The Jersey Shore Film Festival will be showcasing Lucky Jack, an independent documentary about a pizza delivery guy from the Newark projects, 30, a high school dropout, with two kids, who, above all odds, follows his dream and becomes a neurosurgical resident at a top New York City hospital. It will debut June 22 at Basie Center Cinemas in Red Bank.

“Chocolate Jesus,” the 1999 Tom Waits gem, has been given a new life by Eddie Skuller of Jersey City. We previously reported on how he turned the Chicago blues of Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful” into a reggae (3/25/25). He now has five Waits songs under his belt that he’s put together as part of his live show. Pianist

Last year, Sayreville singer-songwriter Rhonette Smith released her first single since 2020. “Exhale” was in honor of World Mental Health Day. (See our 10/10/24 news item). On her new single, “Bent,” which The Jersey Sound is proud to present as a World Premiere here now, she bites your head off.

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center at One Center Street in Newark has announced its shows for the preliminary fall season of jazz. Tickets went on sale last week for the following.

He came out of Toms River in Ocean County and has been in Nashville for years. Mark Mulch is but one of a growing list of artists who call their music Trop Rock. Now it’s a certifiable genre with its own radio stations, charts and audience. Like Americana, it’s an umbrella under which good vibes, strong melodies, sunny scenes and sand between your toes vie for optimum feelgood listening.

He came out of Toms River in Ocean County and has been in Nashville for years. Mark Mulch is but one of a growing list of artists who call their music Trop Rock. Now it’s a certifiable genre with its own radio stations, charts and audience. Like Americana, it’s an umbrella under which good vibes, strong melodies, sunny scenes and sand between your toes vie for optimum feelgood listening.

How did Brian Berkowitz from Belleville in Essex County turn into a true-blue piano-humping Chicago Bluesman named Johnny Iguana? Dude’s played piano on albums by Buddy Guy, Johnny Winter, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Derek Trucks and James Cotton (legends all) before signing to Delmark Records in 2020 for his acclaimed Johnny Iguana’s Chicago Spectacular debut which featured Billy Boy Arnold, John Primer and Little Ed. Now comes Johnny Iguana At Delmark: Chicago-Style Solo Piano.

June 27 can’t come fast enough. That’s the date seven complete never-before-heard Springsteen albums will be released in one big beautiful box, Tracks II. One of the albums, Inyo, is particularly fascinating as it contains his 1990s collaborations with a host of Mariachi Musicians.

It’s summer and the time is right for dancing in the streets. The town of Clifton will let you do exactly that FOR FREE starting Friday with Swingman and the Misfit Mutts. June 13 means The Retrocasters with sounds from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. On June 20, The Jersey Swamp Cats will enliven the proceedings with the kind of jump blues that will make you want to twist and shout.

It’s summer and the time is right for dancing in the streets. The town of Clifton will let you do exactly that FOR FREE starting Friday with Swingman and the Misfit Mutts. June 13 means The Retrocasters with sounds from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. On June 20, The Jersey Swamp Cats will enliven the proceedings with the kind of jump blues that will make you want to twist and shout.

Blues Traveler has traveled a long way since they started in the basement of their drummer’s house in Princeton 39 years ago. John Popper, Chandler Kinchia, Brendan Hill and Bobby Sheehan [1968-1999] were only jamming at the time. Little did they know their fun would take them around the world, playing over 2,000 concerts in front of over 30 million fans, record 14 albums, sell over 10 million and win a Grammy. 

She’s long left her Monmouth County roots for the dream of Nashville.  According to her camp, she has “big loud feelings,” most of which can be heard in her “I Wanna Feel Good” single which drops today.

On June 5, the Garden State Arts Foundation (GSAF) will present FOR FREE the recently-retired Tony Orlando (a longtime resident of Union City and Hasbrouk Heights). Orlando, after 64 years in show business, and a longtime advocate for the U.S. military, was coaxed out of retirement for this one show as a military tribute to our troops around the world. Now in its 41^st year, the GSAF will have Cousin Brucie present the Francis Albert Sinatra Tribute to the Performing Arts honor to Orlando.

The concept of the jazz “ghost band” refers to orchestras who continue to play long after the leader dies. Twelve years after Glenn Miller went missing during World War II, his orchestra revved back up.

Now everyone can hear what went down on the first night of the Euro Springsteen tour May 14 in Manchester England as a new EP has been released digitally as Land Of Hope & Dreams. Besides the dramatic title tune, The E Street Band revs up “Long Walk Home,” “My City Of Ruins” and, most profoundly, a unique and lump-in-your-throat cover of “Chimes Of Freedom,” a song just as applicable now as when Dylan wrote it 61 years ago in 1964.

Passaic County pioneers The Feelies will release their eighth album June 20, a collection of covers from throughout their career, a career that started in 1976, ended in 1992, and started up again 16 years later in 2008. Rewind (Bar/None Records) will be available on digital download, streaming services, blue vinyl and CD via mail order only.

South Florida clubs in the late ‘60s saw an explosive combo led by sax man Bill Reddish. The Reddish Fetish fused bebop, worldbeat, prog-rock and the avant-garde into a creative pastiche of unimaginable fusion. Oftentimes, they’d call up to the bandstand the legendary-but-tragic Weather Report/Joni Mitchell bassist Jaco to jam. Sadly, the band never recorded. But now, Bill’s son, drummer-producer-composer-arranger Jason T. Reddish, has revived The Reddish Fetish.

The Mahwah Museum in Bergen County will host a night of Les Paul music June 7 at Ramapo College. Paul, the longtime guitarist-luthier-composer-inventor, who lived in Mahwah for many years with wife/duet partner Mary Ford, pioneered the solid-body electric guitar. He also pioneered overdubbing, tape-delay and multi-track recording. “The 110^th Birthday Celebration Concert,” from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m., will take place at Ramapo College of New Jersey’s H-Wing Auditorium, 505 Ramapo Valley Road in Mahwah.

One of the seven never-before-heard complete albums due June 27 in Springsteen’s mammoth Tracks II box is Somewhere North of Nashville, where honky-tonk and rockabilly rule. Clearly, Bruce was searching, and the result, at least on “Repo Man,” is rather revelatory (like how “Pink Cadillac” was also never on any album but now is a favorite.) “Repo Man” has that rebel yell. (You can hear it here.)

If you like Queens Of The Stone Age, Porcupine Tree, Rush, Symphony X or even Foo Fighters, you’ll like what Woodbridge musician Joe Pacilio is laying down on his Damned If You Do EP. He calls it “a five-track exploration of emotional duality, consequence and resilience.”