The Nick Garisson Quintet
Trombonist Nick Garrison brings a quintet to Little Jumbo for an evening rooted in the lineage he has spent his life studying, the long thread that runs from New Orleans parade music through straight-ahead jazz and into whatever the players in the room make of it tonight. Expect deep-cut standards, traditional tunes pulled from the source, and originals shaped by twelve years of work between Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and the Crescent City.
The band gathering around him is a serious one. Jacob Rodriguez on saxophones, a player whose tone carries both warmth and precision, has become one of the region's most-called horns. Bill Bares takes the piano chair, a longtime presence in the Asheville scene whose harmonic ear opens space rather than filling it. Zack Page anchors on bass with the unhurried gravity he brings to every bandstand he steps onto. Evan Martin completes the rhythm section on drums, listening close and pushing when the music asks for it.
Little Jumbo's weekly music series is curated and always free. The creature watches from its corner. Doors at the usual hour, music shortly after.
Featuring
The trombone is one of the oldest voices in jazz, an instrument that learned early how to sing like a person and cry like one too. In Nick Garrison's hands it does both, threading between New Orleans parade tradition, straight-ahead jazz, early swing, and the deeper blues current that runs underneath all of it.
Garrison spent twelve years working through Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and New Orleans before settling in Asheville, and he carries that geography with him as something closer to...
From San Antonio street corners to Michael Bublé's Grammy-winning stages, Jacob Rodriguez has woven a musical tapestry that spans continents and genres. This Manhattan School of Music alumnus doesn't just play saxophone—he channels stories through reed and breath, whether he's painting midnight hues with Ambrose Akinmusire in Brooklyn's underground scene or igniting arena crowds alongside pop royalty. Now nestled in Asheville's Blue Ridge embrace, Jacob has become the valley's secret weapon,...
From Nebraska to Harvard to Little Jumbo, Dr. Bill Bares embodies the scholarly soul of jazz—a NEH Distinguished Professor whose academic credentials from Amherst College read like a jazz education manifesto written in political science and piano poetry. When a lip injury ended his All-American trumpet dreams, Bares discovered that sometimes life's detours lead to destinations you never knew you were seeking. Now directing jazz studies at UNC Asheville after teaching stints at Harvard, Brown,...
On their twelfth Christmas, Pete Page gave one son a guitar and the other a bass. The old man loved Booker T. & the M.G.'s and worshipped Duck Dunn, and he had a theory that every good band needs a good bass man. He wasn't wrong. Andy got the guitar. Zack — four minutes younger, identical in face, opposite in instrument — got the bass. Their mother came from the McGhees of Pilot Mountain, North Carolina, a family whose old-time music roots run back generations through the Appalachian soil....
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...
Admission
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