Imagine you’re a team captain charged with assembling a group of Maryland musicians for the ultimate “Battle of the Bands” competition.  (First prize: ownership of the Orioles.  Second prize: a set of steak knives.) All of the state’s best musicians are lined up in front of you and the other captains on the playground for the choosing of sides.  There’s no doubt in my mind who I’m taking with my first pick: Alex Lacquement.

An upright bassist?  Really?  Ahead of all those guitar slingers out there?  Yes!  Just hear me out.

First off, Lacquement is an extraordinary musician.  He can and does play any and all kinds of music, though he’s especially adept at bluegrass, roots music, and jazz.  If you’re a fan of live music in Baltimore, there’s a good chance you’ve seen him play.  He’s hard to avoid.  In addition to the acclaimed acoustic roots quartet Charm City Junction, he often accompanies a veritable who’s who of Baltimore-based artists including Letitia VanSant, the Honey Dewdrops, and Ken & Brad Kolodner.

The fact that Lacquement plays so frequently with so many different, talented artists is a testament to his unique abilities.  Lacquement is the kind of musician other musicians love to play with because he’s such an intuitive collaborator.  He makes everyone around him better.

“As a musician, he’s always listening to the bigger picture and finding the most subtly tasteful way to fit in,” VanSant said.  “He has the chops to make incredibly complex music, but perhaps more remarkably, he has the sensitivity to know when it’s time to use them.”

“Before I was twenty,” Lacquement said, “I just wanted to make music with as many people as I could.”  This is partly what drew him to the bass in the first place.  Now that he’s a little older, he’s more selective.  “I want to make music with the people who I really want to make music with.  People who love doing it for the sake of the music.”  (Which is why he loves playing with the community players at the Tuesday night jam sessions at R. House so much.)

Another reason I’m picking Lacquement is, in the words of Meghan Trainor, it really is “all about that bass, ‘bout that bass, ‘bout that bass.”  We’ve always known instinctively that the bass can move us in ways that treble just can’t and now we know why.  A 2022 study by the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind showed that the bass’s low frequencies resonate with us – literally.  It’s not just with our ears that we experience music. Our bodies play a big part in the process, too.  The study found that most body parts, including our bones, resonate at the same frequencies produced by the bass.  We feel music, like my grandmother feels an approaching weather system, in our bones thanks to bassists.  And the music transmitted through our bones to our brains gets there faster and feels more profound than the music that comes to us only through our ears.

Bassists like Lacquement play an essential, but underappreciated role in popular music.  Aside from laying the foundation upon which the other musicians build the melody and the solos (and get all the glory), the bass has another hidden talent.  “It’s an instrument that glues things together,” Lacquement said.  “The bass can be the bridge between the percussive side of things and the harmonic side of things.”  In other words, a good bassist joins the band’s rhythm section with its melody makers so the two can merge to create a cohesive sound.  The lead vocalist may be getting all the attention, but it’s the bass player in the back who’s holding the whole thing together.

It’s fitting then that Lacquement is a bass player because he does for the Baltimore roots music community a lot of what great bassists do for their bands.  He’s a connector, constantly working on and off-stage to organize and promote music, musicians, events, and all things good in the Baltimore area.

For the past seven years he’s organized, with fellow musician Luke Chohany, the Baltimore Bluegrass Jam.  The jam is free and welcomes acoustic musicians of all skill levels and instruments for a rollicking bi-weekly ride through the catalog of bluegrass standards.  It’s a great time for the folks who come out just to listen, too, as you never know what songs you’ll hear, or which local musicians will step up to the mic on any given night.  The jam moved this year from Hampden to the R. House venue in Remington where it has flourished.  Every other Tuesday from 7 to 10 pm, thirty to forty musicians, led by Lacquement, fill the hall with the high and lonesome sound of bluegrass.  On the alternate Tuesdays an old-time music jam is there (where you will also find Lacquement with his harmonicas and banjo), hosted by the talented father-son duo of Ken and Brad Kolodner.

