Jazz lovers around the world will have the opportunity to experience the music of East Side San Antonio when the Carver Development Board and Riverwalk Jazz present the Jim Cullum Jazz Band, and special guest Vernel Bagneris, in a live radio broadcast at 7 p.m. Feb. 24 at the Jo Long Theatre for the Performing Arts, located in the Carver Cultural Community Center.

Riverwalk Jazz is a non-profit organization that presents, promotes and preserves classic jazz through live music performances, national radio broadcasts and jazz education for young people. The program educates audiences to the importance of classic jazz as an American art form. The 52-week hourly radio series originates in San Antonio and is now in its 19th season. It is distributed nationally to 155 public radio stations by Public Radio International, and is heard around the world via XM Satellite Radio and the Internet.

For this special broadcast, the band will swell to a 12-piece jazz orchestra to honor the music of Don Albert and Boots and His Buddies, two black “territory bands” based in San Antonio in the 1930s. They group will also revisit the music of the famed Eastside clubs of the Alamo City, including the Keyhole Club, Eastwood Country Club, the Avalon Grill, Shadowland and the Ebony Room.

“You just can’t believe how good it is,” Cullum raves. “Nobody’s heard it (the music) for 70 years!” The Jim Cullum Jazz Band, founded in 1962 by Jim Cullum, Sr. and Jim Cullum Jr., plays jazz in the classic manner, in the style of small, hot ensembles prior to World War II. The band’s repertoire covers ground from 19th-century cakewalks to the small pre-war Benny Goodman ensembles.

With more than 50 recordings to its credit, the band is at home at The Landing on the Riverwalk, one of the oldest jazz clubs in the United States and star of the “Riverwalk Jazz” radio series.

The live broadcasts, which will include 14 new musical arrangements written especially for the event, will reside in the Riverwalk Jazz archive to be used upon request by educators for their classrooms.

“It promises to be one of the greatest nights in our 44-year history,” says Cullum. “The band is turned on and they’re breathing fire.”

Tickets for this broadcast are $25 per person and can be obtained at all Ticketmaster outlets or by calling the Carver box office at 207-2234. Following the performance will be a “Meet the Artists Reception.” Tickets are $75 per person can be obtained through the Carver Box office.