The strength of community

A New York doctor, an Italian heart surgeon and a retired military veteran were having a bluegrass jam session in a hotel room.

It sounds like the first line to a joke, but Mike Marceau swears it's a true story.

About five or six years ago, he said, the scenario played out just that way: At 3 a.m. in a hotel room, the New York doctor was on guitar and the Italian heart surgeon was playing the banjo. Marceau, a military retiree, and a few others were on various bluegrass instruments. The entire ensemble held a full-out jam session until the early morning.

"I was in a bluegrass jam with two doctors!" Marceau said.

Marceau knows that's a phrase not every musician can proclaim. A board member of the DC Bluegrass Union, he has been involved with bluegrass music for about 30 years and says he sees the scene's communal nature as its most defining characteristic.

"Anyone who plays an instrument is welcome, and that's a very unique phenomenon to bluegrass," Marceau said.

Randy Barrett, president of the DC Bluegrass Union, chairperson of the DC Bluegrass Festival and a musician in the bluegrass band Mama Tried, said Washington has a history of bluegrass music dating back to World War II. Mama Tried is performing in the DC Bluegrass Union's third annual DC Bluegrass Festival on Saturday at the College Park Holiday Inn (the festival runs tomorrow and Saturday).

Barrett said people came from the South to staff the war effort in Washington and brought their music and instruments with them. The result is Washington's rich bluegrass community today, Barrett said.

For years, the area didn't have a local bluegrass festival, Barrett said, until the DC Bluegrass Union kicked off its first festival in 2010.

Bluegrass music is unique in its synthesis of string band music, blues and jazz. People who listen to bluegrass can almost always find a piece of that they like, Barrett said.

The mainstage performances are only part of the festival, he said. Attendees bring their instruments and look forward to the hours-long jam sessions following the scheduled acts.

John Seebach, who plays mandolin for Washington-based bluegrass band Big Chimney and was the winner of the first-ever DC Bluegrass Festival band competition last year and a performer at the festival Saturday afternoon, said bluegrass music is steeped in tradition. That set of commonalities is part of what makes the group jam sessions so enjoyable, he said.

"It's really a social music," Seebach said. "We are all kind of on the same structure of tunes, the same songs, so it's really a great way to sit down with somebody you've never met."

It's these jam sessions that knit together the community vibe of the genre, Marceau said. Regardless of experience or profession, he said bluegrass players bond over the music they love.

"[It] doesn't matter what your day job is or what your background is — we all gather there together around the music, around the songs, form our bonds that way," Marceau said.

The DC Bluegrass Union's third annual DC Bluegrass Festival is Friday and Saturday at the College Park Holiday Inn, located at 10000 Baltimore Ave. Tickets are $15 for Friday evening and $45 for a full-day pass Saturday, $25 for a partial ticket. For additional information and the schedule of festival performers, visit dcbluegrassfest.org.

raghavendran@umdbk.com