Singer-Songwriter Todd Bailey may be from Burlington County in South Jersey but in his mind and heart, he resides in Cactusland.

The second-annual Fourth Wave Fest will take place on Cookman Avenue at Asbury Park’s House Of Independents March 8. Promoted as “Music For All:  A Women-Led Day of Music,” the event will benefit an organization known as “180 Turning Lives Around” that helps survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

The last album by the original Smithereens lineup, 2011, will be released for the first time ever on vinyl in 16 Days (Sunset Blvd Records). March 14 is also the date it will be re-released on CD for the first time since 2015.

Despite retiring from touring seven years ago after the loss of hearing in his left ear, Paul Simon, one of America’s greatest living songwriters, has decided to come out of retirement for what he is calling his “Quiet Celebration” tour. Simon, born in Newark 83 years ago, will perform his brilliant 15^th solo album, Seven Psalms, in its entirety, as well as old favorites.

There’s been a lot of genius to come out of Newark: The Four Seasons, Gloria Gaynor, Ice-T, Sarah Vaughan, Fred Schneider of The B-52s, “Mighty” Max Weinberg, Whitney Houston, Connie Francis, rapper Shaquille O’Neal, Paul Simon, Woody Shaw, Queen Latifah, Jerry Lewis and Jerome Kern for starters. Then there’s Wayne Shorter, who revolutionized jazz with Miles, and then revolutionized jazz again with Weather Report.

We take time out from our regular programming for a very good cause. The Jersey Sound will match every $20 donation with another $20. Let's help these three beautiful children.

Morris County sometimes rings with rock’roll angst when the members of Above The Moon practice its new single, “The Only One.” Drummer John Gramuglia calls the group “a straight-up suburban New Jersey rock band. No bells or whistles, not even a backing track. We pride ourselves on delivering tight live performances with big guitars, loud drums and high energy.

If you love the New Jersey music scene or have ever been part of the New Jersey music scene, you have John Pfeiffer to thank.

Hoboken band Phoneboy’s Heartbreak Designer album won’t be out until April 25 but their “Better Than You” tune can be dialed up now. The boys (and girl) in the band are opening for Good Kid tonight in Missouri, Friday in Colorado and Saturday in Utah with stops in California, Texas, Florida, Tennessee and Ohio before their own headlining tour starts May 2 in DC.

Longtime Chuck Mangione lead guitarist Coleman Mellett found fame as a jazz guitarist but always loved singer-songwriters like James Taylor and Paul Simon. Married to Dizzy Gillespie’s daughter, vocalist Jeanie Bryson, they settled in East Brunswick, Middlesex County, and would always record songs in their home studio. Now, for the first time, those home recordings, as finished by pianist-producer-author Barry Miles, is being released as Sing You A Brand New Song.

Those jazz fans who missed last night’s debut performance of this season’s Jazz Room at William Paterson University in Wayne need not fret. The schedule is an A-List of talent scheduled for next month, three times in April and a solid May ending. The concerts, inexpensively priced, will take place at the on-campus Shea Center for Performing Arts.

The Cape May Singer-Songwriter Showcase weekend is set for March 28 and 29 with performances, music-biz panels, workshops, keynotes and jams galore all happening at the Congress Hall Hotel Grand Ballroom, the Harrison Conference Center, and 15 music venues. 

Mike Campbell—of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Fleetwood Mac and his own band Dirty Knobs—will sit down on the BergenPAC stage in Englewood, March 19, with longtime rock critic David Fricke to discuss his new book, Heartbreaker, due March 18.

We’re so glad Michael Arnone will be bringing a lot of Louisiana back to New Jersey at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta May 30, 31 and June 1. Starting in 1989, and continuing every year until 2019, the pandemic knocked it off-course in 2020 and 2021 but it returned in 2022, and there hasn’t been one since.

Music fans would still be buying sheet music (maybe not such a bad idea) instead of albums if it weren’t for inventor Thomas Edison [1847-1931] who invented the record player. Nobody would be going to the movies because he invented the motion picture camera too. And dare I say we might still be traipsing around in the dark because he invented the electric lightbulb too.

An amalgam of culturally esoteric evenings continues tomorrow, Feb. 11, with “Livestock Exchange” (a longstanding concert series focusing on improvised music) with Ben Bennett, Pixel Tongue and Jeff Snyder. A conversation between Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor and Professor Deborah Amos will take place the following day with a demonstration of the kamancheh (an Iranian bowed stringed ax). Read the full schedule here.

Cookin’ at the Queens (Resonance Records), by guitarist Emily Remler, now heard for the first time, is a double-disc doozy of guitarist Emily Remler performing live in Las Vegas in 1984 and 1985 in both quartet and trio settings. Heavily influenced by Wes Montgomery, she rambles through bebop, modal classics like “So What” by Miles Davis and “Impressions” by John Coltrane, Sinatra’s first hit (“Polka Dots and Moonbeams”), blues and balladry.

The very first track of Koko Mojo’s Hi Strung R&B series—Volume #3 “Do It”—is from 1961 by a vocal group who graduated Weequahic High School in Newark. They do the title song yet a deep dive into their small catalog only reveals four singles from ’61 to ’68 and one album, Can’t Stop Twistin’ (1961) on major label Columbia Records. Not much else is known about The Adventurers so how a label from Ireland found them is a bit of a mystery.

Hey all you college singers out there, the New Jersey Jazz Society is adding a “Vocal Performance” category to its 2025 juried scholarship competition. You’ve got until March 28 to apply for either “Jazz Performance” or “Original Composition.” The contest is open to all New Jersey students currently enrolled in an undergraduate music program and also to New Jersey residents in out-of-state programs. Prizes

Two New Jersey recording studios—Mozart Studio in Passaic County and Absolute Audio in Monmouth County—have finished mixing and mastering the New Perspective of Steve Smith & Vital Information. Although the album won’t be released until this Friday, the first single is a complete undoing and putting-back-together of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”