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Noon Edition
It’s a city known for the automobile industry and the soul-pop legacy of Motown Records, but Detroit is also a great jazz capital. Read More »
How singer and pianist Nat King Cole pushed the boundaries of 1950s segregated culture through its hottest medium.
A wartime concert, a Carnegie Hall debut, an epic work celebrating black history: the story of Duke Ellington's most ambitious work.
Veteran producer and radio host Bob Porter joins Night Lights to talk about his book on one of jazz's most popular styles.
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.
America in the 1920s: Wall Street was on the rise, cops were on the take, jazz was in the air, and alcohol had been banished—but it certainly hadn’t vanished.
Exploring the musical history of the "pianist of his own genre" depicted in the movie GREEN BOOK.
The past year gave us notable reissues and previously-unreleased recordings from John Coltrane, Nat King Cole, Stan Getz, Wes Montgomery, Eric Dolphy, Art Pepper and others.
Jazz fans are known for their religious-like zeal, but in the 1960s jazz sometimes became a PART of religion, providing the soundtrack for masses and other church ceremonies.
"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.
An interview with Rachel Berenson Perry about her new study of an often-overlooked painter.
The future king of Pop Art and the maestro of American jazz: a fleeting and lighthearted intersection of their work on a summer 1955 TV variety program.
David Brent Johnson hosts the weekly WFIU historical jazz program Night Lights and Afterglow as well. Learn more »
