Dimitirou’s Jazz Alley and KNKX invite you to join the Seattle jazz community, listeners, and fans in saluting Jim Wilke —the multi-award-winning legendary broadcaster, jazz ambassador, and archivist of live recordings of regional and national musicians for over 60 years— with an evening of lively music and tributes.
The Jim Wilke Great Big Birthday Party is Monday, April 20, 7 p.m. at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley, hosted by KNKX’s Abe Beeson. Tickets are $25 (including a $12 service charge). Dinner reservations are available.
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From 1961, when he first came on board at classical music station KING-FM which added late-night jazz the following year, until his retirement in 2023, Jim was “The Voice of Seattle Jazz.”
Listeners to KPLU/KNKX know him as host of late night show, Jazz After Hours with its smart selection of tracks and calendar listings from all over the country. Nationally syndicated, it reached listeners from San Francisco to New York, and with the coming of the internet, Paris, Istanbul and beyond. Jim also hosted Jazz Northwest which featured recordings of hundreds of local artists at jazz festivals and every jazz venue in the region.
Jim broadcast hundreds of shows from the old Penthouse jazz club in Pioneer Square on KING-FM which resulted in album releases by Seattle jazz treasure Ernestine Anderson, Wes Montgomery, Johnny Griffin and Cannonball Adderley.
As a producer and programmer, Jim helped organize the 1970 Northwest Jazz Spectacular (the first major jazz festival in Seattle) with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Cannonball Adderley, Roberta Flack and others, the Bellevue Jazz Festival, and the Jazz Port Townsend festival in its early days. He also taught and inspired generations of future broadcasters at Bellevue College and Cornish College.
Jim has garnered countless radio and jazz awards including seven honors from JazzTimes (Top Radio Jazz Producer), plus the Jazz Journalists Association (Top Radio Producer; the Willis Conover/Marian McPartland Awards—Top National Jazz Program for Jazz After Hours). He was named to the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame in 1992.
Join us in raising a glass to Jim Wilke at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley ahead of his 89th birthday in celebration of his lasting and meaningful contribution to the growth and health of the jazz ecosystem in our region and in the country!
