Stable Blues News Today

This month marks the 100th anniversary of a landmark piece that brought jazz and classical music lovers together.

We look into the improvisational genre that started in New Orleans for this Black Music Month feature.

Spoiler alert: “Merch Table Blues” is probably not a true-to-life, unacknowledged autobiography of Peter Conners as a young man. But the drug-laced tale of a young writer who follows a counterculture band is deeply enriched by Conners years following the Grateful Dead and his experience writing about the band and its followers.

OffBeat Magazine As the new generation of traditional jazz bands in New Orleans matures, many of the musicians are exploring the deep roots of the genre and discovering numerous gems in the catalog of lesser-known artists. At the top of the heap is the Smoking Time Jazz Club. Fronted by vocalist Sarah Peterson, the group’s latest album, Mean Tones and High Notes, explicitly lays out the band’s philosophy on the back cover: “Played with reverence and gratitude for those who created and li...