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Noon Edition
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. Read More »
Five decades after Wes Montgomery's death in 1968, newly-discovered live recordings continue to emerge.
Ornette Coleman's music shook up a generation of jazz artists, but some of them almost immediately began to play it.
In 1945, as World War II wound down in Europe and the U.S. ramped up for an invasion of Japan, Duke Ellington undertook a weekly broadcast on behalf of the war effort, playing music and encouraging civilians to buy war bonds.
Alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, who died on April 15, 2020 at age 92, was a longtime master of melodic improvisation who played a part in some of jazz's most momentous acts--the Claude Thornhill big band and the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool nonet in the late 1940s, and the Lennie Tristano groups of the 1950s and early 1960s.
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
In the 1960s Herbie Hancock seemed to be everywhere on the jazz scene, recording both as a leader for Blue Note and as a sideman with Miles Davis and others.
Babs Gonzales was the toastmaster of the bebop world, a vocalese hipster who made the scene and lived to sing and write about it.
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.
"The great chain of witnesses": a poem by Betsy Sholl in the new issue of Brilliant Corners drew its inspiration in part from a Night Lights show.
Explore some of the notable musicians who emerged from the 20th century Detroit jazz scene.
"Serious jazz musicians are into their music like it's a religion," says Sisto.
Jazz critic Nate Chinen talks about his recent book "Playing Changes: Jazz For The New Century," and we hear music from some of the artists discussed as well.
Some Night Lights recommendations for reading about one of jazz's greatest figures, as well as some programs featuring his music.
Chronicling a West Coast record label of the 1940s.
Before he became a world-renowned saxophonist, Michael Brecker attended Indiana University for a year and a half in the late 1960s. We'll hear some Brecker recordings from that period as well as commentary from jazz scholar David Demsey, who is organizing the archive of Brecker materials that was given to William Paterson University after Brecker's death in 2007.
David Brent Johnson hosts the weekly WFIU historical jazz program Night Lights and Afterglow as well. Learn more »
