Sonic Unyon Records announces a March 10 release date for No Time Like Now, the new CD from award-winning Canadian blues-rock guitarist Steve Strongman. Special guest on the new disc is legendary guitar player and long-time friend Randy Bachman, who joins Strongman on a searing version of the Bachman-Turner Overdrive classic, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.” Strongman is set to perform at the Gibson showcase during the upcoming NAMM 2017 event in Anaheim, California, January 19-22.

Jazz is thriving elsewhere besides its living alumnus of prestigious inheritors from the classic eras. Much has evolved since the groundbreaking free jazz of the 1950s and 1960s from the likes of Pharaoh Sanders, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman. As some have satirically put it, ornithology or: the study of Bird (Charlie Parker that is) lives on within the experimental giants of our generation.

Tampa is gearing up for the one of the most anticipated events of the season: The 6th Annual Gasparilla Music Festival presented by Frontier (“GMF”) which returns to Curtis Hixon Park on March 11th & 12th.   

Beginning in 2018, Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia will be home to the Ellis Marsalis International Jazz Piano Competition. The new triennial event was announced by Marshall President Jerome Gilbert Jan. 6 at The Jazz Education Network Conference in New Orleans.

2016 was a year that much of the country would like to do over. Between deaths, elections and Kanye West, it was year of unremarkable lows. However, for Chicago, IL, 2016 was granted a hassle-free All Access Pass when the Chicago Cubs, the beloved baseball team from the North Side, broke a 108-year drought and won the World Series.