By Bobby Panza

It was a beautiful day for a bluegrass jam.

Starting amid the pandemic in the spring of 2020, bluegrass players from around the city and beyond have been gathering in Riverside Park on Sundays from 2 to 5 p.m. to cut loose and play their favorite bluegrass standards. “People come from Brooklyn, I come from the Bronx. One guy came from Poughkeepsie. And then some people come from Jersey,” said Ron Zwerdling, mandolin player and co-founder of the Sunday jam at 102nd Street.

On the promenade overlooking the ball fields and Hudson River, players start showing up around 1:30 p.m. to tune their instruments and talk about potential song choices. Some of these musicians have known each other for years thanks to other bluegrass jams around the city. “There’s a place called Paddy Riley’s downtown that’s well known,” noted Liz Wolfe, jam co-founder and acoustic guitar player. Wolfe went on to say that all bluegrass jams in the city are welcoming. “It’s just the gradient of how welcoming they are.”

Wolfe describes the Riverside Park Sunday sessions as a “slow jam,” which is especially conducive to entry-level musicians. “Most bluegrass songs are very repetitive, they’re really good for beginners. If you know how to play G, C, and D chords, you can do it. So, if you don’t know the song, it’s very likely that you will be able to pick it up if you watch a guitar player.” Wolfe keeps a book of songs that she updates regularly so she can follow the music, just in case.

Then, there are songs that Wolfe calls “jam busters.” These are tunes more geared towards “fast jams” at places like the Irish Whiskey Bar in Astoria, Queens. “If a song is too complicated and the group is not advanced, the jam leader will discourage it at a slow jam,” said Wolfe, who by day works as a business coach for entrepreneurs.

Zwerdling, who works as a civil engineer, says the bluegrass jams have been steadily growing in attendance. “We don’t know everybody. Some people just come from word of mouth and our list gets bigger.” Attendees can sign up on a clipboard with their email to stay abreast of future jams.

Trevor Hochman, a Harlem resident who works as a professional tutor is known for helping the group keep the beat. “I play a big trashcan called the bassuron that I designed. It has a broomstick on it. It’s enormous.” The Yale graduate told us his bassuron is currently in the shop so he’s working on his electric chops now, playing the bass. Hochman’s mom, Marie Conchita Alarcon got him into bluegrass and also participates in the Sunday jams as a guitar or washboard player.

Because Trevor is plugged into an amplifier, he says he’s not allowed at all jams, but in Riverside Park on Sundays he likes to have that bottom-end sound that people can hear from across the circle. “People frequently tell me to turn up [my volume] and I make look like I’m turning the knob but I don’t actually pick it up at all,” said Hochman laughing. “It’s because I really want to be as balanced as I can be with the other musicians. That’s really the spirit of jam.”

One of the most exciting elements of any jam session is not knowing what’s going to happen next. After tuning up, the first song played was the Bob Dylan classic, You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere. Technically not a bluegrass song, it got the group engaged with a fun sing-along right out of the gate. Classic bluegrass standards of the day included Rocky Top, Cherokee Shuffle, Red-Haired Boy, and Whiskey for Breakfast.

The biggest surprise (or bust out) of the day was the mid-jam arrival of bluegrass legend Kenny Kosek. One of the finest fiddle players in the world, Kosek formerly played in the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band and has worked with a diverse array of artists including John Denver, James Taylor, and Laurie Anderson. Kosek’s also played in the orchestra of Broadway musicals “Big River,” “Foxfire” and “The Robber Bridegroom.” Wolfe told us this is the second time in the jam’s history that Kosek has sat in with them.

The Sunday jam in Riverside inspired Missy Cohen to play music with others. “I was a violin player when I was a kid and I had a teacher that kind of ruined the experience for me and made me a little gun-shy about playing and singing in front of people.” The local Upper West Sider had been privately taking guitar lessons with Joe Giglio since 2004. Then the pandemic hit.

“My partner and I would take walks every day in the park, to get out and get fresh air, see people, and we heard music.” She remembers seeing musicians playing in a circle and being captivated in the moment. It’s right here that Cohen noticed a friend of hers playing guitar in the jam. “They asked if I wanted to play a song. I didn’t know what to do,” but Cohen recalls the jammers calling the keys and the songs they were doing to help her along the way.

Wolfe mentioned to us that a lot of people have told her that the Riverside Park jam sessions during the pandemic were a “lifesaver.” For Cohen, a music editor for the limited mini-series, Franklin, a period piece coming to Apple TV this winter about Ben Franklin and his trip to Paris to try and get support and funds for the American Revolution. She remembers holding the guitar, “And I was instantly really happy to be there. You know, a group of people making music for themselves. And I knew that that’s what I needed in my life. Given what I do for a living, I needed time to have music become personal for me again. The power of making music with like-minded people.”

The next jam session is tomorrow, Sunday, August 20 at 2 p.m. at 102nd Street in Riverside Park.

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