Into the New Year on KUVO Jazz

KUVO celebrates the New Year with music! Host Steve Chavis has been poring over the releases from 2021 and his “Best Of” list is an effort to get a little more play for some projects that really deserve more “shine.” Tune in mornings this week to hear tracks you might have missed, but won’t forget, including “Tough Baritones” (Ronnie Cuber & Gary Smulyan), “The Latin Side of Wes Montgomery” (Nelson Riveros), “Ledisi Sings Nina Simone,” “Squirmin’” (Jazz WORMS) and more.

On Tuesday, December 28, we end with a bang! Geoff Anderson’s Vinyl Vault unearths the classic Bill Withers LP “+’ Justments.” The Vinyl Vault is every Tuesday evening around 8:30 p.m. Later on Tuesday Jazz Odyssey, it’s the “Best of 2021.” Host Moe Velez kicks it off at 10 pm. He says, “So many great albums came out over this past year, we’ll hear lots of new music. No roots tonight, just branches.”

On the Wednesday Night Beat – Jazz Beyond Category, host Doug Crane, says goodbye and good riddance to 2021 by featuring a couple of tunes from “First Flight to Tokyo, the Lost 1961 recordings” capturing Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers live in performance on their first tour of Japan sixty years ago and never available until now. Doug begins on Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m.

On New Year’s Eve, we’re pleased to present NPR’s “Toast of the Nation.” A tradition every New Year’s Eve since the 1970s, “Toast of the Nation” is the perfect audio compliment for the occasion. It’s festive jazz you can party to, all night long, even if you’re on “lockdown.” With an exciting line-up of artists all recorded during the pandemic, one with a small audience and three without, this music is a fitting way to ring in the new year. Hear sets from The Catherine Russell Trio recorded at Dizzy Club at Jazz At Lincoln Center in NYC (October 2020); The Jazz Gallery All-Stars, recorded at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC (October 2020); KOKOROKO, recorded at Royal Albert Hall in London (July 2020); and Pink Martini, recorded in Portland, Oregon (November 2020.)

On Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022, the newest Canción Mexicana host Larry Lobato Jr. rings in the New Year with brand new music from Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. Larry’s been in the music business himself for years, so he’s been reaching out to all his friends and contacts with bands and studios around the Southwest for the latest recordings. Catch what’s new on Cancion Mexicana, Sundays from 9:00 to 1:00 p.m. only on KUVO Jazz.

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