Posted in Jazz Notes on Nov 18th, 2008
An article in the Sunday, November 9 New York Times about the history of African-American visitors to the White House came with a jazz twist at the end involving Sarah Vaughan. Vaughan performed at the White House in 1964 as part of a state dinner hosted by president Lyndon B. Johnson for the prime minister of Japan.
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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.”
Posted in Books on May 5th, 2008
(Note: the extended audio version above includes an interview with Ray Boomhower and clips of Robert Kennedy speaking during the 1968 campaign)
“Indiana can help choose a president.” Those words, which may have a surprising relevance this year, were used by Senator Robert Kennedy to open speeches when he launched his campaign for the presidency in Indiana. In his new book, Robert Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary, Ray Boomhower provides the inside stories…
Posted in Shows on Feb 11th, 2008
This week on Night Lights we continue Black History Month with “Say It Loud: Black-Pride Soul Jazz.” As the black-pride movement gained momentum in the late 1960s and early 1970s, an increasing number of jazz artists began to incorporate the message into their music. We’ll hear records made by Lou Donaldson, Gil Scott-Heron, Freddie Roach…
Posted in Jazz Notes on Feb 11th, 2008
Historian and Indiana University professor Michael McGerr is a man whose scholarly knowledge and personal enthusiasms are infectiously wedded. In Part 2 of this Night Lights interview, Michael talks about the influence of Duke Ellington’s ambitious Black, Brown and Beige suite and the civil-rights movement on later composers who undertook extended black musical histories as well. Michael is a guest on this week’s show, Suite History: Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, John Carter, and the African-American Odyssey…
Posted in Jazz Notes on Feb 9th, 2008
Our guest on this week’s Night Lights program Suite History is Michael McGerr, a historian and professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. Michael, author of the book A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920, frequently teaches a course at IU on American popular music in the 20th century. He has a particular passion and expertise for Duke Ellington, one of the three composers whose music is featured in Suite History, and he can be heard in two previous WFIU documentaries…
Posted in WFIU Jazz Shows & Specials on Feb 6th, 2008
The inspiration came from a late-night party, a convergence of Hollywood glamour and nascent civil-rights activism with one of America’s greatest jazz orchestras. In the summer of 1941, as Americans warily regarded a world war that seemed to be edging ever closer to their shores, Duke Ellington staged what he would later call “the first ’social significance’ show,” Jump for Joy. Jump for Joy was an all-black musical revue that Ellington said “would take Uncle Tom out of the theater and say things that would make the audience think.” It featured the Ellington orchestra in its so-called “Blanton-Webster” years, playing at the peak of its powers, and up-and-coming African-American…
Posted in Jazz Notes on Jan 19th, 2008
A number of radio stations around the country have picked up the Night Lights show Dear Martin: Jazz Tributes to Martin Luther King Jr. Station links and air dates follow:
WGBH-Boston: Monday, Jan. 21 from midnight-1 a.m. EST
KZYX-Mendocino County, California: Sunday, Jan. 20 at 2 p.m. Pacific time
KSJD-Cortez, Colorado: Monday, Jan. 21 at 1 p.m…
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