Local blues band

1. Ellis Kell Band

2. Electric Leroy

3. Shane Johnson

Local country band

1. Dani Lynn Howe Band

2. Jim the Mule

3. A Fifth of Country

Local jazz band

1. Josh Duffee & His Orchestra

1. The Tritones Jazz Ensemble

3. Craig Bentley Jazz Trio

Local rock band

1. Crossroads

Keyboardist Robert Irving III, Miles Davis' musical director for most of the 1980s, will be performing a concert and leading a workshop on Sunday, February 18, at Davenport's River Music Experience.

Both the workshop and evening performance - organized by Polyrhythms - will feature Irving with saxophonist James Perkins, drummer Ernie Adams, and bassist Marlene Rosenberg.

On Tuesday, February 13, the Illinois Housing Development Authority awarded $1.08 million to Rock Island Economic Growth Corporation for the HOME program. The award was scheduled to be presented at 1224 26th Avenue in Rock Island, the home of Dan Cibulka - a previous participant in the organization's home-buyer program. This is the largest single amount of HOME funding for the home-buyers' purchase and renovation program ever awarded to a sponsor in the state of Illinois. This is the seventh phase of funding for Rock Island Economic Growth Corporation.

Passenger rail to the Quad Cities is part of a larger discussion about how a community moves its people. While our transportation policy most often focuses on how to move automobiles from one place to another, alternative transportation has frequently been ignored.

That's shifting. An aging population, traffic congestion, air-travel hassles, high fuel prices, and concern about global warming have all sparked renewed interest in mass-transit options such as passenger rail (getting from city to city) and commuter rail (transportation within a city).