Hannah Jones/Winonan

Lightning flickered outside the windows of Ed’s No-Name Bar in downtown Winona. After an afternoon of clouds, rain was coming down in earnest. Senior music business major Isaac Sammis said he was grateful he was finally out of the elements. He had just come from playing an outdoor jazz concert put on by the university—in a tent.

“The rain was coming in sideways,” he said, sitting down at one of Ed’s squat, black tables. He blamed the concert for his formal choice in attire: a sweater with a button-up shirt and corduroy pants. Although he had finally made it inside, he wasn’t through playing for the night.

When Sammis isn’t taking his music business classes and playing in the jazz band at Winona State, he’s playing the banjo in local bluegrass band “Jaybone Bell and Restless Light.” The band’s five members are all Winona State students and alumni.

Jason Ziebell, the “Jaybone” from the band name, is a 2012 Winona State graduate. His major: Spanish and public relations.

“I don’t know what I was going to do with it,” he said. Ziebell, the band’s guitar player and lead singer and songwriter, got the group together last year at the end of the spring semester. Although he had shared the campus with Sammis and the other band members, he never really knew them until he got the band together with the help of mutual friends and acquaintances.

“I was a solo artist,” he said. “I wasn’t really friends with them before. But it’s a brotherhood in the band.”

“Jaybone Bell and Restless Light” spent the summer playing whatever gigs they could get, and defining their unique brand of sound.

“It’s kind of a mix of a bunch of different influences,” Ziebell said. “It’s American folk meets outlaw country meets bluegrass, and our electric guitar player has a jazz background.”

Kelly Blau, the electric guitar player, was also at the jazz concert with Sammis. The two of them are the band’s undergraduates and knew each other through the music department. “Jaybone,” however, brought a whole new connection to their relationship.

“The band has brought me a lot closer to everyone,” Blau said. “Even though we knew each other beforehand, it’s like a new friend circle.” The five Winona State students, he said, clicked.

“It was fate,” he said. “Well, sort of. Forced fate.”

Both Blau and Sammis intend to put their majors to good use after they graduate. Blau wants to go into concert promotion, and Sammis hopes to one day own his own venue.

Ziebell currently manages an apartment complex, but his dream job is playing music professionally. However, the future for “Jaybone” he said, is still a mystery for all of them.

“We haven’t really thought about it yet,” he said. “We have some time to figure it out.” In the meantime, for Ziebell, it’s more about the pure enjoyment of performing than anything else.

“We’re in it for the good times,” he said. “If it’s fun for us, it bleeds off into people in the audience.”

The rain didn’t stop a crowd of students and community members from showing up, wet but smiling, for the show.

Groups of friends danced to the upbeat folk music and caught the bug of Ziebell and the band’s enthusiasm.

“Jaybone Bell and Restless Light” will be playing at Ed’s again on Oct. 31. In the meantime, they will continue to try and define who they are as a band and a sound.

So: what is “Jaybone Bell and Restless Light?”

“Washed up off the shores of Mississippi…” Ziebell said. He faltered. “No…”

Other band members gave it a shot.

“No—rising from the floodwaters…”

“The bluffs have something to do with it.”

“People expressing American culture.”

Eventually, Ziebell just shrugged.

“We’re friends making music together,” he said.

Contact Hannah at [email protected]