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This new Night Lights program aired the week of the 75th anniversary of the first From Spirituals To Swing concert--a December 1938 presentation of jazz, blues, and gospel in New York City's Carnegie Hall. It is now archived for online listening: http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/music-spirituals-swing-concerts/

This year's Night Lights entry in the holiday annals, with a cameo appearance from 77 Sunset Strip's Edd "Kookie" Byrnes: Santa-O! A Very Hip Christmas

Hey all, another recent Night Lights show now up for online listening: Jazz Women of the 1980s Other entries in this series: Jazz Women of the 1960s Jazz Women of the 1940s Jazz Women Of The 1990s

http://www.monastery.nl/bulletin/asexpol/171bley.jpg Carla Bley is renowned today for her big-band writing and its wide-ranging use of musical and emotional elements, but it was small-group recordings of her work in the 1960s by musicians such as Jimmy Giuffre, Gary Burton, George Russell, and her husband Paul Bley that introduced her to the jazz world. In her teens Bley abandoned home, religion, and school, eventually making her way to New York City, where she worked as a hatcheck and cigarette girl in jazz clubs such as Basin Street and Birdland. She also met Paul Bley, a young up-and-coming Canadian jazz pianist she’d end up marrying and moving with to Los Angeles. There the Bleys became a part of the late-1950s avant-jazz scene, highlighted by Paul Bley’s stint with Ornette Coleman’s quartet—and Carla Bley, taking in all of the adventurous sounds that she heard, began to compose, beginning the evolution of a style that one writer would later describe as “ hyper-modern jazz…asymmetrical compositional structures that subvert jazz formula to wonderful effect, with unpredictable melodies that are often as catchy as they are obscure.” “I was lucky,” Bley has said. “People started playing my music as soon as I began to write it. I don’t know why. It just happened.” The Carla Bley Songbook airs this evening at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville. It will also air at 10 p.m. EST Sunday evening on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. For additional broadcast times around the country, see the "Carriage" section on the Night Lights links page. (Not positive, but I think we're debuting tonight on Oklahoma Public Radio.) The Carla Bley Songbook will be posted for online listening by Monday morning in the Night Lights archives.

Last week's Night Lights show, delving into another year of the John Coltrane story, is now up for online listening: Trane '63: A Classic, A Challenge, A Change

This new Night Lights show, put together with input from members of this board (you are thanked in the outgoing credits!) is now up for online listening: Mob-Lee: Hank Mobley and Lee Morgan

Already archived for online listening: Clark's Last Leap: Sonny Clark, 1961-62

A new Night Lights show celebrates the legacy of swing for America’s Independence Day. A World War I era recording from James Reese Europe’s Hellfighters, a live performance of the short-lived Duke Ellington band theme that preceded “Take The A Train,” Woody Herman’s rendition of a Frank Zappa tune, and music from the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Machito, Count Basie and others all contribute to this patriotic panorama for the holiday. A Big Band Fourth of July

Another recent new Night Lights show, this one devoted to the life and music of Elmo Hope, now up for online listening: Hope Lives: A Portrait Of Elmo Hope Our own Larry Kart is quoted early on, from a 1970 DownBeat review that he wrote of a reissued Hope LP.

At the end of World War II bandleader Duke Ellington was coming off an artistic and commercial zenith, and he’d managed to keep most of his talented orchestra intact during the war years. But economic and cultural changes, along with stubbornly persistent racism, would challenge, provoke, and inspire Ellington as he continued to pursue his unique musical vision while working to stay financially viable. On A Turquoise Cloud: Duke Ellington After The War, 1945-47 features lesser-known Ellington compositions such as “Lady of the Lavender Mist,” “Magenta Haze,” and “Air-Conditioned Jungle,” as well as a Carnegie Hall concert performance of the atonal/stride-paino “The Clothed Woman,” singer Al Hibbler’s anthemic performance of “I Like the Sunrise” from The Liberian Suite, and one of the few recorded numbers from Ellington’s score for the failed Broadway musical Beggar’s Holiday. Historian and Ellington expert Michael McGerr offers insights into this period of Ellington’s career as well. The program airs tonight at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU, at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville, and at 11 p.m. Central Time on Oklahoma Public Radio. It also airs Sunday evening at 10 p.m. EST on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. It will be archived Monday morning at this link: On A Turquoise Cloud: Duke Ellington After The War, 1945-47 which also includes a clip of Ellington performing his "The Perfume Suite" in 1947, accompanied by a cast of dancing puppets that emerge from perfume bottles.

