Night Lights Classic Jazz
At the dawn of the 1980s trumpeter Miles Davis emerged from a five-year retirement and made his way back into the limelight.
Miles Davis, in addition to being one of the most talented and distinctive musicians to grace the annals of jazz history, had a unique reputation when it came to his speaking voice–both for his hoarse whisper and his pithy, rather Zen-like way of communicating with his band members, which sometimes resulted in amusing exchanges, such as his retort to John Coltrane’s lament that he couldn’t stop soloing: “Try taking the saxophone out of your mouth.” While working on an upcoming Night Lights show about Miles’ early-1980s period, I came across this story about saxophonist Bob Berg in Paul Tingen’s Miles Beyond: the Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991:
Jazz interpretations of the many songs that have been written about the City of Light.
Gil Evans: the decade after the masterpieces with Miles Davis.
Teo Macero, a saxophonist, composer, and record producer has passed away at the age of 82.
Last Friday evening’s Afterglow program, featuring jazz and jazz-vocal interpretations of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s songs for the musical Show Boat, is now available for online listening…
Take with the usual grain/caveat of subjectivity–that said, here are some titles from a year-for-the-ear in review…
This week on Night Lights I’ll be playing jazz from a new Miles Davis concert release–MONTEREY ’63, featuring the then-new rhythm section of Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams…along with Mosaic Records reissues of classic hardbop J.J. Johnson/Kai Winding and Art Blakey albums… the never-before-released Ella Fitzgerald LOVE LETTERS, featuring the singer in small-group settings, with big bands, and with the London Symphony Orchestra…and much, much more. And I’ll be broadcasting live, because this is the beginning of…
Media pundits a-twitter about deadpan satirist Stephen Colbert’s leap into the 2008 primaries need only look to the jazz world for a precedent: trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s historic 1964 challenge to incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson and Republican nominee Barry Goldwater. And while the jury is still out on whether…
Thelonious Monk must have provided easy inspiration for the title-namer of his 1956 Riverside album, The Unique Thelonious Monk.
David Brent Johnson hosts the weekly WFIU historical jazz program Night Lights and Afterglow as well. Learn more »
Johnny Hartman, Blossom Dearie, Dean Martin and others help us pay tribute to the Indiana songwriter.
Afterglow is WFIU's weekly program of jazz and American popular song hosted by David Brent Johnson.
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