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. Their grandfather used to drive Pete up from small-town Carolina to Philadelphia and New York to hear Miles Davis and Horace Silver. The whole household was a frequency map: church choirs, blues records, hard rock bleeding through bedroom walls, a father pointing out bass lines on Ray Brown albums the way other dads pointed out constellations. Black Sabbath coexisted with the Mingus Big Band. It all went in. Zack started on electric bass at eleven. He didn't touch an upright until he arrived at UNC Wilmington in 1991, where he begrudgingly agreed to major in Music and then graduated summa cum laude. While there, the university's jazz combo was invited to the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland — the kind of experience that recalibrates everything a young player thinks is possible. After Wilmington came Los Angeles, then New York City, where he absorbed the relentless focus and the relaxed intensity that defines the best session environments. Theater companies, cruise ships, jazz clubs, studio dates — the work took him to all fifty states, the Caribbean, Australia, South America, Europe, and the Far East. He played with Billy Higgins, one of the most recorded drummers in the history of jazz. He played with Delfeayo Marsalis, Cyrus Chestnut, Marvin Stamm, and Eddie Daniels. He recorded with Babik Reinhardt, the son of Django — a connection that would come to shape one of his longest-running projects. Then he came home. Not to New Jersey, where he'd grown up, but to the mountains his mother's family had known for centuries. Andy had already settled in Boone, teaching jazz guitar at Appalachian State. Zack landed in Asheville and became the bassist everyone calls. Not the one who waits for the right project — the one who says yes because every musical situation is worth inhabiting fully, a lesson New York burned into him. He co-founded One Leg Up, Asheville's gypsy jazz ensemble, channeling his Babik Reinhardt connection and his love of Django's Hot Club into a string-swing outfit that has been a fixture of the regional scene since 2003. With Andy, he launched the Page Brothers — twin brothers leading a rotating cast through gypsy swing, straight-ahead, fusion, and, on occasion, extreme black metal, because the kids from Rock Road never fully outgrew Iron Maiden. Their album *A to Z*, recorded at Ticknock Studio in Lenoir, documents the particular telepathy that comes from sharing a womb and thirty-plus years of bandstands. Page averages roughly 275 gigs a year. That number has held steady since the mid-1990s, which means the man has played somewhere in the neighborhood of eight thousand performances — a body of work that exists almost entirely in the memories of the people who were in the room. He teaches at UNC Asheville. He anchors sessions at Landslide Studio alongside Jeff Sipe. He holds down the low end for folk-rock storytellers and hard bop blowouts with equal commitment. Trumpeter Justin Ray once observed that Page has the hallmark of every great musician: he makes everyone around him better. That's the Duck Dunn principle, passed from a father's record collection to a twelve-year-old's Christmas present to a career spent proving, night after night, that the old man's theory was right all along.

Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Andy Page has become a cornerstone of Boone's vibrant music scene as a senior lecturer of jazz guitar at Appalachian State University's Hayes School of Music. For over two decades, this versatile virtuoso has woven his guitar strings through the fabric of the High Country's musical landscape, transforming local venues into stages of sonic storytelling. Together with his twin brother Zack, Andy has been known to arrive at open jams and parties, captivating audiences with their deep groove and seemingly endless musical creativity. His fingers dance across fretboards with equal fluency in jazz, rock, and original compositions, while his academic pursuits span from the History of Rock Music to Heavy Metal Culture. A true musical nomad, Andy has carried his craft from the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland to Japan's Muroran Jazz Cruise, and through jazz workshops in Germany. Yet he chose to plant his roots in the mountains of North Carolina, where he continues to nurture the next generation of musicians while maintaining his own creative flame through groups like The Page Brothers Trio and Swing Guitars—a testament to an artist who found his perfect harmony between teaching and performing in the shadow of the Appalachians.

Leo Johnson embodies the timeless essence of jazz guitar's golden era, his sound resonating with the soulful echoes of legends like Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, and Barney Kessel. Based between Nashville and Asheville, this swing guitar virtuoso transforms every performance into a masterclass in how tradition can feel urgently contemporary without losing its essential soul. Each note Johnson plays carries the rich heritage and virtuosity that defined jazz guitar's masters, showcasing a deep appreciation for the lush harmonies and melodic intricacies synonymous with the genre's classic sound. Whether leading his Leo Johnson Trio through intricate jazz standards or exploring the spaces between swing and bebop, he approaches the guitar not as an instrument to be conquered but as a storytelling device that bridges decades of musical evolution. Through his music, Johnson pays homage to the giants who paved the way while infusing his unique voice and style into the fabric of guitar tradition. In Asheville's intimate venues and beyond, he proves that the most compelling jazz conversations happen when technical mastery serves emotional honesty, creating moments where past and present converge in six-string poetry that makes even the most familiar standards feel like revelations.

Steve Trisman bridges the gap between Asheville's traditional mountain music heritage and its vibrant contemporary scene, wielding his fiddle as both acoustic storyteller and electric dance catalyst. As a cornerstone of "The Boys of Buncombe," Trisman brings contra dance floors to life alongside accordionist Steve Burnside, proving that the most authentic mountain music happens when tradition meets community celebration. This versatile fiddler moves seamlessly between projects—from the gypsy jazz explorations of One Leg Up to the electric energy of Bayou Diesel and Jupiter Coyote—but it's in the contra dance community where his musical philosophy truly shines. While equally commanding with electric sound, Trisman can make his acoustic fiddle sing that essential contra dance music that transforms Monday nights at the Ivy Building into weekly celebrations of connection and movement. Whether performing as part of Windmill with keyboardist Laurie Fisher or leading dancers through intricate patterns with The Boys of Buncombe, Trisman understands that the best fiddle playing serves something larger than technique—it creates the rhythmic heartbeat that allows entire communities to move as one. In his hands, every bow stroke becomes an invitation to dance, proving that some music is meant to be felt with your feet as much as your heart.