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.
Buddy Montgomery, the pianist/vibraphonist and last surviving member of the Montgomery Brothers, passed away this Thursday at the age of 79.
The 1940s and 50s Indianapolis jazz scene produced several musicians who would go on to careers of international note—trombonist J.J. Johnson, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, guitarist Wes Montgomery, and trombonist/cellist and jazz educator David Baker. An unsung hero of that scene passed away in February 2009—tenor saxophonist David Young, 75 at the time of his death. Young was a jazz artist unknown to the general public, but much respected and loved among members of the Indiana jazz community—and admired by a small circle of jazz aficionados around the globe for his contributions to pianist George Russell’s albums of the early 1960s.
I’m currently working on a Night Lights program about David Young, the Indianapolis-based tenor saxophonist who passed away in February. The Night Lights show will include an unreleased recording of Young and cohort David Baker blowing long and hard at the Topper club in Indianapolis (circa late-1950s), as well as a Young solo with Mercer Ellington’s Duke-legacy orchestra in the late 1970s.
Tenor saxophonist David Young, who was an integral part of the David-Baker-led Indianapolis hardbop group absorbed by George Russell at the beginning of the 1960s, passed away early this Friday morning. Born in Indianapolis in 1933, he was a part of the amazing 1950s Indiana Avenue generation that included Baker, Freddie Hubbard, and Wes Montgomery.
Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who died on Monday at the age of 70, was one of Indiana’s true jazz giants, rubbing historical shoulders with the likes of J.J. Johnson, Wes Montgomery, and Hoagy Carmichael. On Tuesday, December 30, longtime Hubbard friend and musical colleague David Baker stopped by the studio while I was guest-hosting WFIU’s Just You and Me and offered some remembrances and reflections during our 90-minute Hubbard tribute. He also brought along a rare live recording of the teenaged Hubbard’s 1957 Indianapolis group the Jazz Contemporaries, which included saxophonist James Spaulding and bassist Larry Ridley. Listen to the Just You and Me tribute to Freddie Hubbard with special guest David Baker, including classic Hubbard sides as a leader and as a sideman with Tina Brooks, Ornette Coleman and others.
On the heels of this past weekend’s Great Day in Indy photo homage to Indiana jazz musicians, here’s an article I wrote several years ago about some of the Hoosier state’s lesser-known but interesting artists:If you walk the streets of Indianapolis today, you’re bound to find scattered glimpses of the city’s past preserved amid the present. The architectural majesty of…
Inspired by Art Kane’s legendary 1958 Great Day in Harlem photo of jazz musicians, jazz photographer Mark Sheldon is planning an Indianapolis version, A Great Day in Indy, that will offer visual homage to the city’s jazz legacy. Details follow in the press release that Mark’s sent out…
Following up on recent posts about the rise and fall of the Indiana Avenue jazz scene in Indianapolis, I’ve started a new category on the links page for websites devoted to significant jazz cities or regions and their histories…
(This is a continuation of a previous post, Along the Avenue: the Legacy of Indianapolis Jazz.)
Indianapolis in those days was sharing in the euphoric glow of the post-World War II economy. Lockefield Gardens, the expansive and beautiful housing complex built during the Depression to provide…
Organist Melvin Rhyne, who first made his reputation playing with Wes Montgomery during the halcyon days of Indianapolis’ Indiana Avenue, performed in Bloomington this past Sunday at Tutto Bene as part of a benefit for local collective Jazz From Bloomington. His tenor saxophonist was a longtime favorite of mine, David Young, who played in the legendary George Russell-David Baker sextet. Indiana Avenue archivist David Williams also brought along a wealth of memorabilia, celebrating the era when Rhyne, Montgomery, Freddie Hubbard, Larry Ridley, and many other future jazz stars could be seen and heard jamming regularly along Indianapolis’ main stem…
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