Emmy nomination in hand, Don Wolff's I Love Jazz is ready for a second season on HEC-TV

An episode of the HEC-TV series I Love Jazz, hosted by longtime St. Louis DJ and jazz advocate Don Wolff, has been nominated for a local Emmy Award in the category of "Special Event Coverage (other than news or sports) Live or Edited" by the Mid-America Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

The nominated episode, "I Love Jazz Live," was a combined production of I Love Jazz and HEC-TV LIVE and originally was cablecast last October from the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum on the campus of Washington University.

Using the Museum's then-current "Birth of the Cool" exhibit as a jumping-off point, the episode explored the interactions of jazz music, art and architecture during the 1950s via an interview with Michael Murawski of the Kemper Museum and music from an ensemble led by guitarist and Wash U faculty member William Lenihan. As host, Wolff shares the Emmy nomination with John Baker (Producer/Director), Kim Sturm (Technical Director), Dennis Riggs (Executive Producer), Tim Gore (Producer/Co-Host) and Madeline Dames (Associate Producer).

NATAS Mid-America is one of 19 regional chapters of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and includes television markets in Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois, plus neighboring cities in Kentucky, Iowa and Louisiana. This year's Emmy winners will be announced at a banquet to be held Saturday, October 3 at the Renaissance Grand Hotel downtown.

In addition to the Emmy nomination, I Love Jazz recently received four Telly awards, which recognize local, regional, and cable television programs and commercials; video and film productions; and work created for the Web. The "I Love Jazz Live" episode won two Silver Telly awards (the competition's top honor) in the categories of Cultural and Live Event, while an earlier episode featuring singer Jeanne Trevor and Dave Venn won Silver Tellys in the Cultural and Entertainment categories.

Associate producer Madeline Dames said I Love Jazz will kick off its second season on Thursday, September 3 with a program featuring pianist Carolbeth True and Two Times True and pianist/singer Curt Landes.

Other episodes in the new season will feature singer Denise Thimes (pictured with Don Wolff), taped in June at the Sheldon Concert Hall; guitarist/singer John Pizzarelli, who was recorded in April at the Touhill Performing Arts Center; and performances from "A Night of Jazz Greats," the benefit concert for the Wolff Jazz Institute featuring Clark Terry and an all-star band that will be held this coming Saturday at Harris-Stowe State University.

In addition, Dames said the I Love Jazz team also has produced another program called A Conversation with... that features an hour-long interview between Wolff and pianist Peter Martin. This show, recorded last summer at Jazz at the Bistro, also will premiere during September.

I Love Jazz can be seen on HEC-TV at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Sundays and 8:00 a.m. Saturdays; HEC-TV is found on Channel 26 on Charter Cable and Channel 99 on AT&T's U-Verse network. Episodes of the program also can be downloaded for free by visiting http://www.hectv.org/ or from Apple's iTunes U. (Look under the "Beyond University" tab, then go to "H" for HEC-TV).

Regarding the latter, Dames said that I Love Jazz is the HEC-TV program most frequently downloaded from iTunes. In July, the show was featured in the "Hot News Headlines" section of the home page at Apple.com, resulting in more than 47,000 Web visitors and more than 15,000 free downloads of I Love Jazz episodes and its companion curriculum.

(Edited after posting to fix a typo.)