Cynthia Sayer of New York, who plays in Woody Allen’s band, and a host of other banjo players, will perform at the "Early Spring Banjo Fling" Thursday through Sunday at the Mansfield (Mass.) Holiday Inn.

What do you call a couple of hundred banjo players in a room?

No, this is not a joke, although banjo jokes do abound. The correct answer is “The Early Spring Banjo Fling.”

And it’s this weekend. In fact, the four-day fling, the second largest banjo bonanza in the country, starts today. What’s more, it’s in nearby Mansfield, Mass., and admission’s free.

“If we started charging money, we’d have an accounting issue,” says Paul Poirier of Seekonk.

Poirier is president of the Stone Street Strummers Banjo Band, the sponsor of the fling, which is in its 16th year. The regional band, which has 23 members — mostly banjo players and also some horn players, clarinetists, mandolin players and drummers — was established in 1981 and is based in Foxboro, Mass.

On a whim in 1993, one of its members rented a hotel room in Milford, Mass., and invited his banjo-playing friends to join him for a weekend jam. A dozen attended. A tradition was born.

After several years, the fling had to move to a bigger hotel, the Holiday Inn in Mansfield where last year more than 200 banjo players and a few thousand spectators gathered.

“Now we’re selling out the hotel in Mansfield,” Poirier says. “If we get much bigger, we’ll have to find another place.”

The banjo, invented by American slaves who combined features of a few African instruments, is most often associated with bluegrass and country music.

“They are perpetually cheerful, as is much of the music,” Poirier says. “It’s a very versatile instrument. It’s typically used for that upbeat, happy music. But in the hands of the right musician, it’s phenomenal.”

The focus of this Fling is jazz. “We play America’s music. It’s traditional jazz that harkens back to the ’20s and ’30s,” he says.

This includes such songs as “Who’s Sorry Now?,” “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” and “You Made me Love You.”

“When people hear the music, they know it. People in their 20s know it. People in their 80s know it. It’s familiar music to everybody everywhere.”

And, Poirier says, it’s very well played. While banjo players aren’t that well known, the Fling brings in a who’s who of them: Tom Stuip of Holland, Cynthia Sayer of New York, who plays in Woody Allen’s band; and Kurt Abell of California, aka Count Banjola of The Gong Show fame.

With the exception of the Fling’s headliner, Dave Marty of California, who’s receiving a stipend of a few hundred dollars, all the banjo players are volunteering their time and talents.

“They do it because they love the music and it’s an opportunity to play with some other professional they wouldn’t normally see or play with.”

There’s lots of opportunity for playing and listening. There are scheduled performances, open mikes and workshops. It’s banjos all day every day, today through Sunday.

It makes you wonder why the banjo fell from favor. The short answer is electricity. Banjos are loud and can be heard over horns in a band. That was their niche. But it was lost to electric amplification, picked up by other instruments, one in particular: the guitar.

“Kids love banjo music,” Poirier says. “But they hate it when they’re teenagers. They want rock ’n’ roll. But they come back to it when they have kids of their own.”

Poirier reports this is the second biggest banjo event in the country, behind only the annual convention of the Fretted Instrument Guild of America, a roaming event, which this year is in St. Petersburg, Fla., and in 2005 was in Providence.

“The reality is it’s an instrument that’s dying a very slow death. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a whole lot of us trying to keep it alive.”

“The Early Spring Banjo Fling” is today, 7 to 9 p.m.; tomorrow, 1 to 9:20 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to midnight; and Sunday, 9:30 to 11 a.m., at the Holiday Inn Mansfield, 100 Hampshire St.

Admission is free. For more information, visit www.stonestreetstrummers. org.

brourke@projo.com