Hey, Jazz fans!!! Be sure to tune in this week as we celebrate the birthdays of composers Richard Rodgers pianists Richard Wyands and Ahmad Jamal, organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Frank Loesser, singers Lena Horne, Johnny Hartman and Melissa Walker, bassist Stanley Clarke and more!!! We’ll also mark the recording anniversaries of Lester Young’s “Blue …
Iowa City native Bridget Kearney has toured the world and performed on The Tonight Show, Stephen Colbert, and countless others as a part of Lake Street Dive. In fact, just before the pandemic shut everything down, legendary singer Mavis Staples sat in with the band! Bridget’s latest release, “Still Flying,” was recorded in Ghana with …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify If it takes a village to raise a child, as the proverb says, then it certainly takes at least that much to nurture a big band. Pianist and bandleader Orrin Evans has long used “the Village” to refer not only to his family-like cohort of fellow musicians in …
Dennis Green talks with Iowa City native and New York trumpeter Gabe Medd about his personal experience with COVID-19, and how he is making music during the pandemic, including a virtual performance with Gabe in his friend Chad LB’s Big Band.
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify After several appearances as a guest with guitarist Dave Stryker’s Organ Trio, saxophonist Bob Mintzer, who serves as the principal conductor for the WDR Big Band of Cologne, Germany, had the idea to arrange some of Dave’s music to feature him with the ensemble. Bob thought Stryker’s …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify It may be somewhat ironic, yet ultimately fitting, that the final recording by Larry Willis brought the veteran pianist and composer back to the place where he first began his impressive career as a recording artist, a career that spanned six decades. He first entered the hallowed …
Even though in-person performances for the 2020 Iowa City Jazz Festival have been cancelled, we still think the airwaves should be filled with live jazz July 3-5. Since 2001, KCCK has recorded and broadcast nearly all of the mainstage performances. That’s nearly 500 hours of unforgettable shows! In addition to the online performances that Summer …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Guitarist John Scofield celebrates the music of his friend and mentor Steve Swallow on “Swallow Tales,” made in an afternoon in New York City last year “old school,” as Scofield says, acknowledging that more than forty years of preparation led up to it. John was a 20-years-old student …
