The Space Between Us and Fences with Hollis Monroe, Denny Lynch and Monica Schmidt.
Talking Pictures 2-9-17
Travel to Italy with KCCK – Departs July 9, 2017
(Booking is now closed)
Travel with KCCK to Italy to the Umbria Jazz Festival and Rome,
July 9 -17, 2017.
Don’t delay!! This is a specially priced experience and your commitment must be made by the end of March.
For more information contact Lisa Baum at 319.398.5421 or lisa@kcck.org.
Download the Brochure.
Download the Reservation form.
We’re heading to Italy this July 9 to 17 to experience jazz Italian style…an incredible trip to Rome and Umbria to find historic villages, delectable wines, incredible food and three nights with tickets to the Umbria Jazz Festival featuring Wayne Shorter and more.
We begin Rome for three days with a guided tour of the priceless collection of art and treasure in the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museum. Our time in Rome also includes a guided trip to the Piazza Venezia and Roman Forum, with a stop at the Colosseum. We’ll view the Arch of Constantine, Circus Maximus, the Great Synagogue, Isola Tiberina and Castel Sant’Angelo.
There will be free time as well to discover this incredible city. Each evening we’ll seek out the local club scene and enjoy the summer nights café style. We then will bus in comfort through the hill towns to our jazz festival home, Perugia.
Perugia is home to the legendary Umbria Jazz Festival taking place every July. Founded by Carlo Pagnotta in 1973, for ten days Perugia becomes an international music town, full of lights, colors, music in every corner and tens of thousands of jazz music lovers. During your stay here you get to experience a live music festival that brings together famous acts like Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade., Brian Wilson and Pet Project and more. The concerts run from mid-day to midnight nonstop and the city beats to the sound of international jazz. There is nothing better than a summer night in a unique place with a magical atmosphere, listening to good live music and drinking excellent Italian wine! Each day we’ll tour cities of Umbria…Assisi, Orvieto and Gubbio and return each afternoon to settle in to our festival itinerary.
Assisi, a medieval hill town in central Umbria, famous for St. Francis of Assisi and the magnificent basilica painted by renowned artists like Giotto and Cimabue. You might feel that the entire interior is decorated with wonderful frescoes – with so much to see, the experience can feel overwhelming! Luckily, your expert art historian guide will help you understand these masterpieces, and you won’t miss any of the beauty inspired by St. Francis.
Orvieto, one of the most striking, memorable, and enjoyable hill towns in central Italy. Located between Florence and Rome, this town sits high above the valley floor on the top of a big chunk of tufo volcanic stone.
We will vist the glorious Gothic-style Duomo (cathedral) one of the most beautiful churches in Italy, due to its splendid and decorative façade adorned with elaborate sculptures and colored mosaics designed by Lorenzo Maitani of Siena. Inside you can find the magnificent frescoes of Fra Angelico and Luca Signorelli. Time permitting, other monuments that you get visit are: the Palazzo Vescovile, Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, the churches of San Lorence, Sant’Andrea and San Giovenale.
Gubbio is one of the most ancient towns of Umbria. The picturesque city is built beneath Mount Ingino on the eastern side of the Tiber; Gubbio was an important town of the ancient Umbrians in pre-Roman times. Gubbio’s Civic Museum displays the Eugubine Tablets, written in Umbrian language using the Latin and the Etruscan alphabets. The tablets, dating from the 2nd century BC, document the Umbrian civilization, from its religion to government. Your tour will take you through Gubbio’s most stunning medieval backstreets to the imposing 14th century Palazzo dei Consoli, said to rival Palazzo Vecchio in Florence in its beauty. Our trip returns to Rome and our flight home.
Don’t delay!! This is a specially priced experience and your commitment must be made by the end of March.
For more information contact Lisa Baum at 319.398.5421 or lisa@kcck.org.
Download the Brochure.
Download the Reservation form.
Special Programs: Week of February 6 – 12
Short List with Bob Naujoks
Monday – Friday at 8:35 AM and Saturday at 7 AM
Corridor Jazz (Ray Blue)
Ray Blue
Saxophonist Ray Blue is really a New York native but his home away from home is Eastern Iowa. He comes back each year to perform and conduct workshops. He has a degree in sociology from William Penn University and a masters in social work from the University of Iowa, and was a professional counselor at one time. But jazz music was in his heart, and his big sound harks back to those masters like Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins. He is also a teacher and clinician through his Cross-Cultural Connection organization.
