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This week on Night Lights it’s “Away From the Spaceways: John Gilmore.” Tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, who influenced John Coltrane and helped to pioneer the challenging techniques of 1960s avant-garde saxophone, spent most of his career with Sun Ra and his Arkestra, recording outside of Sun Ra’s band on only a handful of occasions. (Much discussion of Gilmore in the thread I started here while working on this program). His powerful, edgy style combined aspects of hardbop and outside playing; we’ll hear examples of it with pianists Andrew Hill and Paul Bley, as well as recordings that Gilmore made with McCoy Tyner, Elmo Hope, Pete LaRoca, and Art Blakey (a rare broadcast version of the ballad “I Can’t Get Started”), in addition to his 1957 Blue Note date with fellow tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan. “Away From the Spaceways” airs Saturday, October 21 at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville. It will be posted Monday afternoon in the Night Lights archives. Next week: "Down at the 90th Floor: Dick & Kiz Harp."

On a recent Night Lights show Boston jazz historian Richard Vacca revisits George Wein's 1950s nightclub with me. Broadcast performances from Charlie Parker, Lee Wiley, Erroll Garner, Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, and more, including a Storyville reading list and basic discography: Jazz From Storyville

Last week’s Night Lights centennial Bird tribute, featuring a Parker’s dozen of career-defining tracks, is up for online listening: Ornithology: A Brief History Of Charlie Parker

Last week's Night Lights show, which delves into the music and history of New York City's Five Spot, is now up for online listening: Making A New Kind Of Scene: New York City's Five Spot It includes commentary from Five Spot regulars David Amram (also a Five Spot performer) and novelist Dan Wakefield, as well as live Five Spot recordings from Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane or Johnny Griffin, Eric Dolphy and Booker Little, and representational recordings by Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman, and poet Frank O'Hara reading "The Day Lady Died."

Last week's Night Lights program, put together in honor of the Tristano centennial this year, is now available for online listening: https://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/lennie-tristano-jazz-guru/

From 1929 to 1947 trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong, who had already made a series of seminal small-group recordings that would become a cornerstone of jazz history, rose to popular culture stardom, appearing in movies, becoming the first African-American to host a weekly radio program, and waxing a wealth of material for Decca and other labels that brought him greater commercial success, as well as critical controversy. I’ll be featuring music from those years on this edition of Night Lights, and we’ll also hear from Armstrong biographer Ricky Riccardi, whose recent book Heart Full Of Rhythm chronicles this key but often overlooked stretch of Armstrong’s career: Swing That Music: Louis Armstrong In The Big Band Era

This week's Night Lights show, The Juneteenth Jazz Jamboree, is up for online listening. Music celebrating freedom and the holiday from Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Carmen McRae, James Newton, Louis Jordan, and more...plus background on the holiday from emancipation-holiday historian William Wiggins. The Juneteenth Jazz Jamboree

Last week’s Night Lights show, broadcast in honor of drummer Shelly Manne’s centenary, is up for online listening: West Coast Manne: Shelly Manne In The 1950s It includes music from Manne’s collaborations with Shorty Rogers, Jimmy Giuffre, and Russ Freeman; an excerpt from Bill Holman’s Quartet; tracks from Manne’s recordings of the music from My Fair Lady and Peter Gunn; a sideman appearance with Ornette Coleman; a cut from the first Poll Winners album; and a live recording at the Black Hawk in San Francisco.

Last week’s Night Lights show highlighting pianist Ahmad Jamal’s run of albums for ABC and Impulse from 1968 to 1971 is up for online listening: The Second Great Trio: Ahmad Jamal On Impulse

This week's Night Lights program pays tribute to the Artie Shaw centenary (Artie born May 23, 2010) by focusing on the last few years of his recording career--his short-lived but dynamic 1949 big band, some of the classical recordings he made that same year, and his revived Gramercy Five of 1953-54. The show is now archived for online listening: Shaw Sounds Final: Artie Shaw 1949-1954 Next week: "The Last: Final Recordings of Jazz Greats" (Artie will pop up in that one as well)

Phil Woods goes where no man has gone before... Barry Harris loves Lucy... Bob James takes a taxi. Last week’s Night Lights show now up for online listening (with plenty of material on the cutting-room floor for a sequel): Heard It On The TV: Jazz Takes On Television Themes

Best recording debut year ever by a jazz artist? A recent Night Lights show on trombonist Curtis Fuller's first season in the jazz big leagues: Rookie Of The Year: Curtis Fuller '57

Up a bit early in honor of Ellington's birthday today, here's this week's Night Lights show, featuring music from The New Orleans Suite, the second and third sacred concerts, the Goutelas and Latin American Suites, the Afro-Eurasian Eclipse, and more, as well as commentary from Michael McGerr and numerous musical outtakes at the bottom of the post: Ellington Ending: Duke Ellington 1967-73

This week's Night Lights show, which explores Bill Evans' early recordings (almost exclusively as a sideman), is now posted for online listening. Featuring the music of Charles Mingus, Hal McKusick, Tony Scott, George Russell and others, it shows Evans' playing in a different light from the later style for which he'd gain fame: Very Early: Bill Evans, 1956-58

Last week's Night Lights show, a tribute to the 1950s and early 60s work of pianist and arranger/composer Andre Previn, is up for online listening: Jazz Of All Trades: The Eclectic Andre Previn It includes music from the adolescent Previn's Ellington album, two of his West Coast jazz collaborations, selections from the My Fair Lady album and Subterraneans soundtrack, and more.

