Deborah Tobola
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The Sound of Justice
by Deborah Tobola
I'm looking for justice in my own hometown. An ex-con tells me I should check out a certain warehouse in downtown Santa Maria on a Saturday night.
I arrive a little after 5 p.m. and see several cars in the parking lot. This should be interesting. Entering the building, I find an immaculate automotive warehouse with a few foreign cars inside. There are big red metal rolling tool chests, blue car hoists with red cables, and, here and there, sofas and chairs.
The concrete floors are spotless. Long tables are decked out with white tablecloths. On each table are votive candles and vases festooned with paper flowers.
This is not an advertised event . . . you have to know someone who knows about this every-other-month gathering. The people I know are two formerly incarcerated guys, John and Maux. They've been showing up here for the last six months to jam with other musicians.
John works at Santa Maria's Day Reporting Center — a place where people on parole can go for help with a variety of things, including jobs, housing, counseling, and substance abuse treatment. A bass guitarist, John's in charge of the band there, called Petty With A Prior.
But when he comes to the warehouse jams, he often finds himself on stage — a space demarcated by a piece of blue indoor-outdoor carpet — with attorneys from the Public Defender's office, and court personnel in the audience.
By six p.m., the warehouse gets more crowded, as people bearing potluck dishes enter and find seats. John and Maux introduce me to others, including Jim, a drummer wearing a brown shirt and a ponytail.
Petty With a Prior is looking for a drummer and John asks Jim to jam with him and Maux on bass, another John on lead guitar, and retired Public Defender attorney Kevin Carey on keyboards. Jim the drummer seems a little nervous during the first song, a rollicking version of "Charlie Parker's Band."
Does Jim realize he's auditioning for the vacant drummer slot? Toward the end of the second song, you can see that the players are in that trance that musicians go into. During the third song — a blues instrumental — Jim is tearing up the drums. I know he's passed the audition.
Another Jim — Jim Voysey, Assistant Public Defender — is the person who invited John and Maux to play at this informal jam. He's friends with Jerry Stinn, the owner of Stinn's Autohaus, where the jams take place. Jim Voysey helps clients at the Day Reporting Center with legal challenges. He was the first Public Defender to work in Santa Barbara County's Drug Court in 1995.
Many of the musicians who show up are members of established bands and get together just for the enjoyment of playing. Jim Voysey, a rhythm guitarist, also plays in Class Action, a band comprised of two local judges and a court commissioner from Ventura. Their most recent gig was at the Santa Barbara County Stand Down event on October 19 at the Santa Maria Fairgrounds.
Jim Voysey loves the music nights at Stinn's. Sharing the stage with people who have served time in prison or jail doesn't bother him. "I can play with anybody — a judge or someone on parole . . . Music breaks down all the barriers."
I tell him that's what I came for. I'm looking for justice . . . for what restorative justice sounds like. And I discover it sounds like this: Click here for Music
Petty With a Prior plays at a recent Recovery Day celebration in Buena Vista Park in Santa Maria.
Jim Voysey, on bass guitar, joins them for a few songs.
Petty With a Prior performs live November 1-3 in Poetic Justice Project’s production of In the Kitchen With a Knife at the Grange Hall in San Luis Obispo and November 8-9 at the First Congregational Church in Santa Barbara. Tickets here.
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