Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 4th, 2008
Night Lights made its debut on WFIU four years ago almost to the day–or night, as it were–with a program called Let Freedom Ring that aired on the eve of the July 4th holiday. I had been working at WFIU for exactly two years, subbing for weekday afternoon jazz host Joe Bourne and producing WFIU jazz specials such as Bix Beiderbecke: Never the Same Way Twice and Jump for Joy: Duke Ellington’s Celebratory Musical. When the syndicated “Worldwide Jazz” show that we carried on Saturday evenings suddenly ceased production, I proposed Night Lights as a replacement to our station manager, Christina Kuzmych.
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 4th, 2008
Jazz vocalist Rene Marie turned a relatively pedestrian event–this past Tuesday’s “State of the City” address from Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper–into a media tempest over patriotism when she sang the melody of “The Star-Spangled Banner” but imported lyrics from James Weldon Johnson’s Lift Every Voice and Sing, long referred to as “the black national anthem.”
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Posted in Jazz Notes, Videos on Jul 1st, 2008
The Jazz Icons website has posted discographical information about the previously-announced third set in their ongoing series of jazz-performance DVD releases. Due out in September…
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Posted in Shows on Jun 30th, 2008
“Willis Conover did more to crumble the Berlin wall and bring about collapse of the Soviet empire than all the Cold War presidents put together,” jazz writer Gene Lees once said. Working for decades as a broadcaster for the Voice of America, Conover was perhaps the most influential jazz DJ of the 20th century. He brought the music into eastern Europe and other areas of the world where jazz was either repressed or commercially unavailable, helping to bridge the cultural gap between Western and Communist-bloc countries. In addition to the many fans he garnered around the globe, he…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jun 28th, 2008
Jazz pianist Ronnie Mathews has passed away at the age of 72 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Matthews had been the subject of an all-star benefit and tribute just last week at Sweet Rhythm in New York City. If you’ve spent any time listening to 1960s, 70s and 80s hardbop, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard Ronnie Matthews on the keyboards at some point–Dexter Gordon’s live 1976 opus Homecoming, for example, or…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jun 26th, 2008
Multi-instrumentalist, jazz/classical/world maestro, and Beat Generation icon David Amram will be appearing at Farm Bloomington for a jazz-poetry performance this Friday evening, June 27 at 8 p.m. EST in Bloomington, Indiana. Amram, whose music has been featured in Night Lights programs such as Jazz and Jack Kerouac…
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Posted in Shows on Jun 23rd, 2008
In the late 1950s and early 1960s the folk-music movement in America hit a commercial zenith with artists such as the Kingston Trio, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary enjoying great success–particularly on college campuses, competing with jazz as the countercultural music of choice. Several jazz artists responded to the movement with albums based around folk-music themes…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jun 22nd, 2008
Jazz writer and musician Allen Lowe has put together a terrific series of 9-CD sets documenting jazz from 1895 to 1950 called That Devilin’ Tune, which includes his book of the same name. I’ve posted about these sets before, particularly Volume 4, which covers the 1945-1950 period…
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