Radio Free Newport


Imagine an A.M. radio station broadcasting jazz, blues, and comedy records from sunrise to sunset while floating in the Ohio River from 1962 to 2000.

Welcome to seventeen minutes of "The Act of Radio".

  • Christopher Braig
    Director
    Jimmy McGary The Best Jazz You Never Heard
  • Christopher Braig
    Writer
  • Christopher Braig
    Producer
  • Christopher Braig
    Original Score Composers
  • Pat Harbison
    Original Score Composers
  • Peter Knoll
    Original Score Composers
  • Christian Braig
    Original Score Composers
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    31 minutes 48 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 30, 2020
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Christopher Braig

Christopher Braig is an internationally credited multi-instrumentalist, composer, and filmmaker. His first film, Jimmy McGary, The Best Jazz You Never Heard, was named "Best Posthumous Documentary" at the 2019 New York Jazz Film Festival. Christopher's second film, Radio Free Newport, was nominated for awards in London, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, New York, Munich, and Prague. Both films are programmed on the BeBop Channel in Harlem, New York City. His most recent film recognition is a nomination for the best composer at France's 2022 Cannes Shorts Film Festival.

Christopher's last record, Rise of the Jazz Ark, was engineered by the legendary Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, Bush, Jimmy Page & Rober Plant) at Electrical Audio Studio B in Chicago direct to analog tape. He has performed and recorded with "Breathe-Live" in New York City at Brooklyn Bull Studio.

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Director Statement

We have two lives: the one we learn with and the one we live after that.
— Bernard Malamud

My childhood was an artistic void. The radio in the Corvair, Pinto, or Nova was always “tuned” to off. Johnny Mathis Christmas album, church every Sunday, before football of course, and maybe some Elvis when the “HiFi” was hooked up for a couple of weeks a decade as I recall.

I am unable to forget purchasing my very first recordings from the 99 Cent “cut out” bins at Everybody's Records in Cincinnati, Ohio. I had tagged along with some older kids from school who were really into progressive rock. Bands like YES and RUSH and ELP (Emerson Lake and Palmer).

The first album I took home was Fanfare For The Warriors by The Art Ensemble of Chicago. The only “jazz” I had ever heard was on Radio Free Newport, a low-power “dawn to dusk” radio station called WNOP that floated in the Ohio River.