Joe Bonamassa’s new album, BB King’s Blues Summit 100 (KTBA Records), is out and his tour is under way. He’ll stop in Red Bank March 8 at the Count Basie PAC. Joe is a true blues hero as 29 of his 50 albums—including with Black Country Communion and Rock Candy Funk Party—have hit #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart. Breakthrough is his current studio album and it’s a doozy. He produces other artists, has started numerous indie labels and even runs his own management company.

He played sax and flute in the Smithsonian Orchestra and the Mingus Big Band. He’s been in bands with Rufus Reid and Chick Corea. He currently teaches at William Paterson University on Pompton Road in Wayne where the Shea Center is nestled right on campus, and you can “Meet The Artist” in a special 2:00 p.m. Q&A session the day of the show.

The duo known as Tiny Cities will be going back to school when it opens for the Sarah Borges Band at The Old Franklin Schoolhouse in Metuchen on March 1.   Melissa and Dennis will be debuting songs off their Beginning Of The End EP on Hidden Tracks Records. Reviews have been overwhelmingly positive as they’ve been called “best new artist of 2025” and “one of the most compelling indie voices of the moment.” 

Fifty years on, Pilobolus has stretched the creative limits of interpretive dance into its own image, that of a rebel arts organism that knows no limits. They go where professional dance troups do not dare. The new presentation, Other Worlds Collection, inhabits acrobatics, sensuality and humor. As directed by playwright Aaron Posner, with music composed by podcaster Aaron Posner and multi-instrumentalist Stuart Bogie, Pilobolus will also do a deep dive into its own past.

The all-original Monmouth County band known as December Morning will be playing songs from its Stolen Days EP which they describe as “hard rock with a splash of progressive.” Its five songs include a cover of the 1990 Alice In Chains song “Man in the Box.”

Get ready to reggae when Cheezy brings his salty Crackers to the Hard Rock balcony with a wild mash-up of classic hits and modern favorites, all done with their syncopated brand of Caribbean Rhythm. Having already opened for ZZ Top, they know how to wow a crowd. This night is part of “Garden State Live,” a monthly series of shows with Jersey bands only. Future shows in the series will key in on blues, soul, pop, rock, country and punk. Opening will be LNJ Sessions and P-Funk North.

Playing Alienation songs, Three Days Grace will headline down the shore with Prevail and The Funeral Portrait opening. They’ve sold millions of albums and have played to sold-out arenas across the country, garnering 19 #1s on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. Plus, they’re in the esteemed Spotify “Billions Club” when “I Hate Everything About You” was streamed over a billion times.

Bergen County singer-songwriter Rory D’Lasnow will bring his special brand of artistry to the legendary stage of The Stone Pony on Feb. 27 when he opens for Tom Vincent.  Also on the bill will be The Azures and Shattered Signal. Maybe he’ll do “Maybe Tonight,” his gorgeous song on meeting someone after you’ve already given up on love. 

WPU has a beautiful venue with great acoustics right on campus. The Shea Center for the Performing Arts will host sax man Branford Marsalis from the First Family of New Orleans. He came out of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers to join Clark Terry’s bigband before leading the NBC Tonight Show Band and then Sting. His string of brilliant albums as leader is as long as your arm. In fact, he’s in the conversation of greatest living sax men.

Down to a three-piece of Nini, Tyler and John, Asbury Park’s Starikova will hit Madison at the Community Arts Center on Kings Road for a 7:00 p.m. show of its new mix of alt-rock, ska and punk. It’s an all-ages BYOB show

There is nothing more musically sensuous than Argentine tango.  It is, after all, the dance of love. International tango superstars German Cornejo and Gisela Galeassi make their New Jersey debut Feb. 21 at the Victoria Theater within the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. They bring a cast of eight to make Tango King Astor Piazzolla’s compositions come to life. Between the live music and the choreography, you’ll think you were in Buenos Aries!

