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Jazz saxophonist Jessy J will be spotlighted on the Jan. 20 edition of Daybreak Jazz.

The program airs 6-9 a.m. Click here to listen live.

Included will be music from her latest album, Blue, along with an interview recorded at her Jan. 17 appearance at Scullers Jazz Club in Boston.

Born Jessica Arellano in in Portland, Ore., but raised in Hemet, Calif., she began studying piano at age four and later the saxophone. At 15, she was named Piano State Champion at the Bela Bartok Festival in California, but sax had become her primary focus.

This led to her performing in the Grammy Band and at international events, including the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

She won a scholarship to University of Southern California where she earned a degree in jazz studies and was named “Most Outstanding Jazz Student” of her class. It was during her time at USC that she spent two years playing in Disney’s All American College Band.

Stints in the Henry Mancini Jazz Orchestra and the Hispanic Musician Association Jazz Orchestra followed as did studio work with artists including Aerosmith, Jessica Simpson, Michael Bublé, Burt Bacharach, Michael Bolton, Paul Brown and the Temptations. She’s played on stage with Gerald Albright, Norman Brown, Euge Groove, Peter White and Anita Baker and made appearances on television competition shows American Idol, The Voice and Dancing With The Stars.

She cites Sergio Mendes and Julian “Cannonball” Adderley as inspirations for her music which often takes on a Latin feel.

Arellano says her stage name came about in 2006 when she started doing sessions for what would ultimately be her 2008 debut release, Tequilla Moon (Peak), which was produced by Paul Brown.

She credits Brown for the moniker. She recalled him saying her name “would be hard for people to spell. It would be hard for people to remember it, to Google it and get the website.”

She said she was on board with having a stage name and that “Jessy“ was a nickname she’d had since she was very young and the “J” part, she noted, was for “jazz.”

She’s released nine albums, the most recent, Blue, in 2022 on her label, Changi Records. The album featured the track “Dig It” which was co-written with Jeff Lorber and includes performances with Jay Rowe, Andy Abel, Trevor Somerville and Dave Anderson.

With all of the attention surrounding the recent Bob Dylan film, A Complete Unknown, it seemed a perfect excuse to focus on Dylan going Christian for the Jan. 18 edition of Greasy Tracks.

The program airs 2:30-5:30 p.m. Click here to listen live.

The bulk of the feature will center on the bard’s oft-overlooked “Christian trilogy” of releases: Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love which came out between 1979-81. There will also be outtakes and live material, especially from the 1979 Gospel tour.

To provide some context, we’ll also take a track or two from the albums that preceded and followed the “trilogy:” Street Legal in 1978 and Infidels in 1983 and there will be a handful of gospel-styled Dylan covered included.

The Jan. 11 edition of Greasy Tracks was the first of an occasional program spotlighting the impact of the saxophone, especially when it comes to rock, jazz and soul music. The show also paid tribute to Sam Moore and Don Nix who recently passed away.

Here’s the archive, while a playlist is here.

Opting to steer clear of the obvious tracks and characters, went deep and wide when it comes to material and players.

Memphis-based sax man Art Edmaiston was interviewed.

The veteran player did spells with Bobby “Blue” Bland, JJ Grey & Mofro and the Gregg Allman Band, amongst scores of others, as well as countless sessions. He provided insight to the importance of horns — especially the saxophone — which he considers the icing (on a musical cake).

Legendary bluesman John Hammond was featured on the Dec. 7 edition of Greasy Tracks.

Here’s the archive, while a playlist is here.

In addition to diving deep into Hammond’s catelog, the show focused on the just-released You’re Doin’ Fine which captures Hammond in two shows at the Boarding House in San Francisco. Recorded by Owsley Stanley in 1973, the three-CD set is part of the on-going series of Bear’s Sonic Journals by the Owsley Stanley Foundation.

Hammond only did a few interviews in conjunction with the release and WRTC got one of them. He shares insight on how this live collection came to be as well as some memories from across his 60-plus year career.

To follow is WRTC’s list of Top 100 rock albums for 2024.

This was based on numbers of spins between Dec. 1, 2023 and Dec. 1, 2024.

The Nov. 29 edition of Crashing the Ether featured an extensive interview host Rob Farrish recently conducted with legendary musician Tony Levin.

Here’s the archive,

Best known for his work with Peter Gabriel — with whom he has played for five decades — and as a member of King Crimson, Levin is also a veteran session musician appearing on hundreds of albums by artists such as David Bowie, Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Paul Simon, Richard Thompson, Lou Reed, Seal, Todd Rundgren, Laurie Anderson, Tom Waits and many others.

The bassist is currently touring with a new band, BEAT, which celebrates the music of the 1980s era of King Crimson, focusing on such classic releases as Discipline, Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair.

Along with former Crimson frontman/guitarist Adrian Belew, the line-up also features guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and Tool drummer Danny Carey.

