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.
The reclamation of an amazing 1950s/60s New York City jazz shrine, through photographs, interviews, and audio recordings of jazz greats and other artists at work and at play.
Hank Williams goes pop ‘n jazz, Robin D.G. Kelley’s new Monk biography is out, and more in the weekly round-up.
In 1957 tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins was at the peak of his first great period, playing with a confident, swinging, and radical abandon both as a leader and with Max Roach and Miles Davis.
2008: not a good year for the economy, certain politicians, or the Detroit Lions. In the realm of reissues and historical releases, however, it was a surprisingly good year. A highly subjective and belated list follows, presented in alphabetical order:
All Things Considered did a story tonight on the Addiction Research Center that was a part of the federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky. The segment alludes to the many talented jazz musicians who passed through this program in the 1940s and 1950s, including Sonny Rollins and Tadd Dameron, who took what came to be known as “the Lexington cure.”
Jazz critic and radio host Neil Tesser has written an account of Sonny Rollins’ mid-1950s sojourn in Chicago, during which the tenor saxophonist overcame his addiction to heroin and eventually rejoined the jazz scene.
The Jazz Icons series has been earning well-deserved raves from jazz fans around the world for its two rounds of live concert releases on DVD, featuring compelling and historical performances from the likes of Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk…you get the picture. (And the sound!) A third wave of titles has been announced–we’ll be seeing the following come September…
In Part 2 of our interview with alto saxophonist John Handy, he discusses a unique aspect of his sound, the origins of Charles Mingus’ Lester Young tribute “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” the night Mingus made a scene listening to him play, the Mingus gig that resulted in the live album Jazz Portraits, and the frustrations he faced…
Notes and tones from around the web:On the heels of his fantastic Hal McKusick series, Marc Myers follows up with a profile of David Amram…
Word has come via Mosaic Records that pianist Jack Wilson has passed away. Wilson’s best-known albums were two 1960s Blue Note dates, Easterly Winds (featuring the hardbop dynamic duo of Jackie McLean and Lee Morgan and Something Personal. He’s also present and accounted for on several…
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