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.…
George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess met with only middling success when it debuted in 1935, but stagings in the 1940s and 1950s ensured its place in musical history. With Hollywood poised to make…