Dive into the sonic waves of Quinn Sternberg's Mind Beach—where jazz becomes a landscape and every note washes over you like tide meeting shore.
This isn't your typical Monday night. It's an expedition into the spaces between beats, where four master musicians construct entire worlds from reed, string, skin, and ivory. Quinn Sternberg's bass serves as your anchor, holding gravity steady while Jacob Rodriguez's baritone sax paints horizons in deep indigo. Joe Enright's drums pulse like the heartbeat beneath sand, and Alex Taub's piano keys shimmer like moonlight on water.
Mind Beach isn't a place—it's a state of being. It's where mountain soul meets metropolitan sophistication, where tradition and exploration shake hands and decide to dance. These aren't just players; they're architects of the invisible, building bridges between what jazz was and what it could become.
Sanders, Boyd, Page & Hall distill the pure essence of improvisational expression, converging as alchemists of sound, transmuting musical elements into their most essential forms. This quartet embodies the philosophical concept of quintessence—the fifth element beyond earth, air, fire, and water—representing the fundamental substance from which all musical reality springs.
Their original compositions crystallize the essential qualities of diverse influences, oscillating between through-composed musical themes, groove-based soul explorations, traditional jazz-influenced pieces, Americana-inspired peaceful melodicism, world music influences, free jazz adventures, and occasional forays into cacophonous noise music. Through years of improvisational study, they've learned to access that rarefied space where genres dissolve into pure creative energy.
In this musical laboratory, Sanders' guitar becomes a conduit for universal vibration, Boyd's reeds channel the breath of consciousness itself, Page's bass provides the fundamental frequency of existence, while Hall's percussion creates the rhythmic heartbeat of the cosmos.
Casey Driessen: Sunday Bazaar at Little Jumbo is a monthly residency on the 3rd Sunday where music spills out like treasures in a bustling market. Fiddle loops, wild grooves, sonic oddities, and vibrant rhythms mix together in a swirl of color and sound. Tease your tastebuds with expertly crafted cocktails and soak in the cozy, electric atmosphere. No two nights are alike—wander in, follow your ears, and see what you discover.
The Core represents everything essential about Asheville's jazz DNA distilled into five musicians who understand that the best ensembles aren't just collections of individual talents—they're alchemical reactions where individual voices merge into something greater than their sum. This quintet embodies the mountain city's unique musical ecosystem, where Blue Ridge authenticity meets sophisticated harmonic exploration, where the intimacy of local venues allows for the kind of musical risk-taking that transforms standards into personal statements. Named for their ability to get to the heart of every song they touch, The Core strips away musical pretense to reveal the emotional architecture beneath, proving that jazz at its best isn't about showing off—it's about showing up completely for each moment, each phrase, each possibility that emerges when five musicians breathe together in perfect musical democracy. In Asheville's thriving jazz scene, The Core stands as both inheritors of tradition and pioneers of what's next, reminding audiences that the most profound musical experiences happen when virtuosity serves vulnerability, when technique becomes the vehicle for something infinitely more human.
Sanders, Boyd, Page & Hall distill the pure essence of improvisational expression, converging as alchemists of sound, transmuting musical elements into their most essential forms. This quartet embodies the philosophical concept of quintessence—the fifth element beyond earth, air, fire, and water—representing the fundamental substance from which all musical reality springs.
Their original compositions crystallize the essential qualities of diverse influences, oscillating between through-composed musical themes, groove-based soul explorations, traditional jazz-influenced pieces, Americana-inspired peaceful melodicism, world music influences, free jazz adventures, and occasional forays into cacophonous noise music. Through years of improvisational study, they've learned to access that rarefied space where genres dissolve into pure creative energy.
In this musical laboratory, Sanders' guitar becomes a conduit for universal vibration, Boyd's reeds channel the breath of consciousness itself, Page's bass provides the fundamental frequency of existence, while Hall's percussion creates the rhythmic heartbeat of the cosmos.
When Snarky Puppy bandmates Chris Bullock and Justin Stanton—who've spent countless hours together since meeting in Texas in 2005—decided to bring their unique songwriting visions to Rio de Janeiro in 2023, they discovered something magical: Justin's compositions tended toward lighter sounds and feelings, while Chris's carried darker, sometimes sinister hues. The result became "Claro e Escuro" (Portuguese for "light and dark"), an album that celebrates the vibrancy of Brazilian culture while showcasing two decades of friendship, strong working rapport, and mutual respect between these five-time Grammy Award-winning multi-instrumentalists, composers, and producers.
