Night Lights is a weekly one-hour radio program of classic jazz hosted by David Brent Johnson and produced by WFIU Public Radio. Night Lights airs on WFIU HD1 Saturday at 11:05 p.m.
Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, John Carter, and Wynton Marsalis all undertook a weighty artistic task–to represent the historical journey of African-Americans in music. Historian Michael McGerr joins the program as we play music from all four composers’ extended works and talk about their place in jazz history.
Chicago is a historic capital of early jazz and post-World War II blues, but in the 1950s and early 60s it also had a thriving hardbop scene. Musicians such as Ira Sullivan, Wilbur Ware and Von Freeman played with a bluesy, brawny edge, suffused with what Chicago native and jazz critic Larry Kart calls “an air of downhome experimentation.”
Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, John Carter, and Wynton Marsalis all undertook a weighty artistic task–to represent the historical journey of African-Americans in music. Historian Michael McGerr joins the program as we play music from all four composers’ extended works and talk about their place in jazz history.
David Brent Johnson
Host of Night Lights, David also hosts WFIU's Afterglow and has guest-hosted The Big Bands, and Just You and Me. Read More »
View a Complete List of Archived Programs »
Copyright © 2009, The Trustees of Indiana University | Copyright Complaints
FCC-EEO Employment Report (PDF, 104K)
1229 East Seventh Street, Bloomington, Indiana 47405
WFIU HD1 
Subscribe to the