Keyboardist and composer Lao Tizer will lead his band that features GRAMMY Award winning saxophonist Eric Marienthal and the mesmerizing world music violinist Karen Briggs in a concert to benefit the John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival’s Student Instrument Contest.  Winners of the 2020 contest will be honored during the broadcast.

Just Coolin’, a never-before-released studio album by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers that was recorded on March 8, 1959 in Rudy Van Gelder's living room studio in Hackensack, New Jersey. The session featured a short-lived line-up of The Jazz Messengers with drummer Art Blakey, trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Jymie Merritt.

Thelonious Monk in Palo Alto, 1968 - a never-before-released recording! In a year of great political turmoil, a rising junior at Palo Alto High School had a a dream to bring Thelonious Monk to his school to perform and bring his community together through music. This legendary recording is now available for the first time! 

(In The Store & Online)

Commencing at midnight August 27th and concluding at midnight September 4th, WKCR-FM (89.9 FM, wkcr.org) will dedicate all programming to celebrations of the legacies and influences of two of jazz’s central figures: Charlie Parker (b. 8/29/20, d. 3/12/55) and Lester Young (b. 8/27/09, d. 3/15/59). For more than four decades, the station has noted their birthday anniversaries with a three-day marathon broadcast.

The ninth annual Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, also known as the “SASSY Awards,” gives outstanding jazz singers a chance to perform in front of celebrity judges for cash prizes and a platform for embarking on a career in the music business!
 

The Mahwah Museum is pleased to present an online concert June 6-9 to celebrate Les Paul’s 105th birthday with Lou Pallo (& guests), Muriel Anderson and Thom Bresh.

This Fundraiser for Arts for Art and the Sun Ra Arkestra is a celebration of these groundbreaking musical legends around their birthdays.

Highlights in Jazz producer Jack Kleinsinger offers condolences to the Pizzarelli family,  and joins the music community at large in mourning the death of the legendary guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, on April 1, at age 94. 
 

This November marks the 20thAnniversary of the Django Reinhardt NY Festival at Birdland Jazz Club, produced by Pat Philips-Stratta and her late partner, conductor Ettore Stratta. The festival, which began in 1999, has featured many talented musicians over the years who embody the gypsy jazz style of music by the great Django Reinhardt. Of these was guitarist Dorado Schmitt.
 

There’s nobody quite like Roger Kellaway. In a career that has stretched over the last 60 years, while performing with many of the legendary jazz musicians of his time he has also written memorable film and television scores, composed classical works for major symphony orchestras, inspired what came to be known as “new age” music, and provided essential accompaniment and musical direction for iconic figures of American popular music like Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Bobby Darin, Tony Bennett, Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell.