Shortly after John “Lil John” Roberts moved to Atlanta from Philadelphia in 1994, he became friends with Jamal Ahmad and the late Ken Batie — radio hosts for famed jazz station WCLK-FM. The esteemed drummer, who has performed with artists including Janet Jackson and Prince, said the station felt like home.
“I realized that these guys were playing all of the music that I loved and some of the stuff that wasn’t even pop music,” Roberts said. “It was more underground and a lot of stuff from overseas that a lot of radio stations wouldn’t play, and I was like, ‘Man, this station is for me.’”
Now, nearly 20 years later, Roberts is directing a concert to celebrate WCLK’s 50-year legacy. The concert is billed as the kick-off to Atlanta Jazz Festival, which begins this weekend. “WCLK at 50: Featuring Lil John Roberts with an Atlanta All-Star Band” will take place on Friday, May 24, at Atlanta Symphony Hall.
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Handout
Founded in April 1974 on Clark Atlanta University’s campus, the public radio station is a pioneer in shaping Atlanta’s jazz scene. Roberts aims to uplift that history with the concert. The roughly 90-minute performance will feature more than 20 Atlanta-based and -bred musicians.
Poet and playwright Jon Goode will narrate the show with tidbits of WCLK’s history, and DJ Kermit will hype the crowd. Trumpeter Melvin Jones is the show’s big band music arranger.
“WCLK at 50″ will take listeners on a musical journey that will include jazz classics from the 1930s to today — songs from “Maiden Voyage” to “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” and more.
“[We’re] telling the story from the beginning to now,” Roberts said. “The theme for this show is basically the legacy of WCLK. All of the music that they play from jazz to soul to some R&B and fusion, all the styles of music that they used to play, and we’re trying to cover it in two hours.”
Carlos Bell
Carlos Bell
When choosing the artists for the show, Roberts started with his band, the Senators, and various musicians he’s collaborated with in the city throughout his career.
Dashill Smith, trumpeter and vocalist in the show, has known Roberts for more than 20 years. The College Park native is most excited to reunite with many of his musician friends in the city. Friday’s concert will be Smith’s first time performing at Atlanta Symphony Hall.
But he’s more thrilled about honoring the station that helped influence him as an artist. Smith has performed extensively with Roy Ayers and shared stages with Queen Latifah, Roy Hargrove, Angie Stone, Common and other stars.
“Essentially, this is the radio station that raised me in a lot of ways. I started listening to WCLK when I was in high school, and that was when the late great Ken Batie was the DJ along with a few others,” Smith said. “Ken Batie had the propensity to play a lot of the jazz, soul, funk-fusion music. At the time, a lot of my favorite hip-hop artists were sampling a lot of those pioneering [jazz] artists, so as I would listen to what they were playing on WCLK, it gave me a history lesson on the samples I really loved. It led me down a rabbit hole of all of these great artists.”
Friday’s show is being produced by Roberts, Jamal Ahmad and Ray Cornelius. Jazz vocalist Rhonda Thomas was invited to join the show via Ahmad, her longtime friend. When Thomas moved from New York City to Atlanta in 1996, the station helped her get immersed in the city’s straight-ahead jazz scene. From 1997 to 2008, she was a background singer for the late Atlantan Isaac Hayes.
It was WCLK that helped expose her to soul-jazz artists such as Incognito. She described the station as “warm, inviting, nurturing and necessary.” She recalled a time in the early 2000s when she brought host Ken Batie one of her CDs. Before she got in her car to leave the station, she heard her music on the air.
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Handout
“Here in Atlanta we have record stores where people can purchase our albums, we have access to venues to perform our music, and the trilogy is having a station like WCLK play our music on the air,” Thomas said. “Not everybody has that in their city, so we’re really blessed here in Atlanta.”
For trumpeter-vocalist Smith, Friday’s concert will celebrate that camaraderie in Atlanta’s music scene while showcasing the city’s elite talent.
“This event by all means is a must-see because there are so many people on that stage that have shaped the underground improvisational music scene in Atlanta. People have played with so many greats and so many luminaries around the world, and this show is really just a quantification of what has been going on for so many years.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled Dashill Smith’s name as Dashil Smith.
CONCERT PREVIEW
“WCLK at 50: Featuring Lil John Roberts with an Atlanta All-Star Band”
8 p.m. Friday, May 24. $12-$50. Atlanta Symphony Hall. 1280 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta. 404-733-4800. aso.org
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