Issue date: 4/12/07 Section: Features

Media Credit: Megan Dunn / Daily Vidette Staff

If residents of Bloomington-Normal are looking for some great jazz music and great food, there is one handy stop they should know about.

Every Monday night, Denise La Grassa performs with her jazz trio at the Redfire Grille in Bloomington. There is no cover charge for the event and individuals can just walk right in and enjoy the show.

"It makes it more lively in here," Redfire Grille hostess Danica Fread said. La Grassa sat on a stool on Monday night with the keyboard and a microphone in front of her. To her left stood her bass player as well as a guitarist. They faced the various aquariums on display and spit out some jazz tunes with deep lyrics.

"Writing the lyrics and singing the songs is just something that I've always done," La Grassa said.

After moving to Bloomington from Chicago, she said she is striving to continue her jazz career. In addition to playing Monday nights at the restaurant, she often performs at private parties as well as working for the PBS station in Urbana.

"It's hard. Work in Chicago was pretty plentiful, but the jazz scene here is not exactly thriving," she said. She managed to set up this gig at the Redfire Grille that allows her to connect with her audience.

"The previous owner had had jazz here on a regular basis, so I heard from a friend to go down and check out the new place," she said.

La Grassa has been performing jazz for at least 15 years and is working on yet another album to add to her list. It will be the first one in nearly four years. Her Monday night show consists of her beautiful vocals filling the air. They seem to be the perfect compliment to a hot plate of the unique sweet potato fries that Redfire Grille frequently serves.

Music has been a passion of hers for her entire life."I performed a lot of music theater and I always had an original pop band. From there I moved from R&B to jazz because my mom was a jazz singer for a short period of time. So growing up, there was lots of jazz in the household," she said.

She said she loves it because of the amount of intimacy that it provides."When you're up here, you're really just having a conversation. You're not just singing notes and playing tunes. You're performing and having a conversation with the audience."

The shows she plays usually consist of a mixture of her original pieces with a number of jazz standards. The originals seem to fit right alongside the more common pieces.

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