Friday Night Jammers
Back row: Orrin Livingstone, Gilbert Arsenault, Marcia Arsenault, Hermine Gallant, Melvin Arsenault, Gerard Arsenault, Dorothy Farish
Front row: Yvon Derasp, Marie Livingstone, Edward P. Arsenault
Missing: Linda Derasp, Noella Richard, Horace Thompson, Daniel Cormier
Who We Are
Practice Schedule:
We are back practicing on Friday nights, starting with a slow jam. Please contact Marie Livingstone for details.
Visit our TUNE LIST
The Friday Night Jammers formed in June, 2000 in a picnic building in Mont Carmel with a few friends who wanted to play tunes together. That fall, we rented a room at the Wellington Boys and Girls Club and have been there ever since.
As more fiddlers joined our group, there was a need to have time to teach tunes, so Marie Livingston began giving a one-hour workshop every week before the jam. She wrote out notes for the tunes and chord charts for the group – the chord book now has over one thousand tunes in it! Starting in December 2005, Marie contributed a number of articles for the Island Fiddler Newsletter under the heading “Acadian Fiddlers”. In December of 2006, Dorothy Griffin-Farish became our contributing editor until the final issue of the Fiddler in September, 2018.
In 2001, Dorothy joined the Jammers as keyboardist, and in 2002 Orrin Livingstone joined a guitar player, and both have continued to play with the group every week since then. For years, Amand Arsenault, brother of the famous Acadian fiddler Eddy Arsenault, played guitar with us, and Hermine Gallant is now a regular keyboard player. We had fourteen fiddlers in our group at one point, but as time went on, some left for college, and some are now married and raising families and occasionally join us whenever possible.
During our first ten years or so, the Friday Night Jammers played on stage at several venues, including the Carrefour, various rooms in the Conferderation Centre, the Indian River Church, the Acadian Festival, the Atlantic Fiddlers Jamboree, and the Acadian Museum. Lately, we have been doing jams before the concerts at the Acadian Festival and the Jamboree and we participate in the jam held in Eddy Arsenault’s honour every March.
We continue to meet Friday evening in Wellington all year around. We play a great variety of tunes: check our tunes list on this website for an idea of some of our favorites. The tune teaching workshop is held from 8 to 9pm, and the jam session from 9-ll pm. Everyone is welcome to come and play with us or just to listen.