Tommy Washbush
A live Groove Roulette jam session is coming up on Aug. 15 at The Bur Oak.
It starts, like it often does, with the drums. The man — or the woman — with the sticks starts laying down a rhythm, and within a minute, the bassist has joined in, building the motif’s foundation. Within a few minutes, a guitar and a Hammond organ have joined the fray, and we’re on a layered musical journey that might take us into the improv jungles of funk, jazz and rock — or maybe somewhere else entirely.
Welcome to Groove Roulette, an experimental music series of recurring four-musician jam sessions dreamed up by Mount Horeb native Glenn Widdicombe. Launched in 2017 when Widdicombe was living in Milwaukee, the series has been mixing and matching musicians in Madison since 2019, beginning with live shows and switching to livestreams when the pandemic shut venues down. Now, Widdicombe and his cast of rotating musicians are looking to get back to regular live performances and build up some momentum.
In late July, Groove Roulette staged its first-ever live open jam at Bos Meadery on East Washington Avenue, where musicians could register in advance and take turns creating 10-minute jams. On Aug. 15, there’ll be another live Groove Roulette session, this one with a set four-musician cast, at The Bur Oak on Winnebago Avenue.
“Most bands start with jamming with your friends in a basement,” says Widdicombe. “This has been about making a format with musicians who are already experienced playing live.”
Originally the project was dubbed “Random Jam Band Generator” (“That was kind of a mouthful,” says Widdicombe), but the central concept has remained the same: Collect four musicians, give them a stage/studio and a little direction, and then see what happens.
Over the course of Groove Roulette’s four-year lifespan, Widdicombe estimates he’s blended the talents of 50 musicians from Milwaukee, Madison and the surrounding environs. The rotating cast has featured members from Bands You’ve Actually Heard Of©, like Natty Nation and Don’t Mess With Cupid. So far, the project has built up 16 recorded sessions/episodes available for purchase on Bandcamp, and a library of 40 videos of the sessions on YouTube.
At the start of the pandemic, Widdicombe tried staging live Groove Roulette gigs while deploying pandemic measures — masks for the musicians, picnic tables turned on ends to divide audience members into the required six-foot spacing — before shifting the operation to a livestream format in May 2020. Without live gigs to occupy their time, local performers have been eager to jump on the Groove Roulette wheel and give the jam a spin.
Glenn Widdicombe
Mount Horeb native Glenn Widdicombe launched Groove Roulette in 2017 when living in Milwaukee.
The sessions aren’t always seamless. As Widdicombe notes, not every performer is a natural at listening to the others, and some succumb to the occasional bout of showboating.
“We try our best to bring musicians who know how to approach a jam, and efficiently create a groove together,” he says.
Todd Phipps, a Hammond organ player who plays locally with several bands, including Blue Olives and Rare Element, joined his first Groove Roulette session earlier this year, in an episode that came to be known as “Todd! Dammit.”
“It was a blast,” says Phipps. “Groove Roulette gives me connections with other musicians, and the potential to open the door to new projects. I get steered in directions my other bands might not go.”
Noah Gilfillan was there at the very beginning. Gilfillan, who went to high school with Widdicombe in Mount Horeb, was among the first musicians to join the fun, back when Groove Roulette was more of a house party than an official thing. In 2019, when the project started doing live shows at venues, Gilfillan, who works at Audio for the Arts, a recording studio on Blair Street, stepped in, to both play and provide the sound engineering/technical expertise that smoothed the transition into livestreaming. In addition to some solo work, Gilfillan gigs with The Earthlings, another local experimental music group.
Gilfillan remembers being at one Groove Roulette session at the Bos Meadery where Matt Williams, a keyboardist with the creepfunk band Steez, started noodling in an interesting direction.
“I thought to myself, is he playing the Jeopardy! theme song? He’s playing a weird, jazzy version of the Jeopardy! theme song. Okay, I guess that’s where we’re going with this.”
For Gilfillan, that’s both the essence and the appeal of Groove Roulette.
“It’s that moment of inspiration and musical communication as it’s happening,” he says. “It’s the facial expressions you see among the musicians. That’s the kind of thing I can’t get everywhere else.”
After August’s live event, Widdicombe intends to return to Groove Roulette’s once-a-month livestream schedule through the end of the year, occasionally pairing it with one of his other projects — High Concept, a live-mic event featuring local comedians and, um, a whole lot of a certain medicinal herb. Then he plans to take the first couple months of 2022 off to plan out the series’ next steps. Finding more ways to monetize the operation is near the top of the list.
“I would like to reach the goal of paying the musicians a standard fee…as well as getting paid myself,” Widdicombe says.
They’re making moves in that direction, starting with a set of local sponsors that includes Fair Trade Coffee House, the Bos Meadery, Freedom Skate Shop and Ahan. But even if the revenue doesn’t appear, Widdicombe knows Groove Roulette is having an impact on the local scene. And, hopefully, keeping talented musicians collaborating and improvising here instead of bailing for the big city.
“How many musicians head to New York or Los Angeles to pursue their dream, when they could have been the best at where they come from?” he asks. “I hope Groove Roulette can push that idea of staying here and moving it forward.” n
