Night Lights, WFIU’s Saturday-evening jazz program hosted by David Brent Johnson, focuses on jazz from the 1945-1990 era—a timespan that, as Johnson notes, “weirdly parallels Miles Davis on record and the Cold War.” Covering artists such as Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, and Nina Simone and themes ranging from jazz recordings of spirituals to avant-garde interpretations of the Great American Songbook, Night Lights also features many lesser-known talents of post-1945 jazz, such as saxophonist J.R. Monterose, trumpeter Freddie Webster, and piano/singer duo Dick and Kiz Harp.

“In the years the show covers there were so many amazing people recording and performing that many of them never became known outside the jazz world,” says Johnson. The role of jazz in mid-20th century American popular culture is something else that Johnson explores in Night Lights. “I have shows based around the TV series Peter Gunn, Robert Altman’s 1957 documentary about James Dean, and The Subterraneans, which was a pretty bad 1960 movie based on a Jack Kerouac novel,” he says. “Gerry Mulligan and a number of other jazz musicians acted and played in it; Mulligan’s also in the program I did about the 1958 crime film I Want to Live. There’s also a show on The Connection, which was a Living Theater play and movie about addicts that featured jazz artists like Jackie McLean in the cast.”

Johnson also plans to devote more programs to musicians from the 1970s and 80s. “I’ve already done some shows on people like (pianist) Don Pullen and (guitarist) Emily Remler,” he says. “I think there’s a tendency to look at those decades as the decades of fusion and the Young Lions, but there was so much more going on than that.”

Night Lights made its debut on WFIU in July 2004 and can now be heard on Michigan’s Blue Lake Public Radio and Evansville NPR station WNIN-Evansville as well. Every program is archived after broadcast for online listening, and the show has garnered a following on the Internet. Longtime jazz writer and producer Chris Albertson says,

Close to 60 years of listening to jazz and participating in its furtherance has not dulled my enthusiasm, but it has made me more selective when it comes to treating my ears to the good sounds. In an era of uninformed radio presenters and borderline music, David Brent Johnson’s well-researched and delightfully eclectic Night Lights program stands out.

“Night Lights is a program of jazz in sound, story and song,” says Johnson. “I try to make each show a sort of cultural narrative about whatever artist or theme I’m highlighting. I’m pretty passionate about this music, and I want to convey that passion to listeners, primarily through the recordings themselves, and also through telling them a little bit about the people and times from which those recordings emerged. It’s great music and great history, and I want the program to reflect that.”

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions about Night Lights, or if you’d like to be added to the weekly bulletin, e-mail David at johnsond@indiana.edu. The program is available free of charge to other stations wishing to carry it.