A New Beat
BY ELIZABETH BRIGNAC
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MISSY LANE’S ASSEMBLY ROOM AND CHRIS CHARLES PHOTOGRAPHY
Missy Lane’s Assembly Room is approaching its one-year anniversary. The Durham-based music venue and cocktail bar has been bringing jazz, improvisational and related musical performances to the Triangle since March of 2023. Visitors can enjoy concerts with cocktails in the performance space or relax in the bar with friends while listening to the music pumped in from the back.
“One thing that wasn’t present [before we opened] was something that was fully dedicated to Black American music, which people love,” says Missy Lane’s co-owner Cicely Mitchell. “There just wasn’t a venue dedicated to it. And so that’s, I think, what Missy Lane’s place in the [Triangle] music scene is.”
Missy Lane’s is part of a project that has been ongoing for many years. About 13 years ago, Mitchell began working with Durham-based trumpetist Al Strong to build up jazz and improvisational music in the Triangle and to educate the community about them. They called their program the Art of Cool Project. “It took time to build the community behind [this kind of music]” says Mitchell. Missy Lane’s was opened “with an intent to have a home for jazz and improvised music … So it was all kind of leading to this moment.”
In opening Missy Lane’s, Mitchell fulfilled an aspiration sooner than she had anticipated. “It’s always been a dream,” she says. “Like, ‘Once I retire, then I’ll open up the club.’ But last year was a good time to do it because the right location became available.” Missy Lane’s is located near the Durham downtown loop, and also close to good parking. Robert Trowers, director of jazz studies at North Carolina Central University, brings his students to jam sessions at Missy Lane’s on Thursday nights. The venue is only about five minutes from NCCU. “It’s great to have Missy Lane’s in the downtown area, accessible to so many people,” Trowers says. “It adds a lot of cultural value.”
In addition to jazz acts, Mitchell brings in artists who perform R&B, soul, blues, gospel and even country. “We try be an influencer, a tastemaker, and to show that Black American music is not a monolith,” says Mitchell. “One thing I learned, and I learned this very quickly, is that people come to Missy Lane’s to be entertained.” In the process of being entertained, they educate themselves about the world of jazz and other forms of Black American music.
The lineup at Missy Lane’s helps people learn about this eclectic music landscape. “Most artists, almost by default, have to be historians within their own genres,” says Al Strong. “So often, the music is accompanied by stories or some background in terms of where the pieces come from or what inspired the writing of certain music, composing certain songs. And so, I think a lot of the education comes from the types of musicians that Missy Lane’s chooses to present to audiences.”
Mitchell notes that some particularly interesting acts from the past year have included jazz drummer Kassa Overall and keyboardist Kiefer, whose work brings together jazz, hip-hop, R&B and electrical music. Kiefer performed with Nate Smith, also a jazz drummer, and Carrtoons, a multi-instrumentalist, in one of the year’s most popular concerts. The club also brought in bass player MonoNeon. “He’s a very unusual bass player. He used to play with Prince in the New Power Generation, and he’s very popular on TikTok,” says Mitchell. “He had to perform with a black light on the stage. It was a very, very good concert.”
The performance space at Missy Lane’s has a retro vibe, with a simple stage setup and the name “Missy Lane’s” in neon on one of the pillars. Beneath the plain ambience lies a high-quality sound system. “The way the venue is set up is unlike any other in the area,” says Brevan Hampden, a Triangle-based percussionist who often plays at Missy Lane’s. “I mean, it has the best backline in the area. It has some of the best sound engineers.” (“Backline” refers to the equipment and instruments used by a band or artist during a live performance.)
The size of the space offers a special experience. “Hearing certain artists in an amphitheater—it’s much different than hearing them in a more intimate setting such as Missy Lane’s,” says Strong. “I think that from an audience perspective, there are a lot of people who want to be that close to the artist and that close to the music. It helps them feel more connected to the experience.”
As she moves into her second year of business, Mitchell hopes to build Missy Lane’s charitable foundation. She wants to do more work connecting Missy Lane’s performers to the Triangle community through workshops and master classes. In the past year, Missy Lane’s has asked three performers—a violinist, a trumpeter and a drummer—to work with children’s music ensembles and other community groups. Mitchell hopes to increase these opportunities moving forward.
She also hopes that people from outside of Durham will become increasingly aware of what Missy Lane’s has to offer. “Just like DPAC gives you that kind of New York experience of being at Broadway, that’s what Missy Lane’s does, too,” she says. “If you go into the back room for a jazz concert, you are transported, as if you are in the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York. So we want people in the Triangle to start to see us in that light.”
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