Nashville area open jams

[Jascoduende]

At an open jam you never quite know who’s going to walk through the door, get on stage, or what kind of music is going to happen. Could be great or it could be a trainwreck.

Here in the Nashville area, there are open jams to go to almost every night of the week. Local players, touring musicians, seasoned pros and newcomers mix it up, sitting in, trading licks, calling a song and seeing where it goes.

In this thread I’ll post video clips from open jams that I go to around the Nashville area, capturing some of the vibe around this area.

This first video is from a jam at BBB (Boro Bourbon and Brews) in Murfreesboro, about 30 miles south of Nashville.

 

[VonBonfire]

Glad to see you taking advantage of those opportunities! Awesome. And sounding good! Great way to build chops and get stage time. Nashville has the best players in the world on average IME.

I lived in Nashville in '06 and used to hit the bourbon street blues and boogie bar jam down printer's alley every sunday. Some real heavy hitters would show up there. It was a blast. It was run by Shannon Williford and Nick Nixon back then. I think Shannon had gotten transplanted due to Katrina, as it looks like he's back in Baton Rouge now. A lot of Louisiana musicians turned up there at that time since New Orleans was basically DOA for gigging players. They would bring up special guests each week from down south. I remember Freddy Neal of the Neal family one sunday specifically. Dang good times...

The other one I used to hit was the Gibson showcase over at Opry Mills mall. Nick used to run that jam also. He was such a good dude, a huge voice and monster talent. I know Gibson gave him a Lucille model for his services, as he showed it off to me one night after the jam. Unfortunately he passed away in 2018, RIP.

 

[Jascoduende]

Here's one at a bar called Memories a few miles south of Nashville.