The Lavon Stevens Band

Lavon Stevens Trio to serve up blues, jazz blend
Special to The Packet
Published Friday, November 11, 2005
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Photo: Lavon Stevens, seen here, and his band, The Lavon Stevens Trio, will perform at Monkey Business on Nov. 20. The concert is sponsored by Jazz Lovers of the Lowcountry.
Special to The Packet
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The Lavon Stevens Trio will take the stage with its unique blend of jazz and blues at Monkey Business on Nov. 20. The two-hour concert is the third performance sponsored by the new nonprofit organization, Jazz Lovers of the Lowcountry.

Lavon Stevens and blues vocalist Louise Spence, two members of the trio, have entertained local audiences with their unique blend of jazz and blues for decades. The third member of the group is Codney Ulmer of Hardeeville, a vocalist who also plays the bass.

Stevens, a vocalist who also plays the piano and keyboard, is a native of Savannah, but he's lived on Hilton Head Island since 1981. His fans say Stevens has a gift for drawing in an audience.

"I am humbled with the opportunity to make people feel something in the music that encourages them or makes them smile for just a while as their troubles and worries are temporarily gone," he said.

He got his start in music as a child in churches in Savannah.

"I grew up with soulful Gospel music," Stevens said.

But he also had classical training as a child, studying the violin and playing in a youth orchestra in Savannah starting at age 11.

He then joined his brother's band, The Spice Cabinet, a group that played many genres, including bands as diverse as the Jackson Five, the Beatles and Alice Cooper.

In high school and college, he played 1970s music with the band The Sensations, an eight-piece soul and rock group.

"Classical music and jazz are really my favorite music to listen to," Stevens said. "I enjoy performing the music I grew up with from such artists like Stevie Wonder, Ramsey Lewis, Earth Wind & Fire, and Quincy Jones," adding other influences include the Doobie Brothers, Elton John and Steely Dan.

"Music is the thread of life that sews us all together in an atmosphere of love and appreciation for the arts," he said.

For more information about the concert, call 338-3688 or e-mail the society at jazzlovers@adelphia.net.

- Special to The Packet

Hilton Head Jazz Corner releasing two albums
Published Fri, Dec 14, 2007 12:00 AM
By HEATHER HOEFER
Special to the Guide
It's Friday night at the Hilton Oceanfront Resort in Palmetto Dunes. Louise Spencer's curly black hair is tied into a neat ponytail and her pearl earrings dance about as she talks animatedly about how she went from a 5-year-old singing in the backyard in Green Bay, Wisc., to one of the Lowcountry's most popular blues singers.

"I have a very soulful voice for a white kid in Wisconsin," she says, lightly crooning afew bars about missing her dad and her dog to demonstrate.

But even with that voice, Spencer couldn't have predicted that she would one day sing for a living, and along the way perform for the likes of Chaka Khan, Maya Angelou, Dan Aykroyd, Gene Hackman and, most recently, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

"I sang 'America the Beautiful,' " Spencer said of performing at a recent Clinton campaign stop in Beaufort. "When I asked the crowd, 'Do you love America?' I got 900 people up on their feet. People thought I was hired by the Clinton campaign to get the crowd worked up."

Over the year, Spencer has been featured on a few locally produced compilation CDs by such talents as Scott Morlock and Phillip Myers. But now, she and her pianist partner, Lavon Stevens, are about to release their long-awaited debut CD, "Travelin' Music," on the Jazz Corner's Sweet Jazz Recordings label.

Stevens, who hails from Savannah, has been a pianist and local music favorite for more than 25 years. A former member of the Sensations, a 1970s soul and rock band, he now spearheads the Lavon Stevens Band, which in addition to Spencer, features Cotdney Ulmer on bass guitar and vocals, Clarence Williams on saxophone and vocals and Jimmy Charles on percussion.

Stevens and Spencer have known each other since the late '80s, but have only been working together for the past four years.

"They have become the most exciting weekday attraction at the club every Thursday night," says Bob Masteller, owner of the Jazz Corner. "Their CD is overdue. It's going to resonate really well."

According to Stevens, the CD includes many of their most-requested songs. " 'Route 66,' 'New York New York,' 'All That Jazz,' 'At Last,' 'Dance With My Father' and 'There'll Never Be Another You,' just to name a few," Stevens said.

'ALL AGES'

But Stevens and Spencer aren't the only artists releasing a disc on Sweet Jazz this month: Masteller's own disc, "Jazz for All Ages," will be available Tuesday at the club. The collection encompasses a broad history of jazz and features a range of styles, including Latin music, New Orleans swing and several slow-burn ballads.

"This is a major step in a direction I wanted to go into for a while," says Masteller, whose specialty is the coronet and the flugelbone, a flugelhorn/trombone hybrid. "I'm more excited about this than anything that I've done to date," said Masteller.

Masteller's CD features Martin Lesch on piano, Chris Russell on drums and Arnell Byrd on guitar. The music, meanwhile, is drawn from the great American songbook and features George Gershwin, Johnny Mercer, Duke Ellington and the like.

Masteller said he has high hopes for the future of Sweet Jazz Recordings, and says he expects to announce a national distributor in the next two to three months. And Stevens says he's impressed with how far the Jazz Corner and its label has come.

"(Masteller) has made some really significant moves in hiring a marketing firm," he said. "He's put some money into advertising the Sweet Jazz label."

Spencer says she's thankful to have such a venue on Hilton Head Island. "I love the Jazz Corner. My face hurts every night after finishing there -- not from singing, but from smiling," she said.

'Travelin' Music' CD release party When: 8 p.m. today and Saturday. Where: Jazz Corner, Village at Wexford, Hilton Head Island Tickets: $5 Information: 843-842-8620, www.thejazzcorner.com Additional shows: The Lavon Stevens Band plays at 8 p.m. Thursdays at the Jazz Corner - The Island Packett