By Yonathan Shimelis

It’s past sundown and the Adele H. Stamp Student Union is quiet — except for the harmony of music pouring out of the Baltimore Room, where passing students may hear a guitar, drums, piano or even a cowbell.

Inside is Jammin’ at Maryland, a club that provides a space for members of the University of Maryland community to play music, whether they are music majors or not. The group, nicknamed JAM, meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

JAM often performs rock and pop, but the group has also experimented with other music, such as anime themes, jazz and Bollywood songs.

For students like Samrat Somanna, JAM offers a pressure-free environment to practice music. Somanna, a junior computer science major, has been a member since 2019.

“Music, in general, can feel intimidating. People make mistakes in JAM, but no one cares, they just keep on playing, and people will still compliment you,” Somanna said.

The club started in spring 2017 by Josie Vallejo and Ophir Gal. Vallejo, JAM’s president, is a part-time student and biology major. When she arrived at UMD, Vallejo lacked friends to play music with. That led her to start JAM.

“I was so used to playing with other people, but all of the sudden I was alone. And I didn’t like that,” Vallejo said.

The need for connection led Vallejo and Gal on a search for a space to play music with other people. They started at the School of Music but were unsuccessful.

“If you’re not part of the School of Music, you’re not really going to get any of the practice rooms or programs or resources that they have for music majors,” Vallejo said.

Vallejo said she realized there were many barriers in the music space at UMD. They aimed to change that with JAM.

“We started working on an idea that music should be for everybody and that we want to make it accessible,” Vallejo said.

Despite Vallejo and Gal’s efforts, JAM faced difficulties at the start.

“It took a good year for us to get started. For the first year, no one showed up. We started in the Centreville [Hall] basement. But after the second year, we finally got people to come,” Vallejo said.

Thomas Chung, a senior computer science major, plays the bass. Chung has attended JAM meetings since his freshman year for a simple reason, he said.

“I like music. I saw them play. I wanted to play music. That was pretty much it,” Chung said.

But JAM became much more than music for Chung and other members of the group.

“Jam has mostly been kind of just a home. I’ve met a lot of friends here and a lot of my friends are from this club,” Chung said.

Sid Gupta joined JAM in fall 2019. Gupta is taking a leave of absence but remains an officer of the club.

“JAM was really my first real community of friends on campus. It really made my social life what it is,”Gupta said.

Armon Sari, a junior studying government and politics, attended his first in-person JAM meeting in fall 2021 after becoming a member online in fall 2020.

“Everybody gets along super quickly. The people are so open and friendly,” Sari said.

The club has come a long way from its early days in 2017.

“Some days I remember it used to be no one, just me and another officer. Now you could see there’s a whole group,” Vallejo said.

Vallejo will leave UMD in 2024, but said she hopes the club keeps growing.

“I hope that the club continues. I really hope that we get people from more backgrounds. I want to see it be more open,” Vallejo said.

Featured image: JAM started with just two members in 2017 but has since grown far beyond its humble roots. Photo by Yonathan Shimelis.