The KCCK Featured Album for January is “On a Clear Day” from the Oscar Peterson Trio. In 1971, the ensemble was in transition. It was the beginning of a long musical partnership and close personal friendship between Oscar and bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, and the continuation of his years working with drummer Louis Hayes, which …
The KCCK Featured Album for December is “The Pan American Nutcracker Suite” by the New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band. Tchaikovsky’s classic work has enjoyed tremendous popularity as a perennial winter holiday tradition. Drummer and bandleader Joe McCarthy and co-arranger Vince Norman infuse the original work with the rhythmic traditions of Cuba, Africa and …
The KCCK Featured Album for November is “Unstuck in Time: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite” by pianist Jason Yeager. While Vonnegut found his true calling as an author, he once speculated about becoming a jazz pianist. He also was a faculty member of the Iowa Writers Workshop for several years. On the 100th anniversary of the …
The KCCK Featured Album for October is “New Standards, Volume One” from Terri Lyne Carrington. The drummer has published a groundbreaking new lead sheet book of 101 jazz compositions written exclusively by women, including Mary Lou Williams, Maria Schneider, Esperanza Spalding and others. The companion album is the first in what will be a series …
The KCCK Featured Album for September is “Reflections” from Al Foster. As he approaches his 80th birthday, Foster looks back at his celebrated career as a first-call drummer for iconic legends Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson and McCoy Tyner. There are vital treatments of well-known and less-traveled numbers by those jazz masters, …
The KCCK Featured Album for August is “Ella at the Hollywood Bowl”, a previously unreleased live concert featuring Ella Fitzgerald performing songs from her beloved Irvin Berlin songbook, conducted and arranged by Paul Weston. Discovered in the private collection of producer and Verve Records founder Norman Granz, the concert marked the only time that Ella …
The KCCK Featured Album for July is “I Missed You Too” by Chucho Valdes and Paquito D’Rivera. In 1962, two of the most influential musicians that Cuba ever produced were brought together for the first time, forming a musical partnership that helped shape jazz in Cuba. Their paths would separate in 1980 when Paqito left …
The KCCK Featured Album for June is “The Chopin Project” by Kurt Rosenwinkel and Jean-Paul Brodbeck. The legendary jazz guitarist and acclaimed Swiss pianist join forces on a historic collaboration which finds them reinterpreting the music of the classical composer Frederic Chopin. Brodbeck’s arrangements outline the beauty of Chopin’s compositional structures, while subtly reorganizing them …
