Rutgers Bassist-Composer-Educator Mike Noordzy—a Middlesex County resident—is a man for all seasons, be it with his quintet or bands like his El Noordzo (covering Nirvana and Radiohead in an Afro-Cuban framework) or Moth Guts. He’s always filled with musical surprises, unorthodox approaches and the fact that he obviously takes such pleasure in totally defying all known genres. His current album is Shark Funeral Songbook Volume #2, the follow-up to an album he released nine years ago.

Princeton-born Palmyra Delran is known as The Trash Queen. Her brand of garage-rock is in-your-face. She takes no prisoners. She just kills ‘em all, as Metallica once said. “Spirit In My House” (Stevie Van Zandt’s Wicked Cool Records) is a cover version of a rare Joey Ramone track. Ramone, who died in 2001 at 49, became an icon by shoving his middle finger forward to rock’n’roll convention.

Live at Reveler, by The Chris Whiteman/John Toomey Quartet, pairs the guitar stylings and compositions of Montclair’s Chris Whiteman with the pianistics of New York’s John Toomey to create an amalgam of jazz history from blues, standards, samba, Monk, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Mann, originals and the kind of post-bop swing that can induce a smile.

Stevie Van Zandt called to personally tell us about October 17 at the Count Basie Center for Performing Arts in Red Bank. For it is on that day that the inaugural TeachRock Teachers Hall of Fame Celebration will be hosted by actor-writer Pete Davidson in honor of educators nationwide. Earlier that day, Van Zandt will be inducted into the Count Basie Center Walk Of Fame. The phone rings. It’s Stevie.

South Amboy Internet radio station BlowUpRadio.com (“Where New Jersey Rock Lives”), will broadcast its 19^th annual ‘Banding Together Webathon” October 16, 17 & 18 to benefit the Spondylitis Association of America, a non-profit organization “educating, empowering and advocating for people living with spondylo-arthritis.

The Devil called the folks who put on the New Jersey Punk Rock Flea Market. He asked for their souls. They gave him a flea market instead. So this year it’s “The Jersey Devil Night Market” Saturday October 17 from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. at the N.J. Expo Center on Sunfield Avenue in Edison with bizarre stage acts, live music, Tarot readings, photo ops, taxidermy, a Black Mass Pop-Up Art Show, food trucks, live fire and dark art performances, “Sinister Sellers” (with 100+ Strange Oddities) and an “Evil Costume” contest.

The all-star 7:00 p.m. tribute will take place at Hunter College’s Kaye Playhouse on 68th Street between Park and Lexington in Manhattan TONIGHT.

Paramus Metal Warriors Patriarchs In Black are ready To Serve Man, as the title of their new album says, but not until January 8. For now, though, they want “No More Blood” because they, in the words of profound lyricist and lead guitarist Dan Lorenzo, “just want to get back home.”   

The Rutherford Williams Center will host America’s largest International Progressive Rock Festival—the 2026 edition of ProgStock—starting Thursday for three days with a Sunday after-party at Bolero Snort Brewery on 20^th Street in Carlstadt.

The 18^th Annual Induction Ceremonies of the New Jersey Hall of Fame (NJHOF) transpired on September 24 at American Dream in East Rutherford in front of over 1,000 fans.

For the first four days of October, Jersey City is an art colony when the 37^th Annual Jersey City Art & Studio Tour (JCAST) returns. The celebration will include artists, galleries, live music, exhibitions, murals, tours and “cultural experiences across all six wards of Jersey City,” according to the town itself. The theme this year is “Unbounded Nature.”

From the mild streets of Hadden Heights in Camden County, the boyz of alt-emo band Sleep In sing of friendship, self-loathing, daydreaming, personal struggle and “the strange rituals of party culture” on their fourth album, Tangled In The Vines

Born in 1957 Englewood Cliffs, guitarist Emily Remler gravitated towards Louisiana then Hollywood, stunning audiences and record-buyers alike with her incredible jazz licks like the second coming of Wes Montgomery [1923-1968], developing his thumb technique and his octaves. She was 32 when she died on tour in Australia after a lifetime of abusing opioids. She would have been 70 next year when Firefly: The Emily Remler Story, a new documentary, tries to unravel the reasons.

T2 Music has released Royalty: The Music of Duke Ellington and Count Basie by the Springfield Symphony Jazz Orchestra. It’s a magnificent tribute to the two composers, complete with alto sax (2), tenor sax (2), clarinet, baritone sax, trumpet (6), trombone (3), tambourine, piano (2), guitar, bass, drums (2) and vocals (2). The Count Basie Orchestra recorded the 1949 Memphis Slim hit “Everyday I Have The Blues” with Joe Williams in 1955. Here, Kurt Elling sings it.

“I Choose Me,” by Indian-American Maithili Relle, raised in Asbury Park, is a jolt of electricity between herself and Brooklyn-born rapper Hiii Siddity. Her sense of pop history results in how within the song she samples “Where My Girls At,” the 1999 hit by Las Vegas girl group 702.

Anyone in or around Watchung Avenue in Plainfield on Sunday October 4 is in for a treat. Starting at noon for six hours, WBGO Personality/Author/Newark Museum of Art Jazz Curator  Sheila Anderson will host the 2026 Central Jersey Jazz Fest…and it’s free. Jazz House Kids will open. Rain or shine. Complete with food, art and vendors.

Quality Living, from Ringwood in Passaic Country, released its self-titled debut in 2016, followed it up with Softly Caught Me in 2020, and is readying its Glacier for release next month. But first we have “Minotaur.”

Todd Parker started Tadpoles in mid-‘80s Hoboken as a vehicle for his songs, vocals and psychedelic guitar shrieks. As the 1990s dawned, he found some like-minded musicians in New York City that loved his brand of noise-pop space-rock. Down now to a trio of Parker (guitar, bass, vocals, synthesizer), drummer David Max and Nick Kramer (electronics), they sound a little something like Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd.

The road to legendary American songwriter status? For many, it could only have begun in New Jersey. Such is the story behind a new short film entitled “Harbor of Hope,” tracing the life and legacy of “From a Distance” composer Julie Gold and her Russian American mother, now an official selection of NJ Web Fest 2026 (September 24-27) at the Clairidge Theater in Montclair. 

Tickets are now on sale for the Fall 2026 Jazz Room Series of William Paterson University in Wayne. Each show is at 3:00 p.m. with a 2:00 artist meet-and-greet. And what a lineup it is!