This Week’s Shows – Week of September 21
Short List with Bob Naujoks
Monday – Friday at 8:35 AM and Saturday at 7 AM
Jazz and the Spoken Word: “Jazz Canto” / Rick Fay / Chip White
“Jazz and the Spoken Word” Short List series is about a small group of writers and musicians who have worked to blend the rhythm of jazz with the rhythm of poetry and the spoken word. The series reveals some of the best attempts at combining the two art forms during the past 90 years. On the Short List this week it’s more from the unique offering of the 1958 recording “Jazz Canto,” as well as the poetry of Rick Fay set to traditional jazz, and the modern mainstream poetic musings of drummer Chip White. Both Fay and White pay tribute to their jazz mentors and heroes in their work, both written and spoken.
Jazz Profiles with Nancy Wilson
Monday at 6:00 PM
Charlie Parker: “Bird Lives!” Part 2
Charles “Yardbird” Parker pioneered the bebop movement in jazz with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. This program focuses on Bird’s influence on other musicians, his celebrated return to New York, his superstar acceptance in Europe, his experimentations with strings, and his premature, tragic death. Interviewees include Jackie McLean and Mitch Miller.
Jazz Corner of the World with Craig Kessler
Monday, 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM (follows Jazz Profiles)
“Blue Note Records In 1965”
Craig travels back 50 years to look in on some of the nearly FORTY recording sessions done by Alfred Lion and company for his BLUE NOTE record label back in 1965. We’ll hear jazz gems from the likes of Herbie Hancock, Larry Young, Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, and a host of others! Some would certainly say that this is the essence of modern jazz!
New Orleans Calling with George Ingmire
Tuesday at 6:00 PM
“On Jackson Square and Royal Street” 
Just like on the music clubs and concert stages of New Orleans, there are great performers on the city’s streets. Some of the city’s most legendary musicians perform for audiences around the world, but still choose to connect with New Orleans by performing on the streets — on Royal Street, Frenchman Street, and on Jackson Square. Many of the most famous names in New Orleans music spent their early years playing there. It’s a tradition that goes back hundreds of years, of buskers mentoring younger generations, who then become mentors themselves — passing down more than just music, in this integral part of the city’s culture.
Jazz Night in America with Christian McBride
Wednesday at 6:00 PM
From Duke to the JLCO
Joe Temperley
The horn player who’s been the heart and soul of the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra for the past quarter-century, Joe Temperley is now 85. His illustrious career in jazz has spanned stints with Duke Ellington, Clark Terry, Joe Henderson, and other iconic names of the big band era. On this episode of Jazz Night In America, we hear Temperley’s life story, along with his own compositions and new arrangements of his favorite Ellington tunes.
Wednesday Night Special
7:00 PM (Follows Jazz Night in America)
Howard Levy with the Kirkwood Jazz Ensemble (new)
Howard Levy
Multiple Grammy- Award Winner Howard Levy is an acknowledged master of the diatonic harmonica, a superb pianist, innovative composer, recording artist, bandleader, teacher, producer, and Chicago area resident. His musical travels have taken him all over the geographical world and the musical map. Equally at home in Jazz, Classical music, Rock, Folk, Latin, and World Music, he brings a fresh lyrical approach to whatever he plays. This has made him a favorite with audiences worldwide, and a recording artist sought after by the likes of Kenny Loggins, Dolly Parton, Paquito D’Rivera, Styx, Donald Fagen, and Paul Simon. As a sideman, Howard has appeared on hundreds of CDs and played on many movie soundtracks. He is perhaps best known for the four CD’s he recorded with Bela Fleck and The Flecktones, a unique band that set the musical world on its ear back in the early 1990’s. This performance, airing for the first time on KCCK, is from the Spring 2015 Kirkwood Big Band Concert. Al Naylor directs the Kirkwood Jazz Ensemble.
Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland
Thursday at 6:00 PM
Ray Brown
Ray Brown
Double bass player Ray Brown (1926 – 2002) moved to New York in 1945 and immediately became part of the jazz scene. He worked extensively with the Oscar Peterson Trio, Jimmy Rowles, and Ella Fitzgerald, to whom he was married. He was one of the leading bassists in the bop style and was known for the precision of his playing and the beauty of his tone. In this 1996 session, Brown and McPartland play “Embraceable You” and “Like Someone in Love.”
Jazz Corner of the World with Craig Kessler
Saturday, Noon – 4:00 PM and Monday, 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM
“John Coltrane — The Prestige Years – 1955 to 1958” 
For this year’s annual John Coltrane ‘birth week’ celebration, Craig takes us on a tour of the Prestige recording sessions that ‘TRANE’ was involved with, both as a leader and as a sideman with folks like Red Garland, Miles Davis, Mal Waldron, Paul Quinichette, and others, during the years of 1955 and 1958. We’ll hear Trane’s first appearance on the label for a Miles Davis date that took place 11/16/55, all the way through to his last appearance on the label for his own recording date that took place 12/26/58!…. an abundance of thrilling jazz work!!
Riverwalk Jazz
Sunday at 5:00 PM
East Commerce Stomp: San Antonio Swing Reborn
The Jim Cullum Jazz ‘Big Band’
Shadowland, the Beauty Saloon, Riverside Gardens, White Horse Tavern, Blue Willow. The swinging sounds of San Antonio’s hottest nightspots of the 1930s are back with a spectacular 12-piece Jim Cullum Jazz ‘Big Band’ providing the soundtrack— joined by special guest Broadway actor and singer Vernel Bagneris.
KCCK’s Midnight CD
The Monday – Sunday Midnight CD for this week can be found at:
New Music Monday for September 21, 2015
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade have been three quarters of the extraordinary Wayne Shorter Quartet for more than a decade. They’ve also continued their individual careers as leaders of their own projects and groups. Now, on “Children of the Light,” they step forward as a trio for the first time. Daring and luminous, often an improbable mix of pointed, questioning turns and childlike joy, the music unfolds with mischievous unpredictability. “We can ‘comprovise’ (spontaneous composition) with dense harmonic and melodic forms, but we can also explore the beauty of a simple harmony,” says Perez. “And you can see the care each one of us put into the songs we brought in.”
Few singers have had the emotional depth and versatility of Abbey Lincoln. With a voice capable of evoking the joys and pains of life, she carved out a niche as a singer, songwriter and storyteller for over 40 years. She could wring a lyric for its emotional content while bringing a searing, dramatic quality to the musical line. Early in her career her rich, sustained contralto register—sometimes pierced by sudden impassioned cries—echoed the style of her idol Billie Holiday; in turn it inspired a generation of younger artists such as Cassandra Wilson. The 1970s and ‘80s found Lincoln recording only sporadically and there is precious little documentation of her art from this period, which makes the previously unreleased new CD, “Sophisticated Lady,” a rare treasure indeed. Recorded live at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco in 1980, the disc offers up a set of compelling performances with Lincoln in superb voice.
Also this week, “Jazz and Other Four Letter Words” is the witty, heartfelt, and swinging new release from Los Angeles vocalist and lyricist Mark Winkler; keyboardist Cesar Orozco and Kamarata Jazz add new ingredients to their mix of Venezuelan music, Cuban music and jazz on “No Limits for Tumbao,” with special guests Paquito D’Rivera, Yosvany Terry and Pedrito Martinez; and guitarist Brad Myers offers up the delightful blend of a tenor/guitar/vibes frontline to his long awaited debut, “Prime Numbers.”
