Night Lights Classic Jazz Radio Program and Jazz Blog with David Brent Johnson

Night Lights is a weekly one-hour radio program of classic jazz hosted by David Brent Johnson and produced by WFIU Public Radio. Night Lights airs on WFIU HD1 Saturday at 11:05 p.m.

Moodsville 1

Red GarlandIn 1960 Prestige’s Bob Weinstock launched a new series of records called Moodsville, as a response to the popularity of 1950s “mood music” albums, ushered in to a large extent by Jackie Gleason’s Capitol LPs featuring trumpeter Bobby Hackett. Prestige attempted to stake a somewhat higher aesthetic ground, stating, “We at Prestige feel that there is room for honest jazz performances of ballads wherein the musical integrity of the artist is maintained and at the same time the original beauty and feeling of the ballad is not lost.” What emerged was a sort of thinking-man’s jazz-ballad alternative, or jazz-for-jazz-loving-lovers. We’ll hear music from the very first Moodsville record, featuring pianist Red Garland and tenor saxophonist Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, as well as music from Moodsville LPs by Kenny Burrell, Coleman Hawkins, and Oliver Nelson. Nelson

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