On New Year’s Eve, we’re looking back at the standout performances that Iowa’s Jazz Station brought to you during our KCCK’s 50th anniversary year, and we need your help to choose! Pick your favorite four shows from 2025. We’ll play back the top vote-getters as we ring in 2026!
Please cast your vote by 5pm Dec. 17.
“Blue Moon” (2025 musical/drama) and “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” (2025 mystery/comedy) with Hollis Monroe, Phil Brown and Monica Schmidt.
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TKM Theatrical Productions premieres a new play from Jonesy McElroy Dec. 5-14. “Fruitcakes” tells the story of a failing call center whose operator begins inviting clients who have nowhere to go for the holidays to join him.
Tickets and more info at tkmtheatricalproductions.com.
Subscribe to The Culture Crawl at kcck.org/culture or search “Culture Crawl” in your favorite podcast player. Listen Live at 10:30am most weekdays on Iowa’s Jazz station. 88.3 FM or kcck.org/listen.
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The KCCK Featured Album for December is “Holiday Fun!” from Wycliffe Gordon. The acclaimed trombonist, composer and arranger captures the joy and fun of the holiday season, brought to life with some of the close friends he’s worked with throughout his career and those from his hometown of Augusta, Georgia. The pieces were primarily selected and arranged for a holiday show in 2009 and have now been recorded and made available for the first time. “Holiday Fun” is from Arbors Records. Purchase
Chorale Midwest presents two opportunities to see their holiday concert, Dec. 7 at 2:30 and Dec. 9 at 7:30, both at Christ Episcopal Church in Cedar Rapids. You’ll hear some classic favorites as well as some unique arrangements director Brad Barrett has turned up. Tickets and info at choralemidwest.org.
Subscribe to The Culture Crawl at kcck.org/culture or search “Culture Crawl” in your favorite podcast player. Listen Live at 10:30am most weekdays on Iowa’s Jazz station. 88.3 FM or kcck.org/listen.
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The regular meeting of the Kirkwood Board of Trustees will take place December 4, 2025. Time, place, and meeting agenda can be found at this link.
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
The Cincinnati Contemporary Jazz Orchestra is one of the Midwest’s most prominent jazz bands. Founded in 2013, the CCJO is a17-piece not-for-profit ensemble dedicated to performing, preserving and teaching jazz as a living art form. Over the years, they have presented big band arrangements of works by Ellington, Mingus, Stevie Wonder, Prince and others. After three full holiday season performances of their take on Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, the CCJO is now releasing “The Nutcracker Remix”—a 12-track album featuring nine reimagined tracks from the suite, originated as the brainchild of former director Rob Parton, who was inspired by Duke Ellington’s classic 1960 album.
Acclaimed trombonist, composer and arranger Wycliffe Gordon captures the joy and fun of the holiday season brought to life with “Holiday Fun,” made with some of his closest friends he’s worked with on the bandstand throughout his career and those from his hometown of Augusta, Georgia. The songs were primarily selected and arranged for a 2009 holiday show, “Red Hot Holiday Stomp,” to feature every musician’s contribution to the spirit of the holiday season, and while the musicians are different, the spirit is the same.
Also new this week, “Holly Tunes” delivers a joyful new holiday collection from Colorado Springs-based guitarist Wayne Wilkinson; “Swinging in the Holidays” features a program of seasonal favorites performed by the Champian Fulton Trio, Anais Reno, Benny Benack and others; and trumpeter Jeremy Pelt’s “Christmas Interlude” celebrates the spirit of the season with soulful and vintage sounds.
Hey, Jazz fans. Be sure to tune in this week as we celebrate the birthdays of saxmen Marshall Royal, Jimmy Lyons, Frank Tiberi and Cory Weeds, producer Lester Koenig, singers Lou Rawls and Cassandra Wilson, pianists Wynton Kelly and Ronnie Matthews, bassist Jaco Pastorius, guitarist Jim Hall and more. We’ll also mark the recording anniversaries of Gerry Mulligan’s “Reunion with Chet Baker” (1957), Art Farmer Quartet feat. Jim Hall “Live at the Half-Note” (1963), Red Garland’s “Red Alert” (1977), Tal Farlow/John Abercrombie/Larry Carlton/Larry Coryell/John Scofield’s “All Strings Attached” (1986), Shirley Horn’s “I Remember Miles” (1997), Eric Reed’s “The Baddest Monk” (2011), and many others, Monday through Friday, and at noon on Jazz Masters on Jazz 88.3 KCCK.
