Slam Academy is place for musicians to learn the digital side of music-making, whether as a producer, a DJ, a composer, a recording technician, a sound designer, or any number of ways technology is used in all corners of today’s music industry. Co-founder J. Anthony Allen and Recruitment Specialist Tanya Lano joined Emily Reese on...Read More

Jazz88 and the North High Radio class presented the annual Student Awards Ceremony Thursday night, May 24th at the Davis Center, Minneapolis Public Schools’ headquarters. The event honored achievement and excellence in radio broadcasting among high school students participating in this long-running curriculum. Students, families and staff enjoyed a delicious sandwich buffet from Barbette. The keynote...Read More

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. To honor that and to do what can be done to “Smash the Stigma,” two board members of Dissonance,  Katy Vernon and Carl Atiya Swanson, stopped by to explain the function of their wellness organization. Pianist and vocalist Sophia Shorai was kind enough to share a bit of her story and...Read More

In the first four months of 2018, Jazz88 has achieved the highest audience share of any major-market full-time Jazz radio station in the United States.  The Nielsen Audio ratings for the January through April period of 2018 show Jazz88 topped Jazz stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Orlando, Denver and Portland on the critical measure of Average AQH Share: put...Read More

Still charming audiences in his eighth decade, singer/pianist Freddy Cole talked about his new cd, growing up Cole and his shows at Crooners May 19th and 20th. Here’s a bit of his conversation with Kevin O’Connor:     More Posts for Show: The Afternoon CruiseRead More

Memorial Day 2018 will find Jazz88 offering some special programming, commencing after The Morning Show with Patty Peterson. 9 a.m.  The USAF Airmen of Note, the Air Force’s premier jazz ensemble, will entertain with a program including the multitalented. Nnenna Freelon. 10 a.m.  Jazz in the Target Atrium will feature the ever-evolving Atrium Ensemble backing...Read More

The 4th annual Junior Iron Chef Competition took place at Solar Arts by Chowgirls on Thursday, May 10. Four teams, comprised of two middle-school-aged students and one adult chef, cooked two dishes on the fly in 60 minutes and presented it to the eight celebrity judges. Jazz88’s Emily Reese and Justus Sanchez went to the...Read More

With their project The Lost Forty, Bemidji native Brian Miller and Wisconsinite Randy Gosa explore the Irish roots of much of the music that echoed through our region’s big pine forests more than a century ago.  Many of the lumberjacks were of Irish ancestry, thus so were the songs that made the work more pleasant...Read More

Singer/songwriter Annie Fitzgerald is getting set to unleash a work of pure beauty: “You And Me And The Sun” on June 1 at The Hook And Ladder. Here’s most of our chat: Originally aired May 10, 2018 on The Afternoon Cruise with Kevin O’Connor. More Posts for Show: The Afternoon CruiseRead More

St. Paul Ballet will complete its season in 1920s New York City. Carmen is an original ballet by Artistic Director Zoé Emilie Henrot with music by composer Richard Erickson. The St. Paul Ballet brings audiences at The O’Shaughnessy in St. Paul back to the F. Scott Fitzgerald era with a fresh adaptation on the 1875 opera, Carmen, by French...Read More