MANSFIELD — Hand Jam Night at the 4th Street Bar is a pretty unusual event. Where else, on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday evening, can you walk in off the street and end up sat on the bar floor thumping an African djembe drum, keeping time with a searing set of amplified guitar riffs?
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’d turned up early because I like to get the lay of the land, and to begin with it was just me and the bartender, Alexis. I ordered a Rolling Rock and asked her about the Hand Jam crowd.
“Great group of people,” she told me, as she popped the cap off my beer. “Really accepting. Among themselves, and to everyone else who turns up and joins in. From all walks of life.”
Slowly the first arrivals began to wander in: genial Hand Jam Host Nate Wieland and regular Hand Jammers Teasha Sargent and Quinn Alese were among the first. Quinn told me she is the only one to have attended every single Hand Jam so far.
“Yeah, even I missed a week when I went on vacation,” admitted Nate.
I asked for a bit of background on the Hand Jams, which started at the bar earlier this year (I was unable to get a definitive answer of exactly when, but it was either August, or June. Or April. Or some other month).
“In the beginning, no-one apart from Wieland had ever played music before,” Quinn explained, “but then local musicians started showing up as well.”
Nate explained that things worked a little differently here from a regular jam night.
“It’s not the kind of thing where someone picks up a mike and asks ‘do you know how to play Simple Man?’ It’s not that kind of jam.”
As the weekly event became more established, numbers grew, and at some points as many as four or five guitarists might be jamming together at one time along with a variety of percussionists, amateur or otherwise.
I asked Quinn if, as a non-musician, she felt comfortable joining in from the beginning.
“No, for the first few weeks I wouldn’t play!” she said. “But you know, now I feel like I need it.”
“From the start there was lot of hand percussion,” said Nate. “I would alternate between guitar and cajón. What’s a cajón? It’s kind of a box drum.”
I saw one in action later. You’d know it if you saw it. It’s the kind of thing you can sit on while slapping the sides.
“The first Hand Jams were outside,” Nate explained. “Nice acoustics. People would be drumming on pillars and buckets out there.”
“No need to amp the mike,” he continued. “But then if you get 2 or 3 djembes going at the same time you can lose the acoustic guitar.”
I asked Nate if he has any particular tunes or riffs in mind when he comes to a Hand Jam session.
“Not even remotely,” he replied. “Everything depends on who shows up and what the vibe is.”
I also asked about an offshoot of Hand Jam I’d heard about, called Fam Jam, that takes place once a month at the North Lake Park Pavilion. Unlike the evening bar sessions, children are welcome.
“Basically all of our kids were jealous!” said Quinn. “And we wanted to make music with them, too.”
“We’ve had two so far,” Teasha told me, “and we’ve really seen the community come together. The neighborhood kids heard the drums and came down.”
“Yeah the kids followed the sound of the drums!” said Kate Gerhart, another regular. “Their moms said ‘is it OK for them to play?’ Sure, here’s some drumsticks!”
“Their faces lit up,” Teasha said. “We made music for four hours.”
“And you see the same thing with adults,” said Quinn. “It’s therapeutic. It’s good for your soul.”
“It’s like our church, that’s what we call it,” said Teasha. “It’s healing.”
It was time for things to get underway. Without ceremony, the first round of jammers started to gather for the opening set.
Participants may be sat on stools or drums, they might wander or crouch with a guitar. They could be on their knees, or straddling a round drum like a rocket.
I noticed that there is very little, if any, discussion about what to play. The music might naturally head off in a hard rock direction, then turn toward something psychedelic. It might be percussion-driven or led by a simple guitar riff, and often, it is seriously funky.
Any given tune or riff may play itself out naturally after just a short workout. Then again, the groove may get mesmeric and continue for ten, even fifteen minutes.
The happy mix of actual musicians and enthusiastic amateurs is a lot more effective than you might imagine, bringing a real liveliness and a relentless drive to everything that’s played. No room for a moody or introspective solo here, no carefully-crafted set pieces.
I picked up a couple of drumsticks and started tapping away on the bar, on the table, anywhere that was available. As well as the drums, there are tambourines, maracas, and various other clappers and shakers available for general use.
Before long, I was hammering seven shades of heck out of the bar stool.
When it comes down to it, are there any objects that can’t be pressed into service as a percussive instrument? Surely not many. (I once heard of an album of music performed entirely on vegetables. Sounds fascinating, but strangely, when I tried to tell my wife about it she stood up without a word and left the room.)
The musicians took a break and I was introduced to another of the regular crowd, ‘Nasty’ Nate Rosich. A group of us fell into conversation.
I noticed that a strange burbling noise was coming out of ‘Nasty’ Nate’s mouth, and at first I feared he was having some kind of fit. But it gradually became apparent he was impersonating my accent and, as I know from many years of experience, it’s best to stand clear in such situations and let the moment ride itself out naturally.
The next session was soon on its way, and the crowd was swiftly expanding. A couple of talented hula-hoopers arrived.
I got a tap on the shoulder and Alexis handed me a djembe drum from behind the bar. “Get in there and play,” she told me.
I squatted down in the circle and started to tap out a rhythm. ‘Nasty’ Nate, I have to say, was really rocking it on the guitar. “Don’t try and follow the riff, play around it,” I told myself, closing my eyes and nodding sagely at my imagined musical wisdom.
“Tight and loose, Russell,” I thought, “tight … yet loose.” After a minute or two I fixed on a set pattern of percussion that seemed to work for me, and was able to relax into the groove.
It’s not often as an adult you get to focus on nothing but the precise moment you’re living in, but this is one of the ways to do it. Quinn was right. It is therapeutic.
And the great thing is, it’s free and open to anyone, and it happens every Wednesday night. The Hand Jam tribe, as they are often known, really do encourage all comers: I was one of several non-regulars attending, and we were warmly welcomed.
Give it a try. It might become addictive.
Hand Jam happens every Wednesday between 8 p.m. and Midnight at the 4th St Bar, 296 E. 4th St, Mansfield. No cover. All beers $2.50. Kitchen open for burgers, hot subs, tater tots and more.
