The KCCK Featured CD for August is “New Angle” from the All Angles Orchestra. Led by Iowa native and UNI grad Mike Conrad, the 15-piece ensemble combines the worlds of classical and jazz to produce a wide variety of fascinating colors and textures. They are joined on their debut album by trumpeter Alex Sipiagin, a …
The KCCK Featured CD for July is “Lantern” by Oregon. The disc serves as a milestone of sorts, being the 30th recording for the band, which is now in its 47th year of existence. Original members Ralph Towner and Paul McCandless are joined by drummer Mark Walker, now in his 21st year with the quartet. …
The KCCK Featured CD for June is “Hudson” from Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski and John Scofield. On their own, the four can each boast careers that are stunning in their diversity and reach. Together they comprise the rare supergroup worthy of the name. What’s brought them together is a shared love for the …
The KCCK Featured CD for May is “Wild and Free” from Mark Murphy. This previously unreleased live set was recorded in 1980 at San Francisco’s premiere jazz club, the Keystone Korner. The vocalese master was enjoying a pinnacle of acceptance at the time, much of it due to his 1978 “Stolen Moments” album, which earned …
The KCCK Featured CD for April is “The Music of John Lewis” from the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Few captured the sleek, swinging sophistication of jazz better than Mr. Lewis, the pianist, composer and leader of the Modern Jazz Quartet, who had a long, personal relationship with Jazz at Lincoln Center. …
The KCCK Featured CD for March is “Mr. EP: a Tribute to Eddie Palmieri” by Charlie Sepulveda and the Turnaround. At age 20, Sepulveda earned the first trumpet slot in the band of fellow New York native of Puerto Rican ancestry, heralded pianist Eddie Palmieri, eventually becoming the ensemble’s music director. Now, some thirty years …
The KCCK Featured CD for February is “Concert of the Century” by Dizzy Gillespie and Friends. On November 24th, 1980, Dizzy invited five jazz legends–Milt Jackson, James Moody, Hank Jones, Ray Brown and Philly Joe Jones–to join him onstage in Montreal to pay tribute to the legendary Charlie Parker. A limited quantity bootleg album of …
The KCCK Featured CD for January is “Make America Great Again”, the debut recording from Delfeayo Marsalis and the Uptown Jazz Orchestra. In the aftermath of one of the most bizarre presidential elections the county has ever seen, the trombonist and his rollicking big band take back that tarnished slogan and run it up the …
