WFIU: Directions in Sound

For Black History Month, three specials from public radio's largest documentary production unit, American RadioWorks.

For much of the 20th Century, African-Americans in the South were barred from the voting booth, sent to the back of the bus, and walled off from many of the rights they deserved as American citizens. Until well into the 1960s, segregation was legal. The system was called Jim Crow. In this documentary, black and white Americans remember life in the Jim Crow times.
Segments include: how blacks endured insults, thievery, and lynchings at the hands of whites; "behind the veil" communities in which blacks built vital social institutions; how oral storytelling and photography was used to pass along memories of slavery and Reconstruction; resistance in the 1960s; and the recollections of older whites, who say race relations were more peaceful during Jim Crow than they are now.

Say It Plain: A Century of African-American Oratory
Sunday, February 19, 9 p.m.

For generations, African-Americans have been demanding justice and equality reminding America to make good on its founding principles. In this hour, we will listen to recordings of landmark speeches African-Americans made over the past century. These orators, and the very act of speaking out, played a crucial role in the long struggle for equal rights. The sound of black political protest took on many styles, from high-brow elocution, to passionate preaching, to street-wise slang. The call for resistance reached a thunderous peak in the 1960s with the growing might of the civil rights movement. Some African-Americans warned of violence, others, such as Dick Gregory, spoke hard truths with humor. Hosted by Michele Norris.

In the summer of 1964, about a thousand young Americans, black and white, came together in Mississippi for a peaceful assault on racism. It came to be known as "Freedom Summer," a campaign led by young civil rights workers and dependent on the bravery of ordinary black Mississippians. The civil rights workers risked arrests, beatings, and-as in the case of murdered workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman-their very lives. For this program, correspondent John Biewen interviewed Freedom Summer veterans. Though their stories, he revisits the dramatic events of the Mississippi Summer and explores how the summer helped shaped racial politics in America for years to come.

In February, WFIU is pleased to sing the praises of mezzo-soprano and IU faculty member Marietta Simpson.
A native of Philadelphia, Ms. Simpson earned degrees from Temple University and the State University of New York at Binghamton before embarking on an international career that has brought her to opera stages in Houston, Mobile, New York, London, and others; while appearing under the batons of some of the world's most illustrious conductors with nearly all of the major orchestras throughout the United States and Europe.
She has recently brought her talents to the students of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she serves as an Associate Professor in the voice department.
This month, Robert Samels will devote an episode of WFIU's new vocal music program Cantabile to Ms. Simpson, featuring an interview and a sampling of her many commercial recordings. That episode will air on Tuesday, February 7th at 10:12 p.m.
We'll also hear from Ms. Simpson throughout the month during our regular classical music programming.
On Wednesday, February 1st at 10:12 p.m., Ms. Simpson is joined by soprano Christine Goerke, baritone Victor Ledbetter, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under the direction of the late Robert Shaw in a performance of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski's Stabat Mater.
Then on Wednesday, February 15th at 7:07 p.m., Simpson joins soprano Henriette Schellenberg, tenor Richard Clement, and baritone Thomas Paul, again with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and Robert Shaw, for selections from Mendelssohn's Elijah, Op. 70.
And finally, on Monday, February 20th, also at 7:07 p.m., Simpson once again joins Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with soprano Benita Valente, tenors Jon Humphrey and Glenn Siebert, and baritone Myron Myers for the Benedictus from Franz Schubert's Mass No. 6 in E-Flat, D. 950.

WFIU is the media sponsor for the following events. Find more information on this and other activities on the calendar page of our Web site: www.wfiu.indiana.edu.

The Ninth Annual Chocolate Fest
Bloomington Convention Center
Saturday, February 4, 5 to 8 p.m.

Chocolate Fest is an annual event held by Options For Better Living to benefit individuals with disabilities. Individuals from the community as well as area restaurants enter a chocolate dessert contest. After the judging the public is invited to taste the desserts. Musical entertainment is provided throughout the event.