The bluegrass brainchild of Rutgers prof Alex Dawson, the five performances of The Devil & Daisy Dirt will start Feb. 20 until Feb. 22. Expect to meet “The Jersey Devil” in the Pine Barrens of this combination vaudeville show/horror fairy-tale. Mark and Marc of Weird NJ magazine call it “the most original, Jersey-centric and downright weird presentation in our state’s theatrical history.” 

Want to blow your horn? Feel the need to take the stage and sing? NJPAC’s Jazz Advisory Committee and the Rutgers Institute for Jazz Studies are teaming up to present this jam session at Clement’s Place on Washington Street downtown Newark at 7:30 p.m. Pianist James Austin is the band leader and sometimes they go all night.

Such a nice neighborhood in which to see some loud music! Plenty of great restaurants in and around Bloomfield Avenue. Archers—out of Wisconsin—has the kind of metalcore with room for melodic pop precision. They first showed their Cuts & Bruises in 2015. The pandemic had them stay home in 2020 to release “Black Market Monkey Magic” and it cracked the million-stream mark off the New Normal EP. All That I Have Left in 2024, with fan favorite “Stay This Sober,” cracked the 10-million stream mark.  And they’re still riding on last year’s Temporary High. Also on the bill—Nothing More, Catch Your Breath and Doobie.

Boys Noize will open for Nine Inch Nails at the Prudential Center in Newark as he celebrates the release of “HYYTUP/ShSb0mbe” on his own OAZ label. After producing Ty Dolla $ign, Kungs and the Tron: Ares soundtrack, he disappeared into his man-cave studio for this 22-track compilation of dark detuned stomping-and-punching 107 BPM buzzsaws. This intense psychedelic visceral wall-of-sound is like nothing else out there now or ever.

This all-female Asian-American Dance Company will celebrate “The Year of the Horse” on the afternoons of Feb. 14 and 15 at 2:00 by premiering “Mongolian Harvest.” The program also includes “Lion in the City,” a dialogue between Chinese folk music and American hip-hop that “is a prayer for peace and harmony symbolized by a child playing freely with a ferocious beast,” according to NJPAC. “Festival (Dragon Dance)” should be spectacular as the dragon itself—beset with colorful ribbons—descends from heaven to bless the earth.

New Yorker Mark Whitfield, Jr. is a Berklee College of Music alum who has been in-demand on drums since he starred in the family band of his guitarist father and pianist brother. A regular at Dizzy’s Club and Smoke, he’s dynamic in his full-force exploration of percussive sound, going out there on a limb but always returning right on time. 

Singer-Songwriter-Playwright-Educator Dar Williams kicks off her Hummingbird Highway 2026 World Tour that traverses the globe until October 8 right here in Jersey at The Newton Theatre. “It’s a highway filled with deep exotic colors and beautiful delicate things as well as the perils that come from moving so fast,” says the artist. Thirteen albums into her career, she says, “I was a kid from the suburbs who listened when her hippie teachers said to get out in the world.”

Born in the Eastern European country of Belarus, singer-songwriter-educator Angelina Miers now lives in New York City and is taking what they the “Great American Songbook” and twirling it into something different, something with an edge. She studied jazz as well as Cognitive Neuroscience in college and wowed ‘em at Birdland. Now she hits Teaneck running Feb. 5.

Vrsty (pronounced varsity) will perform new versions of “Dig,” “Pathos” and “Shameless” off its 2020 Cloud City EP in Clifton at Dingbatz on Feb. 4. Singer Joey Tyler shares that “I’ve always loved the kinda heavy softness that `Shameless’ had and always thought it would be cool to explore that more. I think I went into it with that mentality at first but then also just wanted to do this as a thank-you for everyone who has supported us for so many years. After all, that song was the very first time anyone ever listened to us and gave us a chance.”

Roots-Rockers Yarn will blast out its Hard Americana Feb. 1 in Sparta at Krogh’s Restaurant & Brew Pub. The new album, Saturday Night Sermon, doesn’t drop until April 24 but there’s 10 albums of material to choose from.  The new single “Good Things” is out. Lead singer Blake Christiana says it’s “all about gratitude. Ray Wylie Hubbard always says, `When your gratitude exceeds your expectations, that’s a good day.' With that in mind, I threw away all my negative thoughts and self-pity and wrote this song because the truth of it is, our life is only as good as our reaction to it. And Yarn is pretty damn blessed with a whole lot of 'Good Things.’” 

