Jefferson Jay has found a new home for his open-mic on Tuesday nights at Tony’s.

Jefferson Jay may be best known for gigging around town, hosting open-mic nights and throwing occasional 24-hour live music events. But he also created the San Diego Music Hall Of Fame (SDMHOF) back in 2018. The Hall paused inductions in 2020, but during its operative years, the relatively new San Diego institution has welcomed local legacy acts such as Jack Tempchin, Jason Mraz, and The Beat Farmers. The first ceremony was held at the OB Playhouse, followed by three stints at another Ocean Beach haunt, Newbreak Church. For 2023, the ceremony is parting ways with the beach life and heading east on November 3 to the Vision Center For Spiritual Living. It’s a spiritual community geared towards transforming people’s lives through practical spirituality — which also hosts open-mics and concerts.

“There’s more seats, there’s a bigger parking lot, there are bigger bathrooms,” Jay says. “There’s more space. The whole concept of their church is to be super-open to everyone. I’m not saying that wasn’t the case at Newbreak Church — they were super open to us and all the people we brought there — but conceptually, I like that. It feels very good. It feels very much in line with what I have been trying to bring to the table for a long time here. To go to a place that has a history of doing this as a sacred room just for even San Diego music, that’s what we want. That’s what we’re about.”

The inductees for this year’s ceremony will be singer-songwriter Jeff Berkley, jazz pianist Mike Wofford, violinist Jamie Shadowlight, classical guitarist Fred Benedetti, singer-songwriter Mary Dolan, and percussionist Monette Marino. Jay says he selects the inductees via “loose dialogue with lots of people.” He has also inducted locals such as Folk Arts Rare Records owner and concert promoter Lou Curtiss, as well as the Deering Family, who are known for their long-running banjo company based out of Spring Valley. “There’s a very big pool that I draw from, but it’s also a wide-open pool,” Jay explains. “Things that I look at, that maybe some other people wouldn’t look at as much, are community involvement, how you lift up the community, in addition to — or as a part of — whatever you do.”

Jay knows that “there are other circles we haven’t reached yet with the Hall Of Fame, like punk and hip-hop. A lot of bands. Over time, we will fill in everywhere and recognize the record store owners, journalists, and the promoters. We did put in the military band” — 2022 saw the induction of the Marine Band San Diego. “There’s a lot of teachers. People who taught, in addition to whatever they did. People who really devoted their lives to this, and there are thousands of them. It’s going to take a long time to catch up. We only started in 2018.”

Besides the SDMHOF, Jay still juggles other music-related pursuits. He no longer hosts his long-running Wednesday night open-mic at Winstons in Ocean Beach, but has found a new home for it nearby on Tuesday nights at Tony’s. He says there are still people showing up who attended the open-mic he ran at the now-defunct OB establishment Portugalia. “It’s a lot of people who go back that far with me or further out, but there are also new people who are discovering it. We’re right by the beach. It’s the best location I’ve had. They replaced that pinball machine area with a little stage. It’s a very cute, perfectly adequate stage. KISS won’t play, but we don’t require that.”

On Wednesdays, you can catch Jay at his other current OB residency, the Ocean Beach Brewery, where he hosts a weekly songwriter night featuring guests such as recent performers Sutton James and Gaby Aparicio. “It’s just me and people you might not get to see, but who are awesome,” he says. “A lot of pros who are wanting to come and play and be here with me. They are doing it on their off nights and stuff like that. It’s like a showcase-style event. I will play a longer set at the beginning, whatever I feel like. It could be any cover from 1958 to maybe 2000. It pretty much cuts off pretty hard around there. Not on purpose; it’s just that’s when I stopped paying attention. But I went all-in on San Diego music, and so I know a lot of that stuff after that.”