The KCCK Featured CD for April is the Corridor Jazz Project Volume Thirteen from Iowa’s Jazz Station. We celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month by highlighting the talented students from the area’s high school jazz programs. The bands are joined by special guest soloists who work with and mentor the ensembles during the recording process. This year they include Al Naylor, Steve Grismore, Tim Crumley, Eddie Piccard, Nolan Schroeder, Mike McMann, and Rod Pierson among others. And we welcome a new school to the Project this year as Center Point-Urbana joins for the very first time. Purchase the CD.
KCCK’s Featured CD for April 2020
Culture Crawl 557 “Spinning Pinwheel of Death”
Katie Colletta and Keegan Christopher are interim co-artistic directors at Old Creamery Theatre. Like all performers, they are searching for ways to do their art during these crazy times. They have come up with the idea of holding a virtual cabaret, and have invited performers from Theatre Cedar Rapids, SPT Theatre, Riverside Theatre, and the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts to participate.
High School performers are also invited to submit a video recording of a song or performance piece, which may also be included.
“Songs to Make You Smile” will be streamed over YouTube at 7:30pm April 3. You’re asked to donate a minimum of $5.00 to watch the show. Proceeds will be shared among the five participating organizations.
Make sure you watch through to the end at Keegan and Katie give a little preview of their number in the show!
More details and the donation link at www.oldcreamery.com.
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Corridor Jazz Guest DJs – City
Ryan Carter, Kolbe Schnoebelen, and Peter Stolz are seniors at City High. Jazz band is a family tradition for these three, as they each had an older brothers in the City High Jazz Ensemble with them when they were freshmen!
Ryan and Kolbe both made the 4A All State Jazz Band, slated to perform in May at the Iowa Bandmasters Association (IBA) conference, and have their fingers crossed that it will happen. In the meantime, they joined Dennis remotely to play songs that ranged from a chart they remembered from eight grade band to several current artists who inspire them.
Playlist:
- “Corner Pocket” – Count Basie
- “Composition XII” – Immanuel Wilkins Quartet
- “Puddle Jumping” – Marshall Gilkes
- “The Instrumental Hip-Hoppa” ) Ryan Porter
- “Torque” – Alan Baylock Orchestra
- “Jupiter’s Giant Red Spot” – Justin Brown with Nyeusi
- “Shiny Stockings” – Ella Fitzgerald & Count Basie
- “Busta Jones” – City High Jazz Ensemble feat. Cole Peterson
There were three songs we didn’t have time for, so you can think of these as being on the “director’s cut.”
- Reginald Chapman – Mysterious Hope of Glory – Prototype
- Wynton Marsalis – What is this thing Called love? – Live at the House of Tribes
- Braxton Cook & Butcher Brown – Sao Paulo – Braxton Cook Meets Butcher Brown
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This Week In Jazz March 29 thru April 4
Hey, Jazz fans!!! Be sure to tune in this week as we celebrate the birthdays of singers Astrud Gilberto, Frankie Laine and Norah Jones, trumpeters Booker Little and Herb Alpert, saxplayers Lanny Morgan, Dick Oatts and Harry Carney, guitarist Dave Stryker, drummer Jake Hanna and more!!! We’ll also mark the recording anniversaries of Art Pepper’s “The Art of Art Pepper” (1957), Kenny Drew’s “This Is New” (1957), Bud Powell’s “The Complete Essen Jazz Festival Concert” (1960), Kenny Dorham’s “Una Mas” (1963) and many others through and out the week and Mondays thru Fridays at noon on our ‘JAZZ MASTERS’ program on Jazz 88.3 KCCK.
New Music Monday for March 30, 2020
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
The release of Harold Mabern’s new album, “Mabern Plays Mabern,” is the source of a mixture of pride and sorrow. Pride because Mabern’s 27th recording as leader, culled from the same three January 2018 nights at Smoke Jazz Club in New York City that generated his 26th, documents the legendary pianist, then 81, in prime form. Sorrow because the release is posthumous—Harold died in September at the age of 83. For this engagement, Mabern convened long-standing band-mates Eric Alexander on tenor sax, John Webber on bass and Joe Farnsworth on drums, augmented by trombonist Steve Davis and trumpeter Vincent Herring on alto. All members rise to the occasion on repertoire that spans 51 years of Mabern’s six decades as a recording artist, leader and sideman.
Trumpeter Carl Saunders started his career on the road with Stan Kenton in 1961 and then settled back in Las Vegas where, during the next 20 years, he played with a countless number of bands, including lead trumpet for Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra. He also traveled with such bandleaders as Harry James, Maynard Ferguson and Benny Goodman and worked in the big bands of Bill Holman, Gerald Wilson and Bob Florence. While widely recognized as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters in the world, it often surprises people to find that he’s also a prolific composer who has written hundreds of original compositions. Several of those are showcased on Carl’s new release, “Jazz Trumpet.”
