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Last week's Night Lights show, focusing on Charles Mingus' recordings for his and Max Roach's Debut label, is now up for online listening: "The Latest And The Greatest In Jazz": Charles Mingus And Debut Records

Scott Wenzel provided some elaboration about this project for a Night Lights blog post: Mosaic is planning a Black and White label box set

Exploring the jazz side of black-owned, Chicago-based Vee-Jay Records on this edition of Night Lights, with music from Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Paul Chambers, Wynton Kelly, Bill Henderson, Eddie Harris, Frank Strozier, and the MJT + III: The Vee-Jay Jazz Story

Prestige only released a handful of records in its 16000 series. And they don't seem to have any unifying characteristics. 16001: Gumbo! (Pony Poindexter, Booker Ervin) [6/27/63] 16002: Trumpet Giants (Fats Navarro a.o.) [same as 8296] 16003: Eastern Moods (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) [6/3/63] 16004: I'm Shooting High (Gildo Mahones) [2/4/63, 8/15/63, 9/3/63] 16005: Look Out! (Johnny Hammond Smith) [not issued; same as 8288] 16006: Soul Street (Jimmy Forrest) [not issued; same as 8293] 16007: Dameronia (Tadd Dameron) [reissue of 7037] 16008: Clifford Brown Memorial (Tadd Dameron a.o.) [reissue of 7055] 16009: Trotting (Zoot Sims) [reissue of 7026] 16010: not issued? 16011: Ezz-thetic (Lee Konitz a.o.) [reissue of 8295] Anyone know the rationale behind?

The latest episode of WBGO’s The Checkout is a 20th-anniversary celebration of the Pi label: Staunchly Original: 20 Years Of Making Pi Recordings

I’ve picked up a few of these titles in previous incarnations—nice to see a broad slate of titles getting reissued (and in CD format as well as vinyl, praise Jesus): MPS releases

The story and some of the music of Chicago's 1970s/80s Bee Hive label, with special guest and Mosaic set annotator Aaron Cohen, now up for online listening: Boppin' On Bee Hive

An early chapter in music biz D.I.Y.: Tom Wilson, a young African-American Harvard graduate who'd go on to produce some of the 1960s' most landmark albums, working with Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground, and Frank Zappa, started out in the 1950s by running his own label, Transition Records. Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Herb Pomeroy, Donald Byrd, Paul Chambers/John Coltrane, Louis Smith and Herb Pomeroy were some the jazz artists who recorded for Transition--some of them making their debut on wax. The music of all of these artists, plus more of the backstory on Wilson, this week on Night Lights: Before Rock, There Was Jazz: Tom Wilson And Transition Records Broadcast times around the U.S. Next week: "Sweet Smell of Success."

Award-winning documentarian Todd Gould (For Gold And Glory: Charlie Wiggins And The African-American Racing Car Circuit) stopped by my weekday afternoon jazz program yesterday to discuss his new film about Gennett Records. It debuts on our sister station WTIU Sunday, November 25 at 8 p.m. EST and will be distributed nationally next year: The Music Makers Of Gennett Records: Todd Gould Talks About His New Film ... more about the film on the WTIU website, and here's a trailer:

Last week's Night Lights program, drawn from the new Mosaic Records set Classic Savoy Be-bop Sessions 1945-49 (with a couple of Charlie Parker sides included for the sake of historical comprehensiveness) is now up for online listening: Boppin' On Savoy: Bebop And Savoy Records In The Late 1940s

A recent Night Lights show, featuring music from the first batch of Xanadu reissues and an interview with reissue producer Zev Feldman, is up for online listening: Return To Xanadu: Rebirth Of A Label At the bottom of the web post there's also some news from Zev about upcoming releases from Elemental Music and Resonance.

This week on Night Lights it’s “The Nocturne Records Story.” In the early 1950s musicians Roy Harte and Harry Babasin, eager to document the ascending West Coast jazz scene, started a Los Angeles label called Nocturne Records. Babasin and Harte said they wanted to “broaden the nation’s views of our activities out here in Holywood and to present some of the better musicians who are most normally hidden in the more commercial work of the city, yet who are outstanding jazz musicians in their own right.” Their series of 10-inch LPs, called “Jazz in Hollywood,” featured friends and musical colleagues such as saxophonist Bud Shank, pianist Jimmy Rowles, trumpeter Shorty Rogers, and arranger Marty Paich. We’ll hear recordings from all of those artists and more as we explore the sound of West Coast cool on “The Nocturne Records Story,” Sunday, July 1 at 10 p.m. EST on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. The program will be posted Tuesday morning in the Night Lights archives. You can read more about Nocturne Records here. Next week on the program: "Late Pee Wee" (Mr. Russell, of course) and the new Night Lights blog and website.