Take a trip to live-jazz paradise at Half Moon Bay’s ‘Dynamite Society’

Welcome to the Bay Area Bucket List, where readers suggest things to do around the Bay, and we go out and investigate them. Got an idea for something to explore or a question you want answered? Send it to us!

Today, Lawrence, a reader, asks us to check out the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society in Half Moon Bay for “world-class live jazz on Sunday afternoons.”

Clearly, the most noteworthy thing about the society is its historical – and ongoing! – role in attracting massive musical talents like Art Blakey, Etta James, Bill Evans and the Kronos Quartet, as well as fostering a tight-knit community of jazz lovers in charming Half Moon Bay.

The second most-noteworthy thing has to be its unusual name, literally linked with explosives. Pete Douglas, the society’s departed founder, related the story this way:

The name arose out of an informal party in 1963. A small group of friends were hanging out on a Sunday afternoon in my original beer joint facing the ocean, the Ebb Tide Cafe. While drinking and listening to recorded music, some other people fell in with some dynamite. They suggested we all go out and explode it on the beach. (After we) declin(ed) their offer, the dynamiters left us to do their deed. Meanwhile back to the party and music: In a change of mood, I put on my recording of the Bach Brandenberg Concerti. Upon listening a while, someone suggested the music was in 4/4 time – why not dance to it! This we did, doing a form of West Coast Swing dancing to Bach, when we heard an explosion on the beach. An inebriated guest, Bob Swift, upon hearing the blast, claimed we were the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society.

Douglas’ daughter Barbara Riching, who’s taken the reins as president and artistic director of the society, recalls growing up in that wild atmosphere. “In the 1960s, people got away with stuff, generally,” she says. “The (local) population was probably one-third of what it is today. Furthermore, on the coast there were just a lot of crazies that lived there. It attracted people who didn’t fit in or conform to other places.”

One of those non-conformers was a man named Pat Britt, who went on to become a well-known saxophone player in the L.A. area. Now, Douglas wasn’t a musician himself – he just grew up during the Big Band era and loved the whole West Coast scene – but he was a probation officer. Britt was on probation for having stolen some baloney from a grocery store, so it was perhaps natural they’d meet up. What wasn’t so expected was the two men forming a bond that helped transform Douglas’ beach house into a star-powered jazz club.

“Pat lived in the Peninsula and was connected to a lot of local jazz musicians, so a lot of (what followed) emanated from that relationship, at first,” says Riching. “Then jazz had a renaissance in the late ’70s and there were a lot of musicians coming through San Francisco. My dad always did Sunday afternoons. It’s a little niche where you capture touring musicians. They would come play a club in San Francisco and then Sunday afternoon, they might be free.”

As the Douglas children sat and tried to do homework, a cavalcade of jazz musicians would drop by to do shows or hang out and play records – Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Betty Carter, McCoy Tyner. Joe Locke, a famous vibraphonist, stayed the night several times (but was nice enough not to keep the kids up banging on his instrument).

Today, visiting the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society still feels like you’re walking into somebody’s house.

“What makes it special is the confluence of the atmosphere and the beauty of the ocean combined with how my dad created the concert room,” Riching says. “The stage is specifically designed not to be that tall, so it makes it harder maybe to see, but you feel like you’re in a living room right with the musicians. It’s a very intimate experience.”

I visited the club on a recent Sunday to see Jane Bunnett and Maqueque, an all-female Afro-Cuban band with a killer drummer and vocalist. The wind was whipping off the Pacific like a banshee, but inside the acoustics in the elegantly cedar-paneled room were perfect. Some guests brought their own bottles – in fact, it’s encouraged – and glasses of wine and beer and a light dinner were served in adjoining rooms. (Some evenings there are also food trucks.)