The World We Create
WonderLab Museum
Bloomington
Opens Thursday, February 9

This national traveling exhibition will transform half of the museum's gallery space into a world of construction, manufacturing, and transportation activities that simulate how science, technology and teamwork apply in the real world.

"A Hot Night in Old Vienna"
Bloomington Symphony Orchestra
Indiana University Memorial Union
Alumni Hall
Saturday, February 11, 6 p.m.

Dancing to romantic waltzes, swing, Latin, and popular standards played by the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra

This concert recreates the time when the family gathered around the radio and were transported to glittering ballrooms, seedy detective offices, and swinging New York clubs. Paying tribute to the vocal groups which fronted the big bands are guest artists Five By Design, who weave music from Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey with segments from vintage serials, comedies, and quiz shows.

Hoosier Hills Food Bank's Soup Bowl
Bloomington Convention Center
Sunday, February 19, 5 p.m.

Local area potters, community musicians, and local residents provide their services with proceeds benefiting the Hoosier Hills Food Bank. Twenty dollars buys you the handmade bowl of your choice filled with scrumptious soup, which you can eat while listening to live music.

The 2006 BAAC Arts Leadership Awards
Bloomington Convention Center
Wednesday, February 22, 11:30-1:30pm

Carmon DeLeone is the guest conductor. Soloists include Minah Choe on cello and Chialin Yang on piano.

This 22nd annual campus-community arts festival features interdisciplinary collaborations, the world premiere of a Ned Rorem opera, panel discussions featuring local experts, a nightly salon on the square, and other events. For more information: www.indiana.edu/~artsweek/

Classically Black: Florence Beatrice Smith Price
Sunday, February 19, 8 p.m.

Host Roger Cooper presents a sampling of the music created by Florence Beatrice Smith Price and offers a glimpse into her creative world.
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1887, Florence Beatrice Smith enjoyed a solidly middle-class childhood-her father was a dentist and her mother taught piano and ran a restaurant-rare among blacks at that time. The family's economic independence from Jim Crow Arkansas allowed Smith to pursue her interest in music.
Price published her first compositions when was in high school and, ultimately, graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music. She taught music at Shorter College in Little Rock and at Clark University in Atlanta. That year, she married Little Rock attorney Thomas J. Price. They moved to Chicago and had two children, but the marriage failed, and Price and struggled financially for several years.
The composer turned to competitions as a way to achieve recognition. Her efforts were rewarded in 1932 with multiple Wanamaker prizes, including the top prize for symphonic composition. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed Price's Symphony in E Minor for the Chicago World's Fair in 1933 to rave reviews, the first time a symphony written by a black woman had been performed by a major orchestra.
Produced by WILL-FM in Urbana, Illinois.

Beeps and blips, rhythmic murmurs, droning loops, slowly shifting sonic waves; this is the sound of spacemusic, also known as ambient, chill-out, mellow dub, down-tempo; call it what you will . . . anything but New Age. Often beatless, boneless, even vaporous, ambient spacemusic seeks to transport the listener to another state of consciousness-or another galaxy.
It's the music heard every Sunday at 10 p.m. on WFIU's Music from the Hearts of Space. The hour-long program features slow-paced, space-creating music from many cultures-ancient bell meditations, classical adagios, creative space jazz, and the latest electronic and acoustic ambient music, all woven into a seamless sequence unified by sound, emotion, and spatial imagery.
Often dismissed as "background" music, ambient music challenges listeners to participate in the creative process. It conjures filmic soundscapes that cry out for visual interpretation; close your eyes, and make the movie in your mind's eye fit the soundtrack. Take a trip to a new world, without the magic mushrooms or the risk of arrest.
Hearts of Space producer/host Stephen Hill is a prime mover in the ambient/spacemusic genre. A former architect, Hill coined the term "spacemusic" when he began hosting a weekly late-night radio program in San Francisco in the 1970s. Over the intervening quarter century, Hearts of Space evolved into a music and broadcast group encompassing radio syndication, a record company, and an Internet music service.
"The best description of what we do is 'contemplative music,'" says Hill. "It occurs in many cultures because it satisfies a psychological and physical need for rest, coherence and subtlety. It can be relaxing and superficial, but it also has the power to go very deep, which we try to do in every show."

Spacemusic Celebs
A frequent contributor to the Hearts of Space programs is pioneer Silicon Valley electronic artist Robert Rich, who began building synthesizers from kits at the age of 13 during the 1970s. "I tend to make music that has a lot going on under the surface," he says. "I think these layers can unfold new ways of hearing a piece after multiple listenings."
Rich, who has performed his music live around the world, is regarded as an innovator in the genre. He is perhaps best known for his all-night "sleep concerts" held at Stanford University in the '80s, in which he encouraged audience members to bring sleeping bags and pillows and to fall asleep during the lulling performances. Rich recently released an audio DVD called Somnium featuring more than seven hours of music similar to those marathon concerts.
Steve Roach, another successful veteran whose music has been championed by Hill and Hearts of Space, has been making music directly on synthesizers for 28 years. "I make music with whatever is needed," says the prolific Roach, who last year released a four-CD magnum opus called Mystic Chords & Sacred Spaces, which will keep his fans busy for months. "The use of technology is the base, but the infusion of organic instruments is a big part of my sound," says Roach. "I find a high number of writers, programmers, scientists, doctors, psychologists, and so on use the music as a tool to help them in many ways."

Secret Society
It is this use of spacemusic as a conduit into the creative process that draws devotees into a secret society of sorts. Listeners may use the music to get the creative juices flowing, to help with writing, painting, or just thinking up new ideas. "It is an open slate," says Roach of his meditative, even trance-inducing spacemusic. "It can be used as each person wishes."
Hill, who has witnessed the ebb and flow of spacemusic over three decades, says he doesn't "ever expect ambient music to get to the level of the mainstream genre. But I think it's a solid division of contemporary music." He notes that some of today's biggest bands, including Radiohead and Sigur Rós, involve ambient music as part of their repertoire.

Roots
Contemporary ambient spacemusic is rooted in the works of such avant-garde composers as Erik Satie, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich. Reich's seminal 1965 piece It's Gonna Rain features looped speech by a preacher. The loops create various sounds, which slip out of sync, changing and evolving over the length of the piece.
Brian Eno, generally regarded as the godfather of ambient music, was inspired by these avant-garde composers and began experimenting with analog synthesizers and loop-based technologies in the early 1970s. Eno's Music for Airports (1978), along with the early electronic masterpiece Autobahn (1972) and the spacey Atem (1973) by German synth icons Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, took listeners on an extended journey. Unsure of where "songs" began or ended, and exposed to strange, otherworldly sounds, stereophiles found themselves immersed in these slowly unfurling soundscapes.
In time, electronic music became less contemplative and immersive. It also spawned the much-maligned New Age, which has come to be a pejorative term among musicians.
"New Age largely bores me to tears," says electroacoustic artist D.A.C. Crowell, who creates spacemusic from his home-built studio in rural Illinois. "Good ambient work, however, is more likely to open a space for thought. It's not melodic background clutter."
Like an ever-mutating organism, spacemusic continues to evolve. Today, machines or software programs themselves can create original music that changes each time the music is "played." These so-called generative programs, once set in motion, use loops and phase shifting to generate a piece of music that never sounds the same twice.
Like some futuristic nanotechnology experiment, the fusing of organic (human) with machine (synthesizer/computer) continues to create new and extraordinary aural experiences. But, according to ambient artist Crowell, "generative programs are no shortcut and no substitute for musical capability. [It is] the 'mistakes' and other things that make music human and interesting."

