Night Lights Classic Jazz
Night Lights, is a weekly one-hour jazz radio program hosted by David Brent Johnson, focusing on jazz from the 1945-1990 era—a timespan that, as Johnson notes, "weirdly parallels Miles Davis on record and the Cold War."
At the beginning of the 1960s jazz pianist and theorist George Russsell teamed up with trombonist and jazz educator David Baker and other Indiana jazz musicians to form one of the era’s most exciting and innovative groups.
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As a young trumpeter Freddie Hubbard was everywhere, appearing on some of the most landmark jazz albums of the 1960s.
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In the 1940s a young jazz singer with a four-octave range and bebop chops burst onto the big-band scene with Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine before going on to establish herself as a solo star. -
David Brent Johnson remembers Indiana writer Dan Wakefield. -
Mel Powell was still a teenager when he joined one of America’s most popular big bands on the cusp of World War II, launching a brief but notable jazz career as a pianist, composer and arranger, before going on to devote most of his life to classical music. -
Trombonist J.J. Johnson was a bebop pioneer on his instrument, a leader of many outstanding small-group hardbop dates, and a notable composer as well whose works sometimes ventured into the Third Stream meeting ground of classical and jazz. -
Exploring the convergence of jazz and the civil-rights movement in Max Roach's career during a turbulent decade. -
Celebrate America’s Independence Day with a legacy of swing from Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, Glenn Miller, Machito, and other iconic American artists and ensembles. -
In 1952 bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Max Roach formed their own record company, in an attempt to assert creative and entrepreneurial control over their music. -
Two of the late singer's children stopped by WFIU to discuss their mother's life and music. -
A musical and conversational remembrance of Bloomington singer Janiece Jaffe, who passed away on November 23, 2022 at 64. Jaffe friends and collaborators Dave Bruker, Peter Lerner, and David Miller discuss her life and legacy, and we hear some of Jaffe's concert and studio recordings as well.
