Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
When George Sams lived in the Bay Area, he helped found the San Francisco Jazz Society, as well as the ensembles Middle Passage and United Front. He chaired the music department at New College of California and jammed with Frank Oppenheimer, Robert’s little brother. But Sams’ roots are in St. Louis; it’s here, as a young trumpeter, that he came up with the poets and musicians of the Black Artists Group, a circle that included Hamiet Bluiettt, Shirley LaFlore, J.D. Parran, and the late Charles “Bobo” Shaw. After coming home, Sams founded the Metropolitan Gallery on Locust. There, he curated art shows and booked the Nu-Art Series, showcasing nationally known artists such as Eddie Henderson alongside locals like Erika Johnson. And though he’s traveling a lot these days—past gigs include a performance with the The Hamiet Bluiett Orchestra in New York and at the Berkeley Arts Festival with violinist India Cooke—Sams still collaborates with local musicians, including a cluster of free-jazz regulars from the late, great Tavern of Fine Arts, including drummer Henry Claude, pianist Greg Mills, clarinet player Eric Mandat, and cellist Tracy Andreotti, who describes Sams as “a big fan of the ‘in’ and ‘out’ playing.” She adds, “He creates an open space in the music for people to bring their own experiences and vernacular into a group situation, to create something new and unique.” Sams performs February 16 at the Central Library’s auditorium with Mandat, Andreotti, LeFlore, violinist Alyssa Avery—and 7-year-old pianist Sayid George Simpson, who’ll sit in for one number. And, of course, Sams is still working with BAG alumni, including Parran and Shaw.
Sams uses the term "creative music," to describe what he does, which is old and new at the same time. “If you look at it compositionally, it’s all written with the same compositional form,” he says. “If it’s rock ’n’ roll, if it’s blues, if it’s jazz, if it’s gospel, if it’s rhythm and blues, it all has the same compositional form at its basic core. Of course, researchers analyze it and say, ‘It’s this, it’s this, it’s this,’” he laughs, “but a lot of the players of the music can say, ‘Yeah, that’s the same one-four-five that I’ve been playing in this other kind of music. It’s the same kind of call-and-response.’”
FYI Sams’ YouTube channel, NuArtMetroGallery, hosts 100+ performances by artists like Willie Akins and Ptah Williams.
A look at the Don and Heide Wolff Jazz Institute & Art Gallery
Last year, Harris– Stowe State University brought Sams in to consult on the Wolff Jazz Institute & Art Gallery, a lesser-known jewel that serves students but is open to the public.
The cornerstone of the institute is a huge repository of recorded music from the institute’s namesake, the late attorney and jazz aficionado Don Wolff. And it’s not just jazz music—it’s also blues, soul, folk, and other genres. “It’s on 12-inch LPs, CDs, cassettes… There are individual booths, similar to what libraries used to have, where you can go in and put a record on the turntable and put on your headphones and listen,” Sams says. There’s also an archive of live recorded interviews, an art gallery, books and magazines, and a Jazz Hall of Fame, which just inducted Hamiet Bluiett, Freddie Washington, Oliver Lake, David Hines, Willie Akins, and Fontella Bass.
