Little Jumbo's creative music series functions as a cultural incubator—providing space for the genesis of new musical ideas. Every Monday and Tuesday, we showcase world-class musicians performing original, boundary-pushing work—completely free, no cover charge. This isn't background music; it's music in its purest form: live, unfiltered, and pushing the genre forward in real time. As an incubator, we create space where musicians explore new sonic territories and audiences encounter ideas they've never heard before. Democratizing access to exceptional art is who we are—it's the same philosophy behind everything we do.
When a bassist who's held down the low end for Stan Getz, Jim Hall, Chet Baker, and Mel Lewis walks into a room, the entire history of jazz walks in with him. Steve LaSpina doesn't just play upright bass—he channels four decades of New York City's most hallowed bandstands into every note, every walking line a direct connection between Little Jumbo's Monday night intimacy and the countless legendary sessions that came before.
LaSpina grew up marinating in dance band DNA in Wichita Falls, Texas, studied with Ray Brown (because if you're going to learn bass, you might as well learn from God), and then spent the better part of four decades becoming the kind of first-call player that legends call when they need someone who actually listens. This is bass playing as musical archaeology—every choice informed by decades of conversation with masters, every line both honoring tradition and pushing it forward.
For this quintet, LaSpina assembles some serious mountain firepower: Dr. Tim Fischer bringing USC-trained precision and genre-blurring audacity on guitar, Jacob Rodriguez channeling world-traveling saxophone wisdom from San Antonio street corners to Michael Bublé's Grammy stages, Alan Hall on drums (a four-decade veteran who's bent time behind Lee Konitz and Cirque Du Soleil), and Dr. Bill Bares on piano—Harvard's former NEH Distinguished Professor who turned a lip injury that ended his trumpet career into a keyboard calling that's reshaped jazz education across New England and now UNC Asheville.
"We don't say what we mean. We play what we imply. And we've been inverting the natural order since... right about now." ~ Zack Page (Probably)
In the chrome-plated lounges of tomorrow's yesterday, where neon hums at 440Hz and the cocktails pour themselves, four sonic cosmonauts have breached the atmospheric ceiling of conventional groove.
KEITH DAVIS mans the control panel of 88 ivory switches, routing harmonic frequencies through dimensions yet unnamed. His fingers decode the melodic algorithms that keep this vessel from spinning into the void.
PETER DIMERY pilots the tenor saxophone—that brass telescope trained on distant nebulae of blue and bebop. His transmissions cut through static like a laser through lunar dust.
RYAN PTASNIK operates the propulsion system: four limbs in perpetual conversation with physics itself, generating the thrust that bends time signatures into submission.
And at the helm—against all laws of gravitational hierarchy—ZACK PAGE has ascended from the engine room to the captain's chair. The low-frequency specialist. The foundation man. Now calling the shots from the bottom of the sonic spectrum while somehow... on top.
It's unnatural. It's unprecedented. It absolutely works.
On Thursday, January 29th, Little Jumbo sheds its winter coat and slips into something a little more... tropical. The Tropilachia Club returns, transforming our cozy corner of Asheville into a sun-soaked escape where palm fronds sway against the frost outside and every sip carries a whisper of warmer days ahead. It's still the Little Jumbo you know and love—just wearing a lei and dreaming of spring. Join us as we trade snow for sand (metaphorically speaking) and raise a glass to brighter horizons all February long.
The Brian Felix Organ Trio is the jazz/funk organ group of the future. Rooted in the deep traditions of organ-driven jazz, funk, and soul, the trio blends reggae, samba, surf rock, gospel, and ambient soundscapes into a unified and forward-looking musical vision. Known for its telepathic interplay, deep grooves, and daring spontaneity, the trio has been captivating audiences throughout the southeastern United States. The group’s most recent release, Level Up (Slimtrim Records, 2025), a collection of all-original compositions, has been described as “delightful and eclectic” (Noah Baerman, noahjazz.com) and its title track appeared as All About Jazz’s “Jazz Song of the Day.”
Based in Asheville, NC (USA), Brian Felix is an internationally recognized jazz keyboardist and organist whose work spans groove-based improvisation, jazz-rock, and contemporary creative music. He was co-leader of OM Trio, an acclaimed San Francisco–based jazz-rock group that toured internationally from 1999–2004. Felix has performed at venues and festivals including the Fillmore Auditorium and Great American Music Hall (San Francisco), the Bowery Ballroom and Mercury Lounge (New York City), and the Aberdeen Jazz Festival (Scotland). His performance history includes collaborations with Joshua Redman, Charlie Hunter, Umphrey’s McGee, Sara Caswell, Billy Hart, Joe Russo, Kelly Sill, and Dave Fiuczynski.
The regular working trio features guitarist Tim Fischer and drummer Evan Martin, both integral voices in shaping the group’s sound and musical chemistry.
Felix is also a Professor of Music at UNC Asheville, where he teaches jazz theory and improvisation, jazz ensembles, music business, keyboard skills, The Beatles, and The Grateful Dead.
Website: www.brianfelix.com
When a percussion philosopher assembles his laboratory of sound, the walls between rhythm and melody begin to dissolve. This is music as inquiry rather than statement—four sonic investigators treating Little Jumbo's intimate geometry as a place where questions sound better than answers.
