Jammin' at Bay Street

By Tiffany Razzano

With Sag Harbor's Bay Burger closing for the winter season, the progressive jazz jam session that has built up a following there since its first event in April will keep the music going at Bay Street Theatre during the winter months.

The first Bay Burger Jam Session at Bay Street will be held on Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. After taking the remainder of December off, it will start up again on Jan. 7 and be held every subsequent Thursday. Every event is free and open to the public, as the jam's founder and drummer Claes Brondal's main purpose was to create a weekly event that would expose the community - especially children within the community - to different types of music. Brondal actually got the idea for the jam session from working with children in local schools, teaching them about the roots of music. "I realized that a lot of these kids had never experienced live music up close, if at all, before," he said. "I definitely felt the need in the community. I want to make jazz accessible."

Brondal, originally from Denmark, realized that organizing such an event would benefit not just the community of listeners who would make up the audience, but the musicians as well, after he realized there were very few venues for this sort of music on the East End. "I believe the art of music can only really be practiced in front of a live audience," he said. "You can practice on your own until you're blue in the face, but if you don't put it in context of a live audience, it loses its value." So he got to talking to Bay Burger co-owner Joe Tremblay, and the jam sessions were born last spring.

Stemming back to New York City during the jazz era, when musicians would gather after their regular gigs to collaborate and jam together, these jam sessions have been growing from the very beginning. With a house band that consists of Brondal on drums and other local musicians, you never know who will turn up each week to perform. Sometimes it might just be the house band on stage, while other times you might catch up to 12 musicians, including vocalists and a horn section, performing. And the jazz music performed takes on an inventive feel, incorporating Latin, hip-hop, gospel, soul, R&B and more. Musicians taking the stage range from 19 to 70 years old. "It definitely takes on an eclectic feel," Brondal said.

Brondal reached out to Bay Street to see what he could do for the jam session during the off-season and found that the powers that be there had actually been interested in contacting him. The Bay Burger Jam Sessions in collaboration with Bay Street, as it's being called, will host its kick-off session, a benefit for the program on Dec. 3. For more information, go to baystreet.org.

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