February may come in the deep gray gloom of winter, but it's a great month for jazz. Designated as Black History Month, it gives us the opportunity to cast a larger-than-usual spotlight on the immense contributions that African-American artists have made to the art, and to celebrate how the music acted as a force for integration in this country. In addition, February brings us Valentine's Day, reminding us that jazz, among its many pleasures, is a wonderful soundtrack for romance.
Our heavy hitter and longtime ambassador of jazz, Joe Bourne, features new releases and reissues every weekday afternoon from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Just You and Me. And if you're looking for your Joe Bourne fix on Friday nights, you can get it even earlier now-Joe is returning to The Big Bands, which airs from 9 to 10 p.m. The Big Bands is preceded by Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz at 8; this month Marian's guests include singer Nancy Marano, alto saxophonist Bud Shank, jazz writer Nat Hentoff, and pianist Freddie Redd.
If Marian and Joe leave you wanting more, stick around for Afterglow, WFIU's long-running program of jazz ballads and American popular song. Afterglow, begun by the venerable WFIU radio legend Dick Bishop in the late 1970s, will now be hosted by David Brent Johnson, beginning every Friday evening at 10:10. He plans to continue the Afterglow tradition of highlighting the work of great songwriters such as Cole Porter, Jules Styne, Johnny Mercer, and many others, while also playing jazz interpretations of late-20th century artists like Lennon and McCartney and Nick Drake.
David Johnson also hosts the Saturday evening jazz program Night Lights, which airs at 11:10 p.m. This month Night Lights focuses on African-American artists and themes: "Say It Loud" takes a look at late 1960s/early 1970s soul jazz that incorporated black pride themes, while "Black Vocal Harmony Groups" examines the ensembles of the 1930s and 40s that anticipated the rise of doo-wop in the 1950s. A special two-part program explores the life, art, and legacy of Gigi Gryce, an alto saxophonist, composer, and teacher who helped pioneer the notion of African-American jazz artists retaining ownership of their music. These programs are also available after broadcast on the Web site: www.nightlights.indiana.edu.
As you await the first faint hints of spring, stay cozy, content, and informed with WFIU-your home for jazz in southern and central Indiana.

Almost concurrently with black Americans' struggle against racial injustice, Nelson Mandela and like-minded South Africans launched and nurtured the anti-apartheid movement. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, another pivotal figure among those whose courage and commitment changed South Africa, hosts this retelling of the fifty-year struggle to end apartheid.
The hour features rarely heard recordings, including:
Tapes, left forgotten and decaying in a government archive, from the 1964 Rivonia Trial in which Mandela and five others were sentenced to life imprisonment;
A secret recording of Mandela in prison that had been hidden by a guard for over thirty years;
First-person accounts of former activists, generals, National Party politicians, Robben Island prisoners and guards, and everyday witnesses to history;
And voices of key figures, including Mandela, Tutu, and former President F.W. de Klerk.

This American Life host Ira Glass came to the IU Auditorium in October to give a talk on how he makes radio stories. During a pre-concert reception, he schmoozed with WFIU members in the Grand Hall of the Neal-Marshall Black Cultural Center.
Bloomington dentist George Peffley and his wife Patt told Ira that they "love This American Life."
"I stay home from my Sunday morning softball games to hear the end of his program, and I miss batting practice."
Peffley told Ira that This American Life does things "no one else does."
"It's something you don't get in newspapers or on television," Peffley told Glass. "I'm very amused by many of the stories and a little bit appalled by some of the others. It's my favorite radio program."
Betty Greenwell had an Ira moment that could have come from a This American Life story. She had with her an unused ticket from a live taping of This American Life in Chicago in 2003 that she was unable to attend. She presented the ticket to Ira, asking him for a refund-or an autograph.
"He opted for the autograph," she said, "but first he made a point of torturing me by waving the ticket in the air and saying, 'You know, this is like the greatest show we ever did, seriously. It was a really great show you missed. And we had this huge slide presentation. It was incredible!'"
"You're killing me," she told him.
According to Betty, Ira suffered a sneezing fit as he was knelt down to autograph her ticket. He wrote, "Sorry you missed it!" and drew little cloud-like shapes around his name. "The little clouds threw me," Betty said.
As Ira was autographing Rita Pavoka's copy of WFIU's monthly guide, Directions in Sound, she pitched him a story idea. Would he be interested in a story about the interracial marriage between her daughter and her new husband? Ira, ever the reporter looking for a conflict, told her, "Only if they hated each other."
IU professor of mathematics Bruce Solomon and his wife Sue Swartz talked with friends about how they listen to This American Life.
"He listens to it driving to and from food shopping, which is his job," Swartz said. "Or he sits in the back in our driveway and I'm thinking, 'Why is he still in the car? He's been there for ten minutes.'"
"The show is unfailingly fascinating," Solomon added. "I've had many This American Life parking lot moments in front of Bloomingfoods."

