“I haven’t heard this in 35 years,” Gregg Rolie allows, as he and guitarist Alan Haynes launch into a searching version of the title track from Journey’s 1976 album Look Into the Future. It’s never sounded better.

The Only Way To Go Is Straight Through begins like a train grinding to a sparks-throwing stop — except it never stops. It just keeps throwing sparks, keeps getting louder, and brighter, and closer.

Accomplished musical alchemist Billy Martin has taken an opportunity away from Medeski Martin and Wood to rekindle an idea he had years ago — combining ragtime and funk with trumpeter Steven Bernstein.

Whenever I go to a live music event my hope is to get completely absorbed and immersed within the music. I find that the musicians who do this most for me are not the ones who show off their mastery of the language or technical proficiency.

It’s easy to pigeon-hole the Mickey Finns as a New York City-based Celtic band. You’ve got the fiddle, the drinking songs, a reel and a jig on Prayers and Idle Chatter. But there is a lot more going on here.

The newly released debut album from Andy Jobe and Neeley Bridges seems, at first, to be like an easy peg: Heartfelt, kind of country-ish? Got it: 1970s singer-songwriter.

Bob Pressner sings with a timeless, almost mythological passion — sorting through the promise and the disappointments of life with a knowing eye.

Diving headlong into some of the 1970s’ most iconic songs, Swamp Cabbage decided to use vintage techniques and vintage instruments. The results?: A kudzu-covered blast of trailer-park funk.

The cello-driven folk of Dare Me delights not just because of its offbeat instrumentation, but also in the way that it plays with dichotomies, with shadows and light, both musically and lyrically.

Tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm’s latest release Live at Smalls places the listener at the center of jazz innovation in New York City.