Now these musical globetrotters bring their light-and-dark conversation to Asheville, anchored by two of the Blue Ridge's finest rhythm architects. Quinn Sternberg doesn't just play bass—he becomes the gravitational center around which musical solar systems orbit, his four strings serving as the invisible force that holds melody and rhythm in perfect harmonic balance, building rhythmic foundations so sturdy that horn players can stretch toward the stratosphere. Ryan Ptasnik brings his jazz-trained versatility from Wyoming high school bands to Central Asian opera houses to Asheville's vibrant scene, proving that the best drummers create the adaptable foundation that allows wildly diverse musical visions to flourish.
After Chris spent three months immersed in Rio's music culture, he brought Justin back for a week of tracking sessions where different configurations of musicians shifted the music's feel and groove—lending fire and spontaneity that now comes to life with Sternberg and Ptasnik as the rhythmic heart. Expect an evening where Asheville's own Chris Bullock (that's right—he started his musical obsession right here with Beach Boys and hip-hop cassettes) teams with Tennessee's Justin Stanton to prove that the most compelling musical conversations happen when saxophone meets trumpet, keyboards meet synthesis, light meets dark, and two of Asheville's most intuitive rhythm players make it all swing.
Queens-born, Orangeburg-raised, Asheville-dwelling Will Boyd doesn't just play saxophone—he channels the entire lineage of soul sax prophets like Eddie Harris, Hank Crawford, David "Fat Head" Newman, King Curtis, and Johnny Hodges, transforming every reed into a vessel for what one critic called "mad sax man" playing that sends up a "joyful noise." This is the kind of musician who was gigging professionally with R&B groups before he turned 18, who studied with South African free jazz maverick Zim Ngqawana and Art Blakey Jazz Messengers alumni Donald Brown, who's shared stages with Fred Wesley in unchanged dive bars that looked like 1975 never left and Leslie Odom Jr. in theaters where Hamilton still echoes.
The Will Boyd Project embodies Boyd's mission to recreate the joy and intensity of church music while moving the movement forward—from his albums "Live at the Red Piano Lounge," "Freedom Soul Jazz" (a Juneteenth celebration that reimagines spirituals, hymns, and freedom songs), to "Soulful Noise." His baritone sax takes you to Memphis houses of worship, his bass clarinet becomes a balm in Gilead, his alto shuffles down church pews with gospel beats that make even the most secular spaces feel sanctified. This is a musician who's toured Japan multiple times, played with everyone from Doc Severinsen to Jeff Coffin to the Four Tops, appeared on PBS documentaries about painter Beauford Delaney, premiered operas celebrating Black artistic heritage, and received the MLK Award for the Arts.
Now faculty at UNC Asheville and Warren Wilson College, Boyd performs weekly at Little Jumbo with the Jay Sanders Quartet and directs the Contemporary Jazz Ensemble of Asheville, proving that teaching and preaching through a saxophone are really the same sacred act. With wife and vocalist Kelle Jolly by his side (WUOT jazz radio host and founder of the Knoxville Women in Jazz Jam Festival), The Will Boyd Project transforms every performance into a revival meeting where bebop meets the Black church, where freedom songs get reborn with extra spiritual muscle, where decades of soul tradition collide with right-now urgency.
Expect an evening where every note carries the weight of history and the lightness of joy, where technical mastery serves something bigger than virtuosity, where a multi-reed master who's played everywhere from Tokyo jazz festivals to cruise ships to "Ain't Misbehavin'" productions proves that the deepest jazz has always been about liberation—musical, spiritual, and otherwise. This isn't just a performance. It's a sermon delivered through saxophone, a celebration that honors those who came before while insisting that the future sounds like freedom.
When UNC Asheville's jazz faculty takes the stage alongside their acclaimed XTET ensemble, the line between teaching and performing dissolves into pure musical conversation. This isn't just a showcase—it's a masterclass in motion, where the same minds shaping the next generation of jazz musicians demonstrate exactly why Asheville has become a hotbed for creative improvisation and sophisticated composition.
The XTET represents the cutting edge of the university's jazz program, a flexible ensemble that expands and contracts like a living organism, adapting its instrumentation to serve the music rather than conform to traditional jazz configurations. When the faculty joins them—bringing decades of professional experience from international tours, recording sessions, and collaborations with jazz legends—the result is an intergenerational dialogue where academic rigor meets street-level soul.
Expect original compositions that push harmonic boundaries, reimagined standards that reveal hidden depths, and the kind of fearless improvisation that only happens when world-class educators remember that the best teaching happens through example. These aren't professors playing at being musicians—they're working artists who happen to spend their days passing on the knowledge they've earned through thousands of gigs, countless recording sessions, and a deep commitment to advancing the art form.
At Little Jumbo Bar, where every note matters and authenticity is the only currency that spends, UNCA's jazz program proves that the most exciting music happens when those who can, do—and teach others to do the same.
