Boston, MA — Sotheby’s Real Estate Office hosts JP Tiny Desk Concert series — JP Gazette

Local real estate agent Brian Fizer has turned Sotheby’s real estate office into an intimate concert venue on select Thursday nights in Jamaica Plain. Free to attend, the “JP Tiny Desk Concert Series” features Boston musicians with a side of charcuterie boards and the opportunity to bring your own booze. 

“Every event people say ‘Oh, this is the highlight of my week…it’s so nice to see this space right in the middle of JP used this way,’ ” said Fizer in a recent interview. “It’s all been great feedback.”

Located at 673 Centre St., Sotheby’s doubles as a hub for neighbors to unite over local music that Fizer said feeds off community camaraderie. Just behind its reception desk wall, Sotheby’s office adds itself to JP’s reserved scene of daily shows at Midway Café and weekly sessions at Brendan Behan Pub.  

“Community is really important in JP, but let’s do something just to give back to the community,” said Fizer on his motivations to create the concert series. “It was just a way for us to reach out to people.”

Fizer called on Carol Palmer and Andrew Brilliant — his coworkers on the Brilliant Places real estate team — to help form the series. Palmer and Brilliant’s experience helping throw JP First Thursdays helped bring Fizer’s idea to life. Tiny Desk will have its third session Feb. 12 featuring the Sado Domestics, a grassroots trio that will bring an upbeat, rock-driven sound. Fizer has noticed the crowd grow to upwards of 40 people, spanning from children to retirees. 

“I remember thinking like there’s just not a lot of instances in our current society where you get to hang out across generations,” said Fizer. 

The Sado-Domestics will be the first group to break from the jazz theme lineup. According to the band’s website, their “sound is an acoustic-leaning blend of folk, roots and rock.” The group will perform as a trio, with lead singers and guitarists Chris Gleason and Lucy Martinez joining Jimmy Ryan on the mandolin.

Åsa Runefelt, a jazz vocalist and Berklee College of Music graduate, highlighted Fizer’s commitment to creating the “intimate” and “live” space the poster tagline advertises. She said she felt thankful not only for his generosity to open up the office, but to the venue’s ironically good acoustics.

“It happens to be a really great venue,” said Runefelt. “He thinks about the lighting, there’s some art on the walls, the chairs are comfortable, but it’s close enough to the musicians.”

Runefelt performed alongside Brian Freeman, accompanying her vocals on the piano as she sang from her debut album “Night Flower,” released in December. Runefelt said the crowd responded with heartfelt claps to her new releases, whereas Tiny Desk fulfilled her wish to find a sharable concert building. It was just last year she walked the streets of JP to find an office that could benefit from hosting events after store hours.

“I thought ‘maybe there’s a possibility here for sharing a space, and then he just comes up with his idea,” she said. “It’s amazing.”

As a performer Runefelt elaborated on the freedom jazz breeds to create an improvised sound experience, especially when live. She said that music has a power to bring people together who may be strangers due to its finite lifespan.

“Making a painting, this painting hangs there, you can enjoy it forever, but for musicians, it’s just a fleeting moment of living,” said Runefelt.

Gleason, the co-lead singer of the Sado-Domestics, praised the mutual benefit to the audience and artist. Gleason performs all around Greater Boston, with monthly concerts at the Square Root in Roslindale and at the Sanctuary Cultural Arts Center in Maynard. He said that now more than ever in-person events can positively impact people who otherwise would stay inside.

“Music is therapeutic, but it’s good for the audience, too,” he said. “We all spend so much time on our devices or watching television.”

Fizer also said Tiny Desk can inspire a digital detox for attendees in its third space. He deemed Sotheby’s intimate setup as an unplugged experience where people can socialize with less digital interaction.

“It’s just, ‘you’re here to enjoy music, right?” said Fizer. “You see people talking to each other, which is really cool and doesn’t always happen in an East Coast city.”

But as far as an official goal for Tiny Desk, Fizer settles on community. 

“Human connection, interaction, community — and what better way to do it than listening to music that perhaps is a genre you’ve never listened to,” he said. “We feel that’s kind of the anecdote to a lot of our problems.”

Dylan Shobe is a student in the Boston University Journalism program. This story is a partnership between The Jamaica Plain Gazette and the Boston University Journalism program.