The February 6 square dance with Allison Williams and Chance McCoy is STILL ON. Beat your cabin fever and come out dancing!

The Tuesday Night Jam

The Old Time Jam is a local tradition spanning some thirty odd years and provides a common weekly occasion for musicians, dancers, and Old Time enthusiasts to meet, play music, flatfoot, squaredance, have a beer, let their hair down, pull their socks up, put their foot down, and have a good time. Currently, the Old Time Jam is hosted by Gillie's Restaurant in downtown Blacksburg, Virginia (USA), and goes from 8ish to 11ish without fail. Except on some holidays.

The Old Time Jam is in a very open format, and everyone is welcome to participate. Musicians show up with fiddles, banjos, mandolins, goosebumps, guitars, base fiddles, even spoons, and a chance triangle or concertina. The music generally consists of tunes that date far back in American musical history, tend to be primarily instrumental, and are invariably lead (i.e. started and stopped) by a fiddler. The Dancers show up with feet generally. Also with shoes and socks. And with fiddles, banjos, mandolins, guitars, hickups, base fiddles & spoons.

The music itself tends to rely heavily on breakdowns, hornpipes, reels and also slower tunes such as waltzes and two-steps. The music stresses rhythm, and also variation of the melody within a periodic, that is to say iterative, framework. Old Time music's instrumentation often has "roles" for each instrument, be it melodic, percussive, or rhythmic, and individual instruments, much unlike jazz or bluegrass, never take "breaks," or solos. Notably, Bill Richardson has been instrumental in maintaining various aspects Jam through organizing and teaching.

Dancing at the Old Time Jam can includes, reels, square dances, circle dances, two-couple dances, couple dancing, two-steps, waltzes and individual dancing. Group dances are called by energetic and knowledgeable (unpaid of course) callers. The individual forms are often structurally close to traditional flatfooting, and clogging. Flatfooting stresses movements low to the ground, individual styling, rhythm, percussion, and response to the driving music before them. Another form, known as clogging, relies more heavily on "step patterns" and is perhaps more rowdy, and a mite flashier. Couple dancing in a open environment such as this one is perhaps the best ice-breaker known to man and in the NROT community has served as a beacon and port of call for attracting and reeling in new "members" to the NROT community. In this, Phil Louer's pedagogical feets are unrivaled.

Over the years, the Old Time Jam, like the Hoorah Cloggers, has been invaluable in providing a venue and social framework through which people have come to learn about Appalachian culture, learn to play its music, meet wonderful people, form lasting and friendships, express themselves through movement, and rediscover the impact of being a part of and maintaining a close-knit community. The Old Time Jam is an event dedicated to the preservation and proliferation of OldTime music, but above all, it is dedicated its enjoyment.

Further information on the Old Time Jam.

The host location for the Jam in the recent past has been rather tumultuous, moving from place to place like a scruffy homeless pooch. The Jam has been at Top of the Stairs (TOTS), Preston & Co., The WareHouse, South Main Café (formerly "117"), and in Champs Café. Before becoming a "public" event, the Jam was held at various individuals homes. For still more information, an informative and concise history of the Old Time Jam is located here: History of the Old Time Jam.