Christian's a Class Act-Dennis

Steve Carpenter, Public Information Director for Kirkwood (and former KCCK Manager) alerted us to a complimentary post jazz bassist Christian McBride made on his blog about his April performance in Cedar Rapids with the Kirkwood Jazz Ensemble and CR Jazz. He had particularly nice things to say about director Tim Feldkamp. Read it here.

We will have at least one, and possibly two chances to see Christian this fall. He's a part of the Pat Metheny Trio, playing at Hancher on Oct. 10. Details here.

And we may see him nine days earlier, also at Hancher, as he has been touring with Queen Latifah's band. Details.

If he wants to save on air travel, he can crash at my place...

Water, Water, Everywhere--Dennis

Maybe we should have known when we hired a band called GrooveShip that we should worry about excess water....

We've had to postpone tonight's Jazz Under The Stars concert to next week, due to continued rain and saturated grounds at Noelridge Park, with the threat of more showers tonight. There is standing water all over the park and the seating area is a marshland. Even if it's not actually raining at concert time, the soggy ground makes for an unpleasant concert experience and a safety hazard for the sound crew and musicians.

But, that's why we have rain dates. So, please mark your calendar for next Thursday, Aug. 30 for both the KCCK Member event, Dinner At The Duck Pond at 5:30, and the concert with GrooveShip at 7pm.

The 7-day forecast for next Thursday?

Partly Cloudy and 76.

Dennis Green

A New Look for kcck.org--Dennis

If you came to the blog via KCCK's website, you've already noticed the new and improved kcck.org. We're really pumped about the new look and functions.

One of the coolest new things is that we are now feeding the information from the online playlist directly to the home page, so when you visit, one of the first things you see is the title and artist of the song currently playing. The current producer or show is listed right below, along with upcoming programs. Recent blog headlines now display on the home page as well.

The other major improvement is an enhanced way for you to listen to or download some of our programs on demand. You can listen to Talking Pictures, Gotta Minute and artist interviews right from the site, or you can subscribe to them as podcasts and they'll load automatically to your ipod or other media player. There's an easier to navigate Photo Gallery as well.

(Music licensing rules prevent us from offering music programming as podcasts, in case you're wondering.)

The online playlist, webcast and other areas of the site are still there, although we'll be updating their layout in the coming weeks to bring them in line with the new look. Coming soon: an enhanced Concert Calendar, Culture Crawl podcast and other improvements.

Thanks to an outstanding design team for this dynamic new look: Web designer John Shultz of Codejazz and graphic design by John Foster of Avatar Design Group.

So, what do you think? Post a reply in this space or email me directly.

Listeners at all times of the day - George

We recently received a call from a listener who had trouble sleeping one night and caught "The Brazilian Hour" during the early morning hours of a Sunday. She really enjoyed the mix of traditional Brazilian and Brazilian-flavored jazz. She wondered if the show was repeated during the week.

I told her that in addition to airing at 2 a.m. Sunday, it was also broadcast at 2 a.m. Tuesday. She was really excited to hear that.

"Are you up listening at that time?" I asked her.

"When I can't sleep," she replied. "But now that I know when it's on, I'll probably just get up and listen." (!)

Do you listen to KCCK at odd times of the day? We'd like to hear from you if you do.

George Dorman - News and Operations Director

Webcasting Update-Dennis

Well, we're still webcasting today.

Late Friday, we received word that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
(CPB), and National Public Radio (NPR) were still in negotiation with Sound Exchange
to settle the issue of royalty payments for webcasting of public radio music programming.

While no agreement was reached on a substitute for the March 2nd decision of the
Copyright Board (which would substantially raise royalty payments for webcasters,
including public radio stations like KCCK), CPB offered a payment (on behalf of public
stations) to SoundExchange, which has been accepted, to cover what NPR and CPB believe
is due July 15 as the base rate payment for stations beginning March 2, 2007. NPR
and CPB are confident that public radio stations can continue their music streaming
operations for the next three months as good faith discussions are ongoing about
the structure and amount of the ultimate fee.

Bottom line: We're still streaming and should be able to continue so for the near
future.

Stay tuned.

Great Fest! -- Dennis

Hope you were at the Pentacrest at some point this weekend for the Iowa City Jazz Festival. The weather was perfect, and the music spectacular. Our 20-hour live broadcast of the Festival ended with a delightful set from the Ben Allison Quartet Sunday afternoon (Record company restrictions would not allow us to broadcast the Derek Trucks Band Sunday night).

We'll be re-broadcasting the Festival on Labor Day, so you can catch what you may have missed, and Bob Stewart's interviews with the headliners will be posted on the web site this week.

What did you think of the Festival? Post your replies below!

Brush with Greatness-Dennis

Do you remember the episode of "Happy Days" where rock star Flash Cadillac stays with the Cunninghams for a few days but Richie can't tell any of his friends?

We had a similar experience this week when a call came from an LA ad agency, asking if they could rent our production facilities for a taping session with Masters champ and Cedar Rapids native Zach Johnson (pictured with Gordon Paulsen). Zach and his family have been home for several days visiting his parents.

I'd like to say it's because the reputation of KCCK for quality is nation-wide, but I suspect it was more because when you search the phone listings under "radio station" in Cedar Rapids, guess who's first in the alphabet? Try it.

Of course, since he was not here for a promotional appearance, but to work, we were asked to keep a low profile.

And we did.... more or less. After he completed his recording, we had to make a little fuss, of course. Zach exhibited the graciousness that the world now knows him for, posing for a couple of pictures and signing an autograph.

He's warm, funny and still just a little nonplussed, I think, when people make a big deal out of his showing up someplace. He's done a lot for Cedar Rapids and for Iowa, just being himself.

I'm proud to say I met him.