[or: "What Happens When a High School Club Achieves Sentience and Summons Its Members Across Space-Time"]
In the year 2000, a progressive acoustic group called AVAS released one album on Little King Records and vanished into the multiverse. Now, twenty-five years later, the quantum entanglement that bound these musicians has reached critical mass, creating a temporal anomaly that threatens to collapse the space-time continuum unless they reconvene and complete the sonic ritual they began at a Nashville high school decades ago.
Jay Sanders—last seen communicating with entities from the music of the spheres—has been pulled from his Tuesday night quantum residency. Jason Krekel materialized mid-letterpress print, his guitar still vibrating at frequencies that transcend the four-track cassette dimension. Andy Pond arrived via slamgrass wormhole, his banjo emitting comfortable reggae radiation. Gaines Post was extracted from the Blue Mountains of Australia, where he'd been writing science fiction novels that were actually encoded messages from his flute about the nature of reality itself.
Supporting this cosmically improbable reunion: Zack Page, whose 275-gigs-per-year averaged bass lines have created gravitational wells across multiple timelines. Will Boyd, whose soul sax tradition channels frequencies from the Great American Sunday Hymnal Dimension where spirituals become literal doorways to transcendence. And Alan Hall, the percussion philosopher whose forty years of alchemical drumming—converting kinetic energy into bridges between the earthbound and ethereal—have finally revealed their true purpose: reopening the AVAS gateway.
What happens when Bill Frisell meets Mahavishnu Orchestra meets Väsen meets Raymond Scott meets your high school music club twenty-five years later in a bar that exists simultaneously in Asheville and several adjacent dimensions? The answer may destroy conventional understanding of music, shatter the known capabilities of wooden flutes, recalibrate the fundamental constants of bluegrass physics, and prove conclusively that the Acoustic Vibration Appreciation Society was never about acoustic vibrations—but rather about engineering a self-sustaining tear in the fabric of musical reality itself.
What began as a student club has evolved into a living organism, a sentient musical algorithm that spans decades and continents, pulling its scattered members back together like cosmic debris orbiting an invisible singularity. This isn't nostalgia. This is the universe demanding completion of an unfinished equation written in sound waves and string theory.
Witness the AVAS Continuum. Watch out for aliens. Bring your third eye. The fundamental vibrations are calling, and they're not taking "I moved to Australia" as an excuse.
[WARNING: This performance may cause spontaneous appreciation of sacred geometry, involuntary understanding of the music of the spheres, and the sudden realization that your high school music club was actually a prophetic vision of the future. Side effects include: seeing sounds, hearing colors, believing that banjos might actually save the universe, and the unsettling certainty that newgrass was always meant to be a trans-dimensional technology. No refunds for dimensional displacement. Existential dread not included but highly probable.]
When three master musicians converge at Little Jumbo Bar, expect the unexpected. Jacob Rodriguez brings his world-traveling baritone sax—seasoned from Michael Bublé's Grammy stages to Brooklyn's underground scenes—ready to paint midnight stories with reed and breath. Quinn Sternberg anchors the room with bass lines that don't just walk, they architect entire musical conversations, transforming rhythm section duties into chamber music poetry. Al Sergel completes the triangle with his genre-fluid drumming philosophy, equally comfortable crafting beats for jazz legends and pop sensibilities.
This isn't just a trio—it's three musical chameleons who've learned that the most interesting sounds happen when you refuse to stay in one lane. Rodriguez channels everything from Hard Bop Explosion fire to Congolese mysticism, Sternberg builds gravitational centers that make everyone else sound better, and Sergel treats musical boundaries as suggestions waiting to be reimagined.
In Little Jumbo's intimate setting, where every note matters and every silence speaks volumes, prepare for an evening where San Antonio street corners meet conservatory training, where midnight iPhone memos become full-fledged statements, and where three master storytellers prove that the best conversations happen without words.
Sometimes the most profound music comes from the spaces between genres.
Sanders, Boyd, Page & Hall distill the pure essence of improvisational expression, converging as alchemists of sound, transmuting musical elements into their most essential forms. This quartet embodies the philosophical concept of quintessence—the fifth element beyond earth, air, fire, and water—representing the fundamental substance from which all musical reality springs.
Their original compositions crystallize the essential qualities of diverse influences, oscillating between through-composed musical themes, groove-based soul explorations, traditional jazz-influenced pieces, Americana-inspired peaceful melodicism, world music influences, free jazz adventures, and occasional forays into cacophonous noise music. Through years of improvisational study, they've learned to access that rarefied space where genres dissolve into pure creative energy.
In this musical laboratory, Sanders' guitar becomes a conduit for universal vibration, Boyd's reeds channel the breath of consciousness itself, Page's bass provides the fundamental frequency of existence, while Hall's percussion creates the rhythmic heartbeat of the cosmos.
