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.
In 1957 a fading Depression-era playwright, two hot box-office stars and a West Coast jazz group all played prominent parts in creating a dark portrayal of New York City showbiz life that’s now considered a cinematic masterpiece. Film-expert James Naremore and musicologist Phil Ford us to talk about the look and sound of “Sweet Smell of Success.”
Remember the jazzy little trailer that used to announce a General Cinema feature presentation?
Louis Armstrong was a legendary innovative trumpeter, a vocalist who had a profound impact on jazz singing, and a dynamic entertainer–and he got a chance to showcase all these aspects of his talent in 28 full-length films and several short features in which he appeared between 1931 and 1969.
Actress Edie Adams, who passed away this past week at the age of 81, had some jazz connections. Most famously wedded to comedian Ernie Kovacs, she later married trumpeter Pete Candoli, and she also appeared in this memorable commercial with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz:
Johnny Green may not have been the most prolific of composers, but some of the songs he wrote music for turned into significant standards, including “Body and Soul,” “Out of Nowhere,” and “I Wanna Be Loved.” Although Green is best remembered for these compositions, he actually spent the bulk of his career working in the movie industry.
There seems to have been a bit of a Lord Buckley revival in recent years, which is a good thing. Buckley, by many accounts the original hipster comedian, had a storied career and is known best for his hip-speak riffs on Jesus, Shakespeare, the Gettysburg Address, Edgar Allen Poe, and other high-canonical texts.
New York City’s Museum of Modern Art opens an exhibition next week devoted to jazz and film scoring. Check out the list of movies they’ll be showing over the next few months–impressive. WNYC aired a show Friday morning on the topic that includes interviews with composer Johnny Mandel, musician Bill Kirchner, and…
On December 27, 1927, the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein musical Show Boat made its Broadway debut at the Ziegfield Theater. Show Boat, based on Edna Ferber’s novel, was one of the first musicals that wasn’t just a loose revue of unrelated songs; the songs in Show Boat actually helped establish characters and storylines. It also gave us songs like “Can’t Help Lovin Dat Man,” “Why Do I Love You,” “Bill,” and “Ol’ Man River.” The musical depicts life on the Mississippi, with a large cast of both white and African-American characters, and the song “Ol’ Man River,” which seeks to capture both the suffering of black laborers and the eternal spirit of the Mississippi…
Previously on Night Lights: Don Ellis and The French Connection. It offers more than a taste of later, larger-ensemble Ellis, heard at the dawn of the 1970s…
A few years ago I caught a late-1940s Robert Mitchum movie on AMC called The Big Steal. Mitchum played an Army lieutenant on the run in Mexico, trying to absolve himself of a stolen payroll for which he’d been framed. His feminine foil was Jane Greer, as a woman disillusioned and exploited by her playboy lover (portrayed by Patric Knowles). Rife with crackling dialogue and great south-of-the-border scenery, the film also hooked me with an epic chase scene (in which Greer, not Mitchum, is the driver), a progressive-for-its-time treatment of the leading lady and the Mexican police officers, and an engaging chemistry…
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