Friday's Jive 12-20-13

Good evening, it's Friday, December 20^th, and this is the Jive at Five - WESU's Daily community calendar and run down of night time programming here on 88.1 FM WESU Middletown, your station for NPR, Pacifica, independent and local public affairs by day and the best in free-form community programming week nights and weekends. I'm Stephan Allison, host of River Valley Rhythms heard Thursdays at 4 pm here at WESU. Thanks for tuning in.

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For the latest in local arts and entertainment anytime you're not hearing it on our Jive, go to arts2GO.org – the City’s website for what’s going on and what’s to do with a highlight on the arts in Middletown. That's arts2GO.org

Now, here’s a rundown of some of what’s scheduled in the community this weekend.

Here in Middletown tonight the JPJ -  454 Jazz Project  takes The Buttonwood Tree stage.  Saturday morning, it’s Qigong (Chi Kung), Tai Chi, community yoga and an empowerment workshop. Saturday afternoon’s Spoken Word session at 4 explores the intersection of faith, gender and sexuality. The Buttonwood is especially looking for poets to present work on the topic. Saturday night at 8pm, you can catch some Celtic folk music and storytelling by The Jolly Beggars. It's a very busy Sunday at The Buttonwood Tree starting off with Food Not Bombs serving food outside at 1 pm, as Rumpus, an invitation to express the rhythm inside you, takes place inside. All are welcome. You are also invited to help prepare the vegetarian meal beforehand at 11 am at First Church Congregational on Court Street. Sunday afternoon at 3, and then again at 7, Peter Loffredo presents Dylan Thomas’s holiday classic, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” Admission to this Connecticut Heritage Productions show is by donation, plus a non-perishable food item for the Amazing Grace pantry. Learn more at www.buttonwood.org

Up in Hartford at Blackeyed Sally’s tonight Devon Allman (Gregg Allman’s son) performs. Saturday, it’s the X Y Eli Xmas Xtravaganza, with guitarist Eli X. Find out more at www.blackeyedsallys.com

Also in Hartford at Sully’s Pub tonight The Winter Wimbash is the main event, hosted by foundation bass man and musical innovation, Doug Wimbish featuring Skip McDonald, Keith Lablanc & more. www.sullyspub.com has more listings.

Down in New Haven at Café Nine at 5 this evening catch Gary Heriot, followed at 9 by The Wagon Riders and DJ Dave Coon. Saturday afternoon’s Jazz Jam Session is with Tony Dioguardi & Friends. That’s followed at 9 by The Anti-Emo Empire Benefit/Reunion Show, with No Image, 76 % Uncertain, The Mistaken, The Coquettes, and Malcolm Tent. Sunday’s Original Sunday Night Jam is with the Morris Trent Band. For more, visit www.cafenine.com.

Manic Productions brings several shows to nearby venues this week. Tonight, Manic Productions presents at The Space in Hamden I Am The Avalanche, Wolves At Bay, Canvas, and Life On The Sideline. Saturday at The Space, Manic Productions presents Their / They're / There (with Owen & Into It. Over It); as well as Mansions and Birthmark (with Nate Kinsella from Joan of Arc and Make Believe). For the complete listing of Manic events visit www.manicproductions.com

Tonight, Toad’s Place in New Haven it's the John Valby Triple-X-mas Show. Saturday, Kung Fu plays at Toad’s, along with The Stepkids, Twiddle and Norrin. Sunday, Gorilla Music presents the New Haven Jingle Bell Rock & Metal Fest, with a long list of bands who’ll perform on two stages. Details about this and other shows can be found at www.toadsplace.com

Back in Middletown, tonight at Scatz Restaurant and Jazz Lounge, 139 Main Street Ext., Middletown, Sez Zion performs. Saturday brings the Alvin Carter Project to Scatz. Visit www.scatzrestaurantandlounge.com. That's Scatz with a "C" and a “Z”.

And on Sunday afternoon at 1:30, the Jovan Alexander Trio plays jazz at Sweet Harmony Café and Bakery, 330 Main St. in Middletown.

Now here's a rundown of cinema off the beaten track in Central Connecticut:

At Real Art Ways in Hartford, opening tonight and running through next week is "Following the Ninth": part road trip, part adventure story, it's an inspirational film about Beethoven's Ninth, the power it has to liberate us, to shield us against suffering, and to provide hope and resilience for us in dark times. Also opening this evening is the animated children’s tale, "My Neighbor Totoro". The story follows Satsuke and Mei, two young girls who find that their new country home is in a mystical forest inhabited by a menagerie of mystical creatures called Totoros. This family-oriented feature has a powerful ecological theme. Film details and schedules are found at www.realartways.com

And at Cinestudio, the Trinity College cinema in Hartford, playing through Saturday is "Samsara" in 4K by Ron Fricke, a mesmerizing non-verbal visual experience celebrating the diversity and inter-connectedness of life on Earth, shot in 100 locations and 25 countries. Samsara - a Sanskrit word meaning the ever turning wheel of life - was made, according to Fricke, to “delve deeper into my favorite theme: humanity’s relationship to the eternal.” The images of unprecedented clarity were created by shooting on 65mm film, then transferring the film through the highest resolution scanning process available. And, opening Sunday, at 2:30 and showing again at 7:30 then running through Christmas Eve, you can catch the 1946 Frank Capra classic "It’s a Wonderful Life". www.cinestudio.org is your internet stop for film details.

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And now let’s take a look at tonight’s programming on WESU.

Right after the Jive At Five from 5:05 to 6:00pm it’s
 Chocolate Cake with DJ Rob. An hour long musical sugar high. Power-pop plus Brit-pop and singer/songwriters from the 60's to today.

Coming in at 6:30 it's a half-hour with the Middletown Youth Radio Project - A weekly radio program featuring the thoughts, voices, creativity and talent of the

kids in the WESU neighborhood.

At 7 until 8:30pm we have the Universal Sound Wave with Sistah Tee - Informing listeners about local and global issues with health, nutrition, and stress reduction tips, featuring a wide range of music including African, reggae, gospel, R&B, Latin, and blues.

Next up until 10pm, we take it
 From the Otherside with 
Rok-A-Dee - The Voice of Hartford, including local artists from Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He also features upcoming artists performing Caribbean R & B, Soca and international music.

From 10 until Midnight, we go 
In the Master Bedroom, Under the Bed with 
Dope Dave - Celebrating conscious hip-hop and its offshoots & influences. Acrobatic emcees and down-tempo poets mix it up over varied oceans of sound.

At Midnight until 2am Saturday we go into OVERDRIVE with Clarence Scott and Shantay Scott - taking the word of God and mixing it with the music of God then shifting it into overdrive! Praising God with the best Urban Contemporary, Hip Hop, and Traditional gospel music on the planet!

At 2 to 2:30am it's Bassment Beats with DJ Lokash - Celebrating its 10th year of bringing you the latest in aboveground & underground hip-hop mixed live.

Then at 2:30 until 3am catch the New World Show from Pacifica - The best in Global Bass mixed live. Baila coño!

The next hour 'til 4am it's Maximum Rock & Roll Radio - A weekly radio show featuring the best international DIY punk, garage rock and hardcore from the astounding, ever-growing Maximum Rock n roll radio record collection.

+Sing Out! Radio Magazine with Tom Druckenmiller comes on at 4 until 5am with a weekly, hour-long “magazine format” program, featuring interviews in addition to “live” and recorded traditional folk musics.

And we bring in the daylight from 5:00 to 6:00am with the 
BBC World News 
- a daily News roundup from the British Broadcasting Corporation

And staying on the other side of the big pond, from 6:00 to 7:00am it’s
 the Celtic Café
 with Pat Laffan and Mark Gallagher presenting traditional and contemporary music with a Celtic connection.

And now that the coffee’s hot enjoy Caffé Italia from 7:00 to 8:00am 
with Francesco Fiumara, the former host of WESU's own WESParla 
 - A weekly roundup of news, music and memories from Italy.

That’s all for today’s Jive At Five, tune in each and every weekday at 4:55 pm to hear about what’s going on in the community and on the air right here at 88.1 FM WESU, a community service of Wesleyan University since 1939.

The Music behind today’s Jive At Five is from Kevin Norton’s Metaphor Quartet, a CD entitled Not Only In That Golden Tree . . . featuring (the late) Wilber Morris, Masahiko Kono, Hitomi Tono’Oka and Kevin Norton, the selection “not drunk, but stunned” and it’s out on clean feed records.

The written form for what you've heard on today’s jive is online at wesufm.org/jive 

And if you value WESU as a source for information and entertainment in your life, how about supporting the station with a donation? You can make that donation online at wesufm.org anytime. Thanks for listening!