We have some great programming happening this pledge drive!

Thursday, May 16, 2-6pm We’re having a Bill Evans Blowout! with Jesse “Chuy” Varela and Melanie Berzon.

Friday, May 17, 2-6pm Celebrate Woody Herman’s 100th Birthday with Jesse “Chuy” Varela and Melanie Berzon.

Saturday, May 18, 10a-2pm Tune in for Miles of Miles with Sonny Buxton and Melanie Berzon, and from 2-6pm Dave Brubeck and Tommy Flanagan will be brought to you by hosts Dick Conte, Kathleen Lawton & Melanie Berzon

Sunday, May 19, 10a-2pm Tony Bennett Left His Heart in San Francisco, and Keith Hines and Melanie Berzon and we finish the day from 2-6pm with Tito Puente’s 90th Birthday Special hosted by Jesse “Chuy” Varela and Chris Cortez

Monday, May 20, 2-6pm Part 1 of Orrin Keepnews 90th Birthday Celebration with Jesse “Chuy” Varela and Kathleen Lawton

Tuesday, May 21, 2-6pm Part 2 of Orrin Keepnews 90th Birthday Celebration with Jesse “Chuy” Varela and Melanie Berzon

Our phones are back! We can get calls now. Please call in and pledge.

Thanks!

KCSM Volunteers

Join us for our second sponsor night at SF Jazz in San Francisco. Your emcee will be Greg Bridges, host of Jazz Oasis on Tues/Thur and All Out on Thurs.  From the SF Jazz web site:

African Roots of Violin with John Blake

Today is International Jazz Day – to celebrate, watch the Global Concert featuring Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, Robert Glasper, Esperanza Spaulding and more!

The advent of bebop added a fresh sound to American music. It also added new voices to some metropolitan radio stations: the late-night jazz DJs who specialized in presenting this new music to their fellow hipster nightflies. Appreciative musicians often wrote them tributes like these.

Read the entire article at NPR

Kids Learn To Listen While They Chomp  View Original article from NPR

School lunch is often synonymous with loud noise. Studies have shown the in some cafeterias is as high as a lawn mower.

Every so often, though, students at Alice Terry Elementary School, southwest of Denver, are asked not to make any noise.

When the music teacher told students here they’d occasionally have a “silent” lunch break, this was kindergartner Alyssa Norquette’s reaction: “Why do we need a silent lunch? Is it because we’re too loud or something?”

That is the reason there’s a growing movement nationally to have silent lunches. But that’s not music teacher Ami Hall’s reason. She knew students here didn’t have a lot of exposure to live instruments, so she started asking musicians to come in at lunch.

“When you give the kids a chance to hear something that is outside of their range, it allows them to be curious,” she says, “and if they’re curious, they’re better learners in every subject.”

Students soon were hearing a shiny gold saxophone played by Harold Rapp, a local musician. The kids were entranced. As Hall had theorized, being quiet at lunch allowed them to think about what they were hearing.

“It calms me down, and it makes my heart beat slow instead of fast,” second-grader Edson Jimenez says.

Rapp strolls up and down the cafeteria rows, delighting the students.

“I was thinking about when I first saw him, he looked so handsome,” kindergartner Megan Olsen says.

When the saxophonist kicks it up a notch, first-grader Alan Vasquez says he just wants to dance. The upbeat music made other kids want to play their own instruments.

As Rapp plays an ascending scale, all the little hands in Alice Terry Elementary rise higher and higher, high above the crumbs on their plates.

Alligator Records, in collaboration with NPR and public radio stations is now offering a FREE downloadable 17-song sampler to help bring attention to Public Radio Music Month.

ALLIGATOR RECORDS PRESENTS BLUES & ROOTS features songs selected from throughout the label’s storied 42-year history. This sampler will be available through May 11th. You can check out the free sampler here http://bit.ly/10POreT

Get your copy here: http://tinyurl.com/AlligSampler

Celebrate by continuing to listen to and supporting your Jazz Station, KCSM Radio at 91.1fm.

And Consider attending the 44th Annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, aka Jazz Fest, a 10-day cultural feast from April 26th through May 5th, in which thousands of musicians, cooks and craftspeople welcome 400,000 visitors each year. The Louisiana Heritage Fair showcases unforgettable music on multiple stages, delicious Louisiana cuisine in two large food areas, and crafts artisans from the region and around the world demonstrating and selling their work. Log on to Jazz Fest, for more information about this event.

The story of America is embedded in the spirit and rhythms of jazz; captured in beats that have traveled through the African Diaspora and a spirit of freedom that has impassioned slave and free born, immigrant and migrant since America’s founding.

The Spirit and Rhythms of Jazz is the 2013 Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) theme highlighting jazz cultural history, musical performance and stories, programs and productions this April. JAM and UNESCO’s International Jazz Day April 30 provide rich platforms for individuals and communities to explore jazz principles of freedom, inclusion and creativity to learn how jazz has transformed America and inspired the world.

The Smithsonian will present stories, images, and music highlighting various jazz artists and people who helped shape America’s original art form – jazz – over several decades

Show your loyalty to KCSM during Jazz Appreciation Month! Email (photos@kcsm.net) your picture holding “I ♥ KCSM Jazz” or where/however you ♥ KCSM….while you’re listening to jazz, playing jazz, cooking, cleaning, walking the dog, dancing, taking a test, driving (carefully!) whatever and however you love KCSM – the more creative the better. We’ll post it on our website, on Facebook and send them to NPR Music as well!

Performing in and around the San Francisco Bay Area for a number of years, it is evident Anna Maria writes ballads that focus on the human condition. Excerpt from her bio at her Website