This Valentine’s Day weekend edition of Night Lights, “Strictly Romantic,” is a program of jazz ballads featuring John Coltrane (“While My Lady Sleeps”), Johnny Hartman (“But Beautiful” from his 1959 Roost album And I Thought About You), Nina Simone (“Since I Fell for You”), Miles Davis (“When I Fall in Love”), Fred Astaire (“Dancing in [...]
On this edition of Night Lights it’s “Meet the Jazztet,” a program of recordings taken from the recent Mosaic collection of Benny Golson and Art Farmer’s work for the Argo and Mercury labels between 1960 and 1962. Some of the players who passed through the Jazztet included McCoy Tyner, Harold Mabern, Cedar Walton…
On this edition of Night Lights it’s “Word From Mingus,” a program of Charles Mingus’ 1950s spoken-word collaborations with poet Langston Hughes, monologuist Jean Shepherd, and actor Melvin Stewart. We’ll also hear Mingus’ own performance of his piece “Chill of Death,” written when Mingus was…