He’s a familiar sight to many and a friend to more than a few. On the east side of Soulard Market, every Saturday morning since June of 2009, Raven Wolf (aka C. Felton Jennings II) has taken over a tiny portion of our city and has improved it, ever so subtly. Although he’s often seen and heard playing the tenor sax, he also brings with him a wide assortment of reeds and a djembe. In addition to the instruments, there’s a painting of himself, some posted laminated press clips, and various small totems. All of this he packs up at the end of a set, in an ingenious, collapsible, roll-away wagon.
It’s from this modest space where he performs to a wide audience, in the heat and the cold, essentially to anyone who passes outside of the Market, a polyglot group that reflect every ethnicity and age group in our region. Quite a few stop and talk, so his sets are broken up at almost any time, as someone drops a dollar bill into his tall tip bucket, or simply comes up to talk to him. While he does display the $25 annual permit required of any musical street performer in the City, he insists that what you’re hearing and seeing isn’t necessarily what you think.
“This is a magical, mystical, meditative concept,” he says, “not to be confused with busking.”
The music he plays is “spiritual jazz, in the St. Louis tradition,” and on the latter point, he feels that he’s a part of a still-evolving sound that’s endemic to this place. There’s also the spiritual context, obviously, and the CD he released just last week reflects that directly in the title: Spiritual Jazz... On South 9th Street.
The album runs 19 tracks and he feels that the work will surprise people who catch him in the Soulard context, as “they hear me play one instrument at a time. With the CD, now they’ll hear what I hear, this whole orchestra that I hear in my mind.”
On the disc, released on his own Pug Dog Records, the Rock Hill-based musician plays 11 instruments, including voice. There’s piano, chimes, and reeds, of course. At times it’s layered, at times sparse. He says that it’s a concept album, no doubt about it, with each song to be perceived as a “bread crumb that takes you on my spiritual journey.” Conversely, he also wants anyone who picks up an album to take a trip of their own, as “I want to take them to a place that they haven’t been in a while.”
This idea was sketched out to a young couple passing by on Saturday, not long after noon. The sky was overcast and the air was crisp. Though clad in his everyday wear of a dark suit and crisp hat, he also sported a long, leather coat and some ear warmers, better to fend off the pre-winter chill. As the couple stopped and spoke to him, they decided to go ahead and by a CD, which he explained, peaks in some respects on track 12, “i am You,” which, he says, sums up his feeling that all of us reflect or mirror one another and that we can take a piece of one another with us even in quick exchanges.
Maybe that conversation was a bit prophetic, because a few minutes later, a gent walked up to his de facto stage on 9th Street and dropped a $5 bill into the tip well. He asked Raven Wolf to play “Happy Birthday” for his mother, who stood just a few paces away. Deadpanning, the performer said that he couldn’t, which caused his new patron to pause, a funny expression quickly forming on his face. “I’m just kidding,” Raven Wolf reassured him. “And you didn’t have to say ‘please.’” And with that, for the next few minutes, Raven Wolf played his sax, drawing out the traditional melodies of “Happy Birthday” into something special and unique, something unrecorded and played only once, at this exact time and space.
By the end of the song, a small crowd had formed, maybe eight people, augmenting the family who’d stopped to hear a request. They applauded, and the man in the middle of it all tipped his cap, in his trademark style. What happened next, though, took the moment into an interesting new realm.
As the family walked away, Raven Wolf grabbed a CD and took a long step towards them. Handing over the CD to the surprised matriarch, he said, “This is a $20 value, so happy birthday, mom!” It was an interesting way of putting it, for sure, as he’d just suggested to the son that he buy his mom the disc. But this was a spontaneous, follow-up gesture, meant, obviously, as a gift. As mom began to dig in her pocket, Raven Wolf pushed his hands out, as if doing some tai chi, inflecting his voice with another “happy birthday.” She continued to look for a bill in her clothing, and this time, Raven Wolf exaggerated the motion again, pushing both hands outward, now open-faced, clearly indicating that the gift was on him and she should just accept, which was punctuated by his saying, with great relish, “Haaaaapy biiiiiirthday...”
The scene happened in a flash. It was so quick, yet filled with comments said and unsaid, multiple exchanges made along the way. Sometimes, you come across a moment like this and you have to chalk it up to luck. Raven Wolf, though, might suggest that something else might’ve been at play. Maybe when he blows that horn, interesting moments like this tend to happen just a bit more often.
