Thursday

Good evening, it's Thursday, December 19th. This is the Jive at Five, our daily community calendar and rundown of nighttime programming here on 88.1 FM WESU Middletown. 

By day, WESU offers talk radio from NPR and Pacifica, as well as independent and local public affairs sources. Weeknights and weekends our student and community volunteers bring you the best in free-form programming.

I'm JCherry producer and host of VOICE of the CITY,Tuesday from 8-9PM, Showcasing live and local music, arts, and culture., Thanx for tuning in! 

It’s hard to believe WESU’s 80th anniversary year is almost behind us. Your donation during our holiday pledge drive helps preserve WESUs incredible 8 decade legacy of service and keeps community radio alive, here in central CT. Please consider giving the gift of WESU this holiday season! make your year-end contribution and check out our great thank you gifts online at www.wesufm.org/pledge

Now, here's some of what's happening in our area this week:

At the Buttonwood Tree in Middletown, Lou Sorrentino’s Crystal Bowl Sound Healing and a Gong Bath and Sound Healing will take place Thursday evening. 

Friday at The Buttonwood Tree you can catch the After The Fall's encore performance of their “Early Light” record release show, featuring fusion and progressive rock. The Aligned With Source workshop happens on Saturday morning, and the Ken Serio Jazz Trio takes the stage Saturday night. Enjoy this month’s art exhibit that features Jenavieve Hawks’ mixed media works in “Art of Paradise.”  www.buttonwood.org

In New Haven, at Café Nine, tonight It’s jazz on Thursday with Nick Di Maria Wired, the Rosemary Minkler Trio, and chad browne-springer. You can Enjoy Robbies’s Jam on Friday night with the John Spignesi Band, Not Here, Shorebreak, and more. Tony Dioguardi and Friends are featured at Saturday’s afternoon Jazz Jam session.  Fate, Feldman & Fox take the stage for the late show Saturday night. There’s a Sunday Buzz Holiday Party with Bronson Rock and Roses Wild, and you can Shake “N” Vibrate the evening away with DJ B theT Jr. www.cafenine.com

Up in Hartford, the TheaterWorks production of “Christmas On The Rocks” is scheduled to continue through Sunday. Tonight Off the Record Indie Night at Little River Restoratives. The Wadsworth Athenaeum invites you to the CONNetic Dance fusion-style performance of Nutcracker Suite & Spicy on Friday and Saturday. The city holds a Make Music Hartford: Winter Edition event on Saturday starting at noon at Bushnell Park, with live jazz and a kazoo parade on ice and Sensual Salsa Saturdays happens at the Red Rock Tavern. Don’t forget that Winterfest Hartford at Bushnell Park continues, where you can skate for free seven days a week, or check out the Holiday Light Fantasia at Goodwin Park. Full details at www.hartford.com/events/

At Black-Eyed Sally’s in Hartford, Thursday there’s another session of Liviu’s Invitational. On Friday, Ed Peabody and The Big Blue Thang take the stage, and on Saturday, it’s XY Eli’s Annual Holiday Show, the Blues-Jazz Project featuring Matthew Holmes, and special guests Tony Davis and Savana ones. http://www.blackeyedsallys.com/

At Infinity Norfolk, You can catch bluegrass and Americana with Jerry Douglas on Friday, and on Saturday it’s Celtic, folk, and world music with Eileen Ivers’ Joyful Christmas. At Infinity Hartford, it’s pop and soul on Saturday with Javier Colon. www.infinityhall.com

A dedication concert for the Middletown High School Santo Fragilio Performing Arts Center will take place on Saturday, December 21, 2019 at 7 p.m. located at 200 LaRosa Lane. Fragilio was a former Music Teacher, MHS Band Director and Arts Consultant for the Middletown Public Schools since 1948. Fragilio died in 2017.

The Middletown Symphonic Band will be one of the main acts at this year's Annual Holiday Spectacular and will feature the Middletown High School Music Department and the Connecticut Trombone Christmas Ensemble. An assortment of concert fanfare such as fantasias & medleys will highlight the evening performance with holiday tunes such as "Joy To The World," "Deck The Halls," "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" and other holiday classics. 

Admission is $10 and all proceeds will go to the MHS Music Department. Tickets may be purchased at the Middlesex Music Academy on Main Street, the MHS Music Department, sending an e-mail to symphony@mpsct.org or at the door.