BEAT’s tour has been playing to sold-out crowds and receiving rave reviews since hitting the road in September. The band visits The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford on Dec. 3.

In addition to being highly in demand for his unique, inventive style of playing, Levin was also instrumental in popularizing the Chapman Stick, a 10- or 12-stringed instrument that covers the range of both a bass and a guitar.

The “Stick” is featured prominently on Levin’s latest release, Bringing it Down to the Bass (Flatiron Recordings). The album includes collaborations with many of the musicians Levin has worked with over the years, including members of Gabriel’s band and King Crimson.

In addition to discussing the BEAT tour, Levin provided some interesting insight to how he started working with Gabriel and the Robert Fripp-led Crimson, including some of the varied line-ups and musical approaches the band has taken over the past four decades. He also shares some memorable studio experiences.

The Nov. 15 edition of Crashing the Ether spotlighted Low Cut Connie.

Hailing from Philadelphia, Low Cut Connie is the alter-ego of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Adam Weiner. Low Cut Connie’s albums and high-energy shows have earned them a dedicated fan base that includes Elton John, Steve Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen and Barak Obama.

Rob caught up with Weiner before the band’s Nov. 7 performance at Daryl’s House — Daryl Hall’s club in Pawling, N.Y. The two discussed politics in music, anti-Semitism, the new Low Cut Connie movie Art Dealers and new “companion” album Connie Live (Contender) as well as their mutual love of Prince and Lou Reed.

Rory Gallagher’s iconic 1961 Fender Stratocaster recently fetched more than $1 million at auction, but the bigger news is that the guitar will remain in Ireland.

This was a perfect excuse to spotlight the incredible career of Gallagher and that’s exactly what happened on the Nov. 9 edition of Greasy Tracks.

The program was co-hosted by Vintage Guitar correspondent/Mambo Sons guitarist Tom Guerra. Here’s the archive, while a playlist is here.

It was a deep-dive in Gallagher’s catalog, including tracks from the recently released 18-disc collection of Rory live at BBC. Best-known for his electric playing, the feature included a number of acoustic tracks by Gallagher to highlight his oft-overlooked ability on “wooden” instruments!

Insight was provided by those who knew and played with Rory as well as an industry expert who has vast experience acquiring instruments for one of the world’s largest, most wide-ranging collections.

Those interviewed included: Dónal Gallagher and Daniel Gallagher — Rory’s brother and nephew, respectively — who have overseen the guitarist’s estate; bassist Gerry McAvoy who spent nearly 20 years playing with Rory; and Marc Johnson, chief guitar curator of the Jim Irsay Collection .

While Irsay’s collection is widely regarded as one of the finest on the planet, a largely overlooked part of his passion for music is his family’s charity, Kicking The Stigma, which focuses on mental health and drug addiction treatment awareness.

Reponse to the feature was been outstanding. One listener wrote: “Rory Gallagher was beyond guitar solos. He made me proud to be Irish!”

Canadian rock band The Sheepdogs were featured on the Nov. 4 edition of the Devo Rock Show.

Here’s the archive.

The group, which hails from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, recently spoke with Devo during an appearance in The Sinclair in Cambridge, Mass., discussing how they formed and about their recent EP release, Paradise Alone (Right On Records).

Formed in 2004, the initial line-up — featuring Ewan Currie (guitar/vocals), Ryan Gullen (bass/vocals) and Sam Corbett (drums) — was known at The Brakes. The trio were students at The University of Saskatchewan and had an affinity for classic rock which wasn’t being played much in their local music venues.

They decided to begin making their own music and released their self-titled debut EP in 2006. Later that year, they added an additional guitarist, Leot Hansen and changed their name to The Sheepdogs.

They then recorded their self-released debut long-player, Trying To Grow at Cosmic Pad Studios in Saskatoon. After two years of touring, they followed with The Sheepdogs’ Big Stand in 2007. In 2010, they followed with the independent release, Learn & Burn.

In 2011, they caught a break by winning a contest with Rolling Stone magazine of unsigned bands and were featured on the cover. This led to their being signed by Atlantic Records.

In 2012, they teamed up with Black Keys’ drummer Patrick Carney who produced their self-titled album which was released in September of that year. The album went platinum and hit No. 1 on the Canadian charts. This ushered in long stretches of tours in the U.S. and Europe.

The band added Currie’s younger brother, multi-instrumentalist Shamus, to the lineup. Following Hansen’s exiting the band in 2014, they added guitarist Jimmy Bowskill. Two more albums would come out in the ensuing years: Future Nostalgia (2016) and Changing Colors (2017).

In early 2020, they were slated to tour with The Black Key,s but that was up-ended by the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, they went into the studio and began work on their next album, No Simple Thing, (Warner Music Canada) which was released in 2021. In 2022, they put out Outta Sight (Warner Music Canada).

Personnel changes continued as Bowskill left the band in 2022 and was replaced by Ricky Paquette.

The band plans to release another EP, Hell Together, on Nov. 7.