Jazz To The World - Dennis

More than 300 people helped us kick off the holiday season at Jazz To The World Nov. 29 at the Englert in Iowa City. Dan Knight led a great quintet, with guest vocalists including Betsy Hickok.

A kids chorus performed two holiday-themed sketches. The first, a funny take on "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch," in which a "Scroogey" piano teacher gets his comeuppance. Then, the story of a very special singing of "Silent Night" during World War I.

Santa was't there. But Mrs. Claus was. And what an appearance it was!

If you missed the concert, it will be a part of our Christmas special December 24.

ISU Solar Decathlon Team - George

As part of a Clean Up Your Act feature, I recently met with members of the Iowa State University team that will compete in the 2009 Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C. Twenty collegiate teams are competing to design homes powered entirely by the sun.

There are many challenges involved in addition to coming up with a successful solar design. Judging is also based on the attractiveness of the homes. The homes have to be constructed in a way that they can be taken apart, trucked to the nation's capitol and re-constructed on the National Mall. The ISU team is also incorporating other green practices into its home, including the recycling of gray water. The competition is not only a learning experience for participants but is also used as a tool to help inform the public about solar houses. And, of course, fundraising -- always a major undertaking -- is involved.

My interview with IT Coordinator Eric Berkson, Project Engineer Tim Lentz, Team Co-Leader Keiand Fundraising Leader Chelsey Olsen is available as a podcast.

The U.S. Department of Energy competition will be held in the fall of 2009.

Check Out the Podcasts - George

Are you a fan of Talking Pictures but sometimes miss it when it's aired? Or do you want to find out what's happening this weekend but you didn't catch the Culture Crawl? Well, all you have to do is listen to the Podcasts on our web site. It's as easy as clicking "On the Air" in the menu bar and scrolling down to "Podcasts and Downloads." Got a Minute and Clean Up Your Act archives are also found there as well as a long list of interviews we've done with jazz musicians who have performed in this area. You can also subscribe to the Podcasts and have them automatically downloaded to your computer.

Colbert on Jazz - Dennis

Why was the McArthur Foundation unwise to give sax player and SF Jazz Collective member Miguel Zenon on of their "Genius Grants?"

Stephen Colbert explains why in this funny bit from a recent show, about 12 minutes in.

Memories of 1976 Olympics - George

With the 2008 Summer Olympics under way in Beijing, it brings back memories of the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Younger brother John and I took in the second week of those games.

I sent in my ticket order form the day they became available. Even so, the basketball tickets were all sold out. I did get tickets for men's field hockey, women's volleyball, wrestling, two days of track and field and equestrian which was part of the closing ceremonies package. John didn't have tickets so we just decided to see what we could buy at the different events. To our surprise, we were able to get tickets for him at face value. There wasn't any real scalping going on. Until the closing ceremonies. John ended up sitting outside the stadium the entire time. He said one guy was still trying to sell his ticket at a highly inflated rate right up until the very last minute.

Montreal had set up a housing system that allowed us to stay in a room at a private residence for a very reasonable rate. We spent little time there because we would leave early to get to our events and wouldn't get back until late.

Track and field was held at the new Olympic Stadium, which hadn't been totally completed on time. Some of the upper roofing wasn't quite done. While I had a reserved seat, John got standing room only tickets. That left him with an aching back, so he had little sympathy for me when I complained of a headache afterwards. I don't have any real memories of any particular performances at the '76 Olympics, although I do remember having a seat close to some of Bruce Jenner's family. I had no idea at the time that he was from Graceland College in Iowa.

News reports had indicated that security was very tight after what had happened at the Munich Olympics in 1972. But, if that was true, we were unaware of any signs of it.

It was interesting to be among so many people from so many different places...all the different languages, everyone showing generally good sportsmanship except for a few "ugly Americans."

We drove John's car from South Dakota to Montreal, my first experience driving any distance with a clutch. Why anyone would drive like that all the time is beyond me. On the way home, we stopped at Niagara Falls and spent a night with a cousin in Buffalo, NY.

If you ever have the chance to attend the Olympics, I'd high recommend it.

