Cultural Manifesto

Celebrate Women’s History Month by listening back to some of Kyle Long's interviews with Hoosier women who've made history in the Indiana music scene, including Dena El Saffar, an Iraqi American musician based in Bloomington, Niambi Steele of the Indy soul band 24 Carat Black, and Mary Byrne, an LGBTQ+ activist who opened a feminist Indianapolis nightclub called Labyris during the 1970s.

This week we're celebrating Women’s History Month with an hour of music from the legendary soul women of Northwest Indiana, including music from The Opals, Deniece Williams, and Kellee Patterson, the first Black woman to be crowned Miss Indiana.

The composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Emily Wells was born in Texas, but she grew up largely in Indianapolis. This week, Emily Wells joins Kyle Long to discuss her time in Indianapolis and to share tracks from her new album "Regards to the End”, which reflects on the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and the present day climate crisis.

Gary, Indiana's Steeltown Records is best remembered for issuing the first ever recording from Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five - but the label was home to a fantastic collective of musicians and songwriters who deserve greater recognition. This week, dive into the music of artists connected to the Steeltown label - including Lou D. Washington, Robert Lee, Gordon Keith, and Maurice Rodgers.

When you hear the phrase Dixieland jazz, you probably don’t think of Crawfordsville, Indiana. But Crawfordsville’s De Paris brothers performed with some of the greatest legends of jazz music, including Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, and Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington and more. This week we’ll explore the music of trumpet player Sidney De Paris, and trombonist Wilbur De Paris.

This week we’ll explore the music of Hoosier jazz pianist Jack Wilson. The Fort Wayne, Indiana native recorded for some of the biggest labels in jazz music, including Blue Note and Atlantic Records; and he performed with some of the most significant figures in American music, from Dinah Washington to Roy Ayers.

In observance of Black History Month, Kyle Long will be featuring historic Black musicians from across Indiana all month long. This week, explore the music of Evansville, Indiana's Belford “Sinky” Hendricks. You may not recognize Belford Hendricks by name, but you’ve likely heard the music he wrote and arranged for artists including Nat “King” Cole and Aretha Franklin.

This week we'll listen back to our 2015 interview with Moe Whittemore, who passed away recently. In the 1970s, Moe opened the 700 West studio and record label in the living room of his family’s home in New Palestine, Indiana. During the studio’s run, Moe recorded a diverse array of Indiana music - from early electronic sounds, bluegrass, funk, heavy metal, and psychedelic rock.

Trombonist Ernest Stuart has worked extensively in the Naptown scene, performing and recording with Rob Dixon, Jared Thompson, and Clint Breeze and The Groove. He’s also performed around the world with artists including Aretha Franklin, The Roots, Red Baraat, and more. This week, Stuart joins Kyle Long to talk about his career and his admiration for Indianapolis trombone legend J.J. Johnson.

Indiana lost some of its most prominent and important musicians in 2021 - from iconic figures like the jazz legend Slide Hampton, to up and coming voices like Eugene Vincent. This week we’ll say a final goodbye to the Indiana musicians we lost last year.

This week Kyle Long speaks with house music producer Oliver Lastname, also known as Jeremy “Jace” Wallace, a prolific video director in the Indianapolis music scene. Long also talks to the experimental pop artist Percbuddy, a project created by the Indianapolis-born high school student Moses Kaufmann.

This week Kyle Long listens back at some of his favorite local music, and interviews of 2021, and looks ahead to some of the interviews he'll be featuring in 2022. Enjoy music and words from artists including Emily Wells, Ebony Rhythm Funk Campaign, Skypp, 81355, Pavel and Direct Contact, Public Universal Friend, Hanna Benn, and Marcus Jade.

This week we're enjoying music from Santa Claus... Santa Claus, Indiana to be specific. We’ll look back on the work of Ray Scrivener. Ray found success working in the country music industry before moving to Santa Claus, Indiana to build his own music empire. The records Ray issued have become cult classics among fans of psychedelic garage rock, rhythm and blues, and rockabilly music.

Director Lisa Rovner’s important new documentary “Sisters With Transistors” explores the stories of electronic music’s female pioneers. Indiana has produced many extraordinary women who’ve made important contributions to electronic music. This week, enjoy music and words from artists including Priscilla Mclean, Suzanne Ciani, Hanna Benn, the all-woman synth rock band Software and more.

This week Kyle Long talks with Hal McGee. During the 1980s, Hal and his former partner Debbie Jaffe recorded and released groundbreaking noise music and industrial music on an underground cassette label called Cause and Effect, operating out of their apartment in downtown Indianapolis. Though the label functioned as a modest, do-it-yourself project, Cause and Effect had a global impact.

This week we explore the career of Indianapolis jazz keyboardist, composer, and arranger Steve Allee. Among his many accomplishments, Allee toured with jazz legend Buddy Rich as a teenager, co-founded the Baron Von Ohlen Quintet - a groundbreaking 1970s Indianapolis jazz ensemble, and served as musical director for the Bob and Tom radio show.

This week on Cultural Manifesto we pay tribute to the legendary Indianapolis composer, arranger, and trombonist Slide Hampton. Slide Hampton passed away earlier this week. He was 89 years old. Slide was one of the most accomplished musicians to emerge from the Indianapolis scene. He was a two time Grammy winner, and a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters award.

This week, Kyle Long looks back at the life and music of Caroline Peyton, one of the most powerful voices in the history of Indiana music. She was adept at performing a diverse variety of music, including jazz, folk and psychedelic rock. During her career, Peyton recorded experimental free-form art music and provided vocals for Disney movies including Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas.

This week Kyle Long talks with Grammy Award-winning jazz trumpeter and Oscar-nominated film composer Terence Blanchard. Earlier this year, Blanchard made international news when his opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. This was the first performance of an opera composed by an African American in the Met’s 138 year history.

The Walker Theatre is reopening after a long period of renovation. This week we’ll look at two upcoming events at the Walker.  We’ll be speaking with jazz drummer Kenny Phelps, he’s hosting an autobiographical music review titled The Artisan. We’ll also talk with playwright Vernon A. Williams, the author of "Price of Progress: The IUPUI and Indiana Ave Story”.

This week we're revisiting a conversation with Don Worsham and Steve Everitt of Radio Free Naptown. From 1968 to 1972 a group of brilliant young Indianapolis pirate radio broadcasters unified their skills and talents to create the “bootleg” radio station WRFN. The “electronics whiz-kids” operating WRFN evaded the FCC for four years - even transmitting from a horse pasture to elude detection.

A sound map is a sonic representation of a specific site or location. This week, we'll explore two different projects that have created sound maps of Indianapolis. Eric Salazar joins Kyle Long to discuss Classical Music Indy's CMI City Sounds series. Then, we'll listen to Kyle's 2017 conversation with Michael Kaufmann, the founder of Sound Expeditions, a collection of 30 site-specific pieces.

Join guest-host Karla Lopez-Owens for a special Hispanic Heritage Month edition of Cultural Manifesto. Enjoy an hour of Hispanic Hoosier music from the past and present including Rick Espinoza, Paula Monsalve, Amanda Perez and more.

Kyle Long talks with the Indianapolis jazz guitarist Charlie Ballantine about his new double album titled “Reflections/Introspection: The Music of Thelonious Monk”, featuring Ballantine's arrangements of compositions by the jazz icon Thelonious Monk.

Kyle Long talks with Jody Friend of Public Universal Friend about the band's debut album "Perennials." The record served as a coming out for Jody, the group’s vocalist and songwriter, who used the project’s release to publicly acknowledge her identity as a trans woman.