One arrives carrying four decades of conversations between drum heads and the spaces between continents, his sticks having traced rhythmic philosophies from Cologne jazz clubs to circus tent reveries, from teaching halls where young minds learned to bend time to stages where time learned to bend itself. Another brings the gravitational architecture of four strings, building invisible foundations sturdy enough to let everyone else float. A third treats the violin like an open-ended hypothesis, proving that the most interesting discoveries happen when classical training meets a willingness to sound beautifully wrong. And the fourth channels bebop through the lens of political science, his eighty-eight keys reminding us that jazz has always been intellectual discourse disguised as groove.
This isn't a band playing repertoire—it's an ensemble treating the stage like a petri dish where grooves breathe, textures mutate, and curiosity compounds into something that couldn't exist in any single musical tradition. European improvisation meets Appalachian immediacy. Scholarly rigor meets street-level spontaneity. Cirque Du Soleil's theatrical surrealism brushes against Harvard's ivory tower sensibilities, all of it refracted through the prism of musicians who've learned that convention is just another variable to manipulate.
In a room where proximity breeds revelation and every frequency finds its frequency-responder, prepare for an evening where rhythm becomes hypothesis, melody becomes evidence, and four veteran explorers prove that after four decades of making music, the most exciting sound is still the one you haven't heard yet.
Forget dinner reservations and overpriced roses. This Valentine's Day, DJ Lil Meow Meow takes over Little Jumbo to spin the kind of beats that make strangers dance together and couples fall in love all over again. Whether you're celebrating with your sweetheart, your best friends, or your beautifully independent self, come shake it off and let the music do the talking. No wilting flowers, no awkward small talk over prix fixe menus—just good drinks, great company, and a dance floor that doesn't care about your relationship status. Dress cute. Dance weird. Love hard. See you there.
Sanders, Boyd, Page & Hall distill the pure essence of improvisational expression, converging as alchemists of sound, transmuting musical elements into their most essential forms. This quartet embodies the philosophical concept of quintessence—the fifth element beyond earth, air, fire, and water—representing the fundamental substance from which all musical reality springs.
Their original compositions crystallize the essential qualities of diverse influences, oscillating between through-composed musical themes, groove-based soul explorations, traditional jazz-influenced pieces, Americana-inspired peaceful melodicism, world music influences, free jazz adventures, and occasional forays into cacophonous noise music. Through years of improvisational study, they've learned to access that rarefied space where genres dissolve into pure creative energy.
In this musical laboratory, Sanders' guitar becomes a conduit for universal vibration, Boyd's reeds channel the breath of consciousness itself, Page's bass provides the fundamental frequency of existence, while Hall's percussion creates the rhythmic heartbeat of the cosmos.
Sanders, Boyd, Page & Hall distill the pure essence of improvisational expression, converging as alchemists of sound, transmuting musical elements into their most essential forms. This quartet embodies the philosophical concept of quintessence—the fifth element beyond earth, air, fire, and water—representing the fundamental substance from which all musical reality springs.
Their original compositions crystallize the essential qualities of diverse influences, oscillating between through-composed musical themes, groove-based soul explorations, traditional jazz-influenced pieces, Americana-inspired peaceful melodicism, world music influences, free jazz adventures, and occasional forays into cacophonous noise music. Through years of improvisational study, they've learned to access that rarefied space where genres dissolve into pure creative energy.
In this musical laboratory, Sanders' guitar becomes a conduit for universal vibration, Boyd's reeds channel the breath of consciousness itself, Page's bass provides the fundamental frequency of existence, while Hall's percussion creates the rhythmic heartbeat of the cosmos.
The Brian Felix Organ Trio is the jazz/funk organ group of the future. Rooted in the deep traditions of organ-driven jazz, funk, and soul, the trio blends reggae, samba, surf rock, gospel, and ambient soundscapes into a unified and forward-looking musical vision. Known for its telepathic interplay, deep grooves, and daring spontaneity, the trio has been captivating audiences throughout the southeastern United States. The group’s most recent release, Level Up (Slimtrim Records, 2025), a collection of all-original compositions, has been described as “delightful and eclectic” (Noah Baerman, noahjazz.com) and its title track appeared as All About Jazz’s “Jazz Song of the Day.”
Based in Asheville, NC (USA), Brian Felix is an internationally recognized jazz keyboardist and organist whose work spans groove-based improvisation, jazz-rock, and contemporary creative music. He was co-leader of OM Trio, an acclaimed San Francisco–based jazz-rock group that toured internationally from 1999–2004. Felix has performed at venues and festivals including the Fillmore Auditorium and Great American Music Hall (San Francisco), the Bowery Ballroom and Mercury Lounge (New York City), and the Aberdeen Jazz Festival (Scotland). His performance history includes collaborations with Joshua Redman, Charlie Hunter, Umphrey’s McGee, Sara Caswell, Billy Hart, Joe Russo, Kelly Sill, and Dave Fiuczynski.
The regular working trio features guitarist Tim Fischer and drummer Evan Martin, both integral voices in shaping the group’s sound and musical chemistry.
Felix is also a Professor of Music at UNC Asheville, where he teaches jazz theory and improvisation, jazz ensembles, music business, keyboard skills, The Beatles, and The Grateful Dead.
Website: www.brianfelix.com
Casey Driessen: Sunday Bazaar at Little Jumbo is a monthly residency on the 3rd Sunday where music spills out like treasures in a bustling market. Fiddle loops, wild grooves, sonic oddities, and vibrant rhythms mix together in a swirl of color and sound. Tease your tastebuds with expertly crafted cocktails and soak in the cozy, electric atmosphere. No two nights are alike—wander in, follow your ears, and see what you discover.
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