ghost of miles

This week's Night Lights show, The Langston Hughes Songbook, is up for online listening. It features music for which Hughes wrote the words by Nina Simone, James P. Johnson, Josh White, Randy Weston, June Christy, Gary Bartz, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and more: The Langston Hughes Songbook

"Southern Indiana's icebound jazz curmudgeon." I was complimenting him, not making fun of him. That's about the last thing I'd ever do in regards to Mr. Lowe, despite his appreciation for levity.

Great site, Allen. Great plug from Francis Davis, too... do you ever get introduced at parties that way?

Alex, yes, unfortunately it's a matter of legal/copyright issues that requires us to stream the show in RealPlayer. This thread might be helpful for finding other ways of accessing the show.

Here's a brighter spot of "news" (quotes because it's not really news, it's a report of increased optimism): Yankees more optimistic about possible return of Pettitte As I've said before, although I'd certainly welcome the improvement to a worrisome and shaky rotation, I'd mostly just be happy to have an official last hurrah for Andy. If he does come back, I'm making a date with MLB radio for every Pettitte start this coming year.

This week's Night Lights program pays a centennial tribute to the man trombonist Trummy Young described as "a bubbling gladiator" and whom fellow trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie called "the messiah of our generation": Portrait Of Little Jazz:  A Centennial Tribute To Roy Eldridge The program focuses on recordings Eldridge made between the late 1930s and 1950s, including encounters with Chu Berry, Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins, classic sides with Gene Krupa and Artie Shaw, and some of Eldridge's Verve leader dates. It is archived for online listening.. To delve deeper into a truly comprehensive overview of Eldridge's considerable musical legacy, check out this weekend's 48-hour WKCR Eldridge marathon broadcast.

It appears the Night Lights Research Department overlooked that particular recording. As a result all twelve staffers have been summarily canned, and we are now taking applications for the new Night Lights Research Street Team. Become a member today! Kidding aside, I confess to indeed not being hip to that album and probably would have used that track in place of the Coltrane/Cherry version, since I already have them in the show doing "The Invisible." Looks like an interesting Poll Winners collection in general; thanks for the heads-up.

He mentioned both of these when I interviewed him for the Night Lights Monk shows last year, and they're listed on his online vita: *Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2011) *A new edition of Babs Gonzales' I Paid My Dues (for which iirc Kelley has written a lengthy introduction) as forthcoming from Duke University Press.

We re-aired The Ornette Coleman Songbook this past week; it remains archived for online listening.

Just picked up this one tonight:

Down at Landlocked Music here in Bloomington: Clifford Thornton, FREEDOM AND UNITY, and the new CTI reissue of Ron Carter's ALL BLUES.

Caught this in A Blog Supreme's links roundup--Sam Stephenson on Sonny Clark in the Paris Review. Stephenson, who was a major force behind the recent jazz loft book and who's currently working on a biography of photographer W. Eugene Smith, says in the piece that he may do a book about Clark after he finishes the Smith bio. Some excellent background on Clark's childhood and origins... I hope the book does eventually come to pass.

Weizen!

Jack Lewis has passed away.

Absolutely. Their third and fourth albums, "Look Around" and "Fool on the Hill" are both perfection, top to bottom. Love the tracks that sometimes get overlooked on the collections, such as "Like a Lover" or "So Many Stars." Norma Winstone does "Like a Lover" on her latest ECM CD.

Corresponding with a Night Lights listener who in his followup message asked me an audio question...I thought I'd pass it along to the experts here on the board:

You mean Olympia Snowe?

We re-aired Art Tatum: the Group Masterpieces last week, and it remains archived for online listening.

Excellent news--really psyched about this set!

Wish I could find the actual video clip online of this 1988 SNL commercial parody: The Crests and Troughs of Vernon Hawley Jr.

Haven't been there since I was a kid, but I loved going to the HoF and remember the town itself as being a beautiful place to visit. Definitely worth a weekend-style sojourn, I'd say, maybe as part of a larger Northeastern/New England trip.

I regret having missed that Clayton set. Right now: the Roy Eldridge Verve box. Marvelous music to be heard here!

Revisiting this set while working on an upcoming Night Lights Eldridge centennial program and just wanted to say this remains one of my favorite Mosaic boxes to ever be released.

Heard the end of this in the car on my way back from lunch--the homesick-for-New-Jersey song was pretty funny, and I liked what I heard of his cover of Hendrix' "Wind Cries Mary."

Keep on keepin' on!