The current tenant in the 75-year-old Bethesda Theatre building on Wisconsin Avenue in guess-which-Maryland-suburb quickly become an important staple of the area music scene. The 500-seat club conducted a short-lived experiment with a resident big band and books big-name national acts on its weekend schedule. (Branford Marsalis, for example, played BB&J’s grand opening.) It’s the weeknight programming that has made a mark on local jazz, however. With the big sellers coming in on Saturday nights, talent booker James Bazen fills out the business week with local performers: plenty of familiar names, but often new and untried artists as well. It’s an incubator for promising new players, in other words, as well as a fabulous showcase—witness its stunning refurbishment in its original Art Deco style—for the tried-and-true jazz favorites.