Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Some people are obsessed with Wayne Shorter’s music. Many of his compositions, which are known for their complex harmonies and memorable melodies, have become jazz standards. When two musicians of the caliber of guitarist Dave Askren and sax player Jeff Benedict team up to record an album of Shorter tunes, the result is eminently gratifying. On “Paraphernalia,” their third recording as co-leaders, Askren and Benedict present a program of Wayne’s music from his work mostly from the 1960s, culled from his solo albums and his recordings with Miles Davis and Weather Report.
World-renowned guitarist Al Di Meola welcomes a new decade with an ambitious follow-up to his 2013 Beatles tribute album with the sophomore homage, “Across the Universe.” His exquisite mastery of the fretboard is equal only to his appreciation of the Beatles legacy that has inspired generations of both musicians and music fans with their recording catalog. A retrospective of Di Meola’s nearly 50-year career expressed through his virtuosic arrangement of 14 Beatles songs, the new CD journeys alongside one of America’s foremost guitarists as he revisits classic hits and more obscure tunes written by the Fab Four.
Also this week, the tunes of legendary bassist Sam Jones are highlighted with “The TNek Jazz Quintet Plays Sam Jones”;
the JUNO-nominated Canadian jazz quartet Peripheral Vision celebrates more than ten years of collaboration with “Irrational Revelation and Mutual Humiliation”;
and saxophonist and composer Dave Glasser presents risk-taking new compositions grounded in the jazz tradition on “Hypocrisy Democracy,” with Andy Milne, Ben Allison and Matt Wilson.
In the Seventies and Eighties, many Iowa natives found themselves on the coasts, meeting, performing, and forming lifelong friendships with some of the musicians who would go on to become the most important players of their generation.
Hey, Jazz fans!!! Be sure to tune in this week as we celebrate the birthdays of cornetist/bandleader King Oliver, composer Irving Berlin, pianist/composers Gil Evans and Red Garland, singers Barbara Dane and Betty Carter, bassist Buddy Catlett, trumpeters Al Porcino and Stu Williamson, harmonicist Gregoire Maret and more!!! We’ll also mark the recording anniversaries of The Miles Davis Quintet’s “Relaxin’/Steamin’/Workin’” (1956), Curtis Fowlkes’ “New Trombone” (1957), Kenny Burrell’s “Blue Lights, Vols. 1 & 2” (1958), Art Pepper+11 “Modern Classics” (1959); Lee Morgan/Thad Jones’ “Minor Strain” (1960), Grady Tate Sings/TNT (1991) The Great Jazz Trio’s “Autumn Leaves” (2002) and many others throughout the week and Mondays thru Fridays at noon on our ‘JAZZ MASTERS’ program on Jazz 88.3 KCCK.
Short List with host Bob Naujoks 
The Wednesday Night Special
Jazz Corner of the World with Host Craig Kessler 
Author Derrick Bang has chronicled the life of pianist Vince Guaraldi and has also written dozens of articles on the Charles Schulz and the Peanuts comic strips. But he recently turned his attention to making an exhaustive survey of the role of Jazz in the music of TV and movies. His two-volume set, Crime and Spy Jazz on Screen: A History and Discography, chronicles hundreds of TV shows and movies, along wit
