Culture Crawl 720 “Putting the Revival in Revival Theatre”
Revival Theatre Company presents “The Color Purple,” June 10-19 at CSPS Hall in Cedar Rapids. The cast is a mix of local performers, along with actors from out of the area, including one who spent time in this show’s touring company. Alicia Strong leads the cast as Celia, whose story from Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, is told against a backdrop of that incorporates jazz, blues, ragtime, African rhythms, and gospel.
Tickets and more information at www.revivaltheatrecompany.com.
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 into the logic of jazz, turning the familiar melodies into something profoundly new. “The Chopin Project” is on Heartcore Records. Purchase
This week we celebrate the birthdays of clarinetist/bandleader Benny Goodman, arranger Nelson Riddle, drummers Albert “Tootie” Heath, Louis Hayes and Charlie Watts, saxmen Red Nolloway and Greg Abate, singers Ann Hampton Callaway and Ian Shaw and more. We’ll also mark the recording anniversaries of Kenny Dorham’s “‘Round About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia” (1956), Dexter Gordon’s “One Flight Up” (1964), Sarah Vaughan “Live at Rosy’s” (1978), Richie Cole’s “Popbop” (1987), Keith Jarrett at the Blue Note (1994) and many others, Mondays thru Fridays at noon on JAZZ MASTERS on Jaz 88.3 KCCK.
Tune in all day as KCCK whets your appetite for great live jazz! Our rebroadcast of the 2021 Iowa City Jazz Festival includes hot mainstage sets from Immanuel Wilkins, Giveton Gelin, Jennifer Wharton’s Bonegasm, and headliner Cory Wong. Plus, great side stage acts Bad News, Jim Buennig, Wave Cage, and the Peterson-Thaker Band.
The Wednesday Night Special
Wednesdays at 6:00 PM
Jane Bunnett at the IC Jazz Fest
As we get set for the 2022 Iowa City Jazz Festival on the July 4th weekend, we thought we’d listen back to some of our favorite acts from past Fests. Jane Bunnett & Maqueque brought their high energy exploration of world rhythms to a Festival crowd that was up and dancing the entire set.
Jazz Night in America
Thursday at 11:00 PM
Cory Wong at Newport
The summer season of great jazz festivals is getting close, and host Christian McBride takes us to hear guitarist Cory Wong at Newport. Cory Wong (who, by the way, headlined last year’s Iowa City Jazz Festival) always hits the stage for a power set of jazz, funk, and groove.
Jazz Corner of the World
Saturdays at 12:00 Noon
Early Works of Oregon
Host Craig Kessler takes a chronological look at this stylish and sophisticated group founded in 1970 by Paul McCandless, Ralph Towner, Collin Walcott, and Glen Moore. In this first of several shows, we’ll hear choice works of art (both studio and live recordings) from their earliest days, to works from the mid-1970s.
KCCK’s Midnight CD
Every Night at Midnight
Each night, KCCK gives you the chance to hear a new CD played start-to-finish.
Everybody Say Yeah! by George Freeman on Monday;The Artist by John Lee on Tuesday; Magnolia Strut by Tuba Skinny on Wednesday; The Message by Doug Webb on Thursday; I’ll Worry If I Wanna by Michael Rubin on Friday; Jumpin’ the Broomby Markey Blue/Ric Latina Project on Saturday; Nothing Standard by Jesse Palter on Sunday
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify It was in 2017 that the trio known as 3 More Sounds was formed, a co-op group with former Gene Harris & Three Sounds bassist Henry “Skipper” Franklin and drummer Carl Burnett, along with pianist Robert Turner. With Franklin’s three years with Harris and Burnett’s ten years, they fondly remember how great it was playing with the legendary pianist. The goal of the new ensemble was to “make people happy and to have them tap their foot like Gene did, and to preserve Gene’s style of playing.” The spirit of Gene Harris shines through on their new session celebrating the music another jazz icon, “3 More Sounds Play Ray Charles.”
Caesar Frazier has been appropriately called a renaissance man, one of the last keyboardists of the golden era of what has been called the greatest time for jazz/blues organ. A time when the hard grooves of the organ triumphed as the premier crowd-pleasing instrument all over the world. Frazer has chosen to remain true to this tradition on a new collection of songs that reach back to those days. Recorded at Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey, “Tenacity” also features guitarist Peter Bernstein, sax great Eric Alexander, and drummer Vincent Ector.
Also this week, celebrated pianist and bandleader Joey Alexander unveils his first release of all original music with “Origin”;
Brooklyn-based saxophonist and composer Aaron Bazell conveys the beauty and the struggle of the human experience on his debut, “Aesthetic”;
and Chris Hajian, who has worked as a film composer over the last twenty five years, explores his jazz roots and film aesthetic on “My City, My Story,” highlighted by the work of Chris Potter, John Patitucci, Joe Locke, Eric Harland and other notables.
The 2021 Iowa City Jazz Festival 
Jazz Night in America