Jazz Corner of the World with Craig Kessler
Monday, 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
“Jazz Pianist, Jutta Hipp”
Craig notes the birth date anniversary of the extraordinary German jazz pianist, JUTTA (YOO-tuh) HIPP. She was born in Leipzig, Germany February 4th, 1925 and passed away April 7, 2003. We’ll hear from her classic Blue Note releases as well as from a number of European recordings…trios, quartets, and quintets, studio recordings, as well as live material, all from the 1950s. Check out this obscure and underrated player!
Night Lights (Classic Jazz) with David Brent Johnson 
Monday, 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM (follows Jazz Corner the World)
Night Lights, is a weekly one-hour jazz radio program hosted by David Brent Johnson, focusing on jazz from the 1945-1990 era—covering artists such as Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, and Nina Simone and themes ranging from jazz recordings of spirituals to avant-garde interpretations of the Great American Songbook. Night Lights also features many lesser-known talents of post-1945 jazz. Every program is archived after broadcast for online listening. This week: “Art Blakey: Class of 1957”. http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/archives/2017/1/
Jazz Profiles with Nancy Wilson
Monday at 11:00 PM (follows Nightlights)
Charlie Parker: ‘Bird Lives!’ Part 1
Charlie Parker
Charles “Yardbird” Parker was a self-taught innovator who could fly higher and cut deeper than any other musician of his day. Parker pioneered the bebop movement in jazz with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. He influenced generations of musicians. He accomplished all of this and other feats despite a crippling drug addition that ended his life at thirty-four. This program focuses on “Bird” the improviser, and traces his instrumental virtuosity from his early days in Kansas City to his bebop experiments in New York to his ill-fated trip to Los Angeles in 1945.
Wednesday Night Special
6:00 PM
Jazz Legends at the Iowa City Jazz Festival: Andrew Hill Quartet
Andrew Hill
The Jazz Shelf describes Andrew Hill as “…one of the most original pianists to emerge in the 1960s, Andrew Hill teetered between straight-ahead playing (as a sideman) and the avant-garde, and most of his own albums exist in the middle of those two patches, never banal or too extreme. Hill was one of the rare birds who forged his own style as a player and a composer”. Many of the Blue Note Records featuring Andrew Hill as a sideman or leader are now considered classic examples of 60’s post-bop progressive jazz. He recorded and performed with some of the best during that period including Eric Dolphy, Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, Tony Williams, and Freddie Hubbard. He passed away at the age of 75 in 2007 and was posthumously awarded a Honorary Doctorate of Music by the Berklee College of Music, and was named a 2008 NEA Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to Andrew Hill, the quartet also featured Craig Tardy on tenor sax, Nasheet Waits on drums and John Hébert on upright bass.
Jazz Night in America with Christian McBride
Thursday at 11:00 PM
Dew Drop Jazz Hall with Leroy Jones
Leroy Jones
Trumpeter Leroy Jones started playing New Orleans back when Bourbon Street was lined with jazz clubs instead of bars. The city has changed since then and Leroy has evolved right along with it. He’s led second lines with the Fairview Brass Band and its successor, The Hurricane Brass Band, played club gigs with modern jazz combos, and toured with Harry Connick Jr’s band for two decades. Always dapper and always swinging, Leroy Jones is known in the Big Easy as the “Keeper of the Flame” for keeping these New Orleans traditions foremost in his playing and his personal character. He brings his septet to the historic Dew Drop Jazz Hall in Mandeville, LA for a special Big Easy Jazz Night in America.
Jazz Corner of the World with Craig Kessler
Saturday, Noon – 4:00 PM and Monday, 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
“Riverside Records in 1957” 
Craig travels back 60 years to look in on the incredible recordings put together by label owners Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer. With the humble beginnings of RIVERSIDE’S modern jazz era beginning just a few years earlier (1954), the label skyrockets to 40 + recording sessions in 1957, from jazz luminaries such as Thelonious Monk, Donald Byrd, Abbey Lincoln, Benny Golson, Coleman Hawkins, Kenny Dorham, Sonny Rollins, and so many more! This is the stuff!!