Last week's Night Lights show, featuring commentary from Soul Jazz author Bob Porter and music from Charles Earland, Gene Ammons, Lou Donaldson, Brother Jack McDuff, and others, is now up for online listening: Bob Porter's Portraits In Soul Jazz

Last week's Night Lights show, devoted to the late 1950s/early 1960s recordings of pianist Freddie Redd, with a heavy emphasis on Blue Note material, is up for online listening: Ready For Freddie Redd Didn't have time to include "San Francisco Suite," but that will be included in another program later this year.

This week on Night Lights it's "Queen of the Organ: Shirley Scott." Although an admirer of Jimmy Smith, Shirley Scott found her own sound on the Hammond B-3 and became its most renowned female practioner, recording a number of soul-jazz classics from the late 1950s onward. We'll hear selections from the many albums that she and husband Stanley Turrentine recorded during the 1960s, as well as collaborations with Eddie Lockjaw Davis and Oliver Nelson, and her rarely-heard 1974 Strata East album One for Me. "Queen of the Organ" airs Saturday, March 18 at 11:05 p.m. on WFIU. The program will be posted to the Night Lights archives the following Monday afternoon. Next week: "The Late Miss D." Dinah Washington's early-1960s Roulette recordings.

This past April Night Lights aired a show devoted to Billie Holiday's 1950s recordings for Norman Granz, in honor of her centennial. That program is now up for online listening: Late Lady: Billie Holiday On Verve In The 1950s

Kicking off the countdown to the Nat King Cole centennial with a new Night Lights program: Nat King Cole, Jazz Pianist Lots of trio sides, encounters with Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Les Paul, and Coleman Hawkins, plus selections from The Piano Style Of Nat King Cole, Penthouse Serenade, and After Midnight. Coming up later this week: “‘The Jackie Robinson of Television’: The Nat King Cole Show.”

By way of a tribute to the pianist for his upcoming 70th birthday, a look back at his 1960s recordings with Blue Mitchell, Stan Getz, and Miles Davis, and as a leader: Matrix: The Emergence Of Chick Corea

One 2020 flashback that's hopefully more enjoyable than the year in general (granted, a low bar to clear): Best Historical Releases 2020 Also realizing that I'm long past due figuring out a way to incorporate exclusively vinyl reissues (such as Blue Note's Tone Poet series) into these surveys. I can't honestly feature or say anything about them, because I don't buy new vinyl (for a variety of reasons)* and such releases never get serviced to radio (at least that I'm aware of). But I'm certainly aware that vinyl is the more popular format now for reissues and archival recordings. I may just start posting a general supplementary list of LPs that came out in the past year, more as a reference point than anything else. *Rare exceptions made for titles like the Sonny Clark trio album that came out on Record Store Day a couple of years ago and was initially announced as vinyl-only, though it was subsequently released on CD as well.

Here's a recent Night Lights show about Hugh Hefner and Playboy Magazine's relationship to jazz, including commentary from Patty Farmer, author of Playboy Swings: How Hugh Hefner And Playboy Changed The Face Of Music. Also check out the clip from Hefner's late-1950s TV show that features Nat King Cole and Lenny Bruce chatting side-by-side with Hef & friends: Swingers: Hugh Hefner, Playboy Magazine, And Jazz

This week's Night Lights show offers a look at the prelude to Dave Brubeck's rise to fame with the Brubeck Quartet, focusing on his time on the West Coast in the late 1940s and the music of his early octet and trio: Playland At The Beach: Dave Brubeck's Early Octet And Trio Next week: "The Arrival of Victor Feldman."

Louis Armstrong was a legendary innovative trumpeter, a vocalist who had a profound impact on jazz singing, and a dynamic entertainer--and he got a chance to showcase all these aspects of his talent in 28 full-length films and several short features in which he appeared between 1931 and 1969. We'll celebrate Armstrong's birthday this weekend with a program that includes music from the films New Orleans, High Society, A Man Called Adam, The Five Pennies, and more, including the outtake "Ain't It the Truth" from Cabin in the Sky. You can also watch movie clips of Armstrong and Billie Holiday doing "Farewell to Storyville" as well as the Paris Blues battle scene with Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman on the "shows" page of the new Night Lights website. "Satchmo, Take Two" airs this evening on Armstrong's birthday at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville. It will also air tomorrow evening at 10 p.m. EST on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. The program will be available for online listening Monday morning on the new Night Lights "Shows" page. Next week: "The King at Midpoint: Benny Carter."