We're continuing the celebration of the 125th birthday of Edward Kennedy Ellington - The Duke. Distinguished as a composer, pianist, and bandleader, the musical contributions of Edward Kennedy Ellington helped elevate and evolve jazz to new creative heights. Help KCSM Jazz 91 keep the legacy of Duke alive by picking up a special limited Absolutely Essential Duke Ellington 3CD set with a Duke Ellington T-shirt. Or, be a Jazz Angel - no amount is too small and no amount is too great to keep Duke's music spinning on Jazz 91.

Filmmaker Martin Shore started his professional creative life as a touring musician and brings that experience and sensibility to his diverse record and movie projects. His latest film, Take Me To The River: New Orleans, follows his directorial debut with his film Take Me To The River: Memphis. Both films focus on Shore’s desire to promote tolerance and respect for all people and cultures by showing how cross-cultural collaboration in music has positively impacted our society. The soundtrack for Take Me To The River: New Orleans is available now and the film starts streaming on all platforms this month

Details Coming Soon.

The Jazz Legacy kicks off its first show with READY FOR FREDDIE: Freddie Hubbard, Part 1: Composer, a focus on the trumpet giant’s underappreciated original compositions. With Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, and on his own solo albums. Hear “Thermo”, “Little Sunflower”, “Lament For Booker”, and more.

This week pays tribute to a very dynamic, soulful and often passed over R&B female vocalist: Lil Greenwood. Today, Lil Greenwood is best remembered as a vocalist for Duke Ellington during the late '50s and early '60s, but it's her R&B recordings from 1950-1954 that are the real standouts. She recorded for the Modern, Specialty and Federal labels and often had vocal groups like The Four Jacks and The Lamplighters backing her up. Hear Lil's story and some of her greatest records.

In celebration of Ron Carter’s birthday (May 4), hear a conversation with the iconic bassist and our host Christian McBride with music handpicked from Ron Carter’s storied discography.

Throughout his long career, Duke Ellington composed hundreds of instrumentals and dozens of songs that turned out to be real songs which demanded lyrics and that could sell widely enough to keep the Ellington Orchestra going. The premise of this edition of the Annals of Jazz is to show how Duke Ellington kept his orchestra financially alive by producing songs that became best sellers and kept his orchestra economically solvent.