The regular meeting of the Kirkwood Board of Trustees will take place September 14, 2017. Time, place, and meeting agenda can be found at this link.
Culture Crawl 285 “We May Cut Loose”
The Old Creamery Theatre presents “Footloose” opening Sept. 7.
Like other stage musicals whose movie roots are just as much in music as story (“Mama Mia” being the prime example), “Footloose” the Musical contains all the songs you remember from the 80s movie. But it dives a little deeper into the story of how a community heals from tragedy, giving the story a deeper meaning. Which isn’t to say it isn’t a lot of fun, and challenging for choreographer Keegan Christopher, who had design choreography for a show that takes place in a town that doesn’t allow dancing!
Information and tickets at www.oldcreamery.com.
Clean Up Your Act 9-25-17
Urban Forests – a book about the history of trees in U.S. cities over the past two centuries.
Talking Pictures 8-31-17
Ingrid Goes West, Annabelle: Creation, The Salesman, My Life as a Zucchini with Hollis Monroe, Denny Lynch and Phil Brown.
KCCK’s Featured CD for September 2017
The KCCK Featured CD for September is “The Better Angels of Our Nature” from the Brian McCarthy Nonet. The saxophonist has discovered the roots of jazz in the sounds and conflicts of the Civil War, arranging Union and Confederate folk songs and original music for his ensemble, which features several alumni of trumpeter Clark Terry’s band. As McCarthy explains, “Jazz came from the African-American experience here in America. Out of the darkness of terrible slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow came this beautiful art form.” The disc takes its title from the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address. “The Better Angels of Our Nature” is from Truth Revolution Records. Purchase the CD
Special Programs: Week of August 28 – September 2
Short List with host Bob Naujoks
Monday – Friday at 8:35 AM and Saturday at 7 AM
Two jazz venues a
re featured this week on The Short List. The posh Rainbow Room atop the RCA building, and the long-passed Basin Street East. Each had their heyday. The Rainbow Room flourished in the big band era and beyond. Basin Street from the mid-50s to the mid-60s. There were a number of good recordings made at Basin Street East in its short tenure, but only a few exist from the Rainbow Room. Perhaps they are little known now, but both are part of jazz history in a small way. The Short List can be heard each morning at 8:35, and Saturday at 7:00 a.m. on Jazz 88.3 KCCK.
Jazz Corner of the World with host Craig Kessler
Monday, 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
The Art of Miles Dewey Davis III – Studio Recordings 1969 -1974 — Part Four
Craig continues his chronological examination of rarities and obscurities from Miles’ “fusion era” studio recordings. This week, we take up our project with more music from mid-1970, up into 1972. Join me for a truly ear-opening experience!
Jazz Profiles with
host Nancy Wilson
Monday at 11:00 PM
Gerry Mulligan
A key figure in the cool jazz movement, Gerry Mulligan composed for and performed on the legendary Miles Davis Birth of the Cool sessions. His influential piano-less quartet featured trumpeter Chet Baker. His work popularized the baritone saxophone as a solo instrument. As a composer, he enriched jazz with “Bernie’s Tune,” “K-4 Pacific,” and many others. Join us for Jazz Profiles, featuring Benny Waters, Monday night at 11 on Jazz 88.3 KCCK.
Wednesday Night Special
6:00 PM
Tim Daugherty Group at the Opus Concert Café
Keyboardist Tim Daugherty earned a steady following throughout Iowa as part of the Daugherty, Davis and McPartland group. He has been the music director/composer for the Old Creamery Theater Company, and has also performed with the Quad City Symphony and Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony. Most recently he has been active in the cruise ship industry, but made a rare trip home for this performance. Join us for Tim Daugherty at the Opus Concert Café, Wednesday night at 6, on Jazz 88.3 KCCK.
