In Love with the Downbeat

You can do it in a honky tonk with sticky floors and bad acoustics, in a bar called the Rock and Roll Hotel, in an elegant, velvet-draped music hall or in a church meeting room. You can do it in your living room, or in your friend’s shed, or on the front porch or in the back yard. Wherever you are, when the beat is called out – uh-one…two...one-two-three-four -- and someone lays into an infectious groove, I’m hooked.

I’m lucky – I get to hear live music in all of those places. Last week, I heard Mark Wenner, the driving force behind the area’s venerable Nighthawks, along with a slew of blues and roots musicians (the Akousticats) who first made me feel inadequately educated about the origins of some of our most familiar tunes, but more importantly (and lastingly) made me grin ‘til my cheeks hurt, listening to their tight sound and the wail of Wenner’s harmonica (what is it about its piercing music that reaches right into my chest and squeezes my heart?). They hit the “stage” at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church, home to the Institute of Musical Traditions (IMT) weekly concerts; the audience sat on folding chairs and ate homemade cookies and drank tea, listening to music more evocative of a smoky roadhouse than a church service. They loved it.

I also caught Mark O’Connor and Dorado Schmitt recently at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theatre, an intimate space tucked into the second story that I’d somehow missed in 27 years of living in the D.C. area. The concert, a tribute to the late Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, was another grin-fest. These musicians were phenomenal: O’Connor on jazz violin, so comfortable in the music it was like a second skin; Schmitt playing gypsy strings so fast it took my breath away; the guitar duo Frank Vignola and Julian Lage like kids, trading licks, giddy with how perfectly it all fit together. At one point the bass players – one from O’Connor’s band, the other from Schmitt’s -- took turns on one instrument, each completing the other’s bar, barely missing a beat.

Then there was D.C.'s Rock N Roll Hotel -- really -- where we got to hear the great and uber-danceable Afrofunk band, Chopteeth, all percussion and brass and deep rhythm, calling out to a crowd that included aging hippies, Peace Corps-looking 20-somethings, and plenty of in-between. The bonus was an upstairs disco complete with lights and music that might have sounded retro to the younger crowd that dominated the dance floor, but sounded like yesterday to me.

These are just three examples of local music venues, but there are plenty more. IMT recently found a second location, so there will be concerts in Takoma Park beginning next month, at Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange on Maple Avenue. (The first concert is Laura Cortese and Jefferson Hamer -- traditional and modern folk and pop – and since it’s a “concert and jam,” you can bring your own instrument and stay to join the performers if you like). These shows are so affordable -- $10-20 in advance – it’s hard to make an excuse to miss them. A similar organization, Focus Rockville, presents weekly at the Unitarian Church in Rockville.

There are, of course, free street festivals featuring loads of local music when the weather gets warmer. Meanwhile, Takoma Park hosts the annual Folklore Society of Washington Midwinter Festival at the Middle School, Feb. 6, with live music and dance lessons (two of my favorite things in the world).

If you go to hear any live music in the area – and you really should – look for me. I’ll be the one in the middle of the room, wearing a big grin.