"Bop! Go the Big Bands"

[ghost of miles]

This week on Night Lights it's "Bop! Go the Big Bands." In the mid-to-late 1940s, as the sound of swing gave way to the rise of bebop, popular bandleaders found themselves trying to incorporate the new music's more complex rhythms and harmonies into their dance-orchestra styles. Bebop was just one of several challenges the big bands faced after the end of World War II, but it inspired a number of vital, modernistic, and exciting records. We'll hear music from Claude Thornhill, Boyd Raeburn, Artie Shaw, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, Woody Herman, and Benny Goodman. "Bop! Go the Big Bands" airs Saturday, April 28 at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU. The program will be posted Tuesday morning in the Night Lights archives.

YouTube jazz video of the week: Dizzy Gillespie's 1947 big band performs "Things to Come".

[Chuck Nessa]

Chubby Jackson should be included. Maybe Earl Spencer too.

[alocispepraluger102]

you do these beautiful shows as if you were 90 years old.

we have here an old man in a young man's body...........a ghost indeed.

[ghost of miles]

"Bop! Go the Big Bands" is now archived.

Chubby will be in the followup for sure.

Aloc, thanks--I'm taking it as a compliment. (Though I did just send my brother an F. Scott Fitzgerald book that I'd already sent him three years ago... )

[ghost of miles]

We re-aired Bop! Go the Big Bands last week, and it remains archived for online listening.

[BillF]

Well worth a second listen! Some great tracks there!