Bringing Music Back to Its Roots

Bringing Music Back to Its Roots

FROM THE LEFT SIDE OF THE BALCONY | The East Bay’s subterranean house concert scene makes for pleasant listening venues.

I first met tango singer Maria Volonte when she performed at one of Buenos Aires’ most famous night clubs. I didn’t realize the level of her notoriety, however, until a group of us went to a huge, standing-room-only milonga, or tango club.

When the owner spotted Volonte, he rushed us to the front of the hall, ordered the waiters to bring out a new table, and created a special place for her, one of Argentina’s best-known vocalists.

A few years later, Volonte moved to Oakland to expand her career in the United States. But fame in Buenos Aires doesn’t put butts in the seats in the East Bay. She had to slowly develop a new fan base. She expanded musically by fusing tango with elements of jazz and blues, and by composing haunting ballads. While she no longer calls Oakland home, she did recently come through the area performing at small clubs and house concerts.

House concerts are a perfect fit for musicians like Volonte. Homeowners set up chairs in their living rooms, charge admission, and then turn over the money to the musicians. In some cases, a fan hosts a single concert. Other times, budding entrepreneurs open their houses to concerts every weekend.

Oakland and Berkeley now have an estimated 12 house-concert venues, hosting jazz, European classical, singer/song writers, and the wide variety of styles lumped together as world music. Musicians who pack in an audience can earn good money.

Volonte says performing before 30 or 40 people in a living room provides intimacy not found in larger clubs. “A house concert is a place of absolute freedom and connection,” she told me. People don’t “go there to drink or pick up someone. People are there because they really want to listen to music. Artistically I feel completely free, because when an audience is really connected, I take even more risks.”

Jazz pianist Larry Vuckovich has played everything from house concerts to massive jazz festivals. He says house concerts attract serious listeners as do jazz clubs such as Yoshi’s.

“It’s a small concert hall,” he said. “You can really get loose. You can get experimental.”

Music played for audiences at home has a long history. In New York of the 1930s, struggling workers held rent parties, sometimes featuring a piano player and cheap beer. In 1964 the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society in Half Moon Bay opened in a private home. The modern incarnation of East Bay house concerts that I was able to track down began about 13 years ago.

In 2002 jazz saxophonist Anton Schwartz was among the first to open his home to concerts. He lives in a loft built from an old elementary school in West Oakland. Schwartz likes to set up jam sessions with jazz artists coming through town for bigger gigs. Past participants include clarinetist Ken Peplowski, guitarist Bruce Forman, and piano sensation Taylor Eigsti.

Schwartz places the microphone and instruments on one side of the living room and puts folding chairs on the other. The space is small. If you lean forward too far, the trombone slide nicks your arm.

House concerts “have an off-the-grid feeling,” Schwartz said. “That sometimes prompts us to be more whimsical about material choice than we might be in a club.”

And then there’s the money. Schwartz can afford to pay good wages to the musicians and himself, but he doesn’t make much beyond costs for the event.

“I can’t say there’s any economic benefit for me as a presenter,” he told me. He is satisfied providing good music to an appreciative audience. Those rewards, he said, “are much deeper.”

For an out-of-town musicians like Maria Volonte, house concerts can help fill in empty slots. When she was touring the United States by van a few years ago, she queried fans to see whether they would host an event.

“Since then, we’ve done house concerts all over,” she said, “on an island off Vancouver, B.C.; on a ranch in the North Bay; in a townhouse in London; in a garden in Aptos. Now it’s becoming very popular back in Buenos Aires, too, for the same reason it’s taken off in the U.S.—the shortage of good venues for really listening to music.”

All the musicians interviewed agreed: A capacity crowd at a house concert can net more money for musicians than the normal small-club gig. Jazz sidemen might earn $100 for a few hours performance at a small Bay Area venue; double that at a bigger club.

Vuckovich says house concerts can pay way above that scale because the musicians usually get all the admission money. If audience members pay $20 each, and the house holds 50 or more people, Vuckovich said, “That’s good money.”

House concerts are a reaction to the increased consolidation of the music industry, which is controlled at the top by a very small number of media, recording, and concert promoting corporations. Those companies make most of their profit from the seemingly infinite varieties of pop and rock blasted on TV, radio, and in concert halls.

By comparison jazz, blues, European classical, and World Music don’t make much money and don’t get much media promotion. “The people who run things—recording and media companies—sabotage jazz and serious music,” Vuckovich said.

House concerts offer a small but important alternative. In the land of oligopoly, house concerts have re-established an old tradition and helped bring music back to its roots.

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Oakland-based freelance journalist Reese Erlich writes this arts and culture column every month. Listen to his Jazz Perspectives podcast at www.JazzCorner.com/innerviews.


In Decemeber, I wrote about the standup comedy scene. Will Durst, Johnny Steele, and friends will be performing 10 local concerts Dec. 26-Jan. 3. For details about The Big Fat Year-End Kiss-Off Comedy Show, visit www.WillDurst.com.

Faces of the East Bay