Birmingham Magazine April 2018 Issue

• CULTURE | Arts
THIS PAGE: Clockwise from top: People spill onto the sidewalk during
The Jaybird's September opening. (Photo by Hunter Nichols) The
Jaybird intentionally works to attract a variety of people to its events.
(Photo by Hunter Nichols) DJ3C plays at The Jaybird's opening. (Photo
by Hunter Nichols) Dikerius Blevins "blesses" The Jaybird mic at the
space's September opening. (Photo by Hunter Nichols) Clear Blue Sky
bluegrass band plays at The Jaybird. (Photo by Gottfried Kibelka)
OPPOSITE PAGE: Left to right: Blues singer Elnora Spencer performs
at The Jaybird in February. The founders of the Jaybird (left to right):
Burgin Mathews, Glory McLaughlin, Lillis Taylor and Lloyd Bricken
(Photo by William Davis)
expected about 80 people, but more than
300 showed up. They arranged last-minute
appearances by two food trucks, and the night
surpassed their hopes.
“We hoped to facilitate a space and facilitate
events where people who aren’t always or
typically in the same room are in the same room,
and bring together different social segments of
Birmingham to create a space for a more diverse
gathering than most of us find if we go out to
hear music,” Mathews says.
Night one achieved that goal.
The past six months have been filled with
such surprises. The collaborative community
space has maintained a steady schedule of
hosting musical performances at least once
a month and art shows every other month.
It also sells a variety of zines and books. The
space is open Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4
p.m., when people are invited to drink free
coffee, peruse the zine and book collection,
and otherwise gather to chat and dream. Time
and again, people have left their usual habits
and social circles for gatherings at The Jaybird.
Whether it’s an old-time music circle or a
performance by a young hip-hop artist, The
Jaybird’s founders aim to plan events that bring
people together.
They've done so by booking visual artists
who normally wouldn't show in the same space,
along with an array of musical performers.
They’ve partnered with Socially Awkwrd, a
collective of poets, hip-hop artists, designers,
and social entrepreneurs, who help develop
some of The Jaybird’s events. But it’s also taken a
bit of luck for their big dream to become reality.
The idea began with a Facebook post Mathews
wrote in September 2015. He imagined a place
where Birmingham could unite its various
creative endeavors. Within minutes, Matthews
longtime friend and future Jaybird cofounder
Lillis Taylor reached out. They spent time
daydreaming and brainstorming.
Two years later, a ground-floor space in
the Crestwood building where Taylor and
husband Lloyd Bricken live became available.
Bricken had collaborated with the people who
previously occupied the space, and he wanted
to keep momentum going. He and Taylor
partnered with Mathews and his wife, Glory
McLaughlin, to create The Jaybird.
“We live in a society that’s stratified in
certain ways,” Bricken says. “It’s not set up to
create conversation and other possibilities around
these conventional situations that we live in. And
yet, people are very hungry for it.”
Although The Jaybird is, by legal necessity,
a business, none of the founders look to
the project for income. Memberships and
cover charges cover rent, utilities, and artist
payments. Each founder brings a variety of
skills to the project. Mathews is an English
teacher and radio host. McLaughlin is an
assistant dean at the University of Alabama
Law School, and her business acumen has
been essential to the project. Likewise, Taylor
contributes business know-how and creative
experience from her Bib and Tucker Sew-
Op nonprofit. Bricken comes from a theatre
background. They continue to work in their
separate fields; the founders’ goal remains to
avoid losing money, not make a living.
The Jaybird was intended to be a year-long
experiment. Now that they’re past the halfway
mark, the two couples are contemplating
whether they’ll sign another year’s lease.
“Our goal was to create sort of a moment,”
Matthews says. “I think we’re in the middle of
that, whether that’s 12 months or longer.”
Regardless of the final decision, Mathews
says The Jaybird is not meant to be a longterm
business.
“If it could help people rethink what they
mean by business, or help people rethink
what’s possible, or help people rethink, ‘Oh, I
have this far-fetched dream that’s impossible,’”
Mathews says, then The Jaybird will have
achieved its aims.
The Jaybird typically is open on Saturdays
only, but the founders have booked other events
throughout the week. The space also has served
as a landing ground for other entities, such as
Real Life Poets’ mentoring work.
They’ve got more requests than they can
handle, and when making decisions, the
founders consider whether there is another
Birmingham space that can host an event. If the
answer is no, they’re more likely to say yes.
“I want the Jaybird to be a space where
people can explore toward the creation of new
music and new cultural possibilities,” Bricken
says. “Birmingham is a diverse place in certain
ways, and yet I think Birmingham is like a lot of
other places in the United States. People are very
friendly here, but they stay in their boxes. We
also founded The Jaybird to try and be a space
to try and cross those lines and try to bring
different people together.”
The space continues to be the site for special
moments, thanks both to careful planning
and the magic that follows when an audience
shows up. In February, blues singer Elnora
Spencer performed while surrounded by
Roger Stevenson’s photographs of blues and
jazz musicians and Spencer’s own paintings.
It was an unusual setting—Spencer is known
for her music, not her visual art—and it was
yet another example of The Jaybird chasing
its dreams.
DETAILS
The Jaybird | 4911 5th Ave. S. (Crestwood) |
Hours: Sat. 11 a.m. – 4 p.m., Sun. yoga 4:30
p.m. – 5:30 p.m. ($10, $8 members) | Events
announced via The Jaybird Facebook page and
website | Cover charges vary by events; free
for members | Individual membership $20 per
month; Family membership $35 per month |
jaybirdalabama.com
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