The Wesleyan RJ Julia bookstore hosts a Santa Story Time and Pajama Drive Saturday. www.wesleyanrjjulia.com

The Nick Di Maria Quartet performs live jazz at Conspiracy in Middletown, Saturday night. Details at www.facebook.com/CityArtsOffice/

The Russell Library in Middletown invites to yoga in the Hubbard Room on Saturday morning. Consult the website calendar for more events geared to all patrons, including help sessions for people who are home-insecure. www.russelllibrary.org

The State House Cabaret in New Haven it’s a Latin dance night with A Party Called Pedro. There’s a Holiday Jam Friday night with Neo-soul, R&B, jazz, and more, and they headline Mark C Daniel Saturday night with Pope Joe, Hatfield, D. Cardillo, and much more. www.statehousepresents.com

Toad’s Place brings you their annual John Valby triple-X-Mas show on Friday. On Saturday, they headline Kung Fu, appearing with Strange Machines and The New Motif, for their 9th annual Toys for Tots fundraiser. www.toadsplace.com

Cherry Street Station in Wallingford hosts Metal Before Christmas on Friday with Arcadia Forsaken, All in All, Out in the Distance, and more. On Saturday, it’s a Clash of the Titans with Garbage Barge and Nasty Disaster A.D. www.facebook.com/CherryStreetStation/

Manic Presents hosts Goosmas VI at the Wall Street Theater in Norwalk on Saturday with Goose, TalkPeck Soundsystem, and Doey Joey. They invite you to the Tip the Van Reunion Show Saturday at the Space Ballroom with We Are The Union, Skatune Network, and The Copacetics. www.manicpresents.com

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

Hartford’s Real Art Ways continues three films through Thursday, including “Parasite,” a pitch-black modern Korean fairytale; “Jojo Rabbit,” a WWII satire about a lonely German boy whose mother is hiding a Jewish girl; and “The Two Popes,” an intimate story of the modern-day struggle between Benedict and Francis. All run through Thursday. Upcoming openings include “Honey Boy,” “Burning Cane,” and “Cunningham.” Check the website for details and screening times. www.realartways.org

Trinity College’s Cinestudio continues their run of “63 Up” the latest in the series that follows fourteen British children that began in 1964, through Thursday. On Friday they open a weekend run of “Baraka,” a film of images across 24 countries and six continents, that’s become a Cinestudio holiday alternative tradition. Sundays matinee is the Bolshoi Ballet performance of “The Nutcracker.” On Sunday they open a Christmas-week run of the 1947 classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Full details at http://www.cinestudio.org

Here's the rundown of tonight’s lineup here on WESU 88.1 FM Middletown:

Here's the rundown of tonight’s lineup here on WESU 88.1 FM Middletown:

Right after the Jive, stay tuned for Homegrown with Rob DeRosa. Voted “Best Radio show” in the 2019 CTNOW Hartford reader’s poll,   Homegrown exclusively features Connecticut connected artists where listeners often enjoy pre-release material and in studio interviews with artists, and information about live shows in the area.

From 6:30-8pm, Karen Stein offers peace on air with her show, Imagine, bringing you a soulful mix of music from around world. 

From 8:00-9:30pm, stick around for Evening Jazz, with Bill Denert for 90 minutes of straight ahead jazz with some adventurous offshoots!

From 9:30-11, we bring you books toujours with DJ Arctic Penguin. Taking books to another level.

at 11 -  midnight, JAzzalicious Defniition with DJ Stocks’n’Socks and MC Magee strives to expose listeners to new artists, instruments, cultures, and genres that have been influenced by traditional jazz music.

at midnight stay tuned for Middletown by Moonlight with DJ Monsoon Moon for a tour of rare and obscure albums from around the globe.

From 1-2amLil Kugel presents isn’t life strange, offering a cross genre mix of songs that epitomize our pasts, define our present selves, and predict our futures.

at 2am stay tuned for the hour of slack from The Church of the Sudgenius.

from 3-4am we’ll rebroadcast our noontime edition of Democracy Now! from Pacifica.

And finally, rounding out the night from 4-5am is the BBC World Report offering International news coverage and we kick off each weekday at 5am with Morning Edition from NPR.

As we ease into the WESU fall pledge drive, we ask that you reflect on how WESU has contributed to the quality of your life. Does the service we provide keep you informed, entertained, or perhaps even enlightened? Do we bring you content you cannot elsewhere? As a community radio station, these are our goals and we are glad to have your ear, but there is no community radio without listener support. We need your donation, no matter how big or how small, to keep the station going. Donate online at www.wesufm.org/pledge  

That’s all for today’s Jive at Five. Catch us each weekday at 4:55pm for this daily community calendar and run down of night time programming here on WESU Middletown, one of the nation’s first student owned and operated radio stations, celebrating 80 years of community service in 2019!

Stay tuned for a stiff dose of homegrown with Robbie DeRosa, up next!