Jazzing it up
World-class musician performs for his neighbours
If you found yourself walking the side streets of Capitol Hill on a recent tranquil Sunday afternoon, past brick row houses and under flowering magnolia trees, you would have heard the unmistakable melody of the Bill Withers tune Lovely Day floating through the air from somewhere nearby, being played on — is that a harmonica?
The music ebbed and flowed, moving from reggae to a soulful jazz take on Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants To Rule The World. Dogwalkers slowed down and pulled out their phones, recording the sound coming from inside a century-old house. Cyclists pulled over to listen. The playing was just that good — as you’d expect from a virtuoso who’d toured with Prince and Stevie Wonder, and was now performing for the neighbourhood, free of charge.
French-born harmonica ace Frédéric Yonnet has lived on Capitol Hill since 2001, and been a fixture at D.C. performing arts venues while touring all over the world. In the past year, he’s headlined New York’s Blue Note jazz club, performed at the Dubai Jazz Festival and recorded a pair of songs for the soundtrack of The Irishman.
Yonnet and his band were about to hit the road again when the coronavirus forced them to postpone. “I’m on my hamster wheel at home, trying to deal with the emotional and spiritual impact,” he says, and then inspiration struck. Yonnet’s home is being renovated, and “there’s nothing in it except for electricity,” he says. So he invited the four-piece Band With No Name over for a rehearsal and jam session in late March, and threw open the windows. It didn’t take long before neighbours came out to listen from their stoops and porches.
“It’s filling the world that social distancing has created,” says Yonnet, who livestreams the performances on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, and welcomes “virtual” guests, such as singer Maimouna Youssef, who joined for a few songs from her home in Philadelphia recently. “It feels like the community is coming together, just by opening the windows.”
Of course, social distancing is in play, inside and out. On the top floor of the house, where the musicians set up, plastic sheeting hangs in different parts of the room, separating the drum kit from the keyboards.
Outside, the neighbours who gather leave a respectful distance between their chairs, or chat between the sidewalk and front steps. As the weeks have gone on, more people have begun to wander over to hear the music. Sometimes, Yonnet says, he has to get on the microphone and remind people standing on the sidewalks to give each other more room. But, he says, the lack of visible musicians makes for a different kind of performance: “There’s nothing to see, so everything is for the pleasure of your ears,” and the audience isn’t jostling to stand in one place.
Some neighbours hanging out on their front lawn one recent Sunday admitted they hadn’t heard of Yonnet a month ago, but they made time to listen every weekend. “I think it’s a beautiful thing,” says Mike Soderman, who lives around the corner. “Anything that allows us to have a distraction from the current situation, especially with music and the arts — it’s what they’re there for.”