Tropical Heat (hosted by Kpoti Senam Accoh)
Sunday, 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Featured Album: “Thailande – Danses” by Gérard Kremer & Local Traditional Artists 
Dance in Thailand is the main dramatic art form of Thailand. Thai dance, like many forms of traditional Asian dance, can be divided into two major categories that correspond roughly to the high art (classical dance) and low art (folk dance) distinction. Although traditional Thai performing arts are not as actively embraced as they once were, suffering from competition from modern and western entertainments and generally changing tastes, Thai dance is still very much alive. It is an integral part of the culture of Thailand at all levels. Royal patronage of classical forms of dance has preserved some dances in their original form for centuries. Rural people have their own forms of folk dance, collectively known as rabam phun muang. https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/thailande-danses/id389866248
KCCK’s Midnight CD
The Monday – Sunday Midnight CD for this week can be found at:
New Music Monday for February 6, 2017
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. 
As the name of composer and pianist Cynthia Hilts’ octet Lyric Fury implies, her writing and playing are defined by powerful contrasts. She likes to build from long, meditative passages to explosive endings. The technique of tension and release seldom yields more satisfaction or surprise. As heard in the brisk, striking originals on “Lyric Fury,” her third jazz album, Hilts’ orchestrations can go in different directions and different keys in the same moment within the same beat or phrase. Her music can fill the senses even as it swings like crazy. Imagine a peaceful waltz through the meadow and a frantic run through a rainstorm happening together, music that sounds like a celestial collision of Mingus and Debussy.
“Blooming Tall Phlox” is Yelena Eckemoff’s tenth album since shifting gears from the classical music of her early career and a mid-career break to raise her children, into a more firmly and decidedly jazz focus with the 2010 release of “Cold Sun.” Playfully imbued with vitality, energy, creativity and, perhaps most importantly, an unrelenting sound of surprise that reveals more with each and every listen, the new disc proves that it is possible to reinvent oneself. Over six years and ten recordings, the Russian-born Eckemoff has evolved into a deeply creative jazz artist: not just a pianist capable of engaging with some of the finest jazz musicians on the planet, but a composer/arranger who can surprise them with unexpected and enigmatic music that drives them to even further levels of excellence. Following a string of recordings with internationally renowned Norwegian musicans and A-list Americans, she recruited some of Finland’s best young, up-and-coming players for this outing.
Also this 
week, following the success of Peter Erskine’s “Dr. Um and the Lost Pages,” the drummer and his Dr. Um band are ready to offer a “Second Opinion”. 
Acclaimed guitarist John Stein expands his already impressive sonic palette on “Tones,” adding flutist Fernando Brandao and trumpeter Phil Grenadier.
Washingto
n, D.C.-based Fred Hughes Trio unveils its eighth release, “Matrix.”
Culture Crawl 228 “Almost Too Many Bands for a 2-Day Fest”
The Central Iowa Blues Society presents the Winter Blues Fest, Feb. 20 & 11 at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Des Moines. Sixteen bands will perform, including state Blues Challenge winners from Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Other headliners include the Scottie Miller Band, Davina & The Vagabonds, Toronto Cannon, and Ronnie Baker Brooks (son of legendary bluesman Lonnie Brooks).
Tickets and information at www.cibs.org.
Culture Crawl 227 “How Printeresting!”
The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art has two new exhibits going up, “Carved” and “America on Paper.” Both deal with woodcuts and print-making, with examples that range from the Sixteenth Century to today.
Curator Kate Kunau invites the whole family can get involved in learning about and making prints Feb. 4 during a Family Fun Day at the Museum called “How Printeresting.”
Details at www.crma.org.
Talking Pictures 2-2-17
Gold, Fences, Resident Evil 7, Jackie, A Dog’s Purpose with Hollis Monroe, Denny Lynch and Phil Brown.
Kirkwood Board of Trustees to meet February 9, 2017
The regular meeting of the Kirkwood Board of Trustees will take place February 9, 2017.
Time, place, and meeting agenda can be found at this link.