The opening concert of Brooklyn Raga Massive's 3 month residency at Pioneer Works was a smash. For this special night, we had an ambitious triple bill, celebrating the full year of the Africa/India series collaborations that had been produced by NYC Radio Live, Afro-Roots Music night and Brooklyn Raga Massive. We featured the “golden voice of Mali,” Awa Sangho, with by the Brooklyn Raga Massive All-Stars, the electro-acoustic Kora/Tabla duo Orakel with Kane Mathis and Roshni Samlal and the origi...
Feb 07, 2016•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 313
Orakel is a brand new electro-acoustic project of Kora/oud player, Kane Mathis and tabla player, Roshni Samlal, who began their collaboration at the Brooklyn Raga Massive. Using electronic compositional elements of sound design, field recordings, and drones, they create a new context for traditional elements of Indian classical percussion and Kora repertoire. They performed live at Shapeshifter Lab a few weeks ago in a dazzling performance and then joined me at WKCR for a broadcast. This Wed Feb...
Jan 28, 2016•1 hr 28 min
Of all the concerts I've produced this was one of the most exciting and meaningful. This installation of Africa/India Series live at ShapeShifter Lab was a synergy of the Morrocan trance tradition embodied by Hassan Ben Jaffer and Innov Gnawa as we combined forces with the musicians of the Brooklyn Raga Massive All-Stars. Thanks to Sameer Gupta for mixing this Mutha! INNOV GNAWA Maalem (Master)Hassan Ben Jaafer (Sintir, vocals) Samir Langus (Sintir, Vocals) Ahmed Jeriouda (Vocals, percussion) Am...
Jan 06, 2016•1 hr 19 min
This was a meeting of musical royalty from Mauritania, vocalist Noura Mint Seymali, with her husband Jeiche Ould Chighaly on fretless electric guitar collaborating for the first time with Brooklyn Raga Massive's Jay Gandhi (bansuri flute) and Ehren Hanson (tabla). It was a spontaneous and beautiful meeting of two musical worlds and very much inspired our whole Africa/India Series. The multi-talented Kane Mathis, most known for his dazzling kora and oud (hear him on podcasts #15, #111, #135 and #...
Dec 15, 2015•55 min
Recorded a few days ago at Brooklyn Raga Massive's weekly concert and and jam session at ShapeShifter Lab, this set of music suggests new directions in the between raga and jazz. It will be broadcast in New York City, on Sunday Dec. 6 on WKCR 89.9 FM-NY 7-9PM and stream at www.wkcr.org In the 1960's, led by the Art Blakey, The Jazz Messengers led the movement of hard bop which returned the music to its blues and gospel roots. The Raga Jazz Messengers too are exploring soulful territories, blues,...
Dec 06, 2015•1 hr 10 min
To celebrate the upcoming release of her new album, From the Ground Up. musical polymath Hadar Noiberg brought her trio to Continental Records, to record a special live set just for us! This special podcast will also broadcast this week on the radio, WKCR 89.9 FM-NY and stream www.wkcr.org at 11pm EST on November 8. It was really exciting to have her bring in an all star band: With Phil Duke at the controls, we recorded 4 songs with Hadar Noiberg (flutes), Allison Miller (drums) and Haggai Cohen...
Nov 06, 2015•1 hr 9 min
Two weeks ago, on John Coltrane's Birthday, Brooklyn Raga Massive performed a stunning tribute to the Coltrane Legacy. Recorded in front of a capacity crowd at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn, NYC Radio Live will share the concert in it's entirety. It will be broadcast on the radio at WKCR 89.9 at 7pm on October 11th. Musical Director Sameer Gupta joins host David Ellenbogen for an on-air discussion of the relationship between the music of these two worlds. The all-star ensemble includes: Sa...
Oct 10, 2015•1 hr 49 min
One from the archives: There was much talk about Randy Weston on the last few episodes about Gnawa music. I thought I'd broadcast part 1 of an interview I did with him a few years back. This was first broadcast as a podcast that I never really got going with. If you haven't checked him out, I hope this will inspire you to check out some albums or see him in concert. Part 2 coming soon...we hung out and spoke for hours that day. Offical Bio: After contributing seven decades of musical direction a...
Sep 17, 2015•14 min
In our first collaboration with the stellar Rubin Museum of Art, we presented at sold out concert, an Evening with the Brooklyn Raga Massive. It featured a first set of Dan Weiss and Sameer Gupta in a tabla duel followed by a second set of Max ZT, hammered dulcimer, Ehren Hanson, tabla, Jay Gandhi, bansuri and Arun Ramamurthy violin, plus a jam session/ party in the cafe afterwards. Here's the entire 2nd set. Many thanks to Tim McHenry and the staff at the Rubin. We'll be back when over 15 membe...
Aug 17, 2015•47 min
Recorded live at Lincoln Center, Gnawa Diffusion are true rebel rockers who deftly slide from traditional Gnawa sounds to reggae, rock, dancehall and and million other styles. The group's leader and visionary is Amazigh Kateb who hails from Algeria. I was lucky to hang with Amazigh a few days later in Brooklyn, (along with Alexandre Tannous) and record our discussion. Thanks to Meera Dugal for setting up these last two great Gnawa Podcasts !
