David Youngman (left) and Dave Turner (right) play jazz at Rough Draft. Megan Li | Collegian

 

It was Friday night, but sophomore Ava Jolley couldn’t relax just yet — she had a paper to write.

There were few places better to do it than Rough Draft. The coffee shop’s foyer on the evening of Feb. 7 was populated by students hunched over laptops. The baristas leaned chatting against the counter lined with drink syrups and fairy lights. But the environment was far from quiet, for it was past 7 p.m., and live jazz had begun. 

David Youngman and Dave Turner were positioned by the couches. Turner was surrounded by a drum set and Youngman held a guitar hooked up to an amplifier. This was community jazz, a group of Hillsdale musicians headed by Youngman that meets at Rough Draft on certain nights to jam.

“I love jazz, and Hillsdale just feels like a jazz community,” Youngman said. “I knew there were musicians around. I wanted opportunities for people to play, also inspiring young players to play. I have kids who are in middle school and high school, and I just feel like they don’t get a lot of inspiration with music.”

That evening, Youngman and Turner largely played jazz standards. A small child with a head of red hair hopped and waved her arms on the couches beside them.

Jolley, sitting at a table directly across from the musicians, had a perfect view of the performance. Every once in a while, she would look up from her reading to watch, or to applaud quietly. On her regular visits to the coffee shop, Jolley said she already listens to instrumental jazz through her headphones while she is working.

“When it’s live, it’s even better, because you’re there with it, and you’re experiencing the music real time, which is really fun,” Jolley said.

Jolley said Youngman and Turner’s performance helped her focus better on her work as well.

“They did some improv songs that were really vibey — I wasn’t head-banging, but I was head-bobbing while I was doing my research for a Dr. Smith paper,” Jolley said. “Plus, I also got a really good coffee. So I was, like, locked in. Jazz is for academic weapons and caffeine-enjoyers.”

Youngman has been playing the guitar for 30 years, and he was a professional musician for 15 years. He started community jazz as a “local jazz gig,” where he could just drive down the street and make music. 

“I don’t do that anymore, but I just thought it was nice to do that stuff, but not all the travel,” Youngman said. 

Two or three years ago, Youngman had contacted Rough Draft’s owner, Marty Hubbard, about starting community jazz at the coffee shop.

“We wanted it to be a bridge between the college and the community, and we wanted conversations between those two groups of folks to happen at Rough Draft,” Hubbard said. “Ideally, that was our plan, and music was a part of it.”

Youngman said the improvisation of jazz creates a type of emotional connection between the two musicians participating in it. 

“To me, improvised music is the most honest music you can make, because if you play a pre-rehearsed song, it’s a pre-rehearsed emotion and interaction with people. That’s saying, ‘here’s what I’m going to talk about.’ But when you take an improvised piece, it’s like, ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna say, but we’re gonna have a conversation,’” Youngman said. “We play off of the room, or we play off of each other. It could depend on how each other’s feeling, what they’re thinking.”

Turner said not knowing what the other person will play lends to the satisfaction of good improvisation. 

“He has a better idea of what I’m gonna play, just because mine’s pretty basic,” Turner said. “But there’s times in the songs where everything just comes together, and then it’s almost humorous. It’s almost funny because somehow, you’re thinking the same thing and didn’t even know it, but he just did it. And that’s a really cool thing.”

Youngman said the group also takes song suggestions when there are enough musicians to play.

“We would take the prompts — a story or a situation that people would give us, and then we would try to play something that has the effect of that situation,” Youngman said. “I like that kind of stuff. It’s very challenging and interesting.”

Hubbard, who owns the 42 Union building, opened Rough Draft in April 2017 with her daughter, Carly Hubbard ’16, and her other daughter, Caitlyn Larsen ’12 now runs it. From the beginning, they’ve had jam sessions, and it’s worked into the community jazz. 

“We’ve had lots of different genres — jazz just somehow has stuck,” Hubbard said. “It’s a very relaxed atmosphere aesthetically, so it lends itself to the casualness of jazz. And actually, surprisingly, it’s got pretty good acoustics, which I really worried about.”

According to Hubbard, Andrew Fink ’06, former representative of the 35th District in the Michigan House of Representatives; Francis Steiner, professor of biology; and Sam Knecht, professor of art; have made appearances at the community jam sessions. 

Hubbard first reached out to Dan Palmer, Hillsdale’s adjunct instructor of music and friend of Youngman’s, who started bringing his students to play at the coffee shop. 

Brendan Amerman ’17, who is married to Carly Hubbard and one of the first baristas at Rough Draft, was one of Palmer’s students.

“There’s a lot of former students of his in the area, so they’ll show up and he’ll be like, ‘Hey, you, get up here,’” Youngman said.

And eventually, Youngman himself came along.

“David Youngman approached me and said, ‘Hey, can I bring in people from the community who just want to get together and jam?’ And of course, I said, ‘Absolutely.’ Who’s gonna say no to that?” Hubbard said. 

Youngman encourages any musicians who are interested in jamming to come join them.

“They can play one song, they can play multiple or they can just see where they’re at,” Youngman said. “There’s just a sense of freedom here to do that, I guess.”

Hubbard remains in awe of the fact that her dream of Rough Draft, as a place of coffee, music, and community, is a reality.

“I’m just honored beyond words, and my heart soars when it happens,” Hubbard said. “When I hear the music, when I see the musicians, when people come in to be fed by the music, it’s everything.”

Community jazz will take place later this month on Feb. 21 and 28 from 7 to 9 p.m., according to Youngman. The student band, Schizmatics, will play Feb. 15 from 7 to 9 p.m. Anyone who is interested in being notified about the community jazz schedule can email David Youngman at david-youngman@hotmail.com.