Craig Wilson helps someone at the weekly ukulele jam tune their instrument. Wislon is one of the Juneau Jambusters likely to have a spare ukulele during the Sunday gatherings. (Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly)

Craig Wilson helps someone at the weekly ukulele jam tune their instrument. Wislon is one of the Juneau Jambusters likely to have a spare ukulele during the Sunday gatherings. (Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly)

Hope uke like jamming too

Weekly ukulele jam is fun — even if you’re bad, like me

Juneau Jambusters say anyone of any skill level is welcome to the weekly ukulele jam.

Even if the last time someone picked up an instrument was in high school while slowly picking out AC/DC power chords, they can join in with the group that meets 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at TK Maguire’s restaurant in the Prospector Hotel.

I know because that’s my exact level of proficiency, and I recently went to the jam with my wonderful fiancée, even though I am objectively terrible at ukulele and most other forms of music making.

A groggy pirate waking up from a rum-induced slumber required for a double amputation and hook installation would play circles around me.

I am bad.

But I was welcomed and lent one of the spare ukuleles the group keeps on hand for interlopers or the otherwise curious.

On any Sunday, the number of musicians fluctuates between four or five to over a dozen depending on work and play schedules. Gray skies tend to drive more group members to the Prospector for the jam.

The number of instruments almost always outnumbers the musicians, said Rhonda Jenkins-Gardinier, who helped found the group almost a decade ago.

That’s because many people may dabble in ukulele and run into the group by chance, or play a different string instrument and want to join in the group music fun.

“It’s a very approachable instrument,” Jenkins-Gardinier said.

That’s sort of how longtime Jambuster Reid Tippets ended up joining on.

He was at Echo Ranch and saw Amy O’Neil Houck, another one of the Jambusters founding members, playing ukulele.

“I said, ‘Oh, I have one in my attic,” Tippets said.

He’d bought it years ago when visiting Hawaii and jamming “So Happy Together” by the Turtles with a shop owner but mostly had forgotten about it and favored the guitar.

“It was kind of this synchronicity of meeting Amy,” Tippets said.

In part because just about all the members are multi-instrumentalists, there are many types of ukuleles at the weekly jam — some play more like a more familiar instrument and some cover different ranges of sound.

Some of the instruments aren’t even ukuleles.

There’s a four-stringed, Venezuelan instrument called a cuatro, which John Lager makes sing with string-bending playing, a twangy banjolele played by Jessica Breyer and a plugged-in bass ukulele played by her husband, Rodney Breyer.

Rodney Breyer said the bass ukulele is exactly like a normal bass, but “more compact.”

The group dynamic of the jam creates a firing squad effect that means it’s never clear who issued a fatal errant note or mistimed strum.

However, unique contributions to the sound, like Lager’s solos or rumbling bass do stand out and add texture to the pleasant sounds.

Hearing the group break out into “500 Miles” made famous by Peter, Paul and Mary, it’s hard to not catch choral vibes with every individual voice adding a vibrant thread to a grander tapestry.

The jam approach also means, if you’re total dead weight and clumsily strumming the same C string over and over whenever you recognize it on one of the sheet of tabs shared among the group, you don’t drag things down.

And, in between songs, someone will probably show you a new chord.


• Contact arts and culture reporter Ben Hohenstatt at (907)523-2243 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com.


Rodney Breyer and Read Tippets look at ukulele tabs before playing a song during the weekly Sunday ukulele jam. Breyer plays an electric ukulele bass that’s similar to a bass guitar. (Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly)

Rodney Breyer and Read Tippets look at ukulele tabs before playing a song during the weekly Sunday ukulele jam. Breyer plays an electric ukulele bass that’s similar to a bass guitar. (Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly)

More in Home

The Norwegian Jewel begins its departure from Juneau on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024, marking the official end of the annual cruise ship season. (Laurie Craig / Juneau Empire file photo)
Community support for cruise tourism continues slow decline in annual survey

29% say impacts generally positive, 13% negative; responses were 40% positive, 6% negative in 2002

The Alaska State Capitol is seen on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in front of snow-covered Mount Juneau. (James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska legislators say state’s fiscal picture is among the worst in decades

A planned increase for K-12 public school spending is expected to significantly reduce the PFD.

Large cracks in the Mendenhall Glacier are observed by U.S. Forest Service officials on the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (U.S. Forest Service photo)
‘A substantial portion of the Mendenhall Glacier is expected to collapse at any time’

Warning issued Tuesday morning by U.S. Forest Service after recent calving, large crack spotted.

A girl uses her cellphone at Bronx High School of Science in New York on Jan. 11, 2016. (Yana Paskova for The New York Times)
Juneau School District seeks feedback from community on cellphone policy

The conversation rises from cellphone bans happening nationally and at the state level.

A drone image shows widespread flooding in the Mendenhall Valley in Juneau on Aug. 6, 2024. The flood was from an outburst at Suicide Basin, part of the Mendenhall Glacier complex. A similar glacial outburst flood struck the same area in 2023. (Image courtesy of Rich Ross)
Bill would establish Alaska alternative to federal flood insurance program

The Alaska Legislature is considering a bill that would create a new… Continue reading

Juneau International Airport is getting new leadership in its administration and board of directors. (Peter Segall / Juneau Empire file photo)
Assembly names two new airport board members in shakeup after budget stalemate

Angela Rodell and David Epstein, both former members, to get quick start at seeking solution this week.

Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé senior Nordic Ski Team member Ida Meyer competes at the Region VI Championships Friday in Fairbanks. Meyer placed seventh overall in the girls 7.5km Mass Start. The JDHS girls team placed second in the two-day regions, the boys third. JDHS senior Finn Lamb led the Crimson Bears boys with a sixth place finish in the 7.5km. (Photo courtesy JDHS Nordic Ski)
JDHS Crimson Bears take snow show on the road

Nordic Ski Team girls second, boys third at Region VI Championships.

Blank posts are seen where the two totem poles once stood at the Fred Meyer main entrance on Feb. 7, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
Fred Meyer totem poles get a second chance at life

Tlingit master carver says they will be refurbished with tribal youth and repurposed.

Most Read