Jackie Allen & Hans Sturm

This summer enjoy Jazz in June from the comfort of your own home.

Jackie’s extraordinary talent has taken her on tours of Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. Nationally she has toured both coasts and in-between, appearing in Los Angeles (Catalina’s), San Francisco (Yoshi’s), San Diego (Humphrey’s), and in New York (Blue Note, Josef Papp Public Theater). Regionally she was featured with the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic in Chicago’s Millennium Park and Auditorium Theater for an Ella Fitzgerald Celebration. She has performed international music festivals in Detroit, Chicago, The Hague, Stuttgart, Edinburgh, Bologna, Beijing, Hong Kong, Thessaloniki, and SaoPaulo among others.

Locally, Jackie was the 2018 recipient of Lincoln’s Mayor’s Arts Award, receiving the Artistic Achievement Performing Award and was featured on A Prairie Home Companion where she gave Garrison Keillor a “voice lesson”.“This is four-hundred-dollar-a-bottle jazz –no cheap imitation.” –Rolling Stone Born in Milwaukee, WI, Jackie grew up surrounded by music with her father playing Dixieland jazz tuba. She attended U.W. Madison studying Voice and Jazz. In Chicago she began her recording career for Blue Note Records and others, recording 12 critically acclaimed CDs, most notably: Santa Baby, The Men In My Life, Love Is Blue, Tangled, Starry Night with orchestra, My Favorite Color (USAToday’s Top 10 List). Her most recent release is a live concert DVD and CD in late 2019 entitled "A Romantic Evening with Jackie Allen" recorded and filmed in the historic Rococo Theater in Lincoln and featuring tenor sax legend Bob Sheppard. A 30-minute version of this program is being broadcast nationally on PBS-TV. Jackie has served on the Board of Governors and Jazz Nominating Committee for the Recording Academy, “Grammy Awards” and has recorded with numerous Grammy winning artists and producers. She created and instructs the adult primer course, Torch Singer 101 and teaches Vocal Improvisation and Songwriting at Doane University in Crete.Jackie lives in Lincoln with her husband Hans Sturm and son, Wolfgang.

Hans Sturm has toured six continents, making a wide range of music. He has performed Piazzolla tangoswith trumpet and marimba in João Pessoa, Brazil; Beethoven symphonies with chamber orchestra in Salzburg, Austria; avant garde works with koto and percussion in Kyoto, Japan; and jazz quintets in Auckland, New Zealand. Hans has contributed performances and compositions to over fifty jazz and chamber music recordings. Recent releases include Rose Fingered Dawn(2017) featuring a set of original works he wrote for his wife, celebrated jazz vocalist Jackie Allen, and A Day In Paris(2016) featuring original works in collaboration with jazz composer Tom Larson. Of his performance on My Favorite Color(2015), Chicago Jazz Magazine remarked, “Hans Sturm is a beast on the bass... he plays perfectly. ”He is the producer of award-winning teaching DVDs that feature biomechanics animations and user-selectable camera angles. He has served on the juries of numerous international competitions including the European Bass Makers Competition, the International Society of Bassists Jazz, Solo, and Composition competitions, and the American String Teacher’s Association Solo Competition. Hans is the Hixson-Lied Professor of Double Bass and Jazz Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Executive Director of the Meadowlark Music Festival, and the President-Elect of the International Society of Bassists.

We are excited to present 5 weeks of Nebraska Jazz musicians broadcast live via Basement Creators Network on Facebook Live and YouTube. Tune in Tuesday evenings from 7-8pm. Enjoy a home picnic with take out from your favorite local restaurant and show your support for local artists and Jazz in June by tipping via Paypal.