It happens every week. I watch it over and over. I feel it over and over. It is spontaneous. It is delightful. It happens to everyone who is open to it.

And it doesn't change. The same explosion of emotion that is not the product of expectation but expectancy. By that I mean that expectation is the reasonable probability that a certain outcome will result if certain preconditions are put into place. Expectation leaves little or no room for anticipation. Expectancy, on the other hand, is full of anticipation because it rests in a state of mental openness. Anything can happen. And what happens when The SoulMates perform is...joy.

Here is an example. There is a young couple who comes to the Candlelight to see The SoulMates very often. Last week, the young woman was leaning against the wall of the dancefloor listening to the music. Jarrod was singing the lines "I love, I love, I love everything about you..." and this young woman just spread her arms out and began to twirl. She wasn't dancing, just twirling.

It makes me think of the wonderful scene in the movie Almost Famous when Kate Hudson stands in the empty concert arena remembering the music she had just heard and starts to just spin with her arms out stretched. The scene lasts only four or five seconds but I always want it to just go on and on.

This is the feeling that comes from listening to music of such hope and openness. It is the feeling of joy and that joy expresses itself in so many different ways. After the finish of All Day Sucker," the dancers lined abreast to collectively applaud the band. During a performance of "Can't HIde Love," John Paul--at 77 years of age, the oldest and longest attending fan of Jay "Bird" Koder and The SoulMates--shouts out "You can't hide love! I'll betcha!" Listeners will grab a partner and, failing that, have no problem dancing alone because that joy simply must have an outlet.

However, it is not just the dancers who are responding. Not at all. Those who choose to simply sit and listen are enveloped in the emotions. From shouts to whistles to smiles and even tears, there is a profound response to the joy created and reflected in the music of The SoulMates. Paul Creighton, lead singer of Intervision, sits with a huge smile and bobbing head as he listens with deep appreciation as Jarrod sings The SoulMates arrangement of "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover," especially when they turn the end of the Paul Simon tune into a samba. Michael Magaurn shouts out after "Fly Like an Eagle" and the offering of "Sukiyaki" dedicated to my wife causes her to respond with tears in her eyes.  All of this is a response of joy.

The headwaters of all this emotion is The SoulMates themselves. Jarrod was grinning ear to ear as he sat between Jay "Bird" and Reinhardt who were like the Monitor and the Merrimac exchanging broadsides. Then watching him erupt into laughter as "Bird" tears it up on "All Day Sucker."

Reinhardt breaks into smiles when he is finding the groove and he pushes "Bird" and Jarrod forward. He plays with so many others but you can tell that Reinhardt loves this band. He doesn't like to be away from it, even when traveling the Seven Seas on tour with other musicians.

Jay "Bird" will break into a smile as he interacts with the audience but the smile is equally enthusiastic when he is bending the music just the way he wants it. You can see him turned away toward the wall as he plays his guitar solo and he reacts with a smile that just comes from the depths of his soul.

The joy that he and Jarrod and Reinhardt create sets off lights around the Candlelight like fireflies in a meadow during the Summer. This is the feeling of joy that keeps the Candlelight full on Monday nights. The music they weave is the sound of that very same joy.

Holiday celebrations began early at the Candlelight on Monday, 13 December. As a warm-up the SoulMates opened with a sweet but jazzy instrumental of What Child is This? The song's title may be referring to Reinhardt Melz who has been away for so long, it seems, but is happily back on his drummer's throne after extended sojourns to Japan, Europe and the Caribbean.

It was a reunion atmosphere as Jay "Bird" Koder put Reinhardt through the paces, calling on him for three extended drum breaks in one song alone. And Reinhardt responded with precision and confidence, as always.  The reunion of the trio was smooth and seamless and why not? They are the SoulMates and time nor distance can keep them apart.

Somewhere in the second number, I'll Fly Away, Bird cut into one of the most heart-wrenching guitar solos ever. There was such a longing there that was reminiscent of that sustained oboe note from the Overture of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. Bird's playing simply reached into the heavens and returned with the fulfillment that Wagner never seemed to find. He brought an answer to the emptiness. He brought atonement.

Quite simply, if it can be stated simply, it was one of those divine moments that will never be relived and cannot be revealed to anyone who was not there. This is why we sit at the Candlelight week-after-week, through both sets, because we do not want to miss even one of those moments.

The song I'll Fly Away is a SoulMates original composition and it is something that should be heard everywhere and by all. This is the feeling one gets from all the original songs that the SoulMates perform. From Everything I Need to Nose Knows and to I Could Be the Man for You there is a personal unveiling that happens; a look into the hearts of the SoulMates.

And then there is the wild ride that one experiences in the covers wherein you hear Jarrod's soulful enunciation of "Good day, bad day, half-way day..." followed by the Bird's guitar and Reinhardt's thundering. If I'll Fly Away is like a hymn, then this one was more like a Cub Scout kegger held in Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory. And I mean that in a good way. It was wild and it was electric and if you were dead when you got there, you were brought back to life before the night was over. It began the roller-coaster descent that continued through the rest of the night, except for the slight upturn after the return from the break which included a lovely Silent Night and Let's Get it On.

The finale was All Day Sucker and the trio were simply playing as if they had just started and still had all day ahead of them. Reinhardt's patterns were so varied and so intricate and so eye-popping that it can only be compared to a flock of Afro-cuban ducks being caught in a helicopter's rotors. There was flapping and throbbing and whirling and feathers flying everywhere. Okay, there were no feathers. But credit the SoulMates for creating an atmosphere where exhaustion gives way to exaltation.

It is also where, as I have said so many times, friendship is the result of the sharing of the music, the respect and the soul of Jay "Bird", Jarrod and Reinhardt. The walls that separate people come down like Jericho when we share together what they have to offer.

They make us all a part instead of apart. They make us all into a union of friendship. They make us all SoulMates.

As Jay "Bird" always says, "We going to join you for some cocktails and we will be right back..."

And so will I...