Jazz in the Afternoon with Mike Jacobs

The acclaimed Playing with Fire Concert series will bring world-class blues, jazz and funk to the River's Edge Park in Council Bluffs  on May 27. The headliner for this Playing with Fire concert is Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. Also appearing is special guest Vintage Trouble. To complement the headliners, Omaha’s own Satchel Grande and Mojo Bag, will open the show at 4 pm. Guests will enjoy a special appearance from harmonious and soulful M2J. The concert is open to the public.

WEEK OF: May 19, 2013

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The new release from bassist and bandleader McBride is a straight-ahead affair with an acoustic group consisting of Steve Wilson on alto sax, Warren Wolf on vibes , Peter Martin on six of the eight tracks on piano with Christian Sands on the others. Carl Allen handles the drum duties on most of the session and Ulysses Owens Jr. filling in on two tracks.

For Jazz Appreciation Month, KIOS presents the SFJazz Center Opening Night Concert on Wednesday April 17th at 8:00PM. San Francisco has been a jazz hot spot for decades and now the city is home to the first stand-alone building built specifically for jazz. It's the new 700 seat SFJazz Center.

The music of Miles Davis was changing dramatically in the late 1960s. Most fans of the legendary trumpeter know that in 1969 he recorded Bitches Brew, the hugely successful dawn of jazz-rock that was one of the best selling jazz records ever released. Lesser known is the working unit that Miles took with him on the road was one of the most artistically daring and visionary bands that Miles ever led. Recordings of that outfit have recently surfaced and have been released on a multi-disc set, Live In Europe 1969, The Complete Bootleg Sessions Vol. 2.

Guitarist John Pizzarelli will return to Omaha in February.  Two performances with the Omaha Symphony, Thomas Wilkins, conducting, will be presented on Saturday, February 9, 2013, at 8 p.m. &  Sunday, February 10, 2013, at 2 p.m. at the Holland Performing Arts Center.

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.

NPR Music brings you another great concert from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Jazz Piano Christmas presents NEA Jazz Master Ellis Marsalis, Jason Marsalis, Geri Allen, and Taylor Eigsti and other artists who will perform their favorite holiday songs. Tune in for JAZZ PIANO CHRISTMAS XXIII on Monday, December 24th at 8:00pm on KIOS,

One of the great names in jazz, Dave Brubeck, passed away a day before his 92nd birthday, on December 5, 2012.