RAGBRAI Brings Old Friend to Iowa - George

One of the participants in this year's RAGBRAI was an old Army buddy, Mike Wong, who lives in the Sacramento, California, area. It was a chance for us to get together in North Liberty. We hadn't seen each other since 1992 when another Army buddy, Ken Lee, got married in Columbus, Ohio.

Mike and I were among the last of the draftees before the Army became all-volunteer. We both took basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, although we didn't know each other there. We met during Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. There we were trained for field artillery fire direction control (FDC). Then we were shipped to Camp Essayons, South Korea, where Mike became a battery clerk and I was in FDC before getting transferred to the Division Public Information Office/Division Newspaper...but not before my share of trips to the field as an FDC chart operator and a week at the DMZ.

After a year in Korea, we finished our "military careers" with six months at Fort Hood, Texas. Mike continued to work as a clerk; I became a jack-of-all-trades -- subsitute battery clerk, alternate mail clerk, photographer, writer. In Texas, Mike and I became fans of Doug Sahm (Sir Douglas Quintet) and saw him perform at the Texas Opry House and Armadillo World Headquarters, both in Austin. Bobby D. frequently plays his music on the Crawfish Circuit Saturday nights. We even saw jazz piano legend Teddy Wilson play on a stage in a cow pasture at an outdoor music festival near Kerrville.

After the service, I was best man at Mike's wedding. He was an usher at mine. He went back to school and became a registered nurse and is currently a school nurse, serving six elementary schools.

After several cell phone conversations and dealing with streets that were blocked for RAGBRAI, we finally met up at the First United Methodist Church in North Liberty, which was serving a supper for RAGBRAI participants. As we were eating our supper of pork roast and mashed potatoes, Mike asked me, "So is pork a big deal in Iowa?" He later sweet-talked one of the church women into letting us have a second dessert.

It was great to get together, re-live our days in the Army and catch up with each other's lives. Mike seems to have aged a little better than I. A little heavier than during our service years, but hardly any gray hair. Me, a little lighter than when we served together, but totally gray.

Although he didn't get to train as much beforehand as he would have liked (but he does do triathlons so he's in pretty good shape), Mike loved his RAGBRAI experience, except for the crash near Jefferson that sent him to the hospital for observation. He said he really enjoyed the people of Iowa. And he just might return next year -- to get some more pork! It would be great if he does.

Back Stage at the Iowa City Jazz Festival - George

When working back stage on our live broadcast of the Iowa City Jazz Festival, one misses out a bit on the atmosphere "out front" and you don't really get to listen to much of the music. But it is interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes as the stage crew works to get everything off stage after one act and get things ready for next.  We also get to see the performers arrive and see how they interact with other musicians, the crew and staff.  And we get to meet many of them "up close and personal" when they come to the KCCK tent to do pre-performance interviews.

Tidbits from those interviews include: 

-Joshua Redman almost became a lawyer rather than a musician.

-Jenny Scheinman's first home when she was a kid didn't have electricity.

-Bonerama listed influences going back as far as Jack Teagarden.

-Billy Martin of Medeski, Martin and Wood has converted one of his diesel vehicles to use grease from a Chinese restaurant.

-Music Director Steve Grismore would like to bring in Bela Fleck for a future festival.

The crowds were great in the aftermath of the flooding...especially Friday and Saturday. There was a huge crowd for the fireworks following Friday's final act.  Attendance was down a bit Sunday as hotter and more humid weather moved in.  It was perhaps appropriate (if unfortunate) that Joshua Redman's finale concert Sunday night had to be cut a bit short because of threatening weather.

The Jazz Festival gave me an opportunity to work with son Daniel (Soundhole Recording Studio), who set up and ran our remote broadcast control board.  Son Brady came down for two days.  He's an architecture student at Iowa State with an interest in urban planning and mass transit.  He enjoyed exploring Iowa City on his bike.  His thoughts can be found here www.dorm.org/~brady/?p=43

Disappointments:

I wasn't able to find my favorite vendor food this year.

Jenny Scheinman didn't play "The Orange Blossom Special" on her fiddle!

Overall, a great festival.