During a set Saturday night at The Table & Gallery, New Haven born-and-raised Ghetto Guitar received a warm welcome home after three years making music in Atlanta. He had a few platinum records to his name already, producing for artists like Gunna and Wiz Khalifa. He’d performed with Latto on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show and Late Night with Seth Meyers. For Saturday night, he stripped it back to instrumentals.
“It’s refreshing. To be able to do this again,” Ghetto Guitar said. He was ready to, in his words, “vibe all the way out.”
At The Table & Gallery, a bar and art exhibition space on Chapel near Park and Howe, he played guitar from a couple of his albums from the past few years as well as several unreleased tracks. Each song had a tight self-produced backing track, allowing Ghetto Guitar to layer tunes and blend R&B, neo-soul, trap, and rock.
“No one leaves here hungry,” owner Sonal Soveni said to me after serving up a gift of shrimp and grits to the crowd, unannounced. “I like to say: no starving artists.”
The magic wasn’t lost on Ghetto Guitar, who called the food “very soulful.”
“I can’t even explain how this shit made me feel,” he said.
Ghetto Guitar himself was part of the spell. He radiated human curiosity toward himself, the others in the room, and the directions his music took him. After apologizing to the listeners because they wouldn’t be able to find his unreleased tracks online, Ghetto Guitar started to notice that he had enough for a new project, like an album.
“You guys are kind of making me realize that.”
It was a rare kind of music show, where there was no need to exert yourself to be heard. When Ghetto Guitar took a break from playing, people chatted, but there was no din.
Angel Alvarez, described by Soveni as a true “Day One,” floated around taking pictures and video for the team. Stephen Joyner, creative director at The Table & Gallery, sat back enjoying the night, occasionally snapping pictures and discussing upcoming projects with Soveni. Candis White, also known as Cozi, displayed candles and clothing with a purpose: to affirm people’s sense of worth.
Like one of those architectural marvels where you could whisper in the right spot and be heard loud and clear by someone in a far corner, The Table & Gallery became an experiment in the clarity of a hushed voice — except here, everywhere was the right spot. Soft mutters were picked up by a nonexistent mic, and strangers fell into conversation before they understood what was happening.
Ghetto Guitar finished his set but didn’t believe the night was truly over. He called up Alvarez, who had been tinkering with a ukulele earlier during the break.
The air in the room, already sensitive to any utterance, became a fly trap for suggestion. The two musicians played off each other’s notes, Ghetto Guitar performing impossibly delicate tremolos on his guitar as Alvarez strummed one energetic chord after another on ukulele.
Ghetto Guitar asked Alvarez if he knew how to play a certain way. Alvarez replied, “I could try. Never done it.”
Providing no reassurance other than the act of playing, Ghetto Guitar got into it. He was in a trance, bringing the night home in the gentlest jam. Alvarez joined in seamlessly, relaxing into the balance, and the two supported each other back and forth.
Everyone clapped on beat to the last song, perhaps the only crowd clap I’ve ever been part of that didn’t fade out or leave any stragglers but ended in perfect unison. We were all paying attention, I guess.
The show ended in everyone saying “Thank you” to each other, an unplanned waterfall of gratitude overlapping onto itself.
“Ultimately, this is my sanctuary,” Soveni said of The Table & Gallery. “I only came here to hide and heal,” she said, both about the space she created and the city itself. Over the past two and a half years being in New Haven, she realized what made spaces safe to her also resonated with others.
Ghetto Guitar made his appreciation public, telling the crowd, “Nights like these, that’s what I do this for.”
