GBH Music, JazzBoston, and the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra present a special tribute to Duke Ellington to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the iconic jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader's birth.

The comedian with Massachusetts roots spoke with The Culture Show ahead of his show at the Wilbur April 4.

Natasha Lance Rogoff joins The Culture Show to talk about her book, "Muppets in Moscow." Also on the show today, television host Padma Lakshmi.

Music has always been central to the African American quest for freedom. The Civil Rights struggle and its music provided some of America’s most powerful calls of hope, moral clarity, and equity.

During the 19th century, spirituals such as Steal Away carried coded protest. In the 20th century, protest became explicit. In the 1930s Ethel Waters sang an anti-lynching song that shocked Broadway and Billie Holiday bravely recorded the stinging song Strange Fruit. Duke Ellington’s long career spoke for racial respect and civil rights in such pieces as Black Beauty and [Martin Luther] King Fit the Battle of Alabam’.

As political action picked up and in the 1950s and 1960s, We Shall Overcome became the clarion anthem of the Civil Rights movement and central to America’s moral quest for “a more perfect Union.” Old songs like This Little Light of Mine took on new meaning and fresh songs appeared such as If You Miss Me from the Back of the Bus. Black and white activists alike sang Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind. And great artists—such as Sam Cooke (A Change is Gonna Come), The Impressions (People Get Ready), James Brown (Say It Loud), Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, on up to The Roots—all sang to advance respect and equality.

Dr. John Edward Hasse, long-time music curator at the Smithsonian and Duke Ellington’s biographer, plays stirring video clips of these songs that inspired, motivated, and advocated for what Martin Luther King called for in his “I have a dream” speech: that we all be judged not by the color of our skin, “but by the content of our character.” He also plays works by W.C. Handy and Duke Ellington that helped lay the musical foundation for the Civil Rights movement.

Today on The Culture Show, hosts Callie Crossley, Edgar B. Herwick III, and Jared Bowen talk about the much-anticipated release from Beyoncé, along with all of the other headlines in arts and culture.

"Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion" highlights the colorful culture and history of high fashion in men's professional basketball.

Based on his award-winning film, Daniel Callahan's 80-minute one-man show delves even further into his journey into manhood as a Black man in Boston.

At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the nasturtium flowers bloom for three weeks every spring as a living sculpture. Erika Rumbley, the director of horticulture at the museum, joins The Culture Show to talk about it.

Bill Rauch is the inaugural Artistic Director of The Perelman Center for the Performing Arts (PAC NYC) at the World Trade Center. His work has been featured on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning production of Robert Schenkkan’s “All The Way” and its companion play “The Great Society,” as well as at many of the largest regional theaters in the country.

From 2007 to 2019, Bill was Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the country’s oldest and largest rotating repertory theater, where he directed seven world premieres as well as innovative productions of classic musicals, including a queer reenvisioning of “Oklahoma!” Among his initiatives at OSF, he committed to commissioning new plays that dramatized moments of change in American history. “American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle” resulted in such plays as Lynn Nottage’s “Sweat” (winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize), Paula Vogel’s “Indecent,” the 1491s’ “Between Two Knees,” Lisa Loomer’s “Roe,” Universes’ “Party People,” Culture Clash’s “American Night,” and Robert Schenkkan’s plays about Lyndon B. Johnson.

Bill is also co-founder of Cornerstone Theater Company, where he served as artistic director from 1986 to 2006, directing more than 40 productions, most of them collaborations with diverse communities nationwide. He has directed world premieres at Portland Center Stage, Center Theater Group, and South Coast Rep, as well as at American Repertory Theater, Yale Rep, the Guthrie, Arena Stage, Seattle Rep, Long Wharf Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Pasadena Playhouse, and Great Lakes Theater Festival. His production of “The Pirates of Penzance” performed at Portland Opera. He was a Claire Trevor Professor at the University of California Irvine and has also taught at the University of Southern California and UCLA.

Cosponsored by the Boston College Theatre Department, English Department, and the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy.

The historic Brookline cinema looks to be a regional gathering space for movie lovers.