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson: A Celebration (Cedille Records: CDR 90000 087)
Paul Freeman/Chicago Sinfonietta; New Black Music Repertory Ensemble
" Sinfonietta No. 1 for Strings (1954-55): Wednesday, February 1st at 7:07 p.m.
" Grass: Poem for Piano, Strings & Percussion (1956): Saturday, February 11th at 12:09 p.m.
" Quartet No. 1 based on "Calvary" (1956): Tuesday, February 21st at 11:13 p.m.
Acclaimed conductor Paul Freeman leads the Chicago Sinfonietta and the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble in this memorial tribute to black American composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson who died in March of 2004.

Brahms: Music for Cello and Piano (ArtistLed 10501-2)
David Finckel, vlc.; Wu Han, p.
" Sonata for Cello and Piano No.1 in e, Op. 38: Thursday, February 2nd at 7:07 p.m.
" Six Pieces for Solo Piano, Op. 118: Wednesday, February 15th at 10:12 p.m.
" Sonata for Cello and Piano No.2 in F, Op. 99: Saturday, February 25th at 12:09 p.m.
In 1997, husband and wife duo David Finckel and Wu Han decided to leave behind major recording companies and go it alone. Since starting their own label, ArtistLed, they have released seven recordings, all to widespread critical acclaim. Here's their latest offering.

J.S. Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001-1006 (Pentatone Classics: PTC 5186 072)
Julia Fischer, vln.
" Sonata No.1 in g, BWV 1001: Wednesday, February 8th at 7:07 p.m.
" Sonata No.3 in C, BWV 1005: Saturday, February 18th at 12:09 p.m
" Partita No.3 in E, BWV 1006: Wednesday, February 22nd at 7:07 p.m
Citing pianist Glenn Gould among her strongest musical influences, young German virtuoso Julia Fischer tackles some of the most demanding works in the violin repertory, turning in several remarkably sensitive performances, which she recorded last year at the age of only twenty-one.

Mahler: Symphony No. 9, Boulez: Rituel, Notations I-IV, VII (Hänssler Classics: CD 93.098)
Michael Gielen/SWR Symphony Orchestra of Baden-Baden and Freiburg
" Mahler: Symphony No.9 in D: Wednesday, February 22nd at 10:12 p.m.
Michael Gielen is considered by many to be among the finest living interpreters of the music of Gustav Mahler. Since it was released this past June, his complete cycle of Mahler Symphonies has caused quite a stir among collectors. Now the Ninth has become the first single recording from the cycle to be released, paired in this two-disc set with several works of contemporary French composer Pierre Boulez.

February 5 - Mary Goetze
Mary Goetze chairs the IU Music in General Studies department and conducts the International Vocal Ensemble, a chorus specializing in vocal music from the world's cultural traditions. She is founder of the University Children's Choir and is active as a composer, clinician, and guest conductor. She co-founded the Mountain Lake Colloquium for Teachers of General Music Methods, and is in demand as a clinician in the U.S. and abroad, presenting regularly at national and international music education conferences. Her publications include numerous arrangements and compositions for treble voices and Share the Music, a K-6 series book used widely throughout the United States. She spoke with Sarah Stevens.

