Joan Griffith picks and strums a quick samba rhythm on her guitar strings, slows the tempo, then plays “Só Danço Samba” for an audience of two dozen women gathered at Walker West Music Academy on a Saturday afternoon in March. Along with pianist Mary Louise Knutson, drummer Jendeen Forsberg, and vocalist Lucia Newell, Griffith teaches the group a brief history of Brazilian music, tips on improvisation, and how to “bossa up” any jazz standard.
Griffith’s set and lecture make up the workshop portion of a Women In Jazz Workshop and Jam Session, offered quarterly by Walker West. The nonprofit music school will open the doors of its new facility on Marshall Avenue in St. Paul to the public on its grand-opening weekend April 25-26, where community members can learn about music education opportunities for all ages. At least one quarter of Walker West music students are over 18 years old, according to Katia Cardenas, program director for Walker West Without Walls, who says, “We’re really passionate about people’s musical journeys across their lives.”
Cardenas sums up academic research on the benefits of a music hobby simply: “Music makes people’s lives better.” And lucky for Twin Cities instrumentalists, Walker West is just one of many institutions cultivating adult ensembles that help keep amateur adult musicians’ ears, lungs, and fingers in shape, while also connecting like-minded people and nurturing that ineffable, sparkly feeling that comes from reaching a final fermata-capped chord with a group of other musicians.
Bebop-, blues-, smooth-, and fusion-heads can jam with combos organized by Twin Town Guitars, Jazz Central Studio’s North Star Jazz Workshops, and MacPhail Center for Music. For pop and rock musicians, from beginners to advanced players, Twin Town Guitars and MacPhail also offer jam bands and guitar lessons. Musicians of all abilities who like the emphasis of their beats to fall on the ones and threes can choose from an array of community orchestras and concert bands.
For Max Carr, an architect who moved with his wife and young daughter to socially insular Minneapolis early in the Covid pandemic, music helped him establish a social routine. “We weren’t meeting a lot of people and we wanted to find ways to get more involved in the community,” Carr says. After attending a Crosstown Community Band concert, he asked his folks in Kansas to bring his old trumpet, which he had played from age 10 through high school, to Minneapolis so he could join the band. The weekly musical appointment connects Carr to new friends and gives him a reason to revive his horn chops.
Bruce Wright, an instructor at Dunwoody College of Technology and amateur bass clarinetist, founded Crosstown Community Band after conducting his son and friends in an ad hoc backyard summer band. The kids had so much fun that Wright and five other parents decided to form a group of their own, eventually recruiting a professional conductor. “We just kept going,” Wright says. “It’s low-key and enjoyable.” Of the band’s five or six yearly concerts, Wright’s favorite venue is the Kenny Neighborhood Association’s annual Ice Cream Social. It’s open to all experience levels with no audition requirement—one member joined the band and then learned to play the clarinet.
The Twin Cities is also home to music groups for more advanced amateur musicians who want to play a challenging repertoire. Kathryn Ruda, a program director for Zerigo Health, played viola competitively in her youth, then took a dozen years off from the instrument while she established her career and had a family. When she saw Antonín Dvořák’s New World Symphony on the performance schedule of the Civic Orchestra of Minneapolis, she says, “It was time for me to go back.” She took lessons in preparation for her audition to the group, which includes retired musicians from the Minnesota Orchestra.
“It has a calming effect,” Ruda says of music’s therapeutic benefits. “It’s a way to unplug my brain.” Plus, being in a group helps keep her practicing regularly. “Knowing that my stand partner will know if I practiced helps motivate me to stick with it,” Ruda says, and compares the strong sense of belonging she gets from being a part of the orchestra to a church community.
At Walker West, the chill, female-identifying and nonbinary environment is a big draw for Emerald Peterson, a saxophonist from St. Paul, and Sarah Sharp, a semi-professional saxophonist from Maplewood, who’s there to jam before ducking out for a gig with Retro Soul in Rochester. Geri Jerze, a vocalist who has sung with different groups in Minneapolis for 20 years, including her family’s 13-piece Peruvian band Caribé, is at Women In Jazz to recruit a female guitarist to play in a new Peruvian music project. “I want to promote more musicians who are women,” Jerze says.
The workshop portion of the Women In Jazz afternoon wraps up after Newell charms the audience with a story about living in Brazil in her twenties, where she sang in a Rio de Janeiro jazz club five nights a week and once met the bossa legend Antônio Carlos Jobim. After a social snack break, the jam session begins, and participants take turns playing bossa nova classics like “Wave” and “One Note Samba.”
The bass players, pianists, saxophonists, guitarists, and singers range from beginner to professional, and from late teens to retirement age. For Yasmeenah Sideak-Jama, program coordinator for Walker West Without Walls, the intergenerational aspect of adult music ensembles is the best part. “It’s really valuable in education settings to be able to learn with people of all different ages and backgrounds because people take away a lot more from a diverse group,” she says.
A grant from Minnesota Humanities Center that funded the project through the spring of 2025 is ending and future funding for additional female-focused workshops is unknown. For now, there’s one last chance to participate in a Women In Jazz Workshop and Jam Session with a blues afternoon on May 3.
Walker West Music Academy Grand Opening Weekend
Where: Walker West Music Academy, 650 Marshall Ave., St. Paul
When: 4-8 p.m. Friday, April 25 & Saturday, April 26
Tickets: Free; more info here
