July, 2025

Drummer Curtis Nowosad's I AM DOING MY BEST is the Inaugural Breaking Jazz Pick of the Week

And somehow also underscores the resonance of the Coen Brothers' A SERIOUS MAN in times of torment and perceived powerlessness.

Join Us for a Live Concert Celebration of the Harlem Renaissance

On Thursday evening, July 31, KSDS presents Duke Ellington’s Harlem: Nights at the Cotton Club

Hi there, Matt Silver of KSDS coming to you from our innovation labs here on the campus of San Diego City College with good news and bad. Here’s the bad: despite our best efforts, time travel remains only theoretically possible at this time. Decreased government funding of public media has all but guaranteed that our time machine development project won’t be ready for the next pledge drive. 

The good news is that here at KSDS, we’re mighty resourceful.

This Summer, School is Back in Session

With the third semester of KSDS's Jazz University: The Harlem Renaissance to the Dawn of the Swing Era

After surveying sporting houses of Storyville and the speakeasies of South Side Chicago, KSDS’s Jazz University returns with its most ambitious semester yet. Like Porgy, Bess, Sportin' Life, and George Gershwin before us, we’ve got our sights set on New York City, and KSDS GM and resident jazz historian Ken Poston is just the man to shepherd us all the way uptown without having to bear the expense of a monthly Metrocard.

Jack Montrose: The Man Behind the Music

The writer and arranger’s contributions to California’s ‘West Coast Sound’ can’t be erased…even if they’re not really all that well remembered.

Saxophonist, composer, and arranger Jack Montrose, pictured here in 1954. His arrangements would be recorded that year by ensembles led by Chet Baker and Clifford Brown. Photo by William Claxton.

By Matt Silver

A man with talent wants the world. Even if he’s too modest or mannered to announce it aloud, or to himself, there’s a part of him that sees one possible future where everything breaks his way. But what does such a man deserve? Maybe it’s fair, if harsh, to say that he doesn’t deserve anything. That no one deserves anything. But if you’ve some combination of natural talent, acquired skill, and the nerve to open yourself to the world’s judgment, all you can really ask for is a window of a few years to show what you’re capable of, come what may.