The ever-evolving, genre-defying collaboration between influential trio Medeski Martin & Wood and maverick guitarist John Scofield continues to flourish. Since first convening nearly 17 years ago, Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood's kinship both onstage and off has fostered an escalating degree of musical interplay, exquisitely captured on Juice—their third studio effort and fourth album overall, available September 16, 2014, via MMW's Indirecto Records imprint.

Medeski Martin & Wood + Nels Cline have announced the release of The Woodstock Sessions (Vol. 2) on April 22. The four musicians came together to record on August 27, 2013 at Applehead Studios in Woodstock, NY in front of an intimate gathering of 75 lucky ticket holders. The session was part of a newly launched series that brings established and emerging recording artists together with their fans in the recording studio. The experience is a performance/session hybrid that supports the artist to fan bond by sharing the process of record making.

Genuine charisma is what sets Chris and Oliver Wood Brothers Band apart from other contemporary rock bands. Their own brand of Americana, fused by two different musical paths bound together, has evolved from a genre-bending project into a highly popular full time band. Before the groups’ inception in 2004, many were less familiar with guitarist Oliver Wood but knew his brother Chris as the virtuoso bass ace of avant-garde jazz trio MMW.

The Onion’s AV Club has a long-running series named “Undercover,” where a visiting artist covers a song from a list of 25 staff-selected favorites. These songs range wildly from Kanye West to Tom Waits, so bands often have to stretch far out of their comfort zone to make the cover work.

Medeski Martin & Wood have announced a West Coast acoustic tour in April. The nine-date run begins at The Roseland Theater in Portland on April 17 and extends through southern California, wrapping at the Belly Up in Solana Beach on April 27.

The issue with calling any band a "jam band" is that you force them into an extreme marginalization that could come along with a stigma. The category "jam band" could encompass everything from Little Feat, The Disco Biscuits, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Phish, or MMW.

Twenty years after Billy Martin asked Steven Bernstein to help him hatch a freaky avant brass band, Wicked Knee delivers their triumphant full-length debut, Heels Over Head. The 11-track recording, available today from Martin's own Amulet Records, brings together four of the New York City downtown jazz scene's most legendary improvisers, which along with Martin on drums and Bernstein on trumpet, features Curtis Fowlkes on trombone and Marcus Rojas on tuba.

The Colorado Jazz scene has always been active, but never really definitive. Denver and Boulder have few actual jazz venues (thank god for Dazzle Jazz) and most of the renowned artists that tour through choose mid-sized theatres, performing arts centers, or even laid back dives as their outlet. Since our music culture is so welcoming and lets face it, who wouldn’t want to tour through our beautiful state, we get some of the hottest names in Jazz touring through and giving their all to Rocky Mountain audiences.

Organ and drums duo, Billy Martin & Wil Blades, perform 11 shows this November, including dates in the southern United States and Chicago, Toronto, Canada and Mexico.