This is Bob Marley’s 70th birthday year and, to celebrate, the Marley Family Vaults and Private Collection are planning a number of new archive releases.

Up first is Easy Skanking Boston ’78, capturing Marley’s show at the city’s Music Hall from June 8, 1978. Available February 17, the album marks the first time that the Marley family has allowed access to the personal material from their private collections and vaults.

The set will be released on CD, DVD/CD combination, Blu-Ray/CD combination and via digital download. The video footage was shot with a hand-held camera by a fan that Marley allowed to sit right in front of the stage. The result is remarkable imagery that captures Marley from just a few feet away, allowing one to experience the intimacy of his set...

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is routinely one of the most diverse annual music fests, and the 2015 incarnation boasts one of its strongest lineups yet as the Who, Elton John, No Doubt, Widespread Panic, Keith Urban and Jimmy Buffett have all been enlisted as headliners across the fest’s seven days. Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, Wilco, Ryan Adams, Pitbull, Chicago, T.I. Jerry Lee Lewis, Steve Winwood and Buddy Guy will also be on hand.

Fleshing out the Jazz Fest lineup are Jimmy Cliff, Alison Krauss and Union Station, Allen Toussaint, Sturgill Simpson, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, the Meters, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, Hozier, Galactic with guest Macy Gray, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Juvenile and Mannie Fresh Together, Taj Mahal and countless others. Organizers note that a Sunday, May 3rd headliner is still to be announced.

Jazz Fest usually does a masterful job of procuring a lineup stocked with classic rock, alternative, pop, hip-hop, country and the sounds of New Orleans. Visit the Jazz Fest site for the complete lineup.

The festival’s opening weekend goes down at New Orleans’ Fair Grounds Race Course from April 24th to the 26th, while the second weekend kicks off Thursday, April 30th to Sunday May 3rd. More than 500 artists will hit the stage over the course of the festival’s seven days, 80 percent of which hail from the Big Easy.

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A key member of the legendary James Brown great funk band in the 60’s, saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis arranged and co-wrote many masterful and much-loved hits that include Say it Loud ‘ I’m Black and Proud, Cold Sweat and the much sampled In the Middle.

He brought that infamous jazzy sophistication to Brown’s fearsome grooves and later re-grouped with fellow Brown funksters Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker to from The JB Horns recording albums that defined the sound of jazz funk. He has worked as an arranger and Musial Director for CTI Records and collaborated with the likes of George Benson, Hank Crawford, Dave Liebman, Van Morrison and most recently Ginger Baker...