Hey O gang, here's a new, recently-aired Night Lights program covering the compositions of Thad Jones: http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/thad-jones-songbook/ ... hope to have "Now Hear This: The Duke Pearson Big Band" up in a couple of days as well.

Last week’s Night Lights show features live recordings of guitarist Wes Montgomery in his hometown of Indianapolis, in California, in New York, and in Paris: From Naptown To Paris: Wes Montgomery Live Coming up this week: “Black, Brown And Beige: Duke Ellington’s Historic Jazz Symphony.”

Last week's Night Lights show, which takes a look at recordings that trumpeter Lee Morgan and saxophonist Wayne Shorter made together, is now up for online listening: http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/shorter-lee-lee-morgan-wayne-shorter/

Last week's show, exploring Ellington's score for the 1959 Otto Preminger film Anatomy Of A Murder and Lewis' score for Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow, made the same year, is up for online listening: Black Composers In Hollywood: Duke Ellington and John Lewis, 1959

A sequel to the previous Night Lights program of MLK jazz tributes Dear Martin is now available for online listening. It includes music from Herbie Hancock, Bobby Hutcherson, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, and Wadada Leo Smith: Dear Martin, P.S.: More Jazz Tributes To Martin Luther King Jr.

We re-aired the 2010 Night Lights program "Herbie Nichols' Third World," including interview remarks from Nichols biographer Mark Miller, this week. Posting it here today in honor of his birthday: http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/herbie-nichols-world/

Online just in time for Halloween... smoke dreams, sorcerers, stalking monsters, and strange exits: paranormal jazz encounters on this edition of Night Lights. Jazz Haunts For Halloween: Ghostly Songs And Mysterious Ends

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

Here's a recent, new Night Lights program devoted to the recordings that Stan Getz made in the last several years of his life: http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/late-autumn-stan-getz-198791/ Wish I'd had enough time to work in a track from the album he did with Helen Merrill as well...

A new Night Lights show up for online listening, focusing on the musical events of John Coltrane's 1962: Trane '62: The Classic Quartet Begins

This past week’s Night Lights show explores Joni Mitchell’s 1970s jazz-influenced recordings (plus several post-1980 jazz encounters as well), with Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, and Herbie Hancocl among the supporting cast: Joni + Jazz: Joni Mitchell

This week's Night Lights show is a centennial salute to TV host and jazz advocate Steve Allen. The program includes clips of appearances on Allen's show by Art Tatum and Miles Davis, excerpts from the triple-LP The Story Of Jazz that Allen narrated, Allen's jazz/poetry collaboration with Jack Kerouac, an all-star performance of Allen's signature song "This Could Be The Start Of Something Big," and more: Jazz Tonight With Steve Allen

Hey gang, here's a new Night Lights show about saxophonist Percy France, subject of Dan Gould's recently-launched website. And this Night Lights episode was developed with considerable assistance from Mr. Gould! Hope you enjoy it: Out Of The Shadows: Percy France

A recent Night Lights show that delves into the mid-1960s recordings of artists such as the Free Spirits, Count's Rock Band, the Fourth Way, and Gary Burton is up for online listening: First Fusion: Jazz-Rock Before Bitches Brew The web post also includes links to some extended versions and outtakes from the show.

This week's Night Lights show looks at Glenn Miller's amazing 1943-1945 Army Air Force band, which included musicians such as pianist Mel Powell, clarinetist Peanuts Hucko, drummer Ray McKinley, and singer Johnny Desmond. The show includes excerpts from an interview I did several years ago with AAF trombonist Nat Peck (who was 19 when he joined Miller's group in 1943) and historian Michael McGerr, as well as music that represents the varied aspects of the AAF--the Uptown Hall Gang (performing one of the earliest versions of "A Night In Tunisia"), Strings With Wings, and the full AAF, including a rare 1944 broadcast with Bing Crosby. Up for online listening on Veterans' Day: Glenn Miller Goes To War With The Army Air Force Band (Note: there is an expanded "director's cut" version of this show, which is derived from a previous program that I did for WFIU, embedded in the program post. It includes more music and more remarks from Nat Peck--who passed away not long ago, and may have been the last surviving member of the band.)