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The New Cool: First Ever New Cool Showcase At Folklife

Daniel Berman
/
www.bermanphotos.com
They all got in free! Gotta love Folklife.

It’s one thing to play the coolest modern jazz on the radio for a couple hours each Saturday; it’s quite another to take the show directly to the people.

The full schedule for the 46th annual Northwest Folklife Festival has been released, and we couldn’t be more excited to bring you three of The New Cool’s favorite modern jazz groups from the Pacific Northwest live on stage at the iconic Memorial Day weekend music and arts extravaganza at the Seattle Center.

On May 27, from 1 to 4 p.m., the beautiful Fountain Lawn Stage will be taken over by New Cool perennials D’Vonne Lewis and his band Limited Edition, Tacoma quartet Velocity and Seattle groovers The New Triumph.

Your host Abe Beeson will be there to introduce the bands and meet listeners, and these three innovative modern jazz groups will team up to spread the word – modern jazz is thriving in the Northwest.

As always, admission to Northwest Folklife is free, and there’s more fun to be had with KNKX beneath the Space Needle that weekend. Bring the whole family and stop by the KNKX booth just west of the Fountain Stage and pick up some free goodies, say hi to the station crew, and purchase the first-ever KNKX t-shirts.

Also happening with the full support of KNKX – don’t miss the High School Dance Showcase with live big band jazz from Garfield and Nathan Hale High Schools, as well as the amazing Eckstein Middle School Jazz Band from 3 to 6 on Friday in the Armory. New Cool host and School of Jazz teen musician wrangler Abe Beeson will host this event.

On Memorial Day Monday from 6 to 8, All Blues host John Kessler will be on hand to emcee a blues showcase at the Fountain Lawn Stage with Sheri Grimes, Stacy Jones & Nick Vigarino. Big thanks to the gang at Northwest Folklife for letting us join in on their party.

As KNKX works to connect with our community of listeners, this is an early opportunity to rub elbows with the host and favored musicians of The New Cool, we would love to meet you there! In the meantime, enjoy and share these live studio session performances from our New Cool Folklife showcase bands: D’Vonne Lewis Limited Edition, and Velocity sets were magical. We hope to bring in The New Triumph eventually, until then enjoy this session from the group’s drummer Adam Kessler and his Barca Band All-Stars.

Bonus content: This week’s giveaways include the brand new self-titled album from duende libre, and tickets to the CD release show for trumpeter Jared Hall’s new album, "Hallways." 

The New Cool airs Saturdays at 3:00 p.m. The program is hosted by Abe Beeson and produced by KNKX Public Radio in Seattle, Wash.