The Long Way to A Live Family Rayunion 2025: Ray’s Music Exchange at Thirty
The Cincinnati Jazz-Funk Collective’s First Live Album in Fifteen Years Brings in Younger Players
Ray’s Music Exchange could have marked thirty years with the old line-up alone. Instead, the Cincinnati jazz-funk collective shared the stage with a younger generation of the city’s improvisers. That happened on 26 November 2025, at the historic Woodward Theater. A Live Family Rayunion 2025 is the record of that night.
Ray’s Music Exchange are in the playlist below, among this desk’s jazz and modern composition picks, and the band’s coverage is gathered on the Ray’s Music Exchange artist profile. A Live Family Rayunion 2025 reached NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Put it on, then read the rest.
Ray’s Music Exchange Turned Thirty Years of RayUnion Shows Into Its First Live Album in Fifteen Years
The decision says a great deal about how the band thinks of itself. Ray’s Music Exchange formed in 1996 out of the creative circle around the University of Cincinnati. Its early players came from the UC College-Conservatory of Music. The name nods to the music shop in The Blues Brothers. Over time, though, the band came to read the word exchange more literally. It means the flow of energy between improvisers on a stage and a crowded dance floor.
Through the late-1990s jam-band boom, the group toured the United States on and off for nearly a decade. They shared stages with their heroes and released five independent full-length CDs. Then, in 2006, they went on an indefinite hiatus.
The break did not last. In 2010 the band brought twelve former members back together for a sold-out reunion in Cincinnati. That night became the 2011 live DVD and double album A Live Rayunion. That show turned into a habit, and the RayUnion is now an annual night at the Woodward Theater. The 2025 edition has become the band’s first live album in fifteen years, released on 29 August 2026.
Six Long Jams From the Woodward Theater, With Paul Hogan Originals and an Ernie Johnson From Detroit Horn Line
The record runs to six tracks and about thirty-five minutes: Furley’s Comet, Quartalchondriac 12-Tone Jam, We Like You, Peruvius, Dancing About Architecture and U ‘N’ I. Founding keyboardist Paul Hogan wrote many of them, and the titles give a fair idea of the temperament. A jam named for quartal harmony and a twelve-tone row is a band enjoying its own seriousness.
The core is the local line-up that has carried the band for years. Brad Myers plays guitar and sings. Michael Mavridoglou plays trumpet and keyboards, and Nick Blasky plays bass; both sing too. Jason Smart is on drums, and Matthew Hawkins on percussion.
Around them, the 2025 show added saxophonist Josh Kline and trombonist Spencer Merk. It also brought in four players from Ernie Johnson From Detroit: keyboardist Jackson Steiger, trumpeter Jonathan Wiseman, trombonist Colin Thompson and saxophonist Wayne Kilgard. That band is a Cincinnati Afrobeat and funk institution, known for instrumental dance music and high-energy shows.
The recording was handled with care. Nicholas Radina recorded the night at the Woodward Theater, and Ashley Shepherd mixed and mastered it at Audiogrotto. Meanwhile, the physical edition is built for collectors. It comes as a limited run of 300 hand-numbered, hand-stamped jackets on 180-gram vinyl. Rob O’Brien’s concert photography and liner notes come with it.
Electric Miles, the Meters and Zappa Explain the Three Directions These Cincinnati Jams Pull In
The band sums itself up on Facebook as electric Miles plus the Meters plus Zappa. Each name fits a different part of this record. Miles Davis opened up electric fusion on records such as Bitches Brew. There, long improvisations ran over electric grooves with the horns out front. That is the frame these jams work inside.
Frank Zappa brought difficult, composed material into rock and funk settings with a straight face and a sense of humour. That is roughly the spirit of a track called Quartalchondriac 12-Tone Jam.
Finally, The Meters defined New Orleans funk through a rhythm section that sat deep in the pocket. That grounding lets a drummer and a percussionist hold a seven-minute jam together. As a result, the horns can wander without the floor dropping away.
What the RayUnion Answers About Ray’s Music Exchange, and Where to Hear the Live Album Next
A thirtieth-anniversary record has to answer whether the chemistry still holds. Brad Myers, the band’s guitarist and producer, has described the 2025 show as unusually full of energy and adventurous spirit. Myers also singled out rare moments from some very gifted younger players. In the band’s view, preserving that night was a chance to show that the Ray’s ethos is still alive. It was also a way to make something special for fans and collectors who have followed the band for decades. The hope is that it leads to more new music.
That is a considered way to mark a milestone. Rather than a retrospective, A Live Family Rayunion 2025 is a hand-over in progress. The veterans set the frame, and the younger horn players push against it. For a scene built on live exchange, it is the right way to prove the idea still works.
It suits listeners who follow the jam-band and jazz-fusion tradition. It also suits vinyl collectors who value a numbered pressing. And it suits anyone curious about how Cincinnati’s improvisers pass their music from one generation to the next.
From the NewMusic.News curator team: “Two of the six tracks run past seven minutes, and that patience is the point. A Live Family Rayunion 2025 is the work of a band that still trusts a groove to tell it where to go.”
Stream A Live Family Rayunion 2025 on Apple Music, Deezer and Tidal, or order the numbered vinyl on Bandcamp.
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