Night Lights Classic Jazz
This week on Night Lights we pay tribute to the pianist and singer who passed away in 2007 at the age of 94. A product of the thriving mid-20th century Central Avenue Los Angeles scene, in the late 1940s Lutcher scored a series of hits such as “Hurry On Down” and “Fine Brown Frame” that blended jazz, pop, blues and R & B in a way that made her one of the era’s first crossover stars.
"Betty Roche was an unforgettable singer," Duke Ellington wrote of his former vocalist in 1973. "She never sounded like anybody but Betty Roche."
Una Mae Carlisle and Lil Green both were popular jazz-and-blues singer-songwriters in the 1940s; both spawned hits for Peggy Lee; and both are largely forgotten today. Carlisle, a teenage piano-playing protege of Fats Waller, wrote and recorded the hits…
“Even White Girls Get the Blues” is a look at three late-1950s blues-concept LPs by white female vocalists. Selections are included from Lee Wiley’s 1957 RCA album A Touch of the Blues (backed by Billy Butterfield and His Orchestra), Julie London’s 1957 “blues noir” LP About the Blues, and Jo Stafford’s 1959 concept record…
David Brent Johnson hosts the weekly WFIU historical jazz program Night Lights and Afterglow as well. Learn more »
Major Glenn Miller went missing over the English Channel in December 1944. For decades afterwards, much of his wartime orchestra's music went missing as well.
Afterglow is WFIU's weekly program of jazz and American popular song hosted by David Brent Johnson.
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