Also this week, Pearl Django, a longtime favorite in the Pacific Northwest and one of the best known Gypsy jazz style groups around the world, unveils its fifteenth recording, “Simplicity”;
vocalist Kurt Elling teams up with pianist Danilo Perez for his latest, “Secrets are the Best Stories”;
and pianist and composer Connie Han offers up her second release as a leader, “Iron Starlet.”
Special Programs for March 30 thru April 4
Short List with host Bob Naujoks
Monday – Friday at 8:35 AM and Saturdays at 7 AM
Vocal Short List: Kalil Wilson
Oakland, California, jazz singer Kalil Wilson grew up with a bassist and bandleader dad and a record collector mom. He began his career in opera but was eventually captivated by jazz. Mentored by guitar great Kenny Burrell, Wilson was a finalist at the Jose Iturbi Classical Competition and also appeared at the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocalist Competition.
Jazz Corner of the World with Host Craig Kessler
Mondays at 6:00 PM
West Coast Jazz 3 – Fantasy Records & the San Francisco Scene
Craig looks deep into the legendary Fantasy Records during the 1950s. He’ll also take a look at Lester Koenig’s traditional jazz label, Good Time Jazz Records. We’ll hear from Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Cal Tjader, Red Norvo, Fire House Five, Kid Ory, Lu Watters, Turk Murphy, and a host of others. Don’t forget the sunscreen!
The Wednesday Night Special
Wednesdays at 6:00 PM
Student Combos at Jazz Under the Stars
Last season’s Jazz Under the Stars introduced our Young Artist Series of combos, made from students and recent alumni from Cedar Rapids Washington, Marion, City High, West High, and Cedar Falls. Each group — Cheesecake Experiment, Clowntooth, and the Corridor Quintet — organized their own rehearsals, set lists, and performances. To celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month, KCCK features all three of these combos, who opened for the headliners at Noelridge Park, as this week’s Wednesday Night Special. Just like the audiences last August, you’ll be knocked out by the talent of these young players!
Jazz Night In America with Host Christian McBride
Thursdays at 11:00 PM
Rene Marie is Unafraid
René Marie began her music career at age 42, but she’s making up for lost time. This week on Jazz Night in America, we hear a set from last year at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and retrace her story to learn how she’s giving back to help people feel both more vulnerable and less afraid.
Jazz Corner of the World with Host Craig Kessler
Saturdays at 12:00 Noon
West Coast Jazz 4 – Verve, Capitol & Other Labels
Craig continues his in-depth look at several other record labels that are associated with “West Coast Jazz,” such as Jazz West, Atlantic, Hi-Fi, Andex, Decca, GNP, and others. We’ll hear from Stan Getz, Jimmy Giuffre, June Christy, Lyle Murphy, Richie Kamuca, Bill Holman, and a host of others.
KCCK’s Midnight CD
Every Night at Midnight
Each night, KCCK gives you the chance to hear a new CD played start-to-finish. Tune in at Midnight for:
Rhythme de Passage by Emie R Roussel on Monday; The Ghost of Buddy Bolden by Derrick Shezbie on Tuesday; Two Cigarettes in the Dark by Keith Oxman on Wednesday; Tetrahedron by Ernesto Cervini on Thursday; Out of the Box by Ben Rice & RB Stone on Friday; What My Eyes Have Seen by John Blues Boyd on Saturday; All Stars by Special EFX with Chieli Minucci on Sunday.
Talking Pictures 3-25-20
The Hunt, Star Trek: Picard and Hunters with Hollis Monroe, Phil Brown and Monica Schmidt.
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Culture Crawl 555 “Bad Choices for Good Reasons”
KCCK’s Culture Crawl is back! in this weird interim when most performances are cancelled, we’ll be visiting with artists, directors, and performers to see how they are keeping busy and engaged.
And it may be the best time ever to talk to authors! Dave Bluder intended to launch his first book, “The Great Gamble,” on March 16, the same day that his wife Lisa would be certainly have been celebrating an NCAA bid for her Hawkeye Basketball team.
Obviously, things didn’t work out that way, but Dave’s book has attracted attention and endorsements from well-known figures ranging from Dan Gable to Bill Bradley to Jim Leach.
Available at area bookstores (most of whom will carry your order out to you!). Order an autographed copy from www.icecubepress.com, or download the ebook from Amazon. An audiobook is on the way, too.
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