Posted in Jazz Notes on Dec 15th, 2007
“Jazz is not a what, it is a how. If it were a what, it would be static, never growing. The how is that the music comes from the moment, it is spontaneous, it exists at the time it is created. And anyone who makes music according to this method conveys to me an element that makes his music jazz.”–Bill Evans
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Posted in Shows on Dec 11th, 2007
After jazz journalist Gene Lees heard Bill Evans for the first time, he told the pianist that his recordings “sounded like love letters written to the world from some prison of the heart.” Lees was just one of many to feel such an emotional connection with Evans’ playing, which inspired a cult-like following that continues to this day. The group that he formed in 1959 with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian helped set the template for the modern jazz trio, and the albums they made–particularly the live Waltz for Debby and Sunday at the Village Vanguard–have become jazz classics. But this group came to an abrupt end shortly after those albums were recorded, when…
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Posted in Shows on Dec 23rd, 2006
Our annual holiday program, with cool yule jazz from Mal Waldron, Elvin Jones, Bill Evans and Jim Hall, Booker Ervin, Coleman Hawkins, surprise holiday sounds, and a special Christmas reading from Louis Armstrong.
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Posted in Shows on Oct 14th, 2006
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This edition of Night Lights features the Jazz Workshops, progressive 1950s jazz recorded by pianist/composer/theorist George Russell and saxophonist Hal McKusick. The RCA Victor Jazz Workshop series, begun by A & R man Jack Lewis, was in some respects…
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Posted in Shows on Oct 7th, 2006
The year of 1959 saw an unprecedented spate of jazz masterpieces. Among the albums released or recorded that year were Miles Davis’ groundbreaking Kind of Blue, Dave Brubeck’s blockbuster Time Out, John Coltrane’s leap forward Giant Steps, Ornette Coleman’s avant-garde salvo The Shape of Jazz to Come, Charles Mingus’ revolutionary-in-the-tradition Mingus Ah Um, and…
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Posted in Shows on Sep 16th, 2006
Music has been an important part of the Disney formula ever since the studio began making films in the late 1920s, and the enormous success of the so-called “Magic Kingdom” has pushed many of its movie songs
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Sometimes when a great jazz musician dies, another jazz musician writes a musical tribute. On this Memorial Day weekend edition of Night Lights we’ll hear elegies for Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Sonny Clark, Clifford Brown, Billie Holiday and more, from artists such as Lennie Tristano, Bill Evans…
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Posted in Shows on Dec 18th, 2004
The first-ever Night Lights Christmas program features music from Booker Ervin (”White Christmas” from his 1966 album Solid Structure), Ahmad Jamal (”Snowfall,” written by Terre Haute, Indiana native Claude Thornhill), Sonny Rollins (”Winter Wonderland”), Babs Gonzalez (”Bebop Santa Claus”), Bill Evans (a rare and amusing vocal take…
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