Night Lights Classic Jazz
Jazz artists have occasionally revisited albums years or decades after their original release, sometimes re-recording them in their entirety.
A so-called “biopic” of the blues composer W.C. Handy’s life, St. Louis Blues was Nat King Cole’s only role as a leading man.
Even if you don’t usually listen to jazz, chances are that you’ve heard Sonny Rollins, Phil Woods, Zoot Sims, Hugh Masekela, Chet Baker, and other jazz luminaries… did you know that it was Rollins soloing on the Rolling Stones’ “I’m Just Waiting on a Friend”?…
Mary Ann McCall, whom Johnny Mandel once called “the greatest of all the big band singers,” is a secret heroine of American jazz vocal music. Little-known today, and not widely recorded during even the most active periods of her career, she has sometimes…
"The Late Miss D" features the last recordings of Dinah Washington, who died at the age of 38 in 1963.
Pianist and torch-jazz singer Jeri Southern recorded half a dozen albums for Decca in the 1950s, scoring hits with songs such as “When I Fall in Love,” “Joey,” and “You Better Go Now.” Her intimate, near-speaking approach to vocals…
An iconic singer, a songwriter (or two) named Irene, lost love and inspiration, and a history-mystery of identity.
In the decades before doo-wop, soul, and rock ‘n roll, there was an explosion of African-American singing ensembles that paved the way for the later styles.
On this edition of Night Lights it’s “Java Jive: Jazz Coffee Songs,” a caffeinated brew of music to help keep your weekend warm. The program includes classics such as Sarah Vaughan’s “Black Coffee” (as well as Sonny Criss’ mid-1960s instrumental version) and obscurities such as the Larks’ “Coffee, Cigarettes and Tears,” in addition to Jeri Southern’s “Coffee, Cigarettes and Memories”…
Baritone singer Johnny Holiday performed with some big bands in the 1940s (including a brief stint filling in for Johnny Desmond in the 1945 edition of the Glenn Miller Orchestra) and went on to release several albums in the 1950s, two of them made with West Coast jazz musicians, that received good notices but failed to sell well. Holiday spent the next few…
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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