Night Train (radio show)

Night Train is a four-hour-long, weekly radio program originating from public radio station WLRN-FM in Miami, Florida. It has aired continuously since 1977 and been hosted by Ted Grossman since its debut. Each broadcast features an eclectic mix of big band, blues, and jazz recordings dating from the '30s to the present.

Format
The show airs live on Sunday nights from 8:00 to midnight EST. It is simulcast live to the Florida Keys on WLRN's affiliate, WKWM.

Jimmy Forrest's 1951 instrumental jazz standard "Night Train" serves as the show's eponymous opening and closing theme music.

Many shows are built around a theme featuring the recordings of a particular jazz performer (example: Duke Ellington) or vocalist (example:  Frank Sinatra), or around a holiday, such as Halloween or Christmas.

During one 25-year stretch, the show aired one full-length Glenn Miller Orchestra broadcast a month.

Occasionally, the show will invite local or nationally-known recording artists or other musicians as in-studio guests, with Grossman playing recordings and quizzing his guest about the identity of the recording's performer(s) or vocalist(s).

The last hour of the show typically features a music segment titled "Jazz Can Be Beautiful."

In keeping with the show's locomotive-themed title, Grossman is known for donning a train conductor's striped railroad hat as he broadcasts each week. The Miami Herald once described the show as a "rambling, rumbling three-hour local service with stops at Big Band, Dixieland, The Blues and Crooner City."

In its early years (in the late 1970s), the show aired on Friday nights from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.

History
Grossman approached WLRN in 1975 when the station expanded its jazz programming. He volunteered his talents. The station's syndicated big band radio show had gone off the air. As Grossman recounted to the Miami Herald in 1983, "You don't have any big-band show, I told them. They let me on to sink or swim."

“I was always interested in big bands," he recounted to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in 2023. "I started buying records before I had a phonograph. I had this collection. I called the station and told them, ‘Listen, I have this material. I’m used to a microphone. I can speak. You should let me have a job.’ I went in. They said we’re gonna try you out. They showed me how to work a board. Nobody ever pressured me. Nobody ever told me what to play, or what guests to have on the air — to this day. They’re still trying me out. So here I am.”

Host
Ted Grossman has hosted the show since its debut in January 1977. In addition to playing the recordings on his show, Grossman supplies anecdotes and authoritative commentary about the bands and performers, including album notes and assorted trivia. He often peppers his show with mentions of the birthdays, deaths, or other anniversaries of jazz notables, past and present.

Grossman explained his creed in a 2023 interview: "[ Duke Ellington] said there’s only two kinds of music. Good and bad. It doesn’t have to be jazz. It just has to be good. People say, how do you listen to that old stuff? I’ll say, ‘Wait a minute. Are they still playing Beethoven?’ This is not old. Art is art."