By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

Change is a constant in a dynamic existence. People breathe and die. Trees grow and fall. Stars burn and fade.

Even in Mobile, our leeward spot in the stream of time, change is in the air. With every completed story of the RSA Tower, an almost palpable hope rises that better days are right ahead for the Azalea City.

Facets of the local cultural scene are in flux to boot.

Consider the group of artists who gathered for an event in late June. They waited not for others to meet demands and instead seized a situation for themselves. “Well, there’s usually nothing going on around the summer solstice,” said artist Christian Zane, “so we thought it would be easier.”

Zane and others launched a Festival of Bacchus, a loft-style showing with an ensemble of local artists from various mediums that opened their apartments for the evening. The attendees mingled in a courtyard between the pair of adjacent houses in the De Tonti Square district, north of downtown on a transcendent night that seemed truly blessed by pagan spirits. Mother Nature dropped temps into the 70s for the evening and brisk winds rustled the moonlit oaks.

Attendance exceeded expectation. “It went extremely well,” Zane said. “We had about 300 people there. We sold a fair amount of stuff.”

Zane alluded to difficulties and an unforeseen advantage shared by she and rest of the Bacchae. “I think the fact that some of us have had our work taken down around town kind of helped,” she said. “I think the controversy got people interested.”

“I was really interested in stressing the human form in the show,” Zane said, a painter whose poly-gendered nudes have raised eyebrows locally. “I get the feeling that the human body doesn’t get the attention it once did, that now everyone is painting abstracts or so many other things and you don’t see the human body like you used to.”

Zane also hinted at future ideas that have been batted about, such as weaving a home tour with the upstart exhibitions. Other Dionysians talked of moving the exhibit closer to Dauphin Street and borrowing space.

Zane wouldn’t comment on the solidity of any of those schemes. “I don’t know about all of that,” she laughed, “I just know it made me want to open a gallery.”

Other local changes are a welcome respite. The former art gallery at the northwest corner of Royal and Government streets is undergoing its own shift at the present to feature another form of art. Local restauranteur David Rasp has begun renovations on his latest venture for downtown, an honest-to-goodness jazz club for the Port City.

The Heroes sports bar owner plans to have the roughly 1700-square-foot facility open in September and wants to feature what he sees as a local untapped resource. “We’ve got so much good music here and people just don t get the chance to see it,” Rasp said. Familiar names of great local musicians cropped up, performers like piano virtuoso Chris Spies and guitar hero Corky Hughes. Rasp wants to have music three to four nights a week starting in the early evening.

Rasp’s timing is immaculate. The crowds of people drawn to the live jazz at Liquid for the last couple of years have proved folks will listen, but Liquid’s burgeoning sushi business presently is squeezing the music out of the picture in the tiny space. Relief is needed and the Royal Street scene could provide it.

The Mobilians most glad to hear the news about the new venue have some changes of their own in store. The Mystic Order of the Jazz Obsessed, Mobile’s jazz society, will celebrate five years of existence on Saturday, Sept. 16 at L’Estrade in downtown Mobile.

The birthday party, MOJO Jam V, will move back to the former comedy club behind Spot of Tea on Dauphin Street after last year’s notorious saga with the Delta Blues House over an event that almost didn’t transpire. MOJO Jams II and III were held at L’Estrade to a packed house so the change isn’t too great.

The talent lineup looks like it might change as well. Previous incarnations featured an opening act and a headliner. Last year’s event had just the featured act. This time around, MOJO is working on two heavy hitters with word that they are trying to pair up the headliner from MOJO Jam I, Larry Panella’s straight-ahead combo, with the smoother sounds of local guitar impresario Dennis “Finger Roll” Nelson. It would be a line-up guaranteed to satisfy a lot of palates and another step up for this group and event.

The show will be closed with the customary jam session.

A few things, it seems, just never change.

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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