"Night Lights"

[tristano's ghost]

This week's Night Lights takes a look at George Benson's straightahead jazz years, featuring the guitarist as a leader and as a sideman with Brother Jack McDuff and Jimmy Smith. It's archived for online listening:

Before Broadway: George Benson in the 1960s

...and you can also hear it over the airwaves:

Weekly broadcast times around the U.S.

Next week: "John Zorn: Hardboiled Bop."

[tristano's ghost]

This week on Night Lights it's John Zorn's Hardboiled Bop, featuring the saxophonist's late-1980s hardbop tributes to Sonny Clark and other hardbop icons. Music from the Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet and both News for Lulu albums (trio dates with guitarist Bill Frisell and trombonist George Lewis) is highlighted, as well as Zorn appearances with organist Big John Patton and saxophonist Lee Konitz, and a couple of Zorn's late-1980s noir-jazz sides. The program page also has two video clips of Zorn performing as part of the Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet in 1987.

Weekly station air dates for Night Lights

John Zorn's Hardboiled Bop archived online

Next week: "Art Tatum: the Group Masterpieces."

[baksheesh]

Nice one! I've never heard the New for Lulu albums but they're on my must hear list. Don't dig Art Tatum in a group much, i much prefer the solo masterpieces series - i've got all 8, and they're fantabulous!

[tristano's ghost]

Baksheesh, glad you enjoyed the Zorn.

This week's Night Lights program, Art Tatum: the Group Masterpieces, is up for online listening, in honor of the Tatum centennial--an overview of the recordings Tatum made in the last several years of his life with Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Lionel Hampton, and others. You can also watch a brief clip of Tatum's 1940s trio on the program page:

Art Tatum: the Group Masterpieces

Air times for Night Lights around the U.S.

Next week: "The Transition Records Story."

[tristano's ghost]

An early chapter in music biz D.I.Y.: Tom Wilson, a young African-American Harvard graduate who'd go on to produce some of the 1960s' most landmark albums, working with Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground, and Frank Zappa, started out in the 1950s by running his own label, Transition Records.
Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Herb Pomeroy, Donald Byrd, Paul Chambers/John Coltrane, Louis Smith and Herb Pomeroy were some the jazz artists who recorded for Transition--some of them making their debut on wax. The music of all of these artists, plus more of the backstory on Wilson, this week on Night Lights:

Tom Wilson and the Transition Story

Broadcast times around the U.S.

Next week: "Sweet Smell of Success."

[tristano's ghost]

This week on Night Lights--delving into the 1957 film, soundtrack, and cultural significance of Sweet Smell of Success with film expert James Naremore (author of MORE THAN NIGHT: FILM NOIR IN ITS CONTEXTS) and Indiana University music professor and Dial M for Musicology blogger Phil Ford. Playwright Clifford Odets, actors Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, director Alexander Mackendrick, and the Chico Hamilton Quintet all helped shape the direction of a movie that's become a cinematic classic. The program is archived for online listening:

Sweet Smell of Success

Air times for Night Lights around the U.S.

[tristano's ghost]

We're re-airing this program this week on Night Lights--it's already archived for online listening:

Come On Down to Central Avenue: Jazz & More in Mid-20th Century Los Angeles

Originally Posted by tristano's ghost

This week on Night Lights it’s “Come On Down to Central Avenue,” as we explore the sounds of the mid-20th-century Los Angeles jazz scene with historian Steve Isoardi (editor of the oral history book Central Avenue Sounds). Jam sessions, bebop, r & b, big bands, visits from Hollywood celebrities—as the center of African-American culture in L.A., Central Avenue had it all. We’ll hear the music of artists such as Dexter Gordon, Howard McGhee, Hadda Brooks, Charles Mingus, Gerald Wilson, Lionel Hampton, and many other eventual jazz greats who got their start on the Avenue, or who spent significant time there…. and we’ll verbally stroll through the vibrant streets of the Central Avenue neighborhood circa 1945 with Mr. Isoardi. “Come On Down to Central Avenue” airs Saturday, February 17 at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 10 p.m. EST Sunday, February 18 on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. (WNIN-Evansville is doing their spring fund-drive this week and will air our spring funder, "Bop! Go the Big Bands.") The program will be posted late Monday in the Night Lights archives.

Next week: Steve Isoardi joins us again for "One More You Wrote Through Us: Horace Tapscott."

[tristano's ghost]

Originally Posted by tristano's ghost

In the 1950s and 60s the Dave Brubeck Quartet became one of the most popular jazz acts in the world–one of the reasons why the group ended up doing a State Department tour in 1958 at the height of the Cold War that took them to countries such as India, Poland, and Iraq. The music inspired by this and other international forays came out on albums called Jazz Impressions of Eurasia, Jazz Impressions of Japan, and Bravo Brubeck. These tours also made Brubeck a spokesperson for values that for him were heartfelt: a love of jazz and liberty, and a belief that the two were intertwined. “No dictatorship can tolerate jazz,” he said at one performance. “It is the first sign of a return to freedom.” Brubeck, who recently was honored by the U.S. government for his long-running jazz ambassadorship, was a pupil of the classical-music composer Darius Milhaud, who told his young student “to travel the world and keep my ears open.” The pianist did just that, and his subsequent jazz-impressions albums contain some of the most interesting music in his jazz legacy.

Jazz Impressions of Brubeck airs this evening at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU. Check "Carriage" on the links page for airtimes on other stations around the country. The program will be posted for online listening Monday morning in the Night Lights archives.

We're re-airing Jazz Impressions of Brubeck this week on Night Lights; it's already archived for online listening.

[tristano's ghost]

Originally Posted by tristano's ghost

After 25-year-old trumpet great Clifford Brown died unexpectedly in a 1956 automobile accident, some critics and fans looked to a recent Manhattan arrival from Detroit as a possible successor: Donald Byrd. This week we’ll celebrate the trumpeter’s 75th birthday (he was born on December 9, 1932) with a program devoted to his hardbop recordings from the late 1950s and 1960s, drawing on albums that he made with saxophonists Gigi Gryce, Jackie McLean, Pepper Adams, and Sonny Red–the first incarnation of Donald Byrd, which jazz writer Larry Kart has described as “a clear-toned trumpeter with a gift for light and graceful playing on the chords.” Byrd would undergo several stylistic changes throughout his career, finding commercial success with forays into electric and funk-influenced jazz that produced bestselling LPs like Black Byrd, but eventually he would return to the classic style of his youth. His well-honed talent, deep musical knowledge, warm and lyrical drive, and dependability made him a busy musician in the golden age of hardbop; even so, he continued to avidly pursue education, earning several college degrees (including one in law) and teaching frequently throughout his career.

"Donald Byrd: the Hardbop Years" airs Saturday, Dec. 8 at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville. It will also air Sunday evening at 10 p.m. EST on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. The program will be posted by Monday morning for online listening.

We're re-airing Donald Byrd: the Hardbop Years this week; it is already archived for online listening.