Celebrating the magnificent Dexter Gordon on the centenary of his birth, February 27, 2023, with the brilliant Eric Person. Photo credit: Dexter_Gordon at Mountain Winery Jazz Festival, Saratoga CA_1981 Brianmcmillen, CC BY-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org-licenses-by-sa-4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Celebrating the incomparable Dexter Gordon on the centenary of his birth, February 27, 2023, with the brilliant Eric Person. Photo credit: Dexter Gordon at Mountain Winery Jazz Festival, Saratoga CA_1981 Brianmcmillen, CC BY-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org-licenses-by-sa-4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Jeff Beck arrived at a time when all the rules were being questioned. Unlike many of his contemporaries (and many in his audience), he never lost the sense of discovery in his music. Put an instrumental band together and get it played on the radio? Sure, why not? Collaborate with Stevie Wonder and Tina Turner? I'll try that! Introduce a whole new audience to the music of Charles Mingus? That's for me. And it never sounded stale or contrived or like the work of anyone else. Always, organically, J...
Jeff Beck arrived at a time when all the rules were being questioned. Unlike many of his contemporaries (and many in his audience), he never lost the sense of discovery in his music. Put an instrumental band together and get it played on the radio? Sure, why not? Collaborate with Stevie Wonder and Tina Turner? I'll try that! Introduce a whole new audience to the music of Charles Mingus? That's for me. And it never sounded stale or contrived or like the work of anyone else. Always, organically, J...
Jeff Beck arrived at a time when all the rules were being questioned. Unlike many of his contemporaries (and many in his audience), he never lost the sense of discovery in his music. Put an instrumental band together and get it played on the radio? Sure, why not? Collaborate with Stevie Wonder and Tina Turner? I'll try that! Introduce a whole new audience to the music of Charles Mingus? That's for me. And it never sounded stale or contrived or like the work of anyone else. Always, organically, J...
Meet Karl Berger and Ingrid Sertso. In 1965, they traveled from West Germany to Le Chat Qui Pêche in Paris and found Don Cherry there. What flowed from that encounter is a tale of discovery and evolution that is still unfolding, still reaching new ears and new minds. Let's hear about it from them firsthand. Hey, have you got any music we've never heard, Mitch? Do I? Do I! #WKCR #DeepFocus #DonCherry #KarlBerger #IngridSertso #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast #CompleteCommunion Photo credit: by Brian M...
Meet Karl Berger and Ingrid Sertso. In 1965, they traveled from West Germany to Le Chat Qui Pêche in Paris and found Don Cherry there. What flowed from that encounter is a tale of discovery and evolution that is still unfolding, still reaching new ears and new minds. Let's hear about it from them firsthand. Hey, have you got any music we've never heard, Mitch? Do I? Do I! #WKCR #DeepFocus #DonCherry #KarlBerger #IngridSertso #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast #CompleteCommunion Photo credit: by Mitch G...
Jimmy Smith didn't invent the electric organ but, for several decades at least, you wouldn't know it. The response to his Blue Note and Verve LPs in the Fifties and Sixties made him a festival headliner and earned him the nickname "The Incredible Jimmy Smith." To this day, no one in the Jazz idiom can sit down at a Hammond B3 without contending with his influence or his very life force, even 17 years after he left this earth. Brian Charette knows. He has been in the top 10 in Downbeat Magazine's...
Jimmy Smith didn't invent the electric organ but, for several decades at least, you wouldn't know it. The response to his Blue Note and Verve LPs in the Fifties and Sixties made him a festival headliner and earned him the nickname "The Incredible Jimmy Smith." To this day, no one in the Jazz idiom can sit down at a Hammond B3 without contending with his influence or his very life force, even 17 years after he left this earth. Brian Charette knows. He has been in the top 10 in Downbeat Magazine's...
Jimmy Smith didn't invent the electric organ but, for several decades at least, you wouldn't know it. The response to his Blue Note and Verve LPs in the Fifties and Sixties made him a festival headliner and earned him the nickname "The Incredible Jimmy Smith." To this day, no one in the Jazz idiom can sit down at a Hammond B3 without contending with his influence or his very life force, even 17 years after he left this earth. Brian Charette knows. He has been in the top 10 in Downbeat Magazine's...