This Week’s Shows – Week of September 14
Short List with Bob Naujoks
Monday – Friday at 8:35 AM and Saturday at 7 AM
Jazz and the Spoken Word: Robert Pinsky w Laurence Hobgood / David Gonzalez / “Jazz Canto”
Robert Pinsky with Laurence Hobgood
“Jazz and the Spoken Word” Short List series is about a small group of writers and musicians who have worked to blend the rhythm of jazz with the rhythm of poetry and the spoken word. The series reveals some of the best attempts at combining the two art forms during the past 90 years. On the Short List this week it’s a continuation of the jazz and poetry collaboration of writer Robert Pinsky and pianist Laurence Hobgood. They call their work ‘Poem-Jazz’ and it is quite modern and often freewheeling. Then a listen to Latin-tinged work of David Gonzalez who is a “storyteller-musician and poet,” but also has a Ph.D. His recording with drummer Bobby Sanabria’s music is titled “City of Dreams” with the so-called Poetic License Band. Then from an obscure but interesting souvenir recording from the late 1950s titled “Jazz Canto” comes poetry from Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas, William Carlos Williams and Lawrence Ferlinghetti read by Hoagy Carmichael, John Carradine and Bob Dorough.
Jazz Profiles with Nancy Wilson
Monday at 6:00 PM
Charlie Parker: ‘Bird Lives!’ Part 1
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.
Jazz Corner of the World with Craig Kessler
Monday, 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM (follows Jazz Profiles)
“The Incomparable Artistry of Andrew Hill — Part Three”
Craig brings us the 3rd of 4 shows in which he’ll throw the spotlight onto the career of one of the most innovative jazz pianists of the last 65 years! In this show, we’ll examine more material from Mr. Hill, including groups under his leadership, as well as some of the many appearances of Hill as a sideman.
New Orleans Calling with George Ingmire
Tuesday at 6:00 PM
“Play It By Ear”
Danny Barker
This week we find the connections between the legendary musician Danny Barker, a Baptist Church marching band from New Orleans, and brass bands like the Dirty Dozen and Rebirth. Late in life, Danny Barker gathered young musicians for a marching band — and what he did wound up keeping New Orleans jazz alive for a new generation.
Jazz Night in America with Christian McBride
Wednesday at 6:00 PM
Duke, Dizzy, Trane & Mingus: Jazz Titans
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis present music of the Americas through the lens of four pioneering giants of jazz.
Wednesday Night Special
7:00 PM (Follows Jazz Night in America)
Roots of Rhythm: Lynne Hart / Richard Wagor / Pat Smith live at the Opus Concert Café
Pat Smith / Lynne Hart / Richard Wagor Photo by Mark Clark
Clarinetist Lynne Hart, bassist Richard Wagor, and guitarist Pat Smith are some of the area’s top jazz players and educators. Their relatively new trio, Roots of Rhythm, explores the many possibilities of the music of Benny Goodman, Rube Bloom, Spencer Williams, Django Reinhardt, Harry Warren, George Gershwin and others through their own, unique interpretations of this timeless music. Their self-entitled CD was released last year and this performance was originally broadcast live on KCCK on August 7th during “First Friday Jazz” at the Opus Concert Café in downtown Cedar Rapids.
Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland
Thursday at 6:00 PM
Onaje Allan Gumbs
Pianist, arranger, and songwriter Onaje Allan Gumbs began playing piano at age seven and drew his early inspiration from Henry Mancini. He studied classical piano and honed his skill in multiple genres, from jazz and pop to R&B and soul. He has played with greats such as Woody Shaw, Nat Adderly, and Cassandra Wilson. On this 1998 Piano Jazz, Gumbs performs his original compositions “The First Time We Met” and “The Eyes of Wisdom.”
Jazz Corner of the World with Craig Kessler
Saturday, Noon – 4:00 PM and Monday, 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM
“Blue Note Records In 1965”
Craig travels back 50 years to look in on some of the nearly FORTY recording sessions done by Alfred Lion and company for his BLUE NOTE record label back in 1965. We’ll hear jazz gems from the likes of Herbie Hancock, Larry Young, Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, and a host of others! Some would certainly say that this is the essence of modern jazz!
Riverwalk Jazz
Sunday at 5:00 PM
Ev’rything I Love: The Songs of Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Live from San Francisco’s historic Filoli Gardens, The Jim Cullum Jazz Band and jazz vocalist Nina Ferro spotlight the swinging music and witty, sophisticated lyrics of the incomparable Cole Porter.
KCCK’s Midnight CD
The Monday – Sunday Midnight CD for this week can be found at: