Make it a smooth Sunday with the second annual Preserve Jazz Festival on June 1 in Hoover. The music will flow from 3 p.m. well into the night.

The lineup:

• Guitar and Saxes: Gerald Albright, Jeff Lorber, Peter White and Jeff Golub
• Bob Baldwin and Joey Sommerville
• Kelley O’Neal Band with Cece Phillips
• Mart Avant’s Night Flight Big Band

And you still have time to enter our We Jazz June contest to win free passes!

You must enter by noon Tuesday, so hop to it.

Video previews, after the jump …

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The group dynamic
teeters from creative to
arguing motives.

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As season seven of “American Idol” ends (Team David!), we recall the last Birminghamian to face down Simon Cowell. Taylor Hicks, season five winner, will head to Broadway for a three-month run as Teen Angel in “Grease,” starting June 6.

The soul singer will perform “Beauty School Dropout,” with tickets starting at $71.50.

Hicks isn’t the only reality star in the show: Lead actors Max Crumm and Laura Osnes won their roles on NBC’s “You’re the One That I Want” in 2007. And he joins the long list of “Idol” finalists on the Great White Way, including Clay Aiken, Birmingham-born Diana DeGarmo, Constantine Maroulis and season three winner Fantasia Barrino.

And after being dropped by J Records, he’s planning on finishing his follow-up album this summer.
• Associated Press: “Taylor Hicks to play Teen Angel in Broadway’s ‘Grease’

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Giving to others
starts with an inkling but grows
into a passion.

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With meticulous
care and painstaking guidelines,
he shopped for sneakers.

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KBR, a Houston-based construction/engineering contractor and former Halliburton subsidiary, plans to buy BE&K for $550 million. The Birmingham-based construction/engineering firm, founded in 1972, employs 9,000 workers.

BE&K has earned a top reputation for its family-friendly policies along with $2 billion in annual revenues. And yet another Alabama company becomes part of some out-of-state empire. (It was just last year that Compass was sold to a Spanish bank for $9.6 billion.) Whither the home-grown corporations?
• Birmingham News: For Birmingham, this means

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We cross a vast sea
of blacktop, setting course for
a red brick outpost.

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Pretty maids all in
a row, somewhat in sequence,
dancing without care.

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Pay close attention,
and your day’s frustrations can
be comedy gold.

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More music in May with the return of two crowd-pleasers: Art on the Rocks tonight and Do Dah Day Saturday.

Art on the Rocks begins its first of four monthly gatherings at the Birmingham Museum of Art downtown. On tap tonight is funk pioneer band The Dynamites. Tickets are $20.

And after tonight’s Do Dah Eve celebration at Nana Funks in Lakeview ($5), the parade of canines, kitties and their humans begins at 11:01 a.m. Registration begins at 9:01 at the starting point of Highland and 33rd Street [map]. Free to watch, $5 to $20 to parade.

The free concerts begin at 11:21 on stages in Caldwell and Rhodes Parks on Southside, including headliners The Radiators (rock) and Anders Osborne (R&B/blues). The bands play until 6:11 p.m. Proceeds from Do Dah Day benefit the Greater Birmingham Humane Society and Friends of Cats and Dogs Foundation.
• Official sites: Art on the Rocks | Do Dah Day

Video previews, after the jump …

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Power lines criss-cross
inky blue swath. Old friends hug
goodbye on sidewalk.

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She gets my voicemail.
I get her voicemail. No one
triumphs at phone tag.

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We’re giving away four tickets to Hoover’s June 1 music festival

Like great live music? And a beautiful spacious park in which to hear it?

Enter our special We Jazz June contest. Two lucky winners will win two passes (a $70 value) each to the second annual Preserve Jazz Festival on Sunday, June 1, in Hoover.

Founded by jazz guitarist Eric Essix and Jason Henderson, the festival returns to Moss Rock Preserve with an outstanding lineup of artists:

• Guitar and Saxes: Gerald Albright, Jeff Lorber, Peter White and Jeff Golub
• Bob Baldwin and Joey Sommerville
• Kelley O’Neal Band with Cece Phillips
• Mart Avant’s Night Flight Big Band

We think it’s a well-done event, and you will, too.

To enter, visit our special We Jazz June contest page.

Hurry! Entry deadline is noon CDT, Tuesday, May 27, 2008.

Our thanks to the Preserve Jazz Festival for providing the passes.

Tortillas crisp in
bubbling oil. Rice, beans stew
on nearby burners.

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Stealthy pack leaves some
casualties: camera case, bag
of fruit, something else.

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