British pianist-composer Wilfie Williams is living a stone’s throw from Teaneck now in New York City. He fuses tradition with modernity, went to Berklee on a full-boat scholarship, and wowed ‘em in DC at the jazz fest.  His rhythmic drive pounds his points home like a sharpened pencil. His three separate sets start at 8:00. 

They came out of Rhode Island 22 years ago as a Sublime tribute band and have since morphed into an original act fusing hip-hop, reggae, R’n’B and alt.pop. Now they do both. Drummer Scott Begin says, “putting out original music alongside being a tribute band has always been a point of interest to us. It’s been a tricky path to walk, though. Yet as the years have gone by and we’ve gotten to witness our little show turn into somewhat of a movement within the scene, we are at the point where we feel we have something of real heart and value to add not only to our show but to the American reggae scene.”

Tickets were so hot they added Jan. 31 as well. Guitarist Pete Steinkopf, singer Greg Attonito and bassist Bryan Kienien started the influential Bouncing Souls in 1988 New Brunswick, naming the band after a shoe. Label ‘em punk but they’re so much more. Their cover of “What Boys Like” by The Waitresses still sounds great. When their drummer split to join Joan Jett, they marched on, debuting George Rebelo at an Asbury Lanes show in 2013. Twelve albums in, they’re working on a 2026 album.

The 3:00 p.m. performance of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with guest violinist Ray Chen, as directed by Vasily Petrenko, on January 25 at NJPAC downtown Newark, will be preceded by a 2:00 “pre-show talk,” according to the venue. It’s been 80 years and counting for this venerable institution of an orchestra. England’s most in-demand big big big band will perform Nielsen’s “Helios Overture,” Sibelius’s “Symphony #2” and a Tchaikovsky violin concerto where Chen will positively soar.

Native New Yorker Sam Dillon blows tenor sax, writes and educates. He commands a stage, solos like crazy and is always asked to play on other people’s records and stages including The Mingus Big Band and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Combining tradition and innovation, he’s a good bet to catch Jan. 24 on Cedar Lane in Teaneck for one, two or three of his sets.

In support of its new self-released Cook album, the sextet known as Lettuce will hit Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair at the Wellmont Jan. 22 for some deep-fried funk. Expect to hear “Gold Tooth,” “Breathe” and its cover of Keni Burke’s 1982 “Risin’ To The Top.” Trumpeter Benny Bloom says “Breathe” is his favorite song on the new album. “I can just see myself strutting down the streets of New York City on a brisk October night,” he says, “thinking of all the possibilities my future holds if I just listen to myself and breathe.”

Pianist James Austin, Jr. leads a monthly 7:30 p.m. jazz jam at Clement’s Place in Newark starting Jan. 22 and continuing for three more months. Singers and instrumentalists are invited, be they novice or seasoned, to jam out and improvise.

Punk legends The Dictators have their first album out in 23 years. Self-titled, it features bassist Andy Shernoff (who started the band in 1972), lead guitarist Ross The Boss (who was right there with him at inception), former Blue Oyster Cult drummer Albert Bouchard and the new guy, singer Keith Roth (who joined in 2021). Also on the bill is Richard Lloyd, no stranger to the ranks of Punk Icons as he co-founded the influential band Television with Tom Verlaine in 1973. Opening will be Full Steen Ahead, a Jersey band well-versed in punk history.

Newark drummer-composer Mecadon McCune will bash his way through three sets of modern jazz on Jan. 9 on Cedar Lane in Teaneck. The son of multi-instrumentalist Brandon McCune and opera singer Christine Clemmons-McCune, he started on piano before settling on the drums in high school. He won the ten-grand James Moody Jazz Scholarship to go to Montclair State where he honed his chops into the powerhouse percussionist he is today.