96 OCTOBER 2020
connected with Smalls through mutual friends over a decade
ago. While living in Paris, she remembers, Smalls would visit
and link her with other artists, always encouraging her music.
“He also introduced me to black rice,” Adisa-Farrar says. “There’s
a ceremony to it,” she says of Smalls’ entertaining.
The participants change event to event, and no one knows
who’s coming in advance except the host himself. The soirées
lack pretense or strain, perhaps because of the traditions that
follow: No more than eight people. A fully stocked bar opens
each evening with top-shelf bourbon and rum. Smalls typically
cooks himself, sometimes making one-pot dishes a day ahead,
but he’ll occasionally lean on talented friends (this writer enjoyed
a meal cooked by Charleston chef BJ Dennis, an emerging
master of the Gullah Geechee repertoire that Smalls also grew
up eating). The food overflows; there are always leftovers.
“Any convening with Alexander promises equal parts music
that moves the soul and food that elevates the palate,” says
filmmaker Lisa Cortés, a longtime friend of Smalls. “Many an
evening has ended with us gathered around the piano to sing,
and on certain bourbon-fueled nights, to recite poetry.” It’s just
the way it goes when Smalls has you over for dinner.
Just as the award-winning cookbook he penned with chef JJ
Johnson, Between Harlem and Heaven, captures the history and
spirit of a neighborhood that’s seen eras of Black food culture
and history, perhaps the title can be bent to refer to Smalls’
small corner of the world. Tucked in Hamilton Heights, a slice
of heaven sits, and the man with that grin; the warm, booming
voice; and a stovetop bubbling over with goodwill cannot wait
to welcome you.clockwise from top left:
Smalls and his guests,
television personality
Bevy Smith and film-
maker Lisa Cortés