Chan Hall
William “Chan” Hall’s formative education in jazz occurred at the dearly departed Emilio’s — previously Rick’s Cafe — on the corner of Meadow and Broad streets.
With his new album, Hall, now an experienced pianist, has memorialized Emilio’s and created musical portraits of several Richmond neighborhoods. “On Broad & Meadow” dropped April 18.
The Wilson, North Carolina, native first yearned to play the drums. “I’d always see guys playing drums at church, and the kids would run up, but I never got a chance to play,” he recalls.
That changed when Hall joined the percussion ensemble at Beddingfield High School. Band instructor Ronzel Bell, however, perhaps inadvertently sent Hall in another direction. “I was playing mallets — xylophone, marimbas — which are in the keyboarding family,” Hall explains, “equivalent to playing the piano with two fingers. You’re learning the notes of the piano but, of course, it’s more acoustic.”
The marching band’s theme for the year was “All That Jazz,” which introduced Hall to the music of jazz fusion pioneer Chick Corea. Inspired, Hall started learning to play the piano.
Then, his mother’s customer service management position with Kroger brought them to Richmond. The move proved fortuitous.
Hall in Shockoe Bottom, among the Richmond neighborhoods celebrated on his new album, “On Broad & Meadow”
Hall began frequenting Emilio’s to take in the jazz sessions and concerts there and found that the atmosphere suited him. The Friday night shows were hosted for 40 years by “Doc” Ralph Branch, who began the evenings by saying, “First of all, we want you to know that we love you. You are in the House of Love. We love each of you individually.”
One day, Branch came into the grocery store where Hall worked. Hall approached Branch and told him how much he enjoyed the jam sessions and that he hoped to play in them one day. “‘Well, what do you do?’ he says to me,” Hall recalls with a slight chuckle. “‘Do you play an instrument?’ I said, ‘Kinda,’ and Doc goes, ‘What does “kinda” mean?’”
Hall sheepishly said he played a little piano and wanted to improve. He asked Branch what advice he’d give to an aspiring jazz musician. Branch told him he should learn classical piano and that he could start at Jordan Kitt’s Music on Midlothian Turnpike. “They had Steinway pianos there,” Hall remembers, “and so I took a little classical, but I didn’t get that far into it.”
Learning that the Richmond Jazz Society was sponsoring a jazz academy, Hall enrolled and was instructed by the prominent jazz figure James “Saxsmo” Gates. He also “kept going to the club and trying to figure it out.”
Hall’s further efforts to enroll in various academic programs didn’t come about for one reason or another — timing, finances, the need to relocate. “So, I just kept plugging away and doing things my way,” he says, ultimately producing his first studio album, “Dreaming Afterdark,” in 2011.
With his latest release, Hall says he’s aiming toward the “lo-fi chillhop” listener.
The title track of the new album, “On Broad & Meadow,” is a tribute to Emilio’s. Hall wants to convey the setting, the conversations, the camaraderie and the connections made through music. “People loved the place. They didn’t want to go home,” he says. There’s a sense of a long-exposure photograph capturing multicolored streaks, of car lights and street lamps.
The album evokes vivid imagery throughout. In “Shockoe Bottom,” one can almost see the illuminated skyline, while the bouncier rhythm reveals Hall was “thinking about the farmers market, the little bars and that commons area.” Another track, “Scott’s Addition,” throbs with a city beat. It’s a night on the town, with lights of the apartment buildings checkerboarding the sky.
“Westover Hills” conveys the bosky streets of the neighborhood, ambling down the sidewalks and meeting friends. Hall wanted to commemorate the music sessions played down the road at Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream on Forest Hill Avenue. “I used to play three, four sessions a year there — an amazing place,” Hall says. “I was sad to see them not reopen for music [after the COVID-19 pandemic].”
Of the album, he says, “I really wanted to show my love for Richmond in this, and how being here really formed the way I approach this music.”
Chan Hall’s album “On Broad & Meadow” is available on streaming platforms now. Hall performs at Révéler in Carytown Sept. 20 and as part of the Second Street Festival in October.
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