February 12 - Ravdan Bold
Ravdan Bold became ambassador of Mongolia to the United States in 2003. He previously served as executive secretary of the National Security Council of Mongolia, adviser to the Parliament and director of the Institute of Strategic Studies, and deputy director of the Mongolian Central Intelligence Agency. He also held various posts in the Institute of Strategic Studies, the Ministry of Defense, the Embassy of Mongolia in Japan, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ambassador Bold attended the Military Institute in Ulaanbaatar, the Military Diplomatic School in Moscow, and the Defense Resources Management Training of Naval Postgraduate School in the United States. He spoke with Patrick O'Meara.

February 19 - Adam Langer
Adam Langer has worked as a print journalist, editor, nonfiction author, playwright, theater director, and film producer. He has written for a number of periodicals including the Chicago Reader and writes a weekly column for The Book Standard. The Chicago Tribune called his debut novel, "Crossing California," "the most vivid novel about Chicago since Saul Bellow's 'Herzog'." That book and its sequel, "The Washington Story," depict the lives of a group of young people who come of age against the background of historical events. Langer grew up in Chicago and divides his time between Bloomington, Indiana, where his wife is a professor of political science, and New York City. He spoke with Michael Wilkerson.

February 26 - Third House
This hour-long question-and-answer session with legislators from the Indiana General Assembly provides insight into current legislative activities. The featured legislators represent most of the WFIU listening area and answer questions from local residents. Produced in the studios of WTIU, Third House is simulcast live on that station. If you have any questions that you would like to submit, send them in advance to wtiu@indiana.edu or call 855-2102 or 800-553-7893.

Inside the church of a Benedictine monastery on Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.
When Jessie Sullivan is summoned home to the island to cope with her eccentric mother's seemingly inexplicable act of violence, she is living a conventional life with her husband, Hugh. Jessie loves Hugh, but once on the island, she finds herself drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk who is soon to take his final vows.
Amid a rich community of unforgettable island women and the exotic beauty of marshlands, tidal creeks, and majestic egrets, Jessie grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, with a freedom that feels overwhelmingly right and the immutable force of home and marriage. What transpires will unlock the roots of her mother's past and allow Jessie to make peace with herself.

One evening in 1974, Barbara Jordan awakened America. For over a year, the nation had been mired in Watergate. The protracted conflict had created a weary uncertainty in the national consciousness, confronted by mounting evidence of presidential misdeeds. That evening in the House chamber, it took only thirteen minutes for the black freshman congresswoman with the powerful voice to re-focus the country's will and faith in its Constitution. Within two weeks, President Richard Nixon resigned.
Hosted by Jacquie Gales Webb, Rediscovering Barbara Jordan chronicles the life of this remarkable woman, from her early years growing up in the Jim Crow South, through her election to the Texas Senate, to her ultimate national status as a skilled politician with a steadfast moral compass and a statesman's dignity.
Who was this remarkable person, and how did she learn to meld political cunning with Christian ethics? To answer those questions, we look at the black church in the South, the unique nature of the Houston ward Jordan represented, the arc of the civil rights movement when she was active in it, and the people whose insight and influence she valued.

Broadcasts from the IU School of Music

VIVALDI-Concerto in G for Oboe and Bassoon, RV545; Washington McClain, ob.; Michael McGraw, bssn.; Byron Schenkman/Seattle Baroque
Airs: 2/6 at 7 p.m., 2/7 at 10 a.m., 2/10 at 3 p.m.

LISZT-Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 in a; Andre Watts, p.
Airs: 2/13 at 7 p.m., 2/14 at 10 a.m., 2/17 at 3 p.m.

ARAD-Concerto for the Viola; Atar Arad, vla.; Uriel Segal/IU Ch. Orch.
Airs: 2/15 at 10 p.m.

