Sometimes it’s cool to catch a concert in Boulder that isn’t at Boulder or Fox Theatres. We love both of those venues, but there are so many lesser-appreciated venue spaces attached to bars and restaurants primarily in the downtown area. I include Mountain Sun Brewery Restaurant & Pub, Laughing Goat Coffeehouse, Connor O’Neil’s Irish Pub, and Lazy Dog Saloon all in this category. Perhaps the most underappreciated venue space downtown in Shine Restaurant & Gathering Place.

We live in a time where plenty of incredibly entertaining funk acts with talented players are saturating the live music scene. Funk has almost become synonymous in meaning to being just a good times band with some soul. Digging back toward the true roots of the genre reveals a particular form and structure with certain places breading their own unique spin and history on it. New Orleans musicians are held in a high caliber for a reason. They don’t just learn to play in their own niche group; these stellar players are constantly collaborating and have been for decades.

The biggest blessing that jazz music has brought to the world is it’s ability to tie different cultures, places, and musical ideas, all bound together by one common unity; love. Guitarist John McLaughlin, a pioneer of the jazz-fusion movement and continuation lets his music thrive in a state of flexibility that had lead him to brilliant collaborations with other craft masters worldwide. McLaughlin’s impressive career reveals a pivotal purpose of exploration and always reaches for more questions rather than answering old ones.

The greatest thing about The Travelin' McCourys, or Del’s Boys, is that they are so open to collaboration. They were bread in a family of musical versatility that never limited any possibility if they could do something interesting.

It’s felt like eons since David “Dawg” Grisman has played in Boulder. Not that is really been all too long, but since then residents have all sorts of jammy and traditional grass growing underneath them. Theater performances and community picks become increasingly popular and plentiful. A sort of roots resurgence has blossomed and a generation of newgrass players is inheriting while reinventing this tradition. Purists need to a look back a few generations to what Dawg music did for what was then current in bluegrass.

Loyal fans of Nederland, Colorado’s Mountain Standard Time must be thrilled at the feats accomplished since their recalibration and return to touring in 2012. Long time members Nick Dunbar (mandolin), Stan Sutton (guitar) and Zach Scott (drums) welcomed Otis Lande on bass and Ryan Ebarb on keys.

Though jazz connotes many meanings to many different people something most can agree upon is that jazz necessitates devotion to an instrument. How that layout translates is wide spanning. Jazz can also be narrowed down stylistically by place of origin. Chicago and New York jazz will have signature qualities and different style. Modern day, the city of New Orleans is host to the hardest working jazz community and even broader live performance in general.

If summertime is the only time you make it to a killer music festival, you must not be from Colorado. Us cold-blooded mountain people could care less about below freezing temperatures and blustering blizzards. Live music is the lifeblood of Colorado’s thriving entertainment industry and the people want it all year round. Maybe one year somebody would be brave enough to host a winter camping festival, but for now, we have a few awesome concepts that are making the dead of winter a time to party at desirable festival grounds and see our favorite bands throw down a hootenanny.

I had the pleasure of catching up with guitarist and bandleader Dweezil Zappa, who is in his eighth year of leading Zappa Plays Zappa, the tour de Frank.

When guitarist Dweezil Zappa, son of guitarist, composer, bandleader, actor, social activist, and pseudo-comedian Frank Zappa created the Zappa Plays Zappa project in 2006, he intended it as a tribute to his father’s legacy, a one-off that might reconnect some old fans and breed some new ones in the process. Eight years down the road his project is more popular than ever.