The Core represents everything essential about Asheville's jazz DNA distilled into five musicians who understand that the best ensembles aren't just collections of individual talents—they're alchemical reactions where individual voices merge into something greater than their sum. This quintet embodies the mountain city's unique musical ecosystem, where Blue Ridge authenticity meets sophisticated harmonic exploration, where the intimacy of local venues allows for the kind of musical risk-taking that transforms standards into personal statements. Named for their ability to get to the heart of every song they touch, The Core strips away musical pretense to reveal the emotional architecture beneath, proving that jazz at its best isn't about showing off—it's about showing up completely for each moment, each phrase, each possibility that emerges when five musicians breathe together in perfect musical democracy. In Asheville's thriving jazz scene, The Core stands as both inheritors of tradition and pioneers of what's next, reminding audiences that the most profound musical experiences happen when virtuosity serves vulnerability, when technique becomes the vehicle for something infinitely more human.
Sanders, Boyd, Page & Hall distill the pure essence of improvisational expression, converging as alchemists of sound, transmuting musical elements into their most essential forms. This quartet embodies the philosophical concept of quintessence—the fifth element beyond earth, air, fire, and water—representing the fundamental substance from which all musical reality springs.
Their original compositions crystallize the essential qualities of diverse influences, oscillating between through-composed musical themes, groove-based soul explorations, traditional jazz-influenced pieces, Americana-inspired peaceful melodicism, world music influences, free jazz adventures, and occasional forays into cacophonous noise music. Through years of improvisational study, they've learned to access that rarefied space where genres dissolve into pure creative energy.
In this musical laboratory, Sanders' guitar becomes a conduit for universal vibration, Boyd's reeds channel the breath of consciousness itself, Page's bass provides the fundamental frequency of existence, while Hall's percussion creates the rhythmic heartbeat of the cosmos.
Sanders, Boyd, Page & Hall distill the pure essence of improvisational expression, converging as alchemists of sound, transmuting musical elements into their most essential forms. This quartet embodies the philosophical concept of quintessence—the fifth element beyond earth, air, fire, and water—representing the fundamental substance from which all musical reality springs.
Their original compositions crystallize the essential qualities of diverse influences, oscillating between through-composed musical themes, groove-based soul explorations, traditional jazz-influenced pieces, Americana-inspired peaceful melodicism, world music influences, free jazz adventures, and occasional forays into cacophonous noise music. Through years of improvisational study, they've learned to access that rarefied space where genres dissolve into pure creative energy.
In this musical laboratory, Sanders' guitar becomes a conduit for universal vibration, Boyd's reeds channel the breath of consciousness itself, Page's bass provides the fundamental frequency of existence, while Hall's percussion creates the rhythmic heartbeat of the cosmos.
Ring in 2026 the only way that matters—with five master musicians who understand that the best celebrations happen when soul meets jazz and midnight meets pure musical magic. Jacob Rodriguez's world-traveling baritone sax brings the perfect soundtrack for crossing into a new year, channeling stories through reed and breath that connect all the places you've been to all the places you're going. Quinn Sternberg anchors this New Year's Eve sonic revival with bass lines that don't just walk into the future—they dance, transforming the countdown into gravitational grooves that make every moment before midnight feel sanctified.
Joe Enright treats his drum kit like a time machine, his sticks weaving rhythmic narratives that bridge 2025's mountain memories with 2026's metropolitan possibilities, while Alex Taub's piano becomes both reflection and resolution, finding those sacred spaces between what was and what could be where musical miracles happen. Andy Page completes this New Year's congregation with guitar work that's traveled from Switzerland to Japan, bringing two decades of celebration wisdom to help Asheville ring in the new year with style.
At Little Jumbo Bar, where the walls themselves seem to lean in when real music is being born, prepare for a New Year's Eve where the soul jazz tradition gets resurrected not through nostalgia, but through five musicians who know that the best way to celebrate time passing is to make every moment swing. Forget the ball drop—this is how you step into 2026.
Some countdowns don't need clocks—just musicians who make every beat matter.
The Core represents everything essential about Asheville's jazz DNA distilled into five musicians who understand that the best ensembles aren't just collections of individual talents—they're alchemical reactions where individual voices merge into something greater than their sum. This quintet embodies the mountain city's unique musical ecosystem, where Blue Ridge authenticity meets sophisticated harmonic exploration, where the intimacy of local venues allows for the kind of musical risk-taking that transforms standards into personal statements. Named for their ability to get to the heart of every song they touch, The Core strips away musical pretense to reveal the emotional architecture beneath, proving that jazz at its best isn't about showing off—it's about showing up completely for each moment, each phrase, each possibility that emerges when five musicians breathe together in perfect musical democracy. In Asheville's thriving jazz scene, The Core stands as both inheritors of tradition and pioneers of what's next, reminding audiences that the most profound musical experiences happen when virtuosity serves vulnerability, when technique becomes the vehicle for something infinitely more human.
