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Jimmy Heath was off the jazz scene for much of the 1950s, but he returned to make a string of albums that cemented his reputation as a composer and a player. Read More »
In the 1940s the young singer Anita O’Day became a sensation on the big-band scene, performing one of jazz’s first racially-integrated duets and courting what would become a lifelong reputation as an independent spirit
"The Benny Golson Songbook" features recordings of Golson's work from the late 1950s and early 1960s by Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, and Golson himself, including several recordings made by his and Art Farmer's group the Jazztet
Struggle, rebirth, and return: Bud Powell biographer Peter Pullman joins us again as we chronicle the final years of pianist Bud Powell.
In the mid-1940s Bud Powell emerged as the leading pianist of the bebop movement, astonishing listeners and his fellow musicians with dazzling, high-speed improvisations of rhythmic and harmonic ingenuity. The personal troubles that would dog him throughout his career were emerging as well.
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.
Trombonist J.J. Johnson was a bebop pioneer on his instrument, a leader of many outstanding small-group hardbop dates, and a notable composer as well whose works sometimes ventured into the Third Stream meeting ground of classical and jazz.
Claude Thornhill was a pianist, composer, and arranger whose 1940s big bands helped shape the sound of modern jazz, with orchestral bop and ethereal ballads tinged with classical influences that set the stage for later masterpieces by Miles Davis and Gil Evans.
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.
Michael Bourne became a global name in the jazz community after starting his on-air job at WBGO-Newark at the end of 1984. This tribute celebrates his beginnings at WFIU-Bloomington, Indiana in the 1970s and early 80s, with remembrances from friends and fans, interview excerpts, and a rollicking 1976 performance at Bloomington's Bluebird nightclub with Michael on lead vocals.
... OK, that should be "interview." A virtual conversation, using a very analog-era practice, in which I chat with the Duke about his work on the film score for ANATOMY OF A MURDER.
Night Lights' annual roundup of notable archival releases and reissues.
Indiana University jazz studies head Tom Walsh and vocalists Rachel Caswell and Janiece Jaffe joined David Brent Johnson on WFIU's "Just You And Me" to discuss Dominic Spera, the trumpeter and former IU jazz educator who passed away on Saturday, October 23 at the age of 89. Spera's music is featured as well.