Cultural Manifesto

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.

Kyle Long explores this year's edition of the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival in Bloomington, Indiana. Every year, Lotus Festival brings musicians from across the world to the Hoosier state for an exciting weekend of music and culture. Hear from artists performing at this year's festival, including the Bloomington-based singer-songwriter David Dávila González of Matixando.

Naptown drummer Richard ”Sleepy” Floyd is a fixture in the Indy jazz scene, and he’s also one of the curators of the 2021 Indy Jazz Fest. Sleepy joins Kyle Long this week to talk about this year's roster - which features Thundercat, Moonchild, Victor Wooten, Cory Henry, and many others - along with Native Sun’s ”Legalize Being Black," a composition addressing the Black Lives Matter movement.

Orval “Baggie” Hardimon is a legend of the Kokomo music scene. This week, Kyle Long shares rare records released by Hardimon in the 1940s, as well as an unreleased recording from Hardimon’s Kokomo home in 1961 featuring the iconic jazz organist, Jimmy Smith. This episode also celebrates the 50th anniversary of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” — an album featuring three songs co-written by Indianapolis-born James Nyx, Jr.

This week Kyle Long's guest is veteran indie rock musician Daniel Smith. You may know Smith from his work with the Danielson Famile, or his solo project Brother Daniel. Kyle talks with Smith about the music he composed for the film "Electric Jesus", a coming-of-age comedy about a fictitious Christian hair metal band named 316.

Enjoy an hour of words and music with the Grammy-winning blues legend Bobby Rush, known as the "King of the Chitlin' Circuit". He and Kyle Long discuss his time performing on Indiana Avenue with Muddy Waters during the early 1950s. Rush has a new book out titled "I Ain't Studdin' Ya: My American Blues Story."

Kyle Long talks with Indianapolis folk musician Rich Hynes. He has a new album out titled “Old Naptown Blues", a collection of eight songs that pay tribute to legendary Indianapolis musicians like Scrapper Blackwell and Yank Rachell, and historic Indianapolis neighborhoods like Stringtown, Brightwood, Mars Hill, and Fountain Square.

Kyle Long continues his ongoing look at the history of Latinx music in Indiana with an hour of recordings from the pioneers of Hoosier Latin music. Explore rare and unreleased tracks from artists including Johnny Ramos and Los Latinos, Bob Najera, Rick Espinoza, and others.

Kyle Long discusses “Making a Killing Year” with its creator, Indianapolis-based composer, performer and multimedia artist Jordan Munson. Rebel Music returns with Karla Lopez, as she interviews Elysia Lucida Smith, the owner of Irvington Vinyl and Books about the relationship between music and activism. This episode also features a tribute to Eugene “Teddy” Vincent, the Indianapolis-based entrepreneur and musician who died tragically last weekend at the age of 33.