Charlie Ballentine w/ Quinn Sternberg & Al Sergel
Guitarist Charlie Ballantine brings his trio to Little Jumbo for an evening that pulls from the deepest reaches of American song. Telecaster through Deluxe Reverb, a right hand that flatpicks and fingerpicks at once, and a vocabulary that moves easily between Monk and Dylan, bebop and folk, jazz and the old weird Americana underneath all of it. Expect originals from his twelve-album catalog, standards rendered with reverence and risk, and the kind of long-form improvising that opens up when three players know how to listen.
Quinn Sternberg holds the bass chair. A New Orleans veteran now rooted in Asheville, Sternberg moves between jazz, old-time, bluegrass, and rock with the same easy fluency, and he brings the kind of harmonic intelligence that makes a trio feel orchestral. Al Sergel completes the rhythm section on drums, a player whose touch is conversational and whose time is the kind you stop noticing because it's simply right.
Little Jumbo's weekly music series is curated and always free. The creature watches from its corner. Doors at the usual hour, music shortly after.
Featuring
Charlie Ballantine plays guitar like someone who learned early that the instrument keeps a long memory. There's Wes Montgomery in there from his Indianapolis upbringing, Frisell and Scofield from his bebop conservatory years at Indiana University, Hendrix and Chet Atkins from his father's record stores, and a Telecaster running through a Deluxe Reverb that carries all of it into the room at once. Jazz, rock, folk, surf, country, blues, the angular geometry of Thelonious Monk, the wild mercury...
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Quinn Sternberg doesn't just play bass—he becomes the gravitational center around which musical solar systems orbit, his four strings serving as the invisible force that holds melody and rhythm in perfect harmonic balance. In Asheville's intimate jazz venues, Sternberg has mastered the art of musical architecture, building rhythmic foundations so sturdy that horn players can stretch toward the stratosphere while drummers explore the outer reaches of syncopation. His upright bass doesn't...
The first instrument Alfred Sergel IV ever touched was an 18-inch cymbal his father brought home from the band room. His dad was a band director — started in the schools, eventually landed at a college — and Al was the little kid walking next to the drumline, absorbing the pulse of organized sound before he had any language for what it was. The cymbal was surplus from the marching band, dented and heavy and probably not worth keeping, but it was enough. He hit it and the vibration...
Admission
FREE!