Beatnik Studios was graced Thursday with performances by local jam band CFR and Oklahoma-based postmodern jazz band Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey (JFJO).

Beatnik Studios hosted the benefit show for the Music Never Stops Foundation, as part of an ongoing Winter Jazz Concert Series running through April. The collaborative photography studio, off Broadway on 17th Street, has become a space for community engagement and a venue for the jazz series, band launches, a music school and local craft fair, to name a few.

There was a real sense of community to the evening as supporters danced to the music of CFR, which has performed at Second Saturday and other local venues and has many loyal Sacramento fans.

Following CFR’s funky, danceable set, JFJO emerged from its road home -- a mystery trailer in the backyard of Willie's Burgers -- and broke into “Sensation of Seeing Light.”

The music opened with a false start, then built and picked up before careening into a full-on jam session.

Considering JFJO has been in the game for 16 years, the band seems young. This may have something to do with the chronically evolving lineup. JFJO broke out in 1994 as an eight-piece band with emcees and horns. Since 2008, the reconfigured lineup is has been an instrumental quartet.

You’d expect the sound to be stripped down, but it was as complex as ever, with piano and acoustic bass layered with lap steel guitar and melodica.

JFJO is known for its progressive take on classic styles. Accompanied by a 45-piece orchestra at the Oklahoma Mozart Festival in June, the band will exhibit its “Ludwig” project, a contemporary reinterpretation of Beethoven’s third and sixth symphonies.

The music was sweeping; it built and relaxed. JFJO's “Trampoline Phoenix,” about (guess what) the joys of jumping on a trampoline with friends, struck me as something that would play on a Wes Anderson submarine -- something you wouldn’t want to dance to but makes you grin.

By the set’s finale, I was forced to reassess. Lots of people were moving, and not just the hardcore jam-band groupie dancers.

One of the most enthusiastic of these dancers was Andrew Larson, a Sacramento City College student and South Land Park resident.

“This band takes jazz in a whole new direction,” he said.

For more information, visit CFR and JFJO on MySpace.

The next night of the Winter Jazz Concert Series is February 25th at 8 p.m.