Jazz & Blues Florida - www.JazzBluesFlorida.com

A sunny Saturday morning, coffee and breakfast done...how about some jazz? Across the state you will find scenes like the Green Market in West Palm Beach. Fresh treats for the palate, wonderful plants for the house and garden, candy for the eyes, and often, live music happening. Can you imagine? Musicians getting up in tme to make it here? Perhaps they are still up from last night and just haven't called it a night yet. Anyway, grab another coffee, take a seat, watch the people go by, and ENJOY the music where ever you find! Also, you just never know who you will be listening to...for instance, if you stop by BB King's in West Palm Beach when they open, you will find these two players on their stage every Sunday and Monday with their big band.

BB King's is getting ready to open up in CityPlace in West PalmBeach soon and we stopped by Friday to check it out. No details yet - some news about the who they are hiring for the bands, but no cofirmation. Stay tuned!

Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Playboys came to West Palm Beach to play for the long-running Clematis by Night. The best of the best of Zydeco, right here, for us. Nice.

Did you that Palm Beach County, FL, is the largest county east of the Mississippi River? The north end of the county, and we mean at the county line...has a new venue for blues which has been missing since the days of the Blue Note. Chef John has been running a high-end Euro menu restaurant in this space for the past four years, after a long run at working at the very best restaurants in the area for year, and has decided to tweek the format - keep the same great quality of food and service, but change the menu to American Bistro and add live music. As how he and his lovely wife are both blues lovers, the choice of the type of music was easy! This Wednesday night was the first night of the re-organization with their jam that has been running a couple of months taking on a blues/blues-rock format and they will be running a second weekly jam on Friday's that will be a pro-jam for straight-ahead blues. Look for regular nights of band bookings to start soon! And, maybe even a jazz night in a couple months! We didn't get any decent pictures of him, but we wanted to recognize Rick Knapp for coming by and playing and look forward to him being a regular guest when not on tour!

Jon Justice and his band did the Blue Tuesday thing this week at Boston's on the Beach, and it was simply great to be there. This night I had the pleasure of the company of Hope, who is RESPONSIBLE for all the good looking graphics that surround Jazz & Blues Florida (and occasional editing of these entries). Doesn't the online edition look great, each and every month? Well, that is her. I'll tell you later about the dinner up on the Upperdeck as we enjoyed the excellent food and wine as the moonlight shimmered off the ocean and warm breeze carried the woes of the day away....The music was cranking up downstairs as we finished the Key Lime pie and reached the bottom of the wine bottle so we went down to enjoy the scene and see who was there... well... here is who was there for the last night of Jon Justice being in South Florida - you can catch them the next couple days if you happen to be in the Panhandle, but other than that you will have to brave the northern cold if you want to see them again soon!

You might think that after five years of running around Florida listening to live music that you would run out of new places to catch good music, but not so! Monday night brought John Carey, my fellow East Coast Rambler, and I to Boca Raton's TURN 3 Sports Bar where Stet Blancett has been running a jam twice a long...and now there is another stop on the permenant list. Not only where the players great players, but the players when not playing and the patrons where welcoming and enjoying themselves. Does that attitude make the music better, or does great music create that attitude? Hmm... If you are coming to the blues from the rock side, Stet does one of the best jobs I know of in showing how you how the two came together in southern rock. Thanks Stet! xxx As often happens, late night found us at The Orange Door in Lake Park for the closing set. JP Soars and The Red Hots were just hotter than the summer daytime temps down here in FLA. Comfortable seats, great line of sight, a GREAT audience that respects the music, the players, and the place...life is truly good. The time and place and the music to get outside of yourself for a while and be led to that magical places great musicians go when they are 'on.' Thanks for the trip guys! I always come back refreshed and ready for life again...

Hello Chicago! Albert Castiglia just breezed through and picked up your BLUES SONG OF THE YEAR AWARD at Buddy Guy's place on Thursday night, and here it is Friday and he is back giving it all to us at Maguire's Hill 16 in Ft. Lauderdale. Does this guy move, or what? Anyway, for the most, most part, we personally couldn't agree more with his winning song, "BAD YEAR BLUES", but now that he won, it doesn't hurt guite so much! Albert is at the HooDooVooDoo Ball on Halloween at the Downtowner in Ft. Lauderdale, so get on down there and pay some respect and help Dar do good at the same time...

If VICTOR WAINWRIGHT and THE WILD ROOTS are ever playing within a 100 miles of where you live, it will be worth the trip to go see them. Luckily, we only had a 25 mile drive to see him last night at Blue Tuesday #60 at Boston's on the Beach in Delray. Yowzer, did those cats tear it up! It is easy to see why he has permanent gig on Beale Street! What a kick-off for the POST 30TH ANNIVERSAY PARTY WEEK Blue Tuesday season! Next week is Jon Justice (w/ Dave Gross!), then Janiva Magness..yes, for true...right there in the barroom!

Daniel Lombardi provided the jazz guitar solo work as the background to one heck of a celebration for the 30th anniversary of Boston's on the Beach. While John Salamon was playing out back at the Back Bay Tiki Bar, while BREEZE was setting up for the first set downstairs, while the Funkabilly Playboys arose to get ready for their 10pm set... talk about it all going at one place on night? Well they are doing it all week!