Walking into a practice of the Kitchen Jam Band, you notice two things: First, their live music sounds so clear and smooth it’s like listening to a recording; and second is how well they all get along with each other.
The band, which is rooted in Celtic traditions and has been together for 12 years, is made up of Barry Longwell, who plays pennywhistle; Bob Condon plays the bodhrán, an Irish drum; Terry Double, newest member of the group, is on guitar; Elizabeth Vaught, violin; Ken Beegles, accordion, and his wife, Jo Ann Beegles, on keyboard; and Dawn Turner, violin, the youngest member, is about to graduate from Fort Lewis College with a degree in music business.
On Sunday, they will celebrate the release of their third CD, “Lookin’ through the Porthole,” at the Irish Embassy Pub.
“There’s a lot involved with making a CD as a group like this because you have to coordinate your schedules so you can go down to the studio,” Ken Beegles said. “And then you have to work up the music so you’re ready to play it.”
“And the practice, this is what we do two, three times a week just to get the CD done because it costs money going in and doing a recording,” Condon adds. “And if you go in already prepared, recording it is a snap. And this orchestration of all the music and the arranging and everything really took a lot of work, this particular one. And it was different music.”
“It really is a team effort,” Condon said. “We’ll play a tune and, ‘Let’s try this,’ and ‘focus on that,’ and change around: ‘How about you two lead?’ or, you know, whatever.”
And because they’ve been together so long, they’re familiar enough with each other to joke around when asked about how they get along: “We can’t stand each other!” “We wouldn’t be caught dead socializing with one another!”
But the group gets serious when they talk about what has made them stick around as long as they have as a band when so many others call it quits.
“After a point, bands breaks up; it’s hard to keep bands together, so I guess we consider ourselves fortunate,” Ken Beegles says. “It’s kind of like being married to everybody, you’ve got to be able to get along.
“When you come into something like this, the music is so much a part of your soul that you become very vulnerable, and you become very, very tight and very close,” Jo Ann Beegles says. “There’s something very intense and tight about it that makes the group.”
“The neat thing about this group is nobody’s judgmental; you do your best and that’s all anybody asks,” Longwell says. “You work hard, you bare your soul, but you do your best and no one gets upset if you screw up or make a mistake; that’s what I really think keeps this group together. We don’t get excited about those things; we just have fun.”
katie@durangoherald.com
If you go
What:
Kitchen Jam Band CD release party, followed by open session.
When:
1 p.m. Sunday.
Where:
The Irish Embassy, 900 Main Ave.
