Author's posts
KCCK’s Featured Album for March 2025
The KCCK Featured Album for March is KCCK’s Corridor Jazz Project Volume 18, featuring the outstanding students from a record twenty-one Eastern Iowa high school jazz bands. Each band is paired up with a professional guest artist who mentors the students during rehearsals and professional recording sessions. The experience culminates with concerts featuring the bands …
Soundtrack to the Struggle: A Great Day in Harlem
It’s 1958, and freelance photographer Art Kane is commissioned by Esquire magazine to shoot photos of jazz musicians for their upcoming “Golden Age of Jazz” feature. An avid music fan, Kane jumps at the chance. He puts the word out: Be at 17 126th St., Harlem, at 10 in the morning. His editors voiced concern. …
Soundtrack to the Struggle: Ella Arrested
It’s 1955, and Ella Fitzgerald and her band take a break between sets at the Houston Music Hall. In her dressing room, Ella and her assistant, Georgiana Henry, chat and drink coffee, while over in the corner, Dizzy Gillespie and Illinois Jacquet shoot a quick game of craps. The door suddenly bursts open and five …
Talking Pictures 2-26-25
“The Monkey” (2025) and “Captain America: Brave New World” (2025) with Hollis Monroe, Phil Brown and Scott Chrisman.
Soundtrack to the Struggle: Charlie Haden
It’s 1968, and the Democratic National Convention erupts into violence. Rejection of a plankcondemning the Vietnam War sparks protests on the streets of Chicago. Bassist Charlie Haden,a vehement critic of the war, watches it all unfold. He is angry and disgusted, and he decidethat he must take action. Haden forms the Liberation Music Orchestra, an …
Soundtrack to the Struggle: Harold Bradley, Jr.
Harold Bradley, Jr. was born two weeks before the Wall Street Crash. Times were tough, especially forBlacks in Chicago, but Harold found opportunities to learn and grow. Introduced by his mother, hetalked jazz with Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, and studied art with legendary illustrator E. SimmsCampbell. Harold loved music. He was a gifted painter. …
Soundtrack to the Struggle: Sun City
It’s 1985, and guitarist and activist Little Steven Van Zandt forms a supergroup to protestapartheid in South Africa. That country’s system of white minority rule and institutionalizedracial segregation was in place for nearly 50 years. Despite world-wide condemnation,embargos, and diplomatic isolation, the South African regime held firm. Van Zandt believed thisstubbornness led to apathy among …
Soundtrack to the Struggle: Harlem Renaissance
It’s 1920, and the Jazz Age has begun. First sprouting in New Orleans, jazz music quickly spread as thousands of African Americans migrated from the Deep South to new opportunities in the North. Jazz found fertile ground in Harlem, where it became an integral element in the new social, cultural, and artistic movement taking root. …