“TheCanJam isn’t just a musical group, it’s really the spirit of the music. What the music does for people.” Germaine Thomas, American chanteuse and long-time resident of Stockholm is one of the featured performers of TheCanJam, a musical experience inspired and nurtured by magician and performing artist Christiano Can. “Performing with the Jam puts you in a different dimension of music, circling around all genres. It’s specific but non-specific, stepping out of boxes and touching souls,” says Thomas. “It’s music for the soul, not just soul music.
Currently cycling through music-savvy Stockholm, TheCanJam offers performers, musicians, and the surprisingly game audience a space to tap into their souls as they tap their feet. The core group of jammers—including Thomas and an internationally groovy crew of funk and soul musicians—unites rhythms from around the world under the mesmerizing strains of Christiano’s impactful, conscious lyrics and arrangements.
“At TheCanJam, the individual takes a back seat to the music, which leads to a collective consciousness, a letting go of self. You end up in a state of euphoria and heightened awareness,” says Simon Teng, a percussionist originally from Malaysia who joined the Jam in its second season. Participants and audience members alike speak to the spirit of TheCanJam as being about much more than music. “I had just moved to Stockholm after 15 years in Switzerland, but had no friends here when I walked in on a Jam one cold, rainy day,” recalls Teng. “I walked out with a family.”
Get TheCanJam’s recorded project, Money Can’t Kill Music by the Neverland Collective, “a multifaceted fine art project composed of sonic vibrations, voices, instruments, illustrations, animations, dinner table discussions, and hippie-fire-side-chats.”
And listen to TheCanJam live, plus other aural delights at Candid Radio.
Image by Petra Rolinec.