If picking tunes in a jam session isn’t your thing, there’s another way regular folks can participate in the local roots music scene- by jumping in with both feet.  The Baltimore Honky-Tonk Two-Step Dances, which are planned, organized, and promoted by Lacquement, are a regular source of joy.  Even the wallflowers end up on the dance floor at these events, coaxed there by the fun neoclassic country and honky-tonk bands that Lacquement brings in.

Lacquement said that he caught the dancing bug in 2010 during a hiatus in his playing because of a bout of tendonitis in his wrist.  “I went to this old-time string band festival in West Virginia,” he said.  “Because I couldn’t play, I started square dancing and doing two-stepping.”  It turned out to be a revelation.  Up to that point, Lacquement was into bebop and focused on getting a master’s degree in jazz performance.  But he found the roots music scene to be compelling in ways the jazz scene was not.  “With this rootsier music,” he said, “people like to be outside; they like to dance and socialize.  And I hadn’t found that same culture with my friends from the jazz world.”

It’s hard to believe, but before Lacquement arrived in town there was not a venue in the city that regularly held honky-tonk dances.  (And you’d think from the classic song “Streets of Baltimore” that Eastern Avenue was just lined with them.)  In true Lacquement fashion, he took it upon himself to right this wrong.  With VanSant and Chohany he formed Rusty Sal, a classic country and honky-tonk band that is perfectly suited for these events.  The honky-tonk two-step nights were held at a variety of venues before finding a regular home at the Waverly Brewing Company in Hampden.

Prior to the start of each show, Lacquement serves as an ersatz Arthur Murray, leading a 15-minute beginner class in the fine art of the Texas two-step.  (It’s actually not a fine art and anyone who can tap their toes and count to two can learn to dance more than well enough to have a good time at the honky-tonks.)  By the way, Lacquement has degrees in music education from the Eastman School of Music and James Madison University and teaches students of all ages at private schools around town, so he’s more than capable as a dance instructor.

Lacquement was introduced to the Church on the Square, where he’s been curating its Music on the Square concert series since 2019, when he played a show there with VanSant four years ago.  He was impressed with its acoustics, hardwood floors, and the overall ambiance of the setting and reached out to its pastor, Jim Hamilton, when he was looking for places to hold the honky-tonks.  A friendship was struck, and Hamilton eventually asked Lacquement if he’d be interested in producing an annual season of concerts at the church.

The Church on the Square itself is a beautiful three-story stone building built in 1900 that abuts the east end of O’Donnell Square Park in Canton.  The church sanctuary serves as the performance space.  Lacquement said of it, “This is a space meant for joy and togetherness.”  It’s a warm and welcoming room that seats about a hundred, with hardwood floors, wood adornments on the walls, and a glow provided by the overhead string lights that run its length.  The moment you step into the room, you can’t help but feel it’s going to be a great show.  It’s a place that special.

There are many factors that contribute to making the Music on the Square concert series what it is.  (And no exaggeration, it is really that great.) The first being the lineup of world class performers Lacquement secures for the shows.  Past and upcoming artists include the Grammy winners Tom Paxton, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer; harmonica legend Phil Wiggins; and the absurdly talented banjo player Gina Furtado.  But it’s not only about the talent; Lacquement welcomes the challenge of programming music that matches the space.  “It’s an amazing space,” he said, “but it is limiting.”  It’s definitely more suited to certain acoustic music and not so much to other kinds like heavy metal or techno.

Regarding the room’s acoustics, Lacquement said, “My life is built around playing a giant piece of wood with strings on it, so I love making music in a space that is full of wood.  And this space has a lot of length.  When people play notes there, they just kind of carry in the air.”

Sponsoring the Music on the Square series is an important way for the Church on the Square to support, celebrate, honor, and connect with its neighbors.  The church website says of the series, “Part of being a church at the heart of the community is nurturing the arts and culture that help all of us thrive.”

There’s no better example of something that embodies the spirit of the Music on the Square series than the Across the Harbor concert held in February of 2022.  Prior to this show, the series had been on a two year pause because of the pandemic.  Lacquement wanted it to return in a big, big way.  He seized on an idea of another local musician, David McKindley-Ward, and in collaboration with him, produced an epic comeback show – one that aptly celebrated Baltimore’s rich roots music heritage.

