Inside a 19th-century mansion on East Cesar Chavez Street, a new music school is betting that anyone — a total beginner or a seasoned player, age 12 or age 80 — can find a place in a band. Every Body Jams opened in East Austin in May, offering lessons, band coaching and songwriting help built around the idea that people learn music best by playing it together with others.
A Late-Blooming Bassist Builds a School
The school was founded by Allan Cole, who began learning music himself only at age 55, according to Community Impact. Cole has young-onset Parkinson's disease, and he started taking bass guitar lessons after his daughter, Meredith Cole, encouraged him. Meredith is now a singer, pianist and one of six instructors at Every Body Jams. Allan has said it was never too late to learn an instrument once Meredith pushed him to try, and he launched the school this year to create an inclusive community for people of all experience levels and abilities.
Cole has described the effect those lessons had on him in personal terms, saying learning music changed his perspective, made him more open to other people's experiences, and helped with his Parkinson's symptoms. He has called the shift in himself profound. Those statements describe his own experience rather than a clinical outcome, and the school makes no claim beyond what Cole says it did for him.
Lessons, Bands and a Landmark Mansion
Every Body Jams operates out of the Wolf House, a 19th-century mansion and designated landmark at 1602 East Cesar Chavez St., per Community Impact's reporting. Cole chose East Austin for the school because of the neighborhood's creative spirit, grit and history, and he has said he values serving a community that historically has had less support. The school keeps drum sets and other instruments on hand for students to borrow, though players can also bring their own gear.
The school offers lessons in drums, guitar, bass, keyboard and vocals, and Cole has said the first lesson is free with no obligation. One-hour weekly private lessons run $400 a month, with an additional $150 a month to add an instrument. Students looking to play in a group can join RockLab, a 16-week program priced at an extra $100 that teaches musicians to play together and culminates in a student showcase at the school. Every Body Jams also offers audition coaching, songwriting lessons, and band coaching starting at $375 for a two-hour session.
New Program Targets Absolute Beginners
Dustie Shelton, the school's general manager, has described watching nervous newcomers transform in a single session. Shelton has said some students arrive unable to play or sing a note and leave their first lesson smiling after getting through part of a song. That kind of entry point is about to get a dedicated track: per Allan Cole, Every Body Jams will launch Rocklab Foundations in December, a program built for students who have never played before or haven't picked up an instrument in years. Students who complete Rocklab Foundations will move on to the traditional Rocklab program.
The school also runs Interviews With Ian, a series in which assistant creative director Ian MacDougall sits down with musicians in an intimate setting. Every Body Jams aims to expand access to music for all students regardless of age, experience or physical limitation, and it has described itself on its website as Austin's only music community intentionally built for individuals of all abilities and experience levels — a description that, per everybodyjams.com, reflects the company's own framing of its mission.
Everybodyjams.com says the school covers a wide swath of genres, from rock and roll, blues, Americana, folk and country to punk, glam rock, heavy metal and yacht rock. The site's pitch leans on the idea that the best way to learn music is by actually playing with people who understand it, whether a student is twelve or eighty.
The Grand Opening and the Bigger Picture
The school's grand opening stretched from noon to 6 p.m. on May 23, with performances from local bands The JAMBS, Broken Gold and Idelwild drawing attendees of all ages, according to Community Impact's earlier coverage of area events. That debut set the tone for a venue designed as much for community gathering as for formal instruction.
Research on music therapy more broadly has pointed to potential benefits for people managing Parkinson's disease specifically, separate from what any individual school offers. The Parkinson's Foundation notes that people with the disease who engage in music therapy often see improvements in movement symptoms, speech, cognitive issues and mental health, and that dance programs, choirs and drumming programs in particular can help patients maintain function and experience a better quality of life. The foundation also points to group music activities as a way to build connections and reduce isolation. A systematic review published by PubMed Central covered research published between 2015 and 2020 and included 58 papers. None of that research speaks to outcomes at Every Body Jams specifically.
Other organizations around the state have taken their own approaches to widening access to music and the arts. Musical Empowerment pairs underserved children with college volunteers for free lessons, one-on-one mentorship and instruments at no cost, while Art Spark Texas says it has delivered inclusive, arts-based programming to more than 95,000 Texans with and without disabilities. Every Body Jams is based in the Wolf House.
For Cole, the mission comes back to a simple invitation. “We are a place where everybody can learn, and does learn, to play music and do it together,” he has said. He has said he wants people to simply try the school and see for themselves whether the experience changes them, much as it changed him.
