Posts tagged Martin Luther King

May 5, 2008

(Note: an extended audio file version includes an interview with Ray Boomhower and clips of Robert Kennedy speaking during the 1968 campaign)

“Indiana can help choose a president.” Those words, which may have a surprising relevance this year, were used by Senator Robert Kennedy to open speeches when he launched his campaign for the presidency in Indiana. In his new book, Robert Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary, Ray Boomhower provides the inside stories of how the New York senator scored an unlikely victory in the heart of the Midwest.

February 11, 2008

Historian and Indiana University professor Michael McGerr is a man whose scholarly knowledge and personal enthusiasms are infectiously wedded. In Part 2 of this Night Lights interview, Michael talks about the influence of Duke Ellington’s ambitious Black, Brown and Beige suite and the civil-rights movement on later composers who undertook extended black musical histories as well. Michael is a guest on this week’s show, Suite History: Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, John Carter, and the African-American Odyssey…

January 19, 2008

A number of radio stations around the country have picked up the Night Lights show Dear Martin: Jazz Tributes to Martin Luther King Jr. Station links and air dates follow:KSJD-Cortez, Colorado: Monday, Jan. 21 at 1 p.m…

January 15, 2008

Today would have been Martin Luther King Jr.’s 79th birthday if he were still alive, and his absence from American public life for the past 40 years remains as one of the great tragedies of our recent history. The official holiday commemorating his birth takes place next Monday, but in remembrance of his actual birthday I wanted to let readers and listeners take note of the 2006 Night Lights program Dear Martin: Jazz Tributes to Martin Luther King Jr.…

January 14, 2006

King was a jazz fan, and eloquently expressed his admiration for the music; numerous jazz musicians repaid the compliment.