PRX - Pieces for Tone: Engaging

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Caption: Perry Bradford
When the aging jazz artist was hospitalized, his doctors thought they should get some background information on his life, and he told them that he ...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Oct 10, 2023
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Lovie Austin
When the New Orleans community of Storyville was shuttered in 1917, musicians began traveling north to find work. No one could have been prepared f...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: May 26, 2023
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Piece image
How race was invented to support racism.

  • Added: May 09, 2023
  • Length: 33:44
Caption: Armstrong & Ellington
They could not have been more opposite in their approach to jazz. Yet, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington had identical goals. Provide the best mus...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: May 04, 2023
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: WRK
The group went by quite a number of different names, but the one they were best know for was The Washboard Rhythm Kings. They were, by far, the mos...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Oct 06, 2022
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Louis Armstrong & Luis Russell
Two of the finest New Orleans musicians … Armstrong and Russell … brought the birthplace of jazz into the “Big Apple” in the 1920s, and heavily inf...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Aug 18, 2022
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Bessie Smith
Although she wasn’t the first blues artist to record, she was most certainly an influential trailblazer. Frequently, her recordings were enhanced w...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Aug 04, 2022
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Hank Jones, Credit: Tom Pich
In celebration of Black History month, we mined the archives and revisited our interview with the late pianist and NEA Jazz Master Hank Jones.

Bought by KUCR 88.3 fm Riverside, Calif., RADIOLEX, KZUM, and Spokane Public Radio


  • Added: Feb 15, 2022
  • Length: 28:54
  • Purchases: 4
Caption: 1920s Chicago, Credit: Getty
In the 1920s, Chicago became the jazz capital of the world. During that time, there were More than 70 nightclubs, ballrooms, and theatre halls part...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Feb 10, 2022
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Piece image
On December 3, 1955, a 33-year-old Black gas station attendant named Clinton Melton was shot and killed in Glendora, Mississippi. Two witnesses — i...

Bought by WAMC Northeast Public Radio and WXAV 88.3FM Chicago


  • Added: Oct 18, 2021
  • Length: 11:44
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Congo Square
Although the origin of the blues cannot be precisely known, it’s generally understood to have evolved in the Mississippi delta, just north of New O...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Jul 02, 2021
  • Length: 58:59
  • Purchases: 1
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For Black History Month, NEW LETTERS ON THE AIR revisits this program with the late August Wilson. FENCES, his Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winnin...

Bought by GCR (Global Community Radio), WDCB, and WNJR


  • Added: Feb 25, 2021
  • Length: 29:00
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Louis Armstrong
Knowledge, creativity, charisma, and endless energy are just a few qualities that make a good musical leader. If the leader can also arrange and co...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Apr 23, 2020
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Bubber Miley, left
They’re best remembered for their mastery of the muted trumpet. Bubber Miley and Cootie Williams were standout musicians who performed with the Duk...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Jan 24, 2020
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Noble Sissle
Lyricist, composer, vocalist and bandleader Noble Sissle had a very successful 60-year career in jazz and musical theater. He’s best know as the mu...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Dec 05, 2019
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Clarence Williams
instrument was the jug. Clarence Williams was a professional, yet he thoroughly enjoyed a relaxed performing style. Add in a little hokum, and the ...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Nov 27, 2019
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Freddie Meeks, sailor in the disaster at  weapons shipping depot in Port Chicago, Calif., holds a picture of himself as a young seaman  July 14, 1994. He died in 2003. , Credit: (AP Photo/Chris Pizzelo)
Wartime. Disaster. Trauma. Charges of mutiny for 50 Black sailors in a Jim Crow courtroom. Discrimination and a battle for civil rights. Listen to ...

Bought by KSFR, C89.5 - KNHC Seattle, WXAV 88.3FM Chicago, and KVSC


  • Added: Jul 03, 2019
  • Length: 29:00
  • Purchases: 4
Piece image
Both Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong entered the professional music scene in the early 1920s. Both favored traditional jazz with its roots in New O...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Apr 18, 2019
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Piece image
The late Gwendolyn Brooks shaped countless writers following her long poetic career. This episode looks back on her life as the first African-Amer...

Bought by Wyoming Public Radio, WDCB, WNMU-FM, KUNM, WXAV 88.3FM Chicago and more


  • Added: Feb 13, 2019
  • Length: 29:00
  • Purchases: 9
Caption: J.C. Higginbotham
Pianist and bandleader Luis Russell happened to have one of the best bands in the Big Apple by the latter 1920s.

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Feb 06, 2019
  • Length: 58:59
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Thomas "Fats" Waller
One of the most flamboyant, enigmatic, larger than life personalities in early jazz is Thomas “Fats” Waller: a primary exponent of Stride piano.

Bought by KMUW and KCBX


  • Added: Jan 22, 2019
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Inmates at LBJ
During the war in Vietnam, there was a notorious American military prison on the outskirts of Saigon called Long Binh Jail. But LBJ wasn’t for capt...

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Sep 11, 2018
  • Length: 18:19
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Dorohy Cotton
Dr. Dorothy Cotton, one of Martin Luther King's top colleagues in the civil rights movement, passed away at her home in Ithica, New York, Sunday, J...

Bought by RadioStPete Florida


  • Added: Jun 11, 2018
  • Length: 29:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Chicago Hottentots
Traditional jazz began its road to sophistication in the mid 1920s with artists like Louie Armstrong, Albert Nicholas, Richard M. Jones, Johnny Dod...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Jan 18, 2018
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Jimmy Noone
This program visits Chicago's South Side in the latter 1920s to hear three of the leading proponents of jazz clarinet.

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Jan 04, 2018
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1