Short List with Bob Naujoks
Monday – Friday at 8:35 AM and Saturday at 7 AM
Corridor Jazz (Damani Phillips)
Damani Phillips at the 2016 Iowa City Jazz Festival
This week The Short List profiles the outstanding alto saxophonist Damani Phillips. He teaches both jazz music and African-American studies at the University of Iowa. He may be better known as the instrumentalist who plays with the groups Ritmocano, and the Dap Squad, as well as his own. He has several recent and fine albums available also. Originally, he studied to be a classical saxophonist, but he turned his head to jazz and was coached by some of Detroit’s jazz veterans, including trumpeter Marcus Belgrave.
Jazz Corner of the World with Craig Kessler
Monday, 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
“Tribute To Bassist Bob Cranshaw”
Craig salutes the memory of recently departed Bob Cranshaw. Bob was best known for his long association with Sonny Rollins, but he also provided the “rock solid” bass for literally hundreds of famous jazz recordings over the years. We’ll hear great records of Hank Mobley, McCoy Tyner, Bobby Hutcherson, Duke Pearson, Nat Adderley, and so many more. A very important musician who will be greatly missed!
Night Lights (Classic Jazz) with David Brent Johnson 
Monday, 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM (follows Jazz Corner the World)
Night Lights, is a weekly one-hour jazz radio program hosted by David Brent Johnson, focusing on jazz from the 1945-1990 era—covering artists such as Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, and Nina Simone and themes ranging from jazz recordings of spirituals to avant-garde interpretations of the Great American Songbook. Night Lights also features many lesser-known talents of post-1945 jazz. Every program is archived after broadcast for online listening. This week: “Jazz Her Way: Nancy Wilson in the 1960’s”. http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/archives/2017/1/
Jazz Profiles with Nancy Wilson
Monday at 11:00 PM (follows Nightlights)
Billie Holiday: ‘Lady Sings the Blues’
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was the consummate jazz singer. She could take any song and make it her own. She could re-work a melody, sing a lyric with impeccable diction, add her unique phrasing and embrace it with the raw emotional intensity of her life experience. All of the great bandleaders loved Lady Day: Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw. Billie’s personal battles are legendary — with a racist society, with men, with drugs — and it was that pain that fueled her songs. But she worked at her craft, found her own voice, and inspired countless singers and musicians. This show focuses on Billie’s music and its impact on jazz. Interviewees include her longtime accompanist Bobby Tucker, biographer Robert O’Meally, Abbey Lincoln, and Joni Mitchell.
Wednesday Night Special
6:00 PM
Christopher Merz with the Kirkwood Jazz Ensemble (new)
Chris Merz
Saxophonist Christopher Merz, has served as Director of Jazz Studies and Director of the award-winning UNI Jazz Band One at the University of Northern Iowa since 2002. Under his direction, the band has traveled to Thailand as well as the east coast of the US, and has recorded 13 CDs featuring many original compositions and arrangements by student and faculty writers.
The 2006 recipient of the CHFA University Book and Supply Outstanding Teaching award, Merz was the 2016 recipient of the John L. Baker Faculty Development award, and was inducted into the Iowa Jazz Educators’ Hall of Fame in 2015. He is a Past President of Jazz Educators of Iowa (JEI), and the founder and director of the UNI Combo Camp, an annual event for high school jazz students and music educators, which takes place each June.
His recording credits include Steve McCraven, Darius Brubeck, John Rapson and Jon Snell, as well as his own projects; Counterculture, the Chris Merz/Bob Washut Duo, The X-tet, Equilateral, and Christopher’s Very Happy Band. His 1997 release with the X-tet, Mystery is My Story, prompted Dave Brubeck to write, “I am very pleased with this wonderful band. Naturally I would admire a group like yours that, to me, is a grand extension of what we were doing…when we were the ‘new thing’”. Current projects include Colossus Central (an exciting new big band led by UNI alum Michael Conrad) and the quartet, Christopher’s Very Happy Band., which performs Merz’s originals exclusively. An accomplished composer/arranger for large jazz ensembles, Merz has received commissions from university and high school big bands throughout the country, and is published through UNC Jazz Press and ejazzlines.
Jazz Night in America with Christian McBride
Thursday at 11:00 PM
Celebrating Betty Carter
In this episode of Jazz Night in America, we hear stories from alumni of “the school of Betty Carter,” an esteemed collection of singers bound together by the thrall of Carter’s titanic influence on jazz. One of the most powerful voices in the American musical tradition, her lasting legacy is celebrated by vocalist Charenee Wade along with many past members of Carter’s band through the years.
Jazz Corner of the World with Craig Kessler
Saturday, Noon – 4:00 PM and Monday, 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
“Birthdate Anniversary of Jazz Trumpet Master, Blue Mitchell” 
Craig celebrates the birthday of Richard Allen “Blue” Mitchell (3/13/30 to 5/21/79). We’ll hear many recordings that feature Blue as a leader, for Blue Note, Riverside, and Mainstream Records. We’ll also hear him as a side man with the likes of Grant Green, Lou Donaldson, bluesman John Mayall, Chick Corea, Horace Silver, and a host of others. Uplifting music from one of the true jazz greats!
Tropical Heat (hosted by Kpoti Senam Accoh)
Sunday, 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Featured Album: “Xenophonia” by Bojan Z 
Xenophonia is an album of the Serbian jazz pianist Bojan Z released in 2006 at Label Bleu. The name of the album, built from “xenos”, “the stranger” in Greek, is a reference to the situation of Bojan Z as a Franco-Serbian.
On this album Bojan Z plays the “xenophone”, instrument of his invention, a sort of Fender Rhodes trafficked, with a temperament different from that of the piano, close to that of “Arabic” music. Bojan adds to this instrument many effects pedals (distortion, phaser …) which ends up bringing it closer to an electric guitar. Bojan Z goes so far, on Wheels, to play “note à note” on his instrument a solo of RM Točak, star of the Serbian rock.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/xenophonia-bojan-z-label-bleu-review-by-ian-patterson.php
KCCK’s Midnight CD
The Monday – Sunday Midnight CD for this week can be found at: