Programs/Content
Current’s annual survey of productions in the works for public TV
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More than 100 films are underway, soon to take viewers from sea to sky and everywhere in between.
Current (https://current.org/2014/11/page/3/)
More than 100 films are underway, soon to take viewers from sea to sky and everywhere in between.
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing — and a handy role in a Cold War propaganda campaign. In the late ’50s, U.S. government officials eager to make a case for America’s superiority to Communist regimes found a new vehicle to deliver the message to a global audience. They staged a series of global tours of top jazz musicians to showcase the popular and inclusive art form, promoting the democratic values enshrined in the music while also offsetting the backlash brewing among African Americans fed up with discrimination. Those tours wound down in the ’70s, but a new film next year will revisit their legacy. Presented by New York’s WNET, the 90-minute Jazz Ambassadors will showcase the overseas adventures of jazz legends such as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck and Duke Ellington.
The film will be the first in a three-part series about pivotal moments in African-American history.
Tom Magliozzi, half of Click and Clack on NPR’s Car Talk, the Tappet Brothers, died Monday of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 77. Magliozzi and his brother Ray hosted Car Talk for 37 years before it ended production in 2012. The show continues airing in reruns. Doug Berman, the show’s producer, said in a blog post that Tom Magliozzi and his brother “changed public broadcasting forever.”
Evans will step into the position Jan. 1.
Friends and colleagues of Margot Adler gathered in New York and Washington, D.C., last week to pay tribute to the late NPR correspondent.
U.S. stations are holding onto the program while the CBC searches for a permanent replacement for the fired host.