Mitch Goldman's Deep Focus this Monday (12/12) is on Miles Davis with guest David Soldier. Soldier's punk chamber music, elephant orchestra (yes, the elephants play the instruments), Most Unwanted Song (which we absolutely love!) and tons of other off-center music had to come from someplace, but where? What inspires an emerging composer to take such brash risks and leaps of musical derring-do? Could it be from hearing one of Miles Davis' most outré bands at a formative age? Could there be a reco...
Mitch Goldman's Deep Focus this Monday (12/12) is on Miles Davis with guest David Soldier. Soldier's punk chamber music, elephant orchestra (yes, the elephants play the instruments), Most Unwanted Song (which we absolutely love!) and tons of other off-center music had to come from someplace, but where? What inspires an emerging composer to take such brash risks and leaps of musical derring-do? Could it be from hearing one of Miles Davis' most outré bands at a formative age? Could there be a reco...
Mitch Goldman's Deep Focus this Monday (12/12) is on Miles Davis with guest David Soldier. Soldier's punk chamber music, elephant orchestra (yes, the elephants play the instruments), Most Unwanted Song (which we absolutely love!) and tons of other off-center music had to come from someplace, but where? What inspires an emerging composer to take such brash risks and leaps of musical derring-do? Could it be from hearing one of Miles Davis' most outré bands at a formative age? Could there be a reco...
In 1972, as Miles Davis was rewriting the genetic code of musical possibilities in NYC, Carlos Santana, his labelmate, was doing the exact same thing in San Francisco. Blazing electric keyboard player? Check. Hard-swinging drummer? Check. Inventive electric bassist? Check. Fathomless well of creative ideas and the fearlessness to apply them? Check and double-check. One aspirant who was so moved by this that he picked up a guitar and never put it down was our guest, Vernon Reid. So did Santana ev...
In 1972, as Miles Davis was rewriting the genetic code of musical possibilities in NYC, Carlos Santana, his labelmate, was doing the exact same thing in San Francisco. Blazing electric keyboard player? Check. Hard-swinging drummer? Check. Inventive electric bassist? Check. Fathomless well of creative ideas and the fearlessness to apply them? Check and double-check. One aspirant who was so moved by this that he picked up a guitar and never put it down was our guest, Vernon Reid. So did Santana ev...
In 1972, as Miles Davis was rewriting the genetic code of musical possibilities in NYC, Carlos Santana, his labelmate, was doing the exact same thing in San Francisco. Blazing electric keyboard player? Check. Hard-swinging drummer? Check. Inventive electric bassist? Check. Fathomless well of creative ideas and the fearlessness to apply them? Check and double-check. One aspirant who was so moved by this that he picked up a guitar and never put it down was our guest, Vernon Reid. So did Santana ev...
"Lester Bowie": instead of thinking of that sound as a person's name, maybe we should start thinking of it as a verb. Here's one definition: to change the orientation of something familiar so that it becomes unimaginably magnificent. Example: "I'm going to Lester Bowie this pebble and make a beautiful jewel out of it" or "I'm going to Lester Bowie these old tires into a holiday feast." It helps if you apply a bit of magic as Lester always seemed to manage to do. This Monday night on Jazz Alterna...
"Lester Bowie": instead of thinking of that sound as a person's name, maybe we should start thinking of it as a verb. Here's one definition: to change the orientation of something familiar so that it becomes unimaginably magnificent. Example: "I'm going to Lester Bowie this pebble and make a beautiful jewel out of it" or "I'm going to Lester Bowie these old tires into a holiday feast." It helps if you apply a bit of magic as Lester always seemed to manage to do. This Monday night on Jazz Alterna...
"Lester Bowie": instead of thinking of that sound as a person's name, maybe we should start thinking of it as a verb. Here's one definition: to change the orientation of something familiar so that it becomes unimaginably magnificent. Example: "I'm going to Lester Bowie this pebble and make a beautiful jewel out of it" or "I'm going to Lester Bowie these old tires into a holiday feast." It helps if you apply a bit of magic as Lester always seemed to manage to do. This Monday night on Jazz Alterna...
This Monday night on Jazz Alternatives, Mitch Goldman welcomes drummer Don McKenzie back to the studio for a very special Deep Focus on the supergroup Last Exit (Peter Brotzmann, Sonny Sharrock, Bill Laswell, Ronald Shannon Jackson), a rebroadcast from 2015. The band was known for its uncompromising musical ferocity, fueled by the band members' confrontational attitudes. Greg Kot wrote that they brought a level of "volume and violence that makes most rock bands sound tame." Although Last Exit le...
This Monday night on Jazz Alternatives (6pm to 9pm) Mitch Goldman welcomes drummer Don McKenzie back to the studio for a very special Deep Focus on the supergroup Last Exit (Peter Brotzmann, Sonny Sharrock, Bill Laswell, Ronald Shannon Jackson), a rebroadcast from 2015. The band was known for its uncompromising musical ferocity, fueled by the band members' confrontational attitudes. Greg Kot wrote that they brought a level of "volume and violence that makes most rock bands sound tame." Although ...
This Monday night on Jazz Alternatives, Mitch Goldman welcomes drummer Don McKenzie back to the studio for a very special Deep Focus on the supergroup Last Exit (Peter Brotzmann, Sonny Sharrock, Bill Laswell, Ronald Shannon Jackson), a rebroadcast from 2015. The band was known for its uncompromising musical ferocity, fueled by the band members' confrontational attitudes. Greg Kot wrote that they brought a level of "volume and violence that makes most rock bands sound tame." Although Last Exit le...
No one will ever embody the concept of music as spiritual sustenance the way that Pharoah Sanders did. William Hooker heard the call through the music and it changed his life. William joins Mitch Goldman to remember this enduring moment of inspiration and to explore the WKCR archives. Jewels abound. The Pharoah Sanders Memorial Broadcast is all day Monday 9/26. This segment is 6pm to 9pm on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org . Next week it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podc...
No one will ever embody the concept of music as spiritual sustenance the way that Pharoah Sanders did. William Hooker heard the call through the music and it changed his life. William joins Mitch Goldman to remember this enduring moment of inspiration and to explore the WKCR archives. Jewels abound. The Pharoah Sanders Memorial Broadcast is all day Monday 9/26. This segment is 6pm to 9pm on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org . Next week it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podc...
No one will ever embody the concept of music as spiritual sustenance the way that Pharoah Sanders did. William Hooker heard the call through the music and it changed his life. William joins Mitch Goldman to remember this enduring moment of inspiration and to explore the WKCR archives. Jewels abound. The Pharoah Sanders Memorial Broadcast is all day Monday 9/26. This segment is 6pm to 9pm on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org . Next week it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podc...
Every once in a while, an artist comes along who gets so caught up in the sweep of history that the world seems to create itself for the artist's work, rather than the other way around. Dollar Brand came of age as a pianist in South Africa in the late Fifties, just in time for the multiethnic explosion of Johannesburg's Sophiatown. In the wake of the repression that followed the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960, he became a European exile. Within months, his music came to the attention of Duke Ellin...
Every once in a while, an artist comes along who gets so caught up in the sweep of history that the world seems to create itself for the artist's work, rather than the other way around. Dollar Brand came of age as a pianist in South Africa in the late Fifties, just in time for the multiethnic explosion of Johannesburg's Sophiatown. In the wake of the repression that followed the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960, he became a European exile. Within months, his music came to the attention of Duke Ellin...
Every once in a while, an artist comes along who gets so caught up in the sweep of history that the world seems to create itself for the artist's work, rather than the other way around. Dollar Brand came of age as a pianist in South Africa in the late Fifties, just in time for the multiethnic explosion of Johannesburg's Sophiatown. In the wake of the repression that followed the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960, he became a European exile. Within months, his music came to the attention of Duke Ellin...
Even among his collaborators who were known for going their own way-- Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra and Archie Shepp, to name but a few-- trumpeter Bill Dixon was an iconoclast. When the music was dismissed as being chaotic and structureless, Dixon was an aggressive organizer and conceptualist. Was this a whole new way of arranging sound to convey ideas? Graham Haynes worked with Bill Dixon late in Dixon's life and shares insights with host Mitch Goldman about the man and his music. The WKCR archives rev...
Even among his collaborators who were known for going their own way-- Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra and Archie Shepp, to name but a few-- trumpeter Bill Dixon was an iconoclast. When the music was dismissed as being chaotic and structureless, Dixon was an aggressive organizer and conceptualist. Was this a whole new way of arranging sound to convey ideas? Graham Haynes worked with Bill Dixon late in Dixon's life and shares insights with host Mitch Goldman about the man and his music. The WKCR archives rev...
