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Jackie McLean“Jackie and Lee: a Hardbop Dynamic Duo” features the mid-1960s Blue Note recordings of alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and trumpeter Lee Morgan. Both veterans of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, McLean and Morgan joined in the studio on several occasions to produce some of the most searing hardbop records Blue Note ever put out.

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Thelonius Monk

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ConnectionThe Connection was a groundbreaking 1959 off-Broadway play from New York City’s Living Theater group, written by Jack Gelber, that cast jazz musicians as heroin addicts waiting for a score. Artists that passed through the play included pianist Freddie Redd (who composed the original score), alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, tenor saxophonist Tina Brooks, and pianist Cecil Taylor. The Connection was made into a 1961 movie directed by Shirley Clarke, who would go on to…

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Soulful Days: the Cal Massey Songbook

CalTrumpeter Cal Massey was an African-American jazz composer, little-known now and in his lifetime, but whose work was recorded by musicians such as John Coltrane, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Parker, Lee Morgan, Jackie McLean, McCoy Tyner, and Archie Shepp. In the 1960s Massey made his Brooklyn home into a kind of community center for jazz artists and produced…

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Say It Loud: Black-Pride Soul Jazz

Lou DonaldsonThis 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…

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Art Blakey1957 was a prolific year for Art Blakey, the volcanic drummer and leader of the Jazz Messengers. The Messengers were one of jazz’s most-noted and longest-running collectives, and young musicians such as Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Woody Shaw, Keith Jarrett, and Wynton Marsalis all pulled tours of duty with the group, sometimes called “the hardbop academy.” Its bop-and-funk-driven history stretches from the late 1940s to the beginning of the 1990s; the lesser-known 1957 edition included…

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Donald Byrd: the Hardbop Years

Donald ByrdAfter 25-year-old trumpet great Clifford Brown died unexpectedly in a 1956 automobile accident, some critics and fans looked to a recent Manhattan arrival from Detroit as a possible successor: Donald Byrd. This week we’ll celebrate the trumpeter’s 75th birthday (he was born on December 9, 1932) with a program devoted to his hardbop recordings from the late 1950s and 1960s, drawing on albums that he made with saxophonists Gigi Gryce, Jackie McLean, Pepper Adams, and Sonny Red–the first incarnation…

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ConnectionThe Connection was a groundbreaking 1959 off-Broadway play from New York City’s Living Theater group, written by Jack Gelber, that cast jazz musicians as heroin addicts waiting for a score. Artists that passed through the play included pianist Freddie Redd (who composed the original score), alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, tenor saxophonist Tina Brooks, and pianist Cecil Taylor. The Connection was made into a 1961 movie directed by Shirley Clarke, who would go on to…

Continue Reading »

Jackie and Lee: a Hardbop Dynamic Duo

Jackie McLean“Jackie and Lee: a Hardbop Dynamic Duo” features the mid-1960s Blue Note recordings of alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and trumpeter Lee Morgan. Both veterans of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, McLean and Morgan joined in the studio on several occasions to produce some of the most searing hardbop records Blue Note ever put out…

Continue Reading »

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