Groove soul rock & roll! The B3 Kings sound melds many classic genres into a gumbo all its own  Johnny Trama is a gig machine. He's a rare species in today music scene: He actually plays 7 nights a week on the norm, pooling an old-school work ethic with a raw excitement for what comes next. "One door closes and another one opens," says the ever-hopeful guitarist, whose crafts extends to many genres and tastes, all of them original.  "I'm just open to being a musician," says Johnny, a New York native now based in Boston. "I don't see any boundaries to it ... I just want to make a living off of original music."     He does just that.     He tours with the internationally renowned soul rocker, Jesse Dee, and  Providence RI based rock ‘n’ roll group The Silks, then comes home to Boston and is a driving force behind several highly acclaimed bands. Such as Dub Apocalypse (an instrumental dub-reggae group that is one of "10 local acts you have to see now," notes Improper Bostonian magazine), and the B3 Kings, an organ trio which does a weekly residency called "Attack of Le Pigeon." He also plays in national act G Love's side project, G Love & Butter, and plays occasional reunion shows with his earlier band, Peter Prince & the Trama unit.     "I think that having so much going on really helps everything else," says Johnny. "I'll do a tour with Jesse Dee, or The Silks then I can't wait to come home and play rock 'n' roll, soul music, and instrumental reggae. It all adds up to keeping me challenged." He also books some of these acts, ensuring that he often works day and night.     Trama's well-traveled road has also featured tours as part of John Brown's Body and Ron Levy's Wild Kingdom. Levy is a famed blues keyboardist who worked with B.B. King for years and is a Grammy Award winner. "I drove all over the country with Ron. He taught me a lot about music in so many ways," says Johnny.     Not surprisingly, Johnny comes from an artistic background. His mom is a designer and art teacher, and his dad was a designer as well. And his uncle, Alan Rubin, was a trumpet player known as "Mr. Fabulous" in the Blues Brothers. "I'd go to 'Saturday Night Live' and see the Blues Brothers on the show," says Johnny.     As a boy, Johnny attended an arts-oriented high school called the Cultural Arts Center in Syosset, NY. He studied music there with Dave Burns, a trumpeter with Dizzy Gillespie. And he studied outside the school with Rodney Jones (a guitarist with Maceo Parker and Etta James) and Peter Bernstein, a guitarist who later played with Joshua Redman. Johnny also won a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music, which enabled him to get a foothold in the Boston scene.     His first Boston groups were the Daddys, the Rockett Band, Moon Boot Lover (two of whose members, Alan and Neil Evans, joined the influential Soulive), then later the Nate Wilson Group (which evolved into Ghosts of Jupiter), Entrain, and Toussaint & the China Band, a top-notch reggae outfit that once even played in Guantanamo Bay.      The key is that Johnny never stops learning. He has furthered his self-education by studying guitar legends like Jimmy Page, Freddie King and Jimi Hendrix. And his more recent studies have found him loving young guitarists like Anders Osborne, Derek Trucks and Gary Clark Jr., while also studying soul singers from Mavis Staples to Bettye LaVette.     Boston Globe critic Jonathan Perry reviewed him as "coaxing psychedelic pinwheels of sound from his electric guitar."     Yet he always seems to play exactly what is needed for a given song. "I'm not a flashy guy. I just try to make all kinds of music," says Johnny. "This is not an overnight business ... It's about your longevity and loving what you do and making a career out of that. It's not about the quick ladder of success. Enjoy where you are right now."     -- STEVE MORSE, former Boston Globe music critic for 28 years  who now teaches an online course in Rock History for Berklee College of Music. He also served on the nominating committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for 7 years 

  Firecracker is a new project based in Boston that features Ken Clark on the Hammond B3 organ and Jared Sims on the baritone sax. The music celebrates the vintage funky organ sound popularized by greats such as Dr. Lonnie Smith, Groove Holmes, Lou Donaldson, and Wes Montgomery. While the band pays homage to the great artists' styles before them, they play originals and arrangements that reflect their own musical personalities. Whether the band is playing deep pocket funk, blistering soul, or greasy blues, Firecracker blends vintage grit with modern heat and fearless improv. Whether the band is performing a slow burn jam or a full throttle attack, this is not background music! 

The Jorgan Trio is a powerhouse of funky soul organ jazz, blending deep grooves, fiery improvisation, and infectious energy. Featuring the rich textures of Jordan Gravel on organ and keys, the tight, driving rhythms of Patrick Gaulin on drums, and the dynamic guitar work of Christopher Brown, this trio brings a fresh, electrifying spin to the classic organ jazz sound. With their highly anticipated new album on the horizon, The Jorgan Trio is ready to take listeners on a journey filled with grit, groove and melodic interplay. Listen to their debut album which features Henley Douglas Jr. on sax at https://www.sossrecords.com/jorgan-trio/.