Bajaja: The End Is The Beginning

Way down south of the border, at the bottom end of the 800-mile long Baja Peninsula, where the mountains meet the desert meets the ocean, waves break onto a perfect, palm-lined beach while the sun melts into the Pacific and humpback whales splash beneath a seashell sky.

And at this beach, there’s a bar, and beside this bar, there’s a stage, and in front of this stage are 300 of your favorite friends. They’re dancing in the sand to an all-star band locked into its third ecstatic hour of soulful jams. The music wraps everyone together. Then the singer steps to the microphone and sings the meaning of the moment:

I ain’t wastin’ time no more
‘Cause time goes by like…

Welcome to Bajaja, amigos!

Yes, it really went down like this, like a waking dream, for three unforgettable days and nights, and I’m not even exaggerating.

Bajaja was a music festival, a birthday party and a destination vacation, but it was more than the sum of its parts. It was the wild-eyed vision of a core group of friends, including one turning 50, but it was also the collective realization of an ephemeral utopia. Here’s proof that we can conjure perfection, for just an instant, if we dream big enough and love hard enough. If we do it together. Right fucking now; no time to waste.

Lofty stuff for a beach bash, but when you’re commemorating half a century of life on Earth, you gotta hope for an epiphany or two. If we’re not getting wiser what’s the use of getting older? Thankfully, that all-knowing Mexican moon makes age and wisdom come a little easier.

It was wisdom — the combined professional expertise of dozens of live music industry veterans — backed by immense chutzpah that made the weekend work without a (visible) hitch. We can talk about the fact that the stage, with its projection lighting and amplified sound, was built at the terminus of a dirt road miles away from any kind of town.

We can talk about the lack of electricity available, not to mention no Fender Rhodes, and the need to fly in dozens of musicians from the far corners of America and transport them to a ramshackle outpost in a Spanish-speaking country. We can talk about the challenge of feeding 300 finicky humans with only a wood-fired grill.

What I’m saying is that the logistics for this thing were tricky, to put it mildly. Simply getting to the party was daunting: international flights and customs searches and a long drive from the airport. Roads in Baja tend to confound Google Maps. But Baja rewarded the effort, and the effort elevated the experience. The locals were kind, the food and drink were excellent, and Amaya, the beach bar, was–is–a very special place. Trust.

During the day old friends lounged poolside at their hotels and Airbnbs, played in the warm waters at Playa Cerritos and strolled the streets of Todos Santos. The weather was perfect, the vibe was unhurried. Sunset signaled rendezvous when shuttles and rental cars bumped over dusty backroads to deliver us all to Amaya.

After getting underway in the afternoon, the live music took a break for sunset — which, backed by those frolicking humpbacks, was the surprise nightly headliner — then picked up again at dusk.

Bands too were old friends: DJ Logic and John Medeski, with Eddie Roberts on guitar and Reed Mathis on bass and three different drummers, putting a wicked twist on the funk-jazz-hip-hop fusion they’ve been exploring for 25 (!!) years. Two sets by San Francisco scene heroes ALO and their anthemic rock ‘n’ roll.

The too-seldom-seen brotherhood of Big Light. Vintage-funk flagbearers The New Mastersounds, whose singer Lamar Williams Jr. delivered a spot-on Allmans homage. Breakout vocalist Datrian Johnson, who rotated into several different bands like an acrobat bounding across a highwire.

“There is something to be said when people from different walks and backgrounds can come together and create a dinner table for everyone to eat from,” Datrian Johnson said. “Real healing and connection can take place. When real connection and real raw uncut energy meet in a place like this you realize what you do it for. [I’m] thankful to share that space and energy with everyone who was there and count it a blessing to have been able to be a part keep on spreading this medicine. People need a prescription for this.”

Organizers recruited several local acts, too, including the flamenco-inflected Mala Rumba and psychedelic-theatric Las Daturas. Between bands, calls went out from the stage to support Los Pescaderos Bomberos, the region’s only first responder unit, which was the philanthropic beneficiary of the event. The Bomberos walked away from the weekend $12,000 richer, to continue to help what’s truly important in the region: sustaining life.

And as for the rest of us, those who packed up our passports and traveled all the way to this distant oasis? We left richer, too. Participation, cooperation, and celebration: These are our values, and Bajaja provided the opportunity to not only live them out loud but to live them together, among so many people so in love with each other. For this privilege, I’m eternally grateful. I left Mexico with a full heart, and I know I’m not the only one.

Truth is, the older I get, the faster it fills — a fact I figured while walking the beach after the final night’s notes faded into darkness, serenaded by the surf, accompanied by the stars.

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BAJAJA | Founder’s Note

Ted Kartzman, Bajaja Founder:

Once in a long while, your life needs (and receives) that perfect trip, where the travel is easy, the setting is stunningly gorgeous, the live music is incredible, the friends are among your oldest and dearest, the laughter echoes across the beaches (where the water is swimmable and has whales jumping out of it), You look around, aware in that moment how special and rare the moment is.

It was like everyone had the same mission to reunite with all the friends we used to hang out at least two decades earlier… So many of the same people as past High Sierras, only grown up, a different era.

Everyone knew it wasn’t simple to get to this magical beach oasis, 300+ people flew down to Cabo, who rallied a crew, got rides 70 miles up the coast, no central lodging option, not much pavement on the local roads. But everyone brought their highest, most positive vibrations,and were rewarded with a truly magical weekend of music, beach, laughter, and full hearts!