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In honor of Memorial Day weekend, another Night Lights program featuring musical remembrances of departed musicians: Turn Out the Stars V. III Tributes to John Coltrane, Billy Strayhorn, Wes Montgomery, and more--even one for Ernie Henry. A safe and happy holiday weekend to all, David

In the liner notes to his 1964 masterpiece A Love Supreme, John Coltrane wrote, “During the year of 1957 I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life.” 1957 has become Year Zero in the Coltrane legend, a key turning point for the tenor saxophonist, then 30 and still in the throes of a debilitating drug addiction that had led Miles Davis to twice boot Coltrane out of his group. Throughout the course of this year Coltrane would kick his drug and alcohol habits, make his first recordings as a leader, and work extensively with jazz master Thelonious Monk. His playing brimmed with a new vitality as he began a rapid evolutionary development that would lead to his so-called “sheets of sound” technique and the compositional breakthroughs of Giant Steps in the next two years. Trane ‘57 features music from John Coltrane’s Prestige leader debut Coltrane as well as his acclaimed Blue Train, his appearance on hardbop pianist Sonny Clark’s Sonny’s Crib, and studio and live dates with Thelonious Monk. In addition, we’ll hear Coltrane himself, speaking to fan August Blume in 1958 about his musical relationship with Monk and the changes he’d made the previous year in his personal life. The program airs this evening at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville; it also airs Sunday evening at 10 EST on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. It will be posted for online listening Monday morning in the Night Lights archives. Next week: "Ahmed Abdul-Malik."

This week on Night Lights it’s “Dear Martin,” a program of jazz tributes to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King was a jazz fan, and eloquently expressed his admiration for the music in his opening remarks to the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival. We’ll hear music from Oliver Nelson’s 1969 album Black, Brown and Beautiful; Nina Simone’s performances of “Sunday in Savannah” and “Mississippi Goddam,” from a concert taped just three days after King’s death in 1968; Blue Mitchell’s “March on Selma”; Duke Ellington’s “King Fit De Battle of Alabam”; Mary Lou Williams’ “Tell Him Not to Talk Too Long”; and two 1970 recordings from Louis Armstrong. “Dear Martin” airs on WFIU Saturday, January 14 at 11:05 p.m. (8:05 California time, 10:05 Chicago time), on the eve of King’s birthday. You can listen live, or you can listen right now, because the program is already archived. Next week: Charles Tolliver on Strata-East in the early 1970s.

As a musician and a man, Thelonious Monk must have provided easy inspiration for the title-namer of his 1956 Riverside album, The Unique Thelonious Monk. His singular sound on the piano, his inability to perform in New York City for several years (due to NYC’s cabaret laws), and his unorthodox compositions that sounded like urban spirituals filtered through stride and bop, nodding at some strange deity of cool, all contributed to a relatively low profile until the late 1950s, when his star suddenly began to ascend into a wider popular culture. Monk’s style was so strong that it’s not surprising that he rarely performed as a sideman–as pianist Ran Blake noted, “There’s never any doubt who’s at the keyboard…it may be a delayed attack on a chord, a cluster that pounces like a tornado, or a jagged snippet that asserts itself under a number of guises.” This program focuses on those few sideman appearances, featuring early performances with Coleman Hawkins and Dizzy Gillespie’s big band (a rare airshot of the pianist’s “Round Midnight”), as well as trumpeter Clark Terry, saxophonist Gigi Gryce, and Monk’s legendary Christmas Eve 1954 encounter with Miles Davis. “Side Monk” airs Saturday, October 6 at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville; it also airs Sunday evening at 10 EST on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. The program will be posted for online listening Monday morning in the Night Lights archives. In honor of what would have been Thelonious Monk’s 90th birthday (Oct. 10), Duke University is hosting a six-week celebration of Monk’s life and music. Here’s a hatless Monk in 1961 performing his composition “Rhythm-a-ning."

This week on Night Lights we honor Sonny Rollins' upcoming 75th birthday (Sept. 7, 2005) with "Sonnymoon," a program of Rollins' recordings with piano giant Thelonious Monk. Monk forged a musical friendship with Rollins when the tenor saxophonist was still in his teens, a friendship that eventually produced some of the 1950s' most compelling jazz records. We'll hear selections from Monk and Rollins' dates for Prestige, their meeting on Monk's Riverside LP Brilliant Corners, and a final studio encounter, recorded for Blue Note in 1957, in which Monk plays musical piano chairs with Horace Silver on the Monk tune "Misterioso." "Sonnymoon" airs Saturday, September 3 at 11:05 p.m. (9:05 p.m. in California, 12:05 NYC time) on WFIU; it also airs earlier that evening at 10 (8 p.m. California time, 11 p.m. NYC time) as Night Lights makes its debut on Evansville's NPR-member station WNIN. You can listen live on either station, or wait until Monday afternoon, when the program will be posted in the Night Lights archives. Next week: "The Man Before Miles: Freddie Webster."