Kenny Mandell photo by Daniel Sheehan

At two o’clock in the afternoon on the third Sunday of August, the back space of Couth Buzzard Books was filled with locals coming together to enjoy a friendly jazz jam. Paulette, a tap dancer, clacked around the store as she made to greet people, familiar and new faces alike. Jose, an 81-year-old saxophonist, faced the wall as he warmed up his fingers on his instrument. And in the corner, prone on the floor behind his owner, was Buddy, the 12-year-old Lhasa Apso–Shih Tzu mix.

Many Greenwood residents frequent this neighborhood bookstore, part of the vibrant Seattle jazz scene. Its motto: “Building Community, One Book, One Cup, One Note at a Time.”

Neighborhood resident Kenny Mandell, saxophonist, composer, and educator, is now in his third year of facilitating a variety of jazz sessions at “The Couth.” The most veteran of these sessions is Jazz First Friday, which typically features Mandell’s band Ronin, with longtime friend and collaborator, drummer Don Berman. Last year, they added two jam sessions: the straightahead jam, which takes place on the third and fourth Sundays of each month, and a free improv jam, which is held on the second Sunday of each month.

The first open jazz jam of August saw a healthy-sized audience. A Charles Mingus piece was the first played of the afternoon, to a crowd of about six. As the jam progressed, however, musicians, music appreciators, and store patrons alike gathered around the performance space, filling up seats and spots onstage. 

As he played saxophone and congas, Mandell shouted out or pointed to who would solo next, effortlessly transitioning between musician and conductor. A young newcomer from Oregon stood next to Jose, and though the two saxophonists had never played together, the jam allowed them to improvise off each other, tossing solos back and forth and playing off each other well.

In fact, each variation of the band played off each other well. With veteran Couth jammers and newcomers alike, the store was treated to a delicious afternoon of bossa nova Black Orpheus to jazz standards.

The jam session exemplified the warmth and friendliness of the Couth Buzzard and all the jazz happenings at the bookstore. It’s an intimate, family-oriented place with a strong sense of community, which is what store owner Theo Dzielak’s goal was all along.

“Theo was trying to make not just a bookstore, but a community center,” Mandell says.

On top of providing a friendly, quality jazz scene, Couth Buzzard has a variety of new and used books, assortment of coffee, wine, and beer, and excellent homemade baked goods, and hosts open mic nights, poetry readings, and more, indeed creating a strong community center in Greenwood – though it’s well worth a trip even if you’re not from the ‘hood.

I made my way over to the bookstore to catch up with the man behind the Couth Buzzard jazz scene, Kenny Mandell.

Q: How did the Couth Buzzard jazz scene get started?

A: I think it started by just becoming a person in the neighborhood. I live five blocks from here, and started coming in and became friends with Theo. We both come from the East Coast, so we had that in common, and he’s a poet, musician, bookstore guy so we’ve become very good friends. I knew he was having music here, but it was mostly folk-y stuff, open mic kind of things – the usual kind of coffeehouse stuff. I said, well, how about hosting some jazz? And it wound up he loves jazz.

I convinced him to allow Ronin, my group, to play here the first Friday of every month, and we’ve done that for three and a half years now, before I broached the idea of having jam sessions here.

Q: What are the Couth Buzzard jam sessions like?

A: My goal was to make it really friendly, really inclusive of all levels. I teach a lot and I invite my students, whether they be adult or 10 years old, to come and play with the house band. As time has gone on, I’ve realized that part of the reason jazz is not really popular is because people are kind of intimidated by it. So I’m trying to make jazz in this community more listener friendly, seeing kids playing in the jam sessions. The age range can be from 12 to 81!

The straight-ahead sessions have really taken off. I bring all these fake books and real books, encourage people to play a couple tunes with the house band. It got so popular we added another session, so it’s the third and fourth Sundays of every month, been so for the last year and a half. I have different house bands, a pool of people, whoever’s available. I try to sell them on the community aspect of it, having fun. Everyone who’s come here has had a really good time.

In the midst of that, I thought, well, with my background in free improv, let’s try that as well. I wanted it to be different than others, so what I came up with is to limit each piece to eight minutes. One of my arguments with free improv is that they can go on ad nauseam, so this puts a framework on it, some structure. At first I thought it might make people uncomfortable, but it’s worked much better than I hoped for. Each session can really be different. We have a harp player, a classical violinist, all sorts of musicians show up.

Q: How did the latest jazz session, “The Couth ‘Tet,” come to be?

A: Don Berman actually came up with that. When I direct my own student workshops – middle school, high school, adult groups – it’s about five to eight players in a group, including me. We do a 10-week session of rehearsals then perform, and for one performance a drummer flaked out on me, so I asked Don if he could fill in – I knew he could just step in and play, he reads very well. A couple weeks later, Don says, “You know, that was really great, and you have all these arrangements.” I have great classic material, Thelonious Monk, Coltrane, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, on and on. So he asked why don’t we get together some people who can really play.

We hand-picked the band, got 10-12 players, decided to have a public rehearsal performance. Theo loves it because he used to be a recording engineer. He said it’s great to see the process, see a band getting together. It’s unique in a sense. August 1 was our first one. People thought it was great. Everyone reads really well, it sounded good, the majority of players wrote us afterwards that it was really fun – even though it was 98 degrees in there!

Q: How do you see yourself in Seattle’s jazz scene?

A: I’m just part of the community – I’m the Couth Buzzard Jazz Guy! Couth Buzzard is becoming part of the scene, that’s my goal, just to meet more people. Inclusion is the word … music should be a part of everybody’s life in a real way, whether you program it, listen to it, play it.

Hopefully it will just get more of an audience. A big part of motivation for me, outside of playing, is to help the Couth Buzzard survive. Having an independent business in these times, especially in books, is hard, so to bring in audience is giving it recognition and business.

Jazz at “The Couth”

Friday, September 5, 7:30pm
Jazz First Fridays – Jump Ensemble w/ Gregg Robinson, Mark Filler, Marty Hasegawa
(Ronin will play October 3, 8pm)

Sunday, September 7, 7pm
The Couth ‘Tet Little Big Band Public Rehearsal

Sunday, September 14, 7pm
Creative Improvised Music Jam SessionSunday, September 21 & Sunday, September 28, 2pm
Open Jazz Jam