For more about the Opus Concert Cafe and the First Friday Jazz Series, you may log on to http://www.artsiowa.com/opus
Jazz Night in America with host Christian McBride
Thursday at 11:00 PM
Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life
The fruitful collaboration between Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington brought us such classics as “Take The ‘A’ Train” and “Chelsea Bridge.” But behind the music, Billy Strayhorn led a complex and often vice-driven life. While composing some of the most harmonically rich jazz of its time, often in the shadow of Duke Ellington, Strayhorn was an outlier in that he led an openly gay life as a black man in the homophobic 1940s. This week, interviews with family Strayhorn family members, Strayhorn’s biographer, and rare archival tape of Strayhorn himself.
Jazz Corner of the World with host 
Craig Kessler
Saturday, Noon – 4:00 PM and Monday, 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Art Pepper – The Galaxy Years
Craig celebrates the birth date anniversary of saxophonist Arthur Edward Pepper Jr. (9/1/25 to 6/15/82), with a look at Pepper’s later career and his 15 + recordings for Galaxy Records. Don’t miss this loving look back at one of the greatest alto saxophonists in modern jazz!
KCCK’s Midnight CD
The Monday – Sunday Midnight CD for this week can be found at:
New Music Monday for August 28, 2017
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
When Carl Sandburg died in 1967, President Lyndon Johnson hailed the famed poet as “more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America.” Fifty years after Sandburg’s passing, drummer/composer Matt Wilson pays tribute to the “poet of the people.” Sharing both Sandburg’s Midwestern roots and his gift and passion for communicating lofty art to a broad and diverse audience, Wilson has been a lifelong admirer of the poet’s work and has been setting his words to music for more than 15 years. The long-awaited release of “Honey and Salt” coincides with the 50th anniversary of Sandburg’s death. To re cite Sandburg’s poems, Wilson enlisted a stellar list of jazz greats including John Scofield, Christian McBride, Bill Frisell, Carla Bley, Joe Lovano and Rufus Reid. Wilson sets these recitations in an eclectic variety of settings for his ensemble.
Meanwhile, soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom re-imagines the poetry of 19th-century visionary Emily Dickinson in two different settings. Her new two CD set “Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickinson,” showcases her jazz quartet’s interpretation of Dickinson’s poetry and includes a second version for jazz quartet and spoken word featuring readings by popular stage and film actor Deborah Rush. Bloom was inspired to musically interpret Dickinson when she learned that the poet was a pianist and improviser herself, reconfirming what she’s always felt in the jazz-like quality of Dickinson’s phrasing. “I didn’t always understand her,” Bloom says, “but I always felt Emily’s use of words mirrored the way a jazz musician uses notes.”
Also this week, bassist Christian McBride follows up his 2011 Grammy-winning big band debut with “Bringin’ It,” with a big band including Freddie Hendrix, Michael Dease, Steve Davis, Steve Wilson, Rodney Jones and Ron Blake
Composer/arranger/pianist John Beasley offers up a sec
ond batch of stellar big band charts of Thelonious Monk tunes on “Monk’estra Volume 2”.
Guitarist Dave Stryker is “Strykin’ Ahead” with his new CD, augmenting his working trio of organist Jared Gold and drummer McClenty Hunter with vibraphone ace Steve Nelson.
Culture Crawl 284 “The Vegas Strip of the Amanas”
The Iowa Theatre Artists Company (ITAC) sold its long-time facility last year, but Meg Merckens and Tom Johnston are still producing theatre in the Amanas, and elsewhere.
“Woody Guthrie’s American Song” opens August 25 for a four-week run. Most of the shows will be in Homestead, in the Amanas, in the former General Store. The show will also hit the road to Garrison for one weekend, where Meg and Tom first met in the early years of the Old Creamery Theatre.
In October, ITAC will stage “Ben Butler,” the story of a little-known Union General in the Civil War who must figure out a way to get around The Fugitive Slave Act, so he doesn’t have to return refugee slaves to their owners.
Details at www.iowatheatreartists.org. Reserve tickets at 319.622.3222.