ghost of miles

This week on Night Lights it's "Not Afraid to Live: Frank Hewitt." Hewitt, a New York City underground bop-piano legend, played with Cecil Payne, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, and many other jazz greats in the 1950s and 60s and had a role in the storied play The Connection. In the 1990s he was a mainstay at Smalls, a hip Greenwich Village nightclub, where many came to view him as an important part of the bop-piano canon that includes Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Herbie Nichols, and Elmo Hope (Hewitt was a protege of Hope's). Outside of a frustrating cameo appearance on a 1998 Impulse CD, Hewitt did not live to see any of his music released to the public, dying of pancreatic cancer in September 2002 at the age of 66. Luke Kaven, a philosophy graduate student and Smalls regular, managed to win Hewitt's trust and recorded him on a number of occasions; in the past year and a half he's released three CDs of Hewitt's performances, winning Hewitt a growing critical recognition from jazz fans and the jazz press that he never received during his lifetime. We'll hear music from all three of Hewitt's CDs, as well as some unreleased recordings, and some thoughts on Hewitt's life and career from Luke Kaven. "Not Afraid to Live: Frank Hewitt" airs Saturday, December 17 on WFIU at 11:05 p.m. (8:05 p.m. California time, 10:05 p.m. Chicago time). The program will be posted Monday afternoon in the Night Lights archives. Special thanks to Jim Sangrey and to Luke Kaven. Next week: "The Night Before Christmas." Christmas-Eve jazz from Joe Pass, Fats Navarro, Donald Byrd, Dexter Gordon, Organissimo, and more.

Not jazz, but by a jazzman's daughter--let us not overlook Petra Haden's THE WHO SELL OUT.

Ellington's 1958 revisitation of Black, Brown & Beige.

Knife-Wielding Santa display Reminds me of a truly bad flick my college buddies and I checked out back in the mid-1980s, with an ad that showed a hand emerging from a chimney with an axe in hand.

Happy birthday & thank the Lord for LTBs!! Signed, Ol' Man Crankoos (a fellow Sag... well, I'm sure not a Sage!)

Just finished taping the 12/24 Night Lights, which will air for an hour starting around 11:05 or11:10 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Here's the last set, which should come on around midnight: Organissimo, "A Child Is Born" Frank Sinatra, "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" Dexter Gordon, "The Christmas Song" Happy holidays!

Anybody for a game of Risk?

Birthday salutations, Mr. Burke!!

Aw, hell, we're into that kinda stuff! When we're not shoveling fast food down our gullets and taking in too much TV, that is... Seriously, I'll jump on THE BEAR COMES HOME bandwagon. Lots to chew on there, as Kalo points out.

"Now Found" is now archived. We got a very nice studio phone message from Margaret Davis Saturday night--she & Henry were listening!

There'll be music by the Big O on this year's holiday edition of Night Lights (airing on Christmas Eve). In the meantime, upping this program from last year.

There's always John Clellon Holmes' THE HORN, which tends to get mixed reviews from jazz fans, and which might be too directly about jazz for your group. (Or Holmes' first novel GO, considered by some to be the first "beat" novel, even though it's written in much more of a straightahead style... and somewhat underrated, IMO, and also much less directly about jazz.) Re: Kerouac, you still might want to check out Larry Kart's fine essay on JK & jazz in Kart's book JAZZ IN SEARCH OF ITSELF.

Here's hoping you take the day as license to go hog-wild!!

I asked for the CDs for Christmas. If Santa doesn't bring 'em, I'll be ponying up myself. What I heard on my friend's iPod really hooked me.

Up for broadcast now.

Had he talked or thought about actually doing an album with Hendrix before Hendrix died? Good AOTW pick. I'll pull it out right now and give it a spin.

I'll second medjuck's recommendation... it also has almost all of THE SUBTERRANEANS soundtrack (which has subsequently been re-issued in a very nice, deluxe, but-somewhat-pricey edition). I say go for it!

And funny as hell if it's proven to be false! (Hopefully so...)

Huh... I can't find this on the Internet anywhere. Did you hear it on the radio/TV, Valerie? I did find this on CNN, though: Sopranos actor arrested in police killing

I picked this up from a fellow board member about a year ago... great version of "Caravan" on it. Anybody who enjoys the brothers Candoli should jump on this.

Very sad news... I still remember laughing so hard as a kid when he was on SNL (the one with the parody of THE EXORCIST..."The-bed-is-on-my-FOOT!" and the "dead honky!" word-association sketch with Chevy Chase). And in junior-high, my friends and I loved to sit around and listen to his records. RIP Mr. Pryor.

Chris has it right: THEM Yep, that's the one that came to my mind too--one of my favorite sci-fi flicks as a kid, right up there with THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.

Wow, you actually have that? Last year a three-minute montage from the TV special surfaced on the Internet... again, "wow" the only response I could muster. This year: Stan Kenton, A MERRY CHRISTMAS Shorty Rogers, THE SWINGIN' NUTCRACKER Frank Sinatra, A JOLLY CHRISTMAS Fats Navarro, "Bebop Carol" Sauter-Finegan, "Midnight Sleighride" Dexter Gordon, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" ...and, of course, the Organissimo holiday tunes, both old & new.

Yes indeedy. I pulled it off the Grimes website and then realized afterwards that it was a sheldonm original... thanks much! You are thanked in the show's credits, btw.