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This week on Night Lights it’s “Gigi Gryce, Part 2: Rat Race Blues.” In the late 1950s alto saxophonist and composer/arranger Gigi Gryce began his second music publishing company, as well as a fruitful new alliance with trumpeter Donald Byrd that resulted in half a dozen recordings made under the name of the Jazz Lab. Personal and professional shadows were starting to lengthen, however, and by the early 1960s Gryce had vanished from the jazz world altogether. He spent the last 20 years of his life teaching in the New York City public school system, and his second wife didn’t even know that he had once been a jazz musician. In this program we’ll hear more remarks from Michael Fitzgerald, co-author of the Gryce biography Rat Race Blues, as well as music from Gryce’s work with the Teddy Charles Tentet, Oscar Pettiford’s big band, the Jazz Lab, and Gryce’s last recordings as a leader, including the rarely-heard Reminiscin’. “Gigi Gryce, Part 2: Rat Race Blues” airs Saturday, February 18 at 11:05 p.m. on WFIU. You can listen live or wait until Monday afternoon, when the program will be posted in the Night Lights archives. For more information on Gryce’s life and music, visit Michael Fitzgerald’s website. Next week: "Black Vocal Harmony Groups of the 1940s."

This week on Night Lights it's "Gigi Gryce, Part 1: Social Call." Alto saxophonist, composer, and arranger Gigi Gryce is best remembered today for jazz standards such as "Minority" and "Nica's Tempo," but he made other important contributions that included pioneering self-publishing for musicians. In this, the first of a two-part program, we'll feature some of Gryce's early music, recorded with artists such as Howard McGhee and Clifford Brown, and hear remarks from Gryce co-biographer Mike Fitzgerald (Rat Race Blues). "Social Call" airs Saturday evening at 11:05 (8:05 California time, 10:05 Chicago time) on WFIU; you can listen live, or wait until Monday, when the program will be posted in the Night Lights archives. For more information on Gryce, visit Fitzgerald's website. Next week: "Gigi Gryce, Part 2: Rat Race Blues."