McKindley-Ward’s vision for the concert was based on a television series produced by the BBC called “The Transatlantic Sessions.”  The series featured collaborative performances by some of the top acoustic musicians from the United States, Ireland, and the United Kingdom exploring the traditional music of their homelands.  Capitalizing on the popularity of the TV show, these same artists had been staging transatlantic session-like concerts to critical acclaim for audiences on both continents.  Now it was Baltimore’s turn.

If nothing else, the Across the Harbor concert will be remembered for bringing together on one stage the finest collection of Baltimore-based roots music artists ever.  (Again, no exaggeration.)  It’s a good thing the performance area at the Church on the Square is roomy because, in addition to Lacquement, VanSant, and McKindley-Ward, the show featured Laura Wortman, Kagey Parrish, Caleb Stine, Patrick McAvinue, Laura Bryne, Brad Kolodner, Jim Eagan, Sam Guthridge, Jonathan Vocke, Matt Mulqueen, Sean McComiskey, Jocelyn Haversat, and EJ Shaull-Thompson.  Added bonus: the soundboard was run by the highly respected producer, composer, musician, and sound designer Nicholas Sjostrom.

The songs played that night ran the gamut.  There was a fair share of traditional music, jigs and reels and the like; some contemporary tunes, and some classic songs reimagined.  But they all evoked a Baltimore of old and many had a theme of coming home or finding a sense of belonging.  It was easy to imagine the performers as nineteenth century immigrants to the city trying to find comfort in this strange town by playing and singing the songs they brought with them from the old country.  In a lot of ways, the concert was a soothing balm after nearly two years of the pandemic, a time in which many audience members and performers had only seen each other through Zoom.  Maryland Roots Music.com called Across the Harbor, “Hands down the best roots music event of the year, in Baltimore or anywhere else.” In fact, the concert was so successful that it quickly sold out and Lacquement had to scramble to find another venue (thank you Waverly Brewing Company!) that could host an additional night of the show to meet the overwhelming demand.

You can stop kicking yourself now if you missed Across the Harbor in 2022 because Lacquement has programmed a new Across the Harbor concert as part of the 2022-23 Music on Square series.  It’s scheduled for Friday, February 10, 2023, at 7:30 pm (doors open at 7:00 pm) at the Church on the Square.  This upcoming show looks like it will be just as memorable (and popular) as the last, with all the headliners onboard again and a few added surprises.  

Actually, the entire Music on the Square concert series this season is turning out to be a great one.  This year’s theme is “Baltimore Roots Music” and features artists deeply rooted in one of the many musical traditions alive in Baltimore and beyond.  Concerts are on select Fridays of the month from November to May.

Most musicians would be more than happy just to have steady gigs and play regularly with folks who share their passion for the music.  But for Lacquement, that’s not enough.  The bluegrass jams, honky-tonks, and Music on the Square concerts are just the start when it comes to the many, many ways he puts himself out there for the sake of the local music scene.

When asked about how he came to be a hub for all things roots music in Baltimore, Lacquement bristled at the notion.  Although he doesn’t see himself necessarily as a connector, he can’t deny that he spends a lot of his time organizing and promoting events that bring people together.

“Life is about people,” he said.  It’s a lesson he learned from his parents.  As the son and grandson of career Army officers, “I’m three or four generations deep into constantly moving,” Lacquement said.  “I see the value of being in touch with people.”

The experience also taught him the value of community, which helps explain the devotion to his adopted hometown.  Before settling in Baltimore eight-and-a-half years ago, Lacquement lived in cities all over the US and even in Germany.  “Prior to going to college, the longest I’d lived in one place was three years.  This is the longest I’ve lived anywhere- by a lot,” he said.

He was convinced to settle in Charm City when he was living in Northern Virginia and kept crossing paths with Baltimore-based musicians.  “People from Baltimore love Baltimore,” he said.  “I thought Baltimore seemed really cool.  I wanted to be part of that.”  And the city has been better for it since the day he arrived.

Perhaps VanSant sums it up best when she said of Lacquement, “We are so lucky to have him as part of the scene in Baltimore!”

More information about the Baltimore Bluegrass and Old Time Music Jams, Baltimore Honky-Tonks, and Music on the Square Concert Series is available on Alex Lacquement’s website.