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Content from KIOS staff relating to jazz, blues, and all kinds of music.

TOAST OF THE NATION 2012 to air on KIOS

KIOS will once again air Toast of The Nation to ring in the New Year. The annual broadcast will begin New Year's Eve, December 31st at  8:00PM. An NPR tradition every New Year's since 1979, Toast of the Nation is perfect for the occasion. It's jazz you can party to, all night from coast to coast, with countdowns to midnight in all four continental time zones.Spirited, improvised, grooving, and swinging, each segment is a stop in a sequence of celebrations and contributing something new to the musical feast. WBGO's Rhonda Hamilton anchors the show.

The lineup for this year (subject to change):

8:00PM: John Scofield’s Überjam, at Berklee Performance Center, presented by Berklee College of Music with MC Eric Jackson of WGBH Boston. Scofield, whose soul-twanged guitar strains are the most distinguished of his generation, gained fame with Miles Davis in the eighties. On this gig, he swings Überjam – his fusion, funk and acid-jazz jam quartet, dedicated to the groove.

9:00PM: Henry Cole and The Afrobeat Collective, Live from The Checkout: Live at 92Y Tribeca, New York City. WBGO’s Josh Jackson MC’s the set with young Puerto Rican drummer Henry Cole and his 11-piece band. They celebrate the release of the CD Roots Before Branches. The Afrobeat Collective conjures up the Motherland pulses with three-horn harmony, freestyle vocals and Latin percussion. (in Surround Sound)

10:00PM: Wynton Marsalis & Vince Giordano, The Louis Armstrong Continuum: Music of the Hot Fives and Sevens, at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. The Armstrong-inspired trumpeter Wynton Marsalis teams with Big Apple swing bandleader Vince Giordano – who was featured on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire – to recreate the music of jazz’s first superband: The Hot Fives and Sevens of the late 1920s, that featured Louis and Lil Hardin Armstrong and Earl “Fatha” Hines. (Live/in Surround Sound)

11:30PM: Dee Alexander’s Funkin’ with Electric Soul: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix and James Brown, at the South Shore Cultural Center presented by Jazz Institute of Chicago. This Windy City vocal “Dee-va” makes a powerful, personal statement about two icons of modern music. Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” and Brown’s “It’s A Man’s World” are highlights. Alexander’s band features guitar, cello and two basses. Richard Steele MC’s.

12:30AM: Reprise: Clark Terry and the late Red Holloway rang in 1990 at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago and on the air on New Year’s Eve Coast to Coast from WBGO and NPR. Their midnight features one of the most swinging versions of “Auld Lang Syne” ever on the air. One of the few artists to work with Count Basie and Duke Ellington, trumpeter Clark Terry’s burnished brass has been lighting the jazz torch for over seven decades. He’s joined on this date by the late, deep-toned, blues-bathed Red Holloway (1927-2012), a long-time cohort of Terry, and a sideman with Sonny Stitt, Dakota Staton and Memphis Slim.

1:30AM: Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, at the 2012 Monterey Jazz Festival. The West Coast Sound is described as “light,” but don’t tell that to big bandleader, composer and current GRAMMY Award nominee, arranger Gordon Goodwin. His Big Phat Band from Los Angeles was originally created for a record date in 1999, and has grown into bigger and better things, including Goodwin’s arrangement of “Rhapsody in Blue” (a GRAMMY winner) and his original “Hunting Wabbits” – both highlights of this set. (in Surround Sound)

2:15AM: Re-broadcast of John Scofield

3:00AM: Re-broadcast of Henry Cole

The performances will be available for online listening after January 3, 2013, at nprmusic.org/toastofthenation.

Mike Jacobs has been with KIOS since 1988 while attending the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Mike began his career at KIOS working weekends acting as local host for NPR’s Weekend Edition. He also hosted Morning Edition from 1990-1996. Mike began hosting the weekly blues program “Blues in the Afternoon” in October 1994 and took on the responsibilities of jazz programming and maintaining the music library in 1996. He has held the position of Music Director since 2002. In addition to hosting “Jazz in the Afternoon” on Wednesdays and Thursdays, Mike also helps with assembling music for “Jazz From Studio One” hosted by the advanced radio students at the Omaha Public Schools Career Center. Mike is an Omaha native and graduated from Technical High School in 1984.