Local ‘80s and ‘90s jazz acts reunite for KCCK’s 50th anniversary concert series

In the last 50 years, much has changed in the music industry, especially in how you listen.

Between changes from physical media to the now ubiquitous world of streaming, ways to appreciate music are changing. What you listen to, also, is changing.

In 2025, Jazz is not the most popular music genre. Neither is FM radio the select medium for listening. The masses would largely prefer listening to the top popular songs on Sirius XM during their commute; jazz, on FM radio? For many, it is unheard of.

But 88.3 KCCK-FM, Kirkwood Community College’s jazz radio program, is celebrating 50 years of bringing jazz to the air in Eastern Iowa. With a 60-mile service area from its tower on Kirkwood’s Cedar Rapids campus, the station’s DJs advertise the genre’s wide breadth of sounds, from classic Duke and Basie big band records to ‘70s funk fusion and everything in between.

This year marks the 50th anniversary, though the station only received its official license in 1975. It actually began broadcasting in 1972, KCCK General Manager Dennis Green said, starting as a class project by Kirkwood students.

For three years, the station was on-again-off-again with an experimental license and a low-range transmitter, he said.

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Green said then Kirkwood President Selby Ballantyne, upon finding out the station signal was too weak to have any impactful range, adopted a mindset of “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right.”

So, after barely passing approval for a non-commercial FM radio license and piecing together a transmitter with parts from the University of Northern Iowa, KCCK officially began licensed broadcasting in July 1975.

Concert series celebrates 50 years

KCCK is commemorating this milestone with a special lineup of acts that defined the Eastern Iowa Jazz scene in the late 20th century for its annual “Jazz Under The Stars.” The concert series is 6:30 p.m. every Thursday in August at Noelridge Park and broadcast on KCCK.

These popular local jazz acts are both the cause and the effect for jazz, blues and funk music to be so popular in Eastern Iowa, Green said in a release from KCCK.

“We’ve planned for some time that during KCCK’s 50th Anniversary year, we wanted to bring back some of the musicians and bands that laid the groundwork for our corner of Iowa to be such a hotbed of live music,” Green said in the release.

In addition to memorable 20th century acts, student-led groups from area colleges and universities are set to headline each performance, illustrating what Green called “a commitment to jazz education and tradition.”

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The yearly concert series will reunite bands like Al Naylor’s I-380 Express and Funk Legends, among more Eastern Iowa original acts, which Green said area natives will recognize from the local music scene in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Green described Eastern Iowa as an arts and music-rich environment, especially due to the various arts programs at the University of Iowa, Cornell College, Mount Mercy and “world-class” organizations like Orchestra Iowa.

“When you grow up in this area, chances are you or somebody in your family plays an instrument ... and what we have said for many years on KCCK is that our mission is not just to play jazz on the radio,” he said. “It's to help create and support an environment where music and the arts is valued.”

88.3 KCCK is one way to grow interest in jazz in Eastern Iowa. Not just jazz specifically, but he believes a commitment to radio as an independent form of presentation continues to be valuable to the strong, long-running community which has developed.

“We really think that having a local broadcast outlet with actual, real life people who love what they do and are putting music on the air because they like it, and they think that it's something that you will like, is that kind of handcrafted approach is something that continues to be valuable,” he said.

Daugherty, Davis, and McPartland

Of all the bands which defined and helped embed the root of jazz in Eastern Iowa, Green said the most exciting one to see reunite, for the first time since the early 1990s, is the trio of Daugherty, Davis, and McPartland.

“It seemed like whatever led them to not play together was over and that it might be fun to get together one more time,” Green said. “So that was one that we definitely wanted to do. And I was really, really pleased when we were able to put that together.”

The trio met at Washington High School, Green said, but the Daugherty trio has a more extensive branch of musical interest, all spawning from Cedar Rapids. Michael Daugherty, an acclaimed composer, teaches at the University of Michigan.

Tim Daugherty, one of the three in the trio, credited his brother and family for building a large part of the musical infrastructure, especially in Cedar Rapids, saying his brother Michael had a large role in the development of Washington High School’s jazz program decades ago.

Additionally, Daugherty, Davis, and McPartland are all honored in the Washington High School Music Hall of Fame, and Daugherty said reuniting after 28 years since their last gig just “feels right.”

“I saw Dennis Green at a Jazz Under the Stars concert, and he said, ‘Tim, Daugherty, Davis, and McPartland 2025.’ I said, ‘You know, I think it’s about time.’ That got the ball rolling,” Daugherty said.

Since the group’s last performance on Des Moines public television 28 years ago, Daugherty said, the trio separated. Daugherty moved to the West Coast, with Davis settling on the East and McPartland remaining in Iowa. The reunion — and the music he plans to bring to the stage — will be full of love for the music and the fans.

“I’m looking forward to coming back and being on the stage,” he said. “A lot of love will be on the stage, and I hope to see a lot of love from people who witnessed our band over 30 years ago.”

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evan.watson@thegazette.com