Remembrance: Churchill Grounds’ founder Sam Yi gave Atlanta jazz a home

For two decades, Yi nurtured local talent at Churchill Grounds, then at TenATL and pop-up concerts around the city. Wherever he went, the fans followed.

::

Sam Yi, the guiding light of jazz in Atlanta, who ran the Churchill Grounds jazz club in Midtown for two decades and later curated jam sessions and pop-up concerts throughout the city, died February 3 after an illness.

His steadfast promotion of jazz music helped artists maintain a sense of belonging and provided listeners with a spot to hear the latest talent, among shifting venues and interest. 

Before Churchill Grounds officially closed in 2016 to make way for the Fox Theatre’s VIP Lounge, Caesar Mitchell, president of the Atlanta City Council, honored Yi’s contributions by marking July 31, 2016, Churchill Grounds Café Day. 

Of course, Yi’s importance to the city — the jazz lovers who frequented his shows, the musicians who grew up on his stages — can’t be fully expressed in a proclamation. But the official announcement confirmed, even back then, what so many jazz lovers already knew: Yi helped nurture improvised music by providing novices and professionals alike a place to hone their craft in front of an enthusiastic audience. 

For the last few years, Yi had been working toward giving that audience a new destination in the East Atlanta Village, bringing the club’s peripatetic existence to a permanent space. 

The Atlanta jazz scene has been through tectonic shifts since Yi last operated a club: The Velvet Note grew into a jazz destination in Alpharetta, then floundered; churches and alternative spaces attracted listeners by partially filling the jazz venue void; and saxophonist Will Scruggs recently launched a jazz collective with the goal of creating a new venue in Decatur. 

Once Yi found a semi-permanent home for his Monday night jam sessions at Ten ATL in East Atlanta Village, crowds of aficionados followed, eager to soak up music from the best artists in town. Many of the artists appearing at those sessions got their first break at Churchill Grounds.  

Born in South Korea, Yi emigrated to the United States with his parents as a child and lived in California and Tennessee before moving to Atlanta. Because of his bilingual ability, he worked at Pier 1 Imports as a buyer but soon moved into the restaurant business, waiting tables, bartending and eventually managing Café Intermezzo in Buckhead. He opened Churchill Grounds on May 1, 1997, filling a void left by Just Jazz, a small club on Bennett Street in Buckhead that had closed.

Churchill Grounds became a mecca for Atlanta’s jazz musicians. Drummer Justin Chesarek moved to the city in 2008 and started going to the club’s Whisper Room, an intimate space next to the bar, which closed in 2013, to see Chris Burroughs lead his Wednesday night gig, hang out and meet as many musicians as possible. He soon struck up a friendship with Yi. When the Burroughs residency ended, Yi asked the Atlanta transplant if he’d like a shot leading a group. 

“I gladly accepted the honor and got to work assembling my first quintet,” he said. “Sam was always supportive.” Chesarek played his Wednesday gig for the next five years and remembers that Yi was always listening, even when engaged in the business of running a club.  

“I feel like I learned how to play on Sam’s stage and will forever be grateful for the opportunity and constant support he gave,” Chesarek said. “He was truly the best ambassador for the music that we could have asked for.”

For more than a decade, Chesarek has also worked as a member of pianist Joe Alterman’s trio. Alterman, an Atlanta native who journeyed to New York for school and enjoyed a decade-worth of gigs before heading back south, also credits Yi as an early jazz influence. “I remember having to get a fake ID — not to drink but to sneak into Churchill Grounds to watch the shows,” Alterman said recently. 

Guitarist Jacob Deaton called Yi “the pastor of the church that was Churchill Grounds.” He remembered going often to the Whisper Room to soak up the music from the weekly Harper Family Jam Session, hoping that one day he could grace that stage. He eventually got his wish.  

“Sam also gave me the first opportunity to lead a band on his stage after years of putting in the time on the stage as a sideman and a regular,” Deaton said. “The joy he gave me when he said yes — it felt like I had made it.” 

To Deaton, Yi was “the curator and the face of an incubator of Atlanta’s jazz talent for all the years Churchill was open, and beyond.” And even when Deaton wasn’t on the bandstand, Yi would play his records at the bar, supporting the young musician as often as he could.   

“His confidence in me was something I drew on for many years anytime I felt like I needed support,” Deaton said. “When you think Atlanta jazz, you can’t describe it without Sam Yi. This loss is immeasurable for my generation, and his imprint will not be forgotten.”

Before Deaton, trumpeter Joe Gransden developed his sound during a weekly session at the venue in the late 1990s. As I wrote in the liner notes to the trumpeter’s “Live at Churchill Grounds,” released on Hot Shoe Records in 2010:

“Decked out in original paintings of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and other musical titans, Churchill Grounds is a jazz lover’s mecca. Artists perform from an elevated bandstand to audiences huddled around cafe tables in the Whisper Room . . . Ambient sound from arts patrons strolling to the Fabulous Fox Theatre next door flows in through a plate-glass window at the front of the room. Many high-profile musicians have played in this warm, inviting space.”  

The sense of community Yi created allowed musicians to burnish their skills and form lasting bonds. This sentiment extended far beyond Atlanta. Touring musicians in town for a show at one of the universities, Symphony Hall or the Fox Theatre would head to Churchill Grounds, or wherever the jam session was happening, to play after their concerts. Jazz vocalist Virginia Schenck remembers spending time one evening at Churchill Grounds with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis; Lady Gaga stopped by in 2015.  

“Churchill Grounds was the mecca of jazz,” said Schenck, who in 2024 launched a jazz series at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Midtown. “Every touring musician knew Sam’s place was the hang after their concert or gig.” (Disclaimer: Schenck serves on ArtsATL’s board of directors.)

She continued: “Sam was absolutely consistent in his fervor for deep dive jazz. He worked as hard as he expected the musicians to. Frankly, I believe it is because of Sam that jazz has stayed alive in Atlanta to this day.”

::

Jon Ross writes about music and culture. His work appears in Atlanta Magazine, The Bitter Southerner, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution and Downbeat Magazine, among other publications.