Inside a Small Circle of Friends:
The John Street Jam
by Peter Aaron
Welcome, welcome. Come in, please, please. So nice to see you, thank
you so much for coming. First time? Oh, you’re in for a treat.
Warm yourself up, there’s coffee and tea in the side room over
there, some bottled water, home–baked goodies. Grab a seat, we’re
just about to get started with the music here…
No, this isn’t holiday caroling with the new in–laws.
Much more fun and far less embarrassing. You’re at the John Street
Jam, a coffeehouse–style session held on the second and fifth
Saturdays of each month that features in–the–round performances
by some of the top contemporary folk–based musicians from the
East Coast and beyond. The room in the old Dutch Arms Chapel in Saugerties,
where the Jam has been run by Steve and Terri Massardo since 2003,
is large but not too large: Despite tonight’s crowd being an
event record–setting 120, the atmosphere never feels stifling;
more like an intimate, casual gathering in somebody’s living
room. The players, who sit in a circle in the center of the room and
are closely and concentrically surrounded by the audience, are presented
in two one–hour rounds of four musicians. Beneath the high stools
of the artists is a big, old Oriental rug, and the entire setting is
dim save for the cozy glow of a few floor lamps arranged around them.
The only thing missing is a crackling fireplace. But no matter, the
feeling of shared friendship that pervades the space is warming enough
by far.
“Terri and I hit on the idea for the Jam after we went to a
night at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville five years ago,” says
Steve, referring to the legendary and long–running Music City
session where songsters like Kathy Mattea, Garth Brooks, and Mary Chapin
Carpenter got their starts. “We loved the concept of having an
in–the–round song swap like they do at the Bluebird...
CONTINUE...
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