A membership of $60 or higher entitles you to a copy of 1957-58 Wes Montgomery. Get your copy and a 22-page booklet during our spring fundraiser, April 11-20. Wes Montgomery, perhaps the most important jazz guitarist of all time, recorded a live session that never made it on to vinyl. Resonance Records has mastered the session [...]

April 11 – 20 We’re Takin’ It to Another Level Keeping the Signal Alive Update Thanks to you our new digital transmitter is up an running. With our old transmitter serving as a back-up, we can now provide you with uninterrupted programming 24-7! Volunteers Needed WNCU is looking for community volunteers. If you are interested, [...]

In keeping with Women’s History Month, WNCU will present a special Jazz Profiles  program every Sunday in March from 8 – 9 p.m.  This is in tribute to some of the legendary female artists who have had a large impact on jazz and raised the bar for every musician. March 4 – Billie Holiday March [...]

Tuesday, February 21, 7 pm Lenora Zenzalai Helm Faculty Recital Not Voice As Usual B. N. Duke Auditorium Not Voice As Usual, is an evening performance of songs which speak to using one’s voice to bring to bear justice, equality, or, for, out, and if necessary, against silence at times deemed crucial for action.  As [...]

February 5, at 3 p.m. – Wailin’ Soul: Bob Marley and the African-American Connection A 60-minute music rich special on Bob Marley and how African American music influenced him and Reggae music. February 7, at 7 p.m. – The Faces of Poverty Special As part of an ongoing initiative to serve our listeners in the [...]

Composer, arranger and pianist Clare Fischer died Thursday, Jan. 26, his website has announced. He was 83. The L.A. Times reports that he died of complications from a heart attack suffered two weeks ago. Fischer was a respected improvising pianist, but left his biggest mark behind the scenes as a composer, arranger and studio musician [...]

This weekend, we learned that the jazz businessman John Levy died on Friday. His wife, Devra Hall Levy, announced the news on Saturday in a press release available on John Levy’s website, Lushlife. He was nearly 100 years old. Levy was once a musician of some renown — he played bass with Billie Holiday, Stuff [...]

In 1974, trumpeter Jimmy Owens helped prepare and played on a Carnegie Hall concert of Thelonious Monk’s music. On the night in question, the orchestra featured a surprise soloist: Monk himself. It was one of the pianist’s last public performances. Thirty-eight years later, Owens has just been honored as a Jazz Master by the National [...]

The 8th Annual Valentine’s Day Jazz Concert will take place on Sunday, February 12, at 4 p.m., in Duke University’s Reynolds Industries Theater.  The concert will feature the Duke Jazz Ensemble, North Carolina Central University Jazz Ensemble and UNC-Chapel Hill Jazz Ensemble.  General admission is $15, students and senior citizen admission is $10.  For more [...]

The “Matriarch of the Blues” has died. Music legend Etta James died Friday morning at Riverside Community Hospital in California of complications from leukemia. She was 73. She was born Jamesetta Hawkins in Los Angeles in 1938. Her first manager and promoter cut up Jamesetta’s name and reversed it: Etta James. Her talent was discovered [...]