December 30, 2010
The Bridge: Billy Taylor, 1921-2010
As a performer, composer, educator, media host, and advocate, Billy Taylor built a boulevard of jazz for listeners around the world to travel.
November 28, 2010
The Billy Strayhorn Songbook
Billy Strayhorn was Duke Ellington’s composing/arranging partner for 27 years, writing “Take the A Train,” “Lush Life,” and many other eventual jazz standards.
November 23, 2010
A Brief History of Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams' career included everything from Kansas City swing and bebop to expatriate and sacred jazz, a stint as a jazz educator, and a 1977 encounter with avant-garde icon Cecil Taylor.
October 5, 2010
Autumn Serenades
Autumn’s here, and the time is right for lying in the leaves, with music from Nat King Cole, Johnny Hartman, Sonny Rollins and more.
September 23, 2010
Goin' Up: Space Age Jazz
In the 1950s and 60s the race for space loomed large in the cultural imagination, and jazz artists such as Duke Ellington and Sun Ra picked up on the theme.
September 14, 2010
Jazz From Monterey: 1958, The Birth Of A Festival
In the late 1950s a former DJ and a journalist realized a dream that would become one of the longest-running live jazz events in the world-a weekend-long outdoor series of concerts in a beautiful central California coastal setting featuring some of the music’s greatest artists.
September 8, 2010
Workin': The Work Song In Jazz And Popular Music
Work songs go back at least as far as the beginning of recorded human history; whether farming, hunting, cultivating, sailing, or hammering, in the past we often chanted and sang to help us carry out our tasks; and even today, many employees listen to music in their places of work. Historian Ted Gioia joins us to talk about work songs and jazz.
September 1, 2010
Bird Lives! The Charlie Parker Memorial Concert Songbook
Alto saxophonist Charlie Parker revolutionized the sound of jazz and inspired many of his fellow artists in the 1940s and 50s with his flights of innovation in melody, harmony and rhythm. In the decade following his death at the age of 34 in 1955, a series of tribute concerts were held in his honor, as his proteges and others played in his memory.
July 7, 2010
Off The A-Train: Paul Gonsalves, 1957-1963
Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves is best known for the epic 27-chorus solo he took with Duke Ellington’s orchestra at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956, but in the late 1950s and early 60s he showed his strength in a number of small-group recordings away from the Ellington orchestra as well, made with artists such as Wynton Kelly and Sonny Stitt.
July 2, 2010
It's All In The Game: Louis Armstrong, 1947-1957
In the spring of 1947 trumpeter Louis Armstrong was 45 years old-considered by some critics and fans to be all but washed up, with his best years behind him and his music made irrelevant by the rising force of bebop. But Armstrong was on the verge of one of the most interesting stretches of his career.
June 21, 2010
The Prestige Records Story
A special online fund-drive show featuring classic sides from the Prestige label. You can enjoy some great jazz and help us make our goal at the same time!
June 14, 2010
Daddy-O! Father-And-Son Teams In Jazz
"Hey Dad, can I borrow the saxophone keys?" Night Lights pays tribute to the Father's Day holiday with music from Von and Chico Freeman, Duke and Mercer Ellington, Jackie and Rene McLean, and more.
May 10, 2010
Returning The Call: More From The Unsung Hardbop Heroes Of Chicago
City of big shoulders, city on the make, and city of a hip, subtle, and wryly street-smart hardbop sound-Chicago in the late 1950s and early 1960s. "Returning the Call" features the MJT + 3's rarely-heard first album, music from pianists John Young and Eddie Higgins, and a 1960 gathering of Chicago jazz talents led by trumpeter Paul Serrano.
May 3, 2010
1960: Jazz At The Dawn Of A Decade
It was a year that signaled the start of one of the most tumultuous eras in American history-and the change that was about to come began to be reflected in jazz as well.
April 12, 2010
The "Birth Of The Cool" Songbook
The Birth of the Cool was a milestone in modern jazz-a handful of arrangements, compositions, recording sessions, and performances that, as historian Ted Gioia notes, "turned the jazz idiom on its head." This show highlights interpretations by Bill Evans, Charlie Parker, the Modern Jazz Quartet and others.
April 5, 2010
Herbie Nichols' Third World
The story of Herbie Nichols, a pianist, composer and intellectual who grew up in the heart of the Harlem Renaissance, an overlooked figure in his lifetime whose music has been celebrated and recorded frequently in the past 25 years, and subject of a new biography. Author Mark Miller joins us for a look at Nichols' life and music.
March 12, 2010
The Wayne Shorter Songbook
Wayne Shorter was one of the great tenor saxophonists and composers of the modern jazz era, an enigmatic and searching musician and personality who was once labeled by jazz critic Larry Kart as "one of the most dangerous players to ever pick up a horn."
March 1, 2010
Portraits Of Harlem
For decades Harlem was the capital of African-American culture in the United States. It inspired all sorts of musical tributes, from celebratory and sensationalistic swing songs to extended concert works by James P. Johnson, Benny Carter and Duke Ellington.
February 22, 2010
Thelonious Monk: From Myth To Man (Part 2)
In the late 1950s Thelonious Monk’s star finally began to rise. But even as the pianist hit artistic and commercial peaks, other problems began to set in.
February 1, 2010
Suite History: Jazz Composers And The African-American Odyssey
Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, John Carter, and Wynton Marsalis all undertook a weighty artistic task-to represent the historical journey of African-Americans in music. Historian Michael McGerr joins the program as we play music from all four composers' extended works and talk about their place in jazz history.
February 1, 2010
2010 Jazz Grammy Winners
Chick Corea, Kurt Elling, and Dan Morgenstern are a few of the jazz winners from last night's ceremony.
January 29, 2010
Chicago Calling: Unsung Heroes Of The City's Hardbop Scene
Chicago is a historic capital of early jazz and post-World War II blues, but in the 1950s and early 60s it also had a thriving hardbop scene. Musicians such as Ira Sullivan, Wilbur Ware and Von Freeman played with a bluesy, brawny edge, suffused with what Chicago native and jazz critic Larry Kart calls "an air of downhome experimentation."
January 22, 2010
Cafe Society: The Wrong Place For The Right People
Cafe Society was New York City's first integrated nightclub, the place where Billie Holiday first sang the anti-lynching anthem "Strange Fruit," and a cultural flashpoint for artists, jazz musicians, intellectuals, and political activists of the 1940s.
January 4, 2010
The Past Recaptured: 2009 Reissues
A sampling of some favorite reissues from the past year, including Stan Getz, Denny Zeitlin, Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, and Tony Williams.
