Dave’s Photo Blog

After an exhausting afternoon of taking photographs of my monitor (don’t ask), I decided to refresh my soul. I was able to accomplish that by heading over to Johnny D’s Uptown in Davis Square, Somerville for the Sunday evening blues jam. And yes, I brought the camera. I asked the house band if I could take some photos and they agreed as did some others. So here’s a little fun at Johnny D’s.

Before I get too far into this, I have to tell you that this type of setting is somewhat beyond the limit of my current camera. I can jack the ISO to 1600 and open up the lens to ƒ2.8, but there is still a terrible amount of noise in the photos. A newer camera would certainly help – noise reduction in low light settings is much more robust these days. But never mind that, we are here to talk about music. And dancing. I’ll get to latter later – it’s the fun part – the sleeper of the night, if you will.

But first we have the blues jam. The way it works is that a house band plays for a bit to warm everyone up. While this is going on, various musicians sign up to play. Then they look over all the names and pick lineups of musicians to play three song sets. Depending on how many people are present, you might see a totally different line-up each time, or sometimes the same musicians getting an additional set.

The opening act was led by Pete Henderson, a local blues guitarist. Normally, the opening act would be Monster Mike Welch, but not tonight. By the way, I remember back probably over 10 years ago when I saw Mike Welch as was just starting out. And I saw him at the blues jam at Johnny D’s. It’s been around a long time. The blues jam, I mean. Welch has too, but he’s still pretty young and, oh, never mind. Anyway, this trio played a nice set of six or seven blues standards. The bassist (who’s name I forget) was totally unflappable. He ran the blues jam and played a really sweet walking bass line behind Henderson. It has been awhile since I’ve seen live music and I was really enjoying the bass.

The thing I found most ironic was that there were a bunch of times when I heard people asking for things that they clearly should have brought, like drumsticks and guitar straps. I had to chuckle at that. I can’t imagine showing up to Johnny D’s to play and forgetting something important like that. But then again, I didn’t go to play and so I really don’t want that to sound critical. Stuff happens.

The first act up had a couple of young musicians from Winchester playing guitar and bass. I had met them before the blues jam started. Since they were playing, they told me I could shoot them as well, so I did. They play in the Leo Fama Band - a trio that plays blues-based rock, from what I can tell. Obviously they were here to play blues. This is Leo here on the left.

And Leo has some pretty good chops, too. I have to admit, I’m not sure how he gets his sound – he really strums that guitar – even when playing leads. I found that kindof fascinating. Whenever I try to whack the strings as hard as he did, well, it sounds a bit noisy. But he could really play, although he seemed a bit hampered by the sound system there this evening.

It reminded me a lot of the work I did for Carlson back a few years ago. They were also a Winchester band (the Fama brothers do not know of them), but Carlson left for college probably before Leo and Harrison entered, so that’s not surprising. But it is a small world.

So Leo and Harrison, below, playing bass, got at least two rounds on stage as the place wasn’t overflowing with musicians today.

I was also impressed with Harrison. He’s a young musician, but played a very good bass. It some ways, it’s trickier to play bass at one of these jams than it is to play guitar. The reason is that the guitarist is always playing basic blues and in tonights’ performances, there was always another guitarist on the stage. That gives each player a bit more flexibility to do what they want.

By the way, Harrison, I’m sorry the microphone is sticking out of your nose in this photo :^).

But the bass player has to not only match the beat, they also have to play the right bass line. And the right bass line might not be a standard blues riff – it really depends on the song. So for Harrison to get up there and quietly just crank out a solid performance was pretty cool to watch.

And that’s the thing about the blues jam. The musicians are just there to play and you don’t know what is going to happen. Sometimes, things get pretty groovy. Sometimes, they can’t figure out how to end a song (although that only happened a couple of times when I was there). But if you are perceptive, especially if you are a musician, you can find these little moments where someone shines.

Another example was one of the drummers – not in the set I shot above, but in the one that followed. About halfway through their third and final song, I noticed the drummer was letting loose in a really kicking way. He was filling the rhythm up with lots of little runs and just propelling the music forward. I really started to listen to the drums after I discovered Billy Cobham – that guy is unbelievable. And these little moments, honestly, put a smile on my face. It was like my little secret (well, along with about 50 other folks).

Now we get to the fun part, the dancing. The second song Leo and Harrison (and several others, but I didn’t get their names or permission) played was the classic Red House by Jimi Hendrix. As they started to play it, a couple got up and started dancing. But that doesn’t really do justice to the setting, so let me try to characterize it better. The couple was Gui Cavalcarti and Jenn Martinez of Free Body Studios and they were dancing the blues. They were also the hippest looking people I’ve seen in a long time. It reminded me of London in a way.

Now I’m not a dancer, but I was really fascinated with the style. It was different, fluid and yet improvisational and just fun to watch. It turns out that they bring students to Johnny D’s on a regular basis as it is a pretty consistent place to hear the blues week in and week out. And Sunday blues jam works well, presumably because there is more space on the dance floor as there aren’t crowds all jammed up against the stage. So over the course of the next 90 minutes or so, a whole bunch of people came in and danced. It was a blast to watch because these folks were not worried about appearances or impressions, from what I could tell. They came there to dance and they did and they all seemed to enjoy it greatly. And to me, that was the icing on the cake. Look, how often do you see a group of people that are all openly expressing themselves, good at it and not hung up about what anyone else thinks and clearly happy. Surely that’s where the Free  in Free Body Studios comes from and it was the pleasant surprise of the evening for me. So I made sure to tell Gui and I hope to see them all again the next time I hit Johnny D’s. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get up on stage and play Red House.