Culture Crawl 415 “Sleep Deprivation Theatre”

For RHCR Theatre’s 24-Hour Play Festival, 6 new short plays are written, rehearsed and performed in 24 hours. Executive Director Matt Ford says the event is a fun and creative night, with lots of laughs, January 19, 7pm in the CR Public Library’s Whipple Auditorium.

There will also be a silent auction, with gift baskets from Scratch Cupcakes, Raygun and some cool sports memorabilia from Kurt Warner, the Green Bay Packers, Minneapolis Twins, and much more.

Tickets available at www.rhcrtheatre.com or at the door.

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Clean Up Your Act 1-28-19

Some items shouldn’t be recycled.

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Special Programs for January 7 thru January 12

Short List with host Bob Naujoks    

Monday – Friday at 8:35 AM and Saturdays at 7 AM  

Vocal Short List 16: Blanche Calloway 

Blanche Calloway is noted for a number of firsts. She was on-stage before her famous brother, Cab Calloway. She was the first African-American female to lead an all-male orchestra. She eventually became a disc jockey and program director for her radio station. Cab Calloway cites her as his major influence and inspiration for his own greatness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jazz Corner of the World with host Craig Kessler

Mondays at 6:00 PM 

80th Anniversary of Blue Note Records

Craig celebrates Blue Note’s 80th by spinning a sampling from the first decade of the label.  We’ll hear “traditional jazz/blues” from Albert Ammons, Meade ‘Lux’ Lewis, Frankie Newton, Earl Hines, Pete Johnson, Edmond Hall, Ike Quebec, and a host of others.  We’ll also hear some of the earliest examples of “modern jazz” from Blue Note artists, such as Thelonious Monk, Tadd Dameron, Art Blakey, Fats Navarro, and more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Night Special

Wednesdays at 6:00 PM   

James Dreier & Ritmocano 

We continue our January warm-up with hot Latin jazz. This week, the Wednesday Night Special features James Dreier and his band, Ritmocano. Recorded live before a fired-up crowd at Jazz Under the Stars, this ensemble of some of Eastern Iowa’s top musicians had them dancing on the lawn with new compositions and fresh arrangements of classic Latin standards.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jazz Night in America with host Christian McBride

Thursdays at 11:00 PM

On the Road With Lizz Wright

Lizz Wright takes us on the road via an audio diary in an exploration of her own roots, from Appalachia, to Atlanta to Southern Georgia. She also digs into some of the songs from her recent album, Grace, in concert at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jazz Corner of the World with host Craig Kessler

Saturdays at Noon

The Chronological Andrew Hill, Part One

Craig begins a series of shows that follows the career of brilliant composer and pianist Andrew Hill.  We’ll hear at least one selection from each of Hill’s jazz recordings, beginning with a 1959 recording for Warwick Records, before he moved on to his many priceless Blue Note recordings of the 1960’s.

 

 

 

 

 

KCCK’s Midnight CD

The Monday – Sunday Midnight CD for this week can be found at: 

http://www.kcck.org/midnight-cd/

New Music Monday for January 7, 2019

    Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. 

 Bassist and composer Iris Ornig is one of the most original female voices on today’s New York jazz scene. Since her arrival in 2003 from Germany, she has played with an impressive roster of some of the most influential contemporary jazz musicians in New York, including Ambrose Akinmusire, Joel Frahm, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Allison Miller and Gretchen Parlato, among others. For her new CD, “Storyteller,” she has assembled a quintet featuring drummer Allan Mednard, pianist Addison Frei, saxophonist Jeremy Powell and trumpeter Jonathan Powell.

 

 

 

 

     Montreal guitarist Sam Kirmayer started 2018 on a high note. A few weeks into the new year, he won the Julian Award for Excellence for Emerging Canadian Artists for his 2017 debut CD, “Opening Statement.” For an encore, Sam has climbed further still with his new album, “High and Low,” which finds the 28-year-old devotee of bop and swing assuredly leading an organ trio. He chose wisely when picking sidemen for this new project, keeping Montreal drummer Dave Laing from his debut disc and seeking out New York-based organist Ben Paterson, who has been working in the bands of Peter Bernstein and Bobby Broom.

 

 

 

 

   

 Also this week, acclaimed pianist and award-winning composer Lisa Hilton offers up an enticing collection pulsing with West Coast cool on “Oasis”; 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

          

keyboardist Andrew Lawrence, who can be heard regularly on the Chicago jazz scene and who played the Iowa City Jazz Festival several years ago, unveils a new batch of original work on “Trialogue”;

 

 

 

         

  

     and an ensemble of players from the Posi-Tone Records stable, including drummer Rudy Royston, bassist Boris Kozlov, and pianist Art Hirahara, take the moniker Something Blue for their new CD, “Maximum Enjoyment.”

 

 

 

 

 

Culture Crawl 414 “Look Out, Ol’ Mack is Back”

Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre presents “Threepenny Opera,” the Bertold Brecht/Kurt Weill work that gave us the classic “Mack The Knife.” Evan Dunn and Jessica Pray Patel say that the show is a departure for them, as it is more of a musical comedy (albeit a dark comedy), than a true opera. But these professional singers are relishing the task of communicating through spoken lines and song lyrics different than their regular work.

Stage director Ron Clark has given the show, originally set in Victorian London, a steampunk feel in set and costumes.

January 10-13 at CSPS Hall in Cedar Rapids. Get tickets at www.legionarts.org. Or visit the Opera’s website at www.cr-opera.org.

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Talking Pictures 1-2-19

Holmes and Watson, Mary Poppins Returns, Aquaman, Vice and Mortal Engines with Dennis Green, Denny Lynch and Monica Schmidt.

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Kirkwood Board of Trustees to meet January 10, 2019

The regular meeting of the Kirkwood Board of Trustees will take place January 10, 2019. Time, place, and meeting agenda can be found at this link.

KCCK’s Featured CD for January 2019

The KCCK Featured CD for January is “Humoresque” by the Emil Viklicky Trio. On May 30, 2008, the Czech pianist played the Grand Hall of the National Czech and Slovak Museum in Cedar Rapids just prior to the epic flood. Ten years to the day, May 30 2018, he returned to perform at the refurbished, relocated museum, this time with Czech bassist Petr Dvorsky and Chicago-based drummer Ernie Adams, on a program of original compositions traditional Czech pieces. “Humoresque” is on Fog Arts Records. Purchase the CD on Amazon, or at the Museum Store in Cedar Rapids.