When Brian Felix sits behind a Hammond B3, something curious happens: the ghost of Jimmy Smith nods approvingly while Jimmy McGriff's ghost mutters "yeah, but can he fix the Leslie when it breaks?" Felix spent his formative years studying piano with Kenny Barron at Rutgers—which is a bit like learning carpentry from a master craftsman and then deciding to become a plumber. Different instrument, same devotion to the craft, equally likely to involve fixing things that leak.
After cutting his teeth in the relentless touring circus of OM Trio (sharing stages with everyone from Tower of Power to Umphrey's McGee, which is basically jazz education via trial by fire and funk), Felix took the scenic route through graduate school, earning a doctorate while pondering the eternal question: "What happens when rock becomes jazz?" The answer, it turns out, involves a lot of drawbars, a Leslie speaker that weighs more than most relationships, and the kind of bass pedal work that makes your chiropractor wince.
Now a professor at UNC Asheville—where he teaches everything from jazz theory to the Grateful Dead, because academic versatility is just a fancy term for "willing to talk about music until everyone else leaves the room"—Felix leads his organ trio with the understanding that the best music happens when you stop trying to impress people and start trying to make them feel something. His left hand walks bass lines, his right hand builds harmonic cathedrals, and somewhere in between, gospel church pews start swaying in jazz clubs.
This isn't nostalgia. This is a guy with a doctorate, two kids, and a very patient wife, proving that organ jazz still has something to say—even if that something occasionally requires an extension cord, a backup fuse, and a sense of humor about the whole enterprise.
Featuring
When Brian Felix sits behind a Hammond B3, gospel church pews start swaying in jazz clubs, and cocktail lounges suddenly feel like revival meetings where the only salvation comes through swing. As the beating heart of the Fly Casual Organ Trio, Felix doesn't just play organ—he channels the entire history of American soul through drawbars and Leslie speakers, creating sonic sanctuaries where Jimmy Smith's bebop athleticism meets Jimmy McGriff's bluesy gravitas. His left hand walks bass lines that make upright players jealous while his right hand preaches sermons in chords, and when his feet find those bass pedals, the floor becomes a congregation that can't help but move. This isn't just organ jazz—this is spiritual transportation disguised as entertainment, proving that sometimes the most authentic musical experiences happen when you stop trying to be cool and start trying to be truthful.
In Asheville's Monday night jazz ecosystem, Evan Martin represents the rare breed of drummer who understands that sensitivity and power aren't opposites—they're dance partners. As a cornerstone of the local scene, Martin has mastered the art of musical telepathy, reading room dynamics and bandmate intentions with the precision of a master craftsman who knows exactly when to whisper and when to roar. His kit becomes a conversation partner rather than a time machine, responding to melodic phrases with percussive punctuation that feels both inevitable and surprising. This is drumming as collaborative art form, where every snare accent and hi-hat whisper serves the greater musical narrative, making Martin not just a timekeeper but a storyteller whose vocabulary happens to be built from wood, metal, and perfect timing.
Dr. Tim Fischer exists in that rarified space where USC doctoral precision meets street-level groove, where European touring experience fuses with American jazz DNA to create something entirely his own. This guitarist-composer-educator doesn't just play jazz fusion—he reimagines what happens when classical technique meets electronic experimentation, when rock energy collides with bebop sophistication. From Los Angeles studios to St. Louis classrooms to his current faculty position at Coastal Carolina University, Fischer has built a career on proving that the most interesting music happens at the intersection of seemingly incompatible styles. His collaboration with Brian Felix on 'Level Up' and his co-authorship of 'Jazz Guitar Duets' demonstrate a musician who understands that teaching and performing aren't separate activities—they're two sides of the same creative coin, each informing the other in an endless cycle of musical discovery.
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