Red velvet curtains hug a stage crammed with musicians, bumping and blaring. Space is tight up front, with dancers bouncing into other bodies who nod back in solidarity, shaking out that collective funk – all on a Monday night in Petaluma.

This is the North Bay Get Down, an all-ages funk jam and dance party held every third Monday of the month at downtown restaurant and nightclub the Big Easy: packed, sweaty, fun, and totally free.

“What's so special about these nights is not only the musicianship and the level of talent – we have these incredible musicians coming through every month – but that it's [creating] a space for people to come authentically as themselves, not overthink anything, not worry about what they're wearing, just have fun, dance, let loose,” Get Down catalyst and drummer Ethan Schiff told Petaluma Voice.

Schiff had just returned from a gig playing drums at Jazz Fest in the other Big Easy, New Orleans. But he was reflecting back even further, on how this former LA-based music management boss came to host Petaluma’s premier community dance party. 

“I've always worked in some variation of community building,” said Schiff, who currently serves as engagement and marketing lead for Blue Zones Project Petaluma. “What I realized is the biggest thing about music is not even about the artist itself, it's about the community that gets built around the artist … the feeling you get from the music, that's what people actually connect to.”

At North Bay Get Down, that feeling is open to people of all ages, backgrounds, even musical preferences. The room brings them together – eyes fluttering, butts shaking, shoulders all loose. Everyone feels welcome; or, as Schiff puts it just right, “everybody is building the night together.”

As he sees it, community-building and well-being are of a piece. He learned that lesson the hard way. “I was struggling a lot with my health. At one time I was well over 300 pounds,” he confided. “I was struggling a lot with stress.”

Enough was enough. He began to exercise and eat well, and through those choices, he started to change.

“I went on a two-year health journey where I lost 130 pounds,” Schiff recalled. “And even more important than the weight was that it just totally changed my values.”

He became certified as an integrative health coach and closed the music management firm he was running, choosing a different path that allowed him to escape the din of Hollywood. He and his wife did their research and discovered Petaluma, moving to town in 2021.

Jump cut to the North Bay Get Down, now in its ninth month, where wellness takes the form of public expressions of joy. 

Witness: A three-part evening starting with a DJ and house band, followed by a set from a local artist, then an improvised funk jam hosted by Schiff calling up musicians he knows are in the house. It’s a “constantly revolving cast of top-notch musicians, jamming on the spot together” so that an underground bar full of Petalumans can jump.

In the end, Schiff emphasized the point just like a drummer should: “There's something kind of wild and reckless and chaotic about it that makes it so perfect.”