’,” Taylor, 47, recalls. “That’s kind of how it started. We did it, and everyone was saying they loved our band, and I was like, ‘Ok I guess we have a band now.’”

They formed a band in the area shortly after, but it disbanded over the years because members were busy with other obligations.

The pair initially hoped for Local Legends to be a production company for music events, but when someone suggested they should have a local venue for live music, they knew they couldn’t pass it up. It became a great opportunity to balance their jobs with their passion for music. Taylor is the assistant director of security for Cahokia High School, and Allen has his own towing company SaxMo. Both of them live in East St. Louis.

“This was kind of our stamp out of the band,” Taylor said. “We both had 9-5’s. We weren’t really interested in being full-time musicians, so this is kind of our way of staying connected even though we don’t play all of the time. We set a platform for other people to come.”

Creating that platform for Black artists in the area is a feat that the owners don’t take lightly. Allen, an East St. Louis native, said Local Legends is the only live music venue for local artists in the city.

“Right out of high school, I started playing at local clubs in the city,” said Allen, who grew up playing in the jazz band at the now-defunct Lincoln High School. “Bumpers was the only place doing it before it closed down.

“I just wanted to do something like that here. We’re both musicians, so we were always playing at other people’s clubs, and I wanted to do something in my hometown. We just wanted a spot where mainly most of the musicians can rehearse through the week when we’re not open, and then on the weekends we have the performances Thursday through Sunday.”

Local Legends Listening Room and Cigar Bar, located at 512 Missouri Avenue, officially opened in April 2019. It’s open Thursday-Sunday from 7 p.m. to around 1 or 2 a.m., depending on who’s performing. Outside of typical COVID-19 challenges, the owners said bringing an audience and host of performers to the venue has been fairly easy since it opened. During the weekend, Local Legends is usually standing room-only due to high demand.

“Soon as we opened and started doing it, people just flocked to it,” Allen said. “It probably has a lot to do with us being musicians. Even so, most of everything here is plug (in) and play, so if musicians come, and they don’t have their gear with them, it’s already here. I think that plays a big part with it too. A lot of musicians don’t want to leave their instruments in the car, so it’s already here. It just makes it easier.”

Not having a cover also helps. Taylor and Allen are mainly interested in creating a comfortable atmosphere for guests and performers. It’s all about the music.

The venue is known for being an after-hours spot for bands of popular musicians who have concerts in St. Louis. Taylor said Keith Washington and the bands of Maxwell, Mali Music and Tank and the Bangas have performed at Local Legends after their shows.

“The musicians who are more popular bring the ones who are up and coming,” Taylor said. “I think what makes it warm is when someone you trust says, ‘Hey come with me to Local Legends and come and play and sit in,’ and they enjoy it and then they bring someone else, so it’s like coming over to Big Mama’s house and you’re a friend of the family. That’s kind of why it’s like that. It wasn’t a recipe for it. The musicians make it warm and make it receptive.”

Building a community

Jeannette McNeil-Adams is a frequent patron of Local Legends. She’s been going to the venue since July 2019 when she and her husband were looking for a spot for live music. Shortly after, she rediscovered her own passion for singing, got vocal lessons and started performing at Local Legends. She rehearses and performs there weekly.

McNeil-Adams, 37, said she feels the love and the energy every time she’s there.

“I was definitely nervous,” McNeil-Adams, of Belleville, said about her first performance at Local Legends. “Everyone, of course, was encouraging. Reaction from the crowd was great and more than what I expected, so it just gave me the push to keep doing it.”

She said the connections she’s made there and the variety of talent she’s witnessed is what makes Local Legends unique, especially considering how the musical talent in the area is overlooked.

“Corey and Shawn are bringing that back,” McNeil-Adams said. “They’re opening that back in East St. Louis. So many people come through there, and a lot of people know about Local Legends now.”

Bringing more attention to the talent that comes from and through East St. Louis is why Taylor and Allen feel obligated to continue their work with Local Legends. Though they have plans for expansion, they’re mainly concerned with building the musical landscape in East St. Louis.

“I was always fascinated to hear how many musicians are national artists who either came from here or came through here, so one of the things for me coming in, I want to be able to preserve the history,’ Taylor said. “There’s a lot of commerce, period, that came out of this city that has been forgotten—from industry, railroads, business, the red light district entertainment, music—so we want to kind of encourage the younger musicians who don’t know that to kind of take pride in where they’re from and work at it to keep that heritage.”

DeAsia Paige

Belleville News-Democrat

DeAsia Paige joined the Belleville News-Democrat as a Report for America corps member in 2020. She’s a community reporter covering East St. Louis and surrounding areas. DeAsia previously interned with VICE and The Detroit Free Press. She graduated from The University of Kansas in 2020.