Jul 22, 2015•2 hr 1 min
This podcast features a live in-studio, late night recording of InnoVe Gnawa. It sounds as good as anything I've recorded at WKCR thanks to the help of Phil Duke from Continental Recording Studio. We had a blast hanging out and recording, and this lines up with a big free concert they'll be playing this Thursday at Lincoln Center, and the release of their new self titled album. InnoVe Gnawa is a musical band made of artists from different parts of morocco all the way to NYC gathering to Keep thi...
Jul 15, 2015•1 hr 7 min
The 24 hour festival concluded with this beautiful performance from Tripti Mukherjee. She performed with Samir Chatterjee (tabla) and Jay Gandhi (bansuri)
Jul 08, 2015•54 min
Ustad Aashish Khan, accompanied by Anupam Shobhakar (Sarod) Dan Weiss Ragas Live performed the penultimate set at the Ragas Live Festival 2015 from 10pm-11pm
Jul 08, 2015•38 min
This set begins with Sanghamitra Chatterjee (vocal) with Samir Chatterjee (tabla) and is then followed by a Tabla Duet – Samir Chatterjee and Tejas Tope, which occurred from 9-10pm on the Ragas Live Festival 2015
Jul 08, 2015•40 min
Pandit Tejendra Narayan Majumdar (sarod) and Nitin Mitta (tabla) performed from 8pm -9pm on the Ragas Live Festival 2015.
Jul 08, 2015•25 min
Krishna Bhatt composed his own raga for this very special occasion, based on a whole tone scale. Nittin Mitta, accompanies for this 7-8pm slot on the Ragas Live Festival 2015
Jul 08, 2015•26 min
Jay Gandhi (bansuri) and Yacouba Cissoko (kora) bring their duo project accompanied by Shivalik Ghoshal (tabla) and David Ellenbogen (guitar) from 6-7pm during the Ragas Live Festival 2015
Jun 26, 2015•42 min
Pradhanica:Jin Won (Kathak), Mike Lukshis (tabla), Kaumil Shah (djembe), and Vincent Pierce (cajon); Taalim Tabla Duet: Mike Lukshis (tabla), Kaumil Shah (tabla) performed a smoking set from 5-6pm at the Ragas LIve Festival 2015
Jun 26, 2015•33 min
The Chaandayan Organization brought quite a few selections for this 4-5pm slot during Ragas Live 2015. They began with their beginner Chhandayan Tabla Ensemble (Avinash Bose, Aditya Shinn, Rafi Hakim, Ronak Seth, Noelina Arciniegas, Kedar Gangopadhyay and Benjamin Stewart); Then there was a tabla solo from Aditya Phatak; then the Chhandayan Vocal Ensemble (Roshni Basu, Shampa Chanda, Adwaitaa Goswami, Dibyakalyan Basu, Andrew Shantz, Harry Einhorn and Anand Prashad-tabla)
Jun 26, 2015•34 min
Jay Gandhi (bansuri) & Arun Ramamurthy (violin) with Abhi Seetharaman (mridangam) and Shivalik Ghoshal (tabla).
Jun 24, 2015•34 min
Om Gam: Michael Gam (bass), Kane Mathis (kora), Arun Ramamurthy (violin), Shivalik Goshal (tabla) performed from 2-3pm during the Ragas Live Festival 2015.
Jun 24, 2015•40 min
Sameer Gupta's Namaskar, with Sameer Gupta: drumset, tabla - Arun Ramamurthy: violin - Rashaan Carter: violin - Neel Murgai, sitar and Jay Gandhi bansuri performed from 1pm-2pm for the Ragas Live Festival 2015.
Jun 24, 2015•22 min
The Navatman Music Collective: Preetha Raghu, Kamini Dandapani, Shiv Subramaniam, Shraddha Balasubramaniam, Vignesh Ravichandran and Janani Kannan performed from 1-2pm for Ragas Live 2015.
Jun 24, 2015•41 min
Steve Gorn (bansuri) and Ehren Hanson (tabla) performed from noon-1pm
Jun 24, 2015•38 min
Samarth Nagarkar (vocal); Abhik Mukherjee (sitar) played a rare and new development in the music with a sitar vocal jugulbandi, they gave a chance to the young man Vivek Pandya (tabla) who recently turned 11, to accompany them.
Jun 20, 2015•36 min
Karavika: Amali Premawardhana (cello), Trina Basu (violin), Perry Wortman (bass) and Sameer Gupta (tabla) performed their Chamber Raga from 10am-11am on the Ragas Live Festival 2015.
Jun 20, 2015•38 min
Achyut Joshi (vocal) Dan Weiss(tabla) performed from 9am-10am on the Ragas Live Festival 2015
Jun 20, 2015•43 min
Payton MacDonald performs a Druhpad Trance with electronics in Raag Bhairav and Aaakash Mittal plays a saxophone solo in the same Raag.
Jun 20, 2015•30 min
Suhas Joshi (vocal) Gopal Kalluri (tabla) Neeraj Joshi (harmonium) and performed from 7-8am at the Ragas Live Festival 2015
Jun 20, 2015•44 min
Anirban Dasgupta (Sarod) and Indrajit Roy Chowdhury (Sitar) played an exciting Jugulbandi (improvised duet) with Mike Lukshis (tabla)
Jun 20, 2015•48 min
