Starry Nights hits the airwaves

After three years of crowd-pleasing performances, Starry Nights, the American Museum of Natural History's jazz performance series, burst onto the airwaves this winter. The Museum and WBGO Jazz 88.3 FM have teamed up to broadcast select Starry Nights performances live from the spectacular Rose Center for Earth and Space where two sets--at 5:30 and 7:00 p.m.--take place on the first Friday of each month. Tune in at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, April 4, for this month's broadcast.

WBGO, the only full-time jazz station in the New York metropolitan area, will carry a total of six live broadcasts this year of Starry Nights. February 7 inaugurated the collaboration, and future broadcasts will take place on April 4, June 6, August 1, October 3, and December 5, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Gary Walker, WBGO's Morning Jazz host for 13 years and winner of the 1996 Gavin Report Jazz Radio Personality of the Year award, will host the hour-long broadcasts.

Starry Nights was launched soon after the Museum opened its acclaimed Frederick Phineas & Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space in February 2000. The series kicked off with Ray Vega's Latin Jazz Sextet. Since then, over 35 celebrated jazz groups have appeared, including Bobby Sanabria and Quinteto Ache, Jimmy Heath, The Jazz Passengers, Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, and Ray Barretto and New World Spirit. The first WBGO broadcast aired in February 2003 with the Grammy-nominated alto saxophonist Antonio Hart and The Antonio Hart Quintet.

Nearly 1,000 jazz enthusiasts attend Starry Nights each month, and have been treated to a wide spectrum of today's best jazz, ranging from Afro-Cuban fusion to Latin and blues rhythms. A selection of authentic tapas, sparkling water, sangria, wine, and beer combined with the sounds of hot jazz and the cool blue, "otherworldly" glow of one of New York's boldest architectural treasures, makes Starry Nights one of the city's most popular attractions.

WBGO 88.3 FM serves the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area with straight-ahead jazz, blues, and award-winning news and public affairs programming. Non-commercial WBGO is supported by over 14,000 members and has 400,000 weekly listeners. WBGO also streams its broadcast signal to audiences worldwide at www.wbgo.org. It was named Jazz Station of the Year for 2001 by the Gavin Report and also is the recipient of the Blues Foundation's Keeping the Blues Alive Award for Achievement in Non-Commercial Radio. Media sponsorship for Starry Nights is provided by CenterCare Health Plan.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Natural History Magazine, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning