NPR to webcast jazz concert series

NPR Music and WBGO/Jazz88.3FM in Newark, NJ, will webcast and broadcast a concert series from the legendary New York City jazz club The Village Vanguard. The “Live at The Village Vanguard” series begins next week and will offer monthly concerts for live, free streaming at www.NPR.org/music Concerts in the series will also be broadcast live on WBGO/Jazz88.3FM, and be available at www.WBGO.org

“Live at The Village Vanguard” begins on June 11 with Guillermo Klein y Los Guachos, the Argentine pianist and composer and his 11-piece band. On June 18, NPR Music and WBGO present a live show with jazz drummer Brian Blade, in performance with the Fellowship Band. Other scheduled concerts are the Uri Caine Trio on July 1; the Kenny Barron Quintet on August 27; jazz legends Paul Motian, Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano on September 3; the Bill Charlap Trio on October 8; the Ravi Coltrane Quartet on November 19; and the Cedar Walton Quartet on December 17. For a complete list of concerts in the series and show times, visit www.NPR.org/music, where all concerts will be archived.

The concerts will be hosted by WBGO’s Josh Jackson, who will also live blog and webchat from the club at www.WBGO.org/blog Concerts will begin at approximately 9:00PM (ET).

“Live at The Village Vanguard” is the first jazz concert series to be live webcast by NPR Music and the latest addition to the site’s popular “Concerts” section, which features hundreds of regional and national web concerts and adds more than 15 new performances each month. The series continues NPR Music’s long tradition of presenting live performance jazz on air and online. In 2007, the 28th annual Toast of the Nation special rang in the New Year with nine hours of live jazz from coast to coast and NPR Music offered full concerts from the Monterey Jazz Festival.

NPR Music’s extensive “Jazz & Blues” section offers hundreds of new and archived concerts, studio sessions, podcasts, interviews, stories and reviews from NPR and the NPR Member stations WBGO Newark, KPLU Seattle, WDUQ Pittsburgh and WGBH Boston. The site is home to two weekly NPR jazz programs: JazzSet® with Dee Dee Bridgewater, hosted by Grammy and Tony-winner Bridgewater and co-produced by WBGO, and the Peabody Award-winning performance show Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. Also new to the “Jazz & Blues” section is “Take Five: A Weekly Jazz Sampler,” five-song jazz listening sets picked by musicians, NPR Music staff and public radio personalities. The “Jazz Profiles” online series and podcast connects users with the greatest performers in the history of jazz.

NPR Music launched in November 2007 as a free, comprehensive music discovery destination, featuring content from NPR and 12 NPR Member public radio stations, as well as original-to-NPR Music features such as live performances, studio sessions, interviews, reviews and blogs. In addition to jazz, other sections of the site are dedicated to rock/pop/folk, classical, world and urban music. The site culls from NPR’s and the stations’ extensive music archives to present thousands of features; links connect users with jazz podcasts and the stations’ live music streams.