SCHUBERT-MASS NO. 6 IN E-FLAT, D. 950: Benedictus; Benita Valente, s.; Marietta Simpson, ms.; Jon Humphrey, t.; Myron Myers, bar.; Robert Shaw/Atlanta Sym. Orch. and Chorus
Airs: 1/20 at 7 p.m., 1/21 at 10 a.m., 1/24 at 3 p.m.

BAKER, D.-Sonata for Clarinet and Piano; James Campbell, cl.; Paul Barnes, p.
Airs: 2/27 at 7 p.m., 2/28 at 10 a.m., 3/3 at 3 p.m.

The Wire explores the influence of electricity on music. Using a collage of interviews, music and sound, the series creates a radio experience that's somewhere between a documentary, a remix, and a music show.
Interviews with key figures from around the world include one of the last interviews with the late Robert Moog, the legendary inventor of the synthesizer, composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and Steve Reich, and the inventor of the electric guitar, Les Paul.
A production of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, this eight-part series won the 2005 Prix Italia radio award. It begins in February and concludes in March.

The arrival of public electricity on the eve of the 20th century transformed virtually every aspect of daily life-not least of all, the experience of music. We begin our journey with a reflection on how electricity has changed the way we think of the human voice, the way we communicate sound to large groups of people, and the way we now take for granted that sound is something that can be preserved, stored, and heard again.

Electricity refined the way sounds were captured in time, adding a new dimension of fidelity to the acoustic phonograph. The invention of magnetic recording tape represented a leap forward in audio technology. For the first time, sound could be manipulated. What had been the representation of a singular moment in time became a malleable moment in space.

People had always been trying to make the quiet and humble guitar louder-by using resonators, horn attachments, new strings, and new materials-but electricity finally did the trick. From early jazz to the age of the rock star, each new innovation expanded the electric guitar's world of sound and cemented its status as one of the iconic symbols of the 20th century.

Scientists like Helmholtz and Hertz explored the electrical essence of sound waves. Inventors like Canadian physicist Hugh LeCaine and Russian spy Leon Theremin extended that exploration to a new breed of electronic instruments. But it wasn't until Robert Moog came along and invented the synthesizer that the sound of electricity started to become a household sound in the music of rock bands.

Under a Southern Moon: Blues Queens and Tent Shows
Sunday, February 26, 8 p.m.

This program is a music-filled profile of the black vaudeville tent shows of the early 1900s. Long before Mamie Smith had the first hit blues record in 1921, blues shouters in traveling tent shows stirred things up in the South, bringing vaudeville to black audiences in small towns below the Mason-Dixon Line. A typical tent show included a hot rhythm band, chorus dancers, comedy sketches, and the occasional sideshow oddity. But the headliner was always the blues queen who closed the show, and the biggest stars were Ma Rainey and her protégé, Bessie Smith. Host David Holt and The Jim Cullum Jazz Band are joined by actor Vernel Bagneris and jazz singer Topsy Chapman, as they spotlight the blues queens and tent shows from the South's back roads.

This program is a riveting hour-long profile of York, explorer William Clark's slave and the only black member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
York's story is both heroic and tragic. He began life as Clark's childhood playmate, but at age 12, their relationship became that of slave and master. On the expedition, York experienced a rare level of freedom and equality, working shoulder to shoulder with white men. On returning home, however, the other members of the Corps of Discovery were welcomed with gifts and praise. York was plunged back into bondage and subservience, which ultimately shattered his life.
The details of York's life are based on fragmentary evidence in the writings and stories of others, always nuanced by the social era in which they were created. He has been characterized as a valiant hero, an insolent and sulky slave, and a happy, dancing darkie. Today, artists and historians continue to give words to this man. Poetry, opera, and rap-all in York's "voice"-are being performed as part of the bicentennial celebration of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
By looking at how York is portrayed through history, this program raises questions about how history is recorded, remembered, and created. Actor Danny Glover narrates.