Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Bassist/composer and New Zealand native Matt Penman has spent much of the past decade developing and presenting music for the illustrious SFJazz Collective and the fantastic James Farm collective. That had left a gap between solo recordings that he felt it was time to abate. The ensemble that Penman assembled for “Good Question” features regular collaborators and friends, including saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist Aaron Parks and drummer Obed Calvaire. There are also guest appearances by guitarist Nir Felder, saxophonist Will Vinson and percussionist Rogerio Boccato. “The music on this recording is a series of questions I posed to my bandmates over two days,” Penman explains, “that I might get their input on a range of subjects that interest me…I wrote these tunes in the hopes of starting a dialogue that could provoke reactions, new angles and corollaries that were unforeseen, yet welcome.”
A powerhouse player who is equally conversant in jazz and funk, Indianapolis-based saxophonist Rob Dixon joins forces with a couple of heavyweights in 7-string guitar marvel Charlie Hunter and drumming legend Mike Clark on “Coast to Crossroads.” This slamming affair finds the tenorist knee-deep in Clark’s signature Oakland funk beats and irrepressible Texas shuffles alongside Hunter’s grooving, syncopated bass lines and distinctive organ-styled comping on his hybrid axe. Trombonist Ernest Stuart, a former member of the Brooklyn-based bhangra party band Red Baraat, provides close harmonies on the front line, playing Fred Wesley to Dixon’s Pee Wee Ellis. “The album is called ‘Coast to Crossroads’ because I’m based in Indiana, the Crossroads state, but I also work a lot on the West Coast and East Coast,” says Dixon, who hails from Atlanta but settled in Indy in 2003 after spending several years on the New York City jazz scene.
Also this week, two-time Grammy winning composer and saxophonist Ted Nash releases his first concert recording in over 25 years, “Live at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola”.
Veteran trumpeter John Bailey, who has had tenures with Ray Charles, Buddy Rich, and Ray Barretto, unveils his debut release as a leader, “In Real Time”.
Reed masters Ken Peplowski and Adrian Cunningham join together for a “Duologue,” with
rhythm provided by Renee Rosnes, Martin Wind and Matt Wilson.
Noelridge Park and McGrath Amphitheatre will be the scene for great music again this year as KCCK’s Jazz Under the Stars returns for 2018.
Short List with host Bob Naujoks 
Jazz Profiles with host Nancy Wilson 
Jazz Night in America with host Christian McBride
The Black Art Jazz Collective’s mission statement celebrates African-American cultural and political icons. At the core is a modernism that conjure up the classic bands of Art Blakey and acoustic Miles Davis. But with contemporary soul-fueled solos and locked-in rhythms, the band is more likely to launch into a counterpoint riff or the spacious funk of hip-hop than the svelte lines of a classic walking bass. With their new CD, “Armor of Pride,” the Collective delivers strong original tunes and purposeful, form-hugging improvisation that keeps things looking forward rather than back. And with trumpeter Jeremy Pelt in ebullient form, and saxophonist Wayne Escoffery’s muscularity contrasting with the tenderness of James Burton III’s trombone, the focus never wavers or becomes diffuse.
Also this week, tenor saxophonist JD Allen delivers a beautiful and intensely interesting ballads album, “Love Stone”.
Keyboardist Geoffrey Keezer returns to the piano trio format with “On My Way to You”. 
Harmonica ace Hendrick Meurkens pairs up with pianist Bill Cunliffe on “Cabin in the Sky.”