Night Lights Classic Jazz

Jazz Mission Possible: Lalo Schifrin's Early Years

Lalo Schifrin is best known for his “Mission: Impossible” theme and numerous other film scores, but the pianist and composer first emerged from mid-20th century Argentina as a jazz artist, working with Dizzy Gillespie and recording under his own name as well. Read More »

Recent Shows

Turn Out The Stars Volume 6

The latest entry in Night Lights' ongoing series of jazz elegies, with an emphasis this time on recordings from the 1970s and 80s by Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Woody Shaw, Pat Metheny and others.

Stars Of Jazz was an Emmy-winning weekly late-1950s jazz TV show that featured many of the era’s top jazz artists and used innovative techniques to help bring the music to a wider audience.

Long before it was a center of the psychedelic counterculture and its attendant rock groups, San Francisco was a West Coast haven for the development of jazz.

In 1950 bandleader Duke Ellington started his own record label that recorded numerous small-group dates often led by Ellington cohort Billy Strayhorn, featuring outstanding Ellington-orbit musicians such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, singer Al Hibbler, and bassist Oscar Pettiford.

In 1957 singer Ella Fitzgerald recorded close to one hundred tracks as her career continued to soar in the wake of signing with Norman Granz’s Verve label.

In the 1940s a young jazz singer with a four-octave range and bebop chops burst onto the big-band scene with Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine before going on to establish herself as a solo star.

Bob Thiele had already spent three decades in the music business recording legendary jazz and pop artists when he started a new record label in 1969 that brought on board notable musicians such as Gil Scott-Heron, Leon Thomas, Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, and Louis Armstrong with music that reflected the cultural upheaval of the times.

Exploring the convergence of jazz and the civil-rights movement in Max Roach's career during a turbulent decade.

Older stories »

Night Lights Blog

Remembering Janis Stockhouse Part 2

We continue our remembrance of the Bloomington jazz educator with former Stockhouse student Sara Caswell and Stockhouse's colleague Thomas Wilson.

Jazz artists and educators Natalie Boeyink, Rachel Caswell, and Lissa May discuss the life and legacy of the longtime Bloomington High School North band director.

Joe Bourne, the founding host of WFIU's long-running weekday afternoon jazz program Just You And Me, came back to help the show turn 40 with a live-audience broadcast.

A Quincy Jones tribute and remembrance.

David Brent Johnson remembers Indiana writer Dan Wakefield.

Two of the late singer's children stopped by WFIU to discuss their mother's life and music.

A musical and conversational remembrance of Bloomington singer Janiece Jaffe, who passed away on November 23, 2022 at 64. Jaffe friends and collaborators Dave Bruker, Peter Lerner, and David Miller discuss her life and legacy, and we hear some of Jaffe's concert and studio recordings as well.

More classic jazz sets on the way from Mosaic Records.

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Noon Edition

Jazz Mission Possible: Lalo Schifrin's Early Years

Recent Shows

Turn Out The Stars Volume 6

Stars Of Jazz: Jazz's First Emmy-Winning TV Show

Jazz Scene San Francisco

DIY By Ellington: Duke Ellington's Mercer Records Label

Ella '57: Ella Fitzgerald Flies High

Sassy First Soars: Sarah Vaughan in the 1940s

The Revolution Will Be Recorded: The Flying Dutchman Story

It's Time! Max Roach In The 1960s

Night Lights Blog

Remembering Janis Stockhouse Part 2

Remembering Janis Stockhouse

Just You And Joe: Joe Bourne Returns For A WFIU Jazz Celebration

Quincy Jones Brought Us Together

Wakefield's Way: Dan Wakefield, 1932-2024

A Family Tribute To Janiece Jaffe

A Tribute To Janiece Jaffe 1958-2022

New And Forthcoming From Mosaic: Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Clark, Jazz At The Philharmonic

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