By Andrew Roberts, news correspondent

Blue and orange mosaic stained lamps. Oriental rugs. Dim lighting. Ruby red walls. Towering glass cases with antique saxophones and bassoons as the centerpiece. Live jazz music on Tuesdays.

This is Virtuosity Musical Instruments. By day, shopkeepers Brett Walberg and Zach Olson                                                             Photo courtesy of Gavin Whitner

help college students buy reeds and strings  and provide repair services.

The music store opened in 2015 at the corner of Huntington and Massachusetts Avenues.

It is within walking distance of Berklee College of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music and across the street from Boston Symphony Hall. On occasion, Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director Andris Nelsons will come to the shop looking for the newest trumpet accessories. Walberg says his interactions with Nelsons are just like any other customer interactions. However, Walberg refers to him as “Maestro” Nelsons, while for the typical customer, their first name does the trick.

Many music retailers like the neighboring Rayburn Music have gone under, yet Virtuosity Instruments has held steady by creating its own niche.

Walberg and Olson transform Virtuosity into a jazz lounge every Tuesday and invite the community to jam. Since last May, when they held their first gathering, they have had a jam session every week. Walberg said he wanted to use their space to create a community meeting place.

“It’s a safe place to come in and work things out,” Walberg said.

The shop closed around 7 p.m. Nov. 7 and Walberg and Olson began moving furniture. They set up drums and a keyboard on the edges of an oriental rug. Walberg stepped out for a cigarette break and to retrieve their weekly coffee order from Farmers Horse Coffee.

Around 8 p.m., musicians and spectators started to arrive. It was cold and blustery for November, and the free coffee disappeared quickly. Soon, a cacophony of jazz filled the room.

A Community Space

A floor-to-ceiling red curtain separates the front of the shop from the back. The walls are lined with used instruments sporting various degrees of wear and tear from decades of play. A hollowed out piano turned on its side with horizontal wood planks stretching the width of the piano acts as the bookcase for the shop.

A day before the jam session, police reported a gang-related murder at the intersection where Virtuosity is located. Olson speculated that it might lower the turnout. One of the goals of the jam session, Walberg said, is to create a space where people can come to forget about the events in the world and focus on their love of jazz.  

Walberg described some of the wild aspects of the music industry, noting the pressures young musicians experience in a cutthroat business. He recalled getting shoved by a band leader when he was younger while learning how to play the saxophone.

While this was a shocking experience for Walberg, he described it as “a watershed moment.” He was pushed into the foreground and forced into a fight or flight response. He absorbed the embarrassment and didn’t give up. Walberg chose to fight, and said he ended up a better musician and person.

“In the classical [music] world, physical and emotional abuse are not uncommon,” said Walberg. “The mission is to provide a comfortable space for musicians to hang out and meet and play and sort of be in their own environment without any of the other pressures.”

Walberg said he became sick of seeing jazz musicians not have a comfortable place to practice and experiment openly.

“I need to make a space,” Walberg said. “It is necessary. Boston needs someone to do this.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TQxoqQdrjg?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Feeling the Music

Passersby peer inside as they are met with the unexpected sound of jazz music spilling onto Huntington Avenue.  

Enough people filtered in during the first 30 minutes to fill the room and the 15 seats consisting of couches and metal folding chairs. It was lively and very loud — the jam session had begun.

The evening started out with two pieces. Solos and improvisation turned the two pieces into a 20 minute-long set. Olson and Walberg took the lead in front on their saxophones, with a volunteer drummer, bassist and pianist backing them up. The saxophonists’ faces strained and their bodies lurched with every breath they took and every note they hit.

The crowd emphatically nodded their heads after a particularly stirring saxophone solo. Another soloist stepped up, and the rest of the band slowed their tempo and volume, allowing space for the soloist have the spotlight.

After the first set, Walberg opened things up to whomever wanted to play, describing the process as “egalitarian.” He emulates that of a hip professor with his ‘70s vocabulary, including calling musicians “cats,” and wears a wool v-neck sweater and blood-red pants. He sips coffee out of his Batman coffee mug.

Then, another cigarette break.

Walberg spends all of his time working at Virtuosity when he is not teaching music classes as an adjunct professor at Lasell College in Newton. He is a pessimist when it comes to job prospects for jazz musicians. When asked what comes for someone after they graduate from Berklee, Walberg said a master’s degree is usually the only option. And after that, a doctorate. And after that, becoming a professor.

Gallery • 4 Photos

Brett Walberg and Zach Olson talk to a customer. / Photo by Andrew Roberts

Second Home

Jon Russell, 24, is a regular at the jam session. The bassist has flowing hair and a calm, smooth speaking pattern. He holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering with a focus on acoustics, but he hasn’t found his calling. The jam session provides him a steady place to play and experiment in between gigs.

“A lot of the time there are a lot of really cool songs that happen and you really get to have a lot of special moments with people,” Russell said. “It is kind of the cool thing about jazz and improv.”

Creating these moments for people through music is exactly what Walberg envisioned when they started planning the Tuesday night sessions.

Olson recognizes the impact of the sessions on himself, regular attendees and drop-ins.

“It has been pretty incredible, the community that we have built through the sessions,” Olson said, sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup.  

Olson describes himself as a jaded ex-Trader Joe’s employee. He worked at Trader Joe’s in California for the seven years and attended community college in San Francisco before moving to Boston to attend Berklee at age 23. He said he felt isolated among a student population as young as 16, but he walked into Virtuosity Music a year and a half ago and it has been his community ever since.

For Olson and Walberg, the shop is their second home. As the musicians played with passion and the audience offered encouragement, Walberg and Olson looked on from behind the store counter with smiles on their faces.