One Hit Wonders

This week on The New Jazz Archive, we go in search of jazz's flash-in-the-pan and pop crossover phenoms whose light burned bright and then burned out altogether as we take a tour of some of the memorable musical moments from the world of jazz’s one hit wonders. We'll talk with our go-to research guy Lou Blouin about the times when jazz and jazz musicians defied the odds and broke through onto the pop charts, and chat with jazz historian Tom Cunniffe about the one-hit songwriters who contributed some of the most memorable standards in the jazz canon. And we’ll hear the story of how a long-lost recording of John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk became a recent surprise jazz hit, and listen in on the flash-in-the-pan musical phenomenon that was 1950s crime jazz.

Listen to this episode.