We just learned of the passing of the legend McCoy Tyner, who changed the course of jazz piano. Of course he's most well known for his work in John Coltrane's classic quartet, but he has an amazing body of work beyond that, his album Sama Layuca for a start. Here's my 2011 interview that we conducted in the kitchen of the Blue Note.
William Parker is a force in music and if you listen his words, he'll change your mind about what exactly the mystery of music might be. He will be performing this big double bill on March 4th: SOUNDS OF JUSTICE: SUN RA ARKESTRA AND WILLIAM PARKER'S INSIDE SONGS OF CURTIS MAYFIELD i This is a celebration of 25 years of the Vision Festival. We had an amazing conversation until the batteries ran out on my recorder...enjoy!...
We have a live performance in studio with Zhou Benming of the Zhou Family Band. Zhou Jingzhi, founder of the Zhou Family Band, used to play in the royal court of the Qing Dynasty. After dynastic China came to an end, later generations of the family made their living by playing at local ceremonies. The band has become so popular that sometimes people have to book them two years in advance for a ceremony. Now more than 100 members of the Zhou family and over 1000 students are active in playing at ...
In this episode we chat with Dorit Chrysler director of of the NY Theramin society, who have a major event coming up at the Ambient Church . Dorit Chrysler has been dubbed a superior wizard of the theremin. An Austrian-born, New York based composer and performer, Chrysler is the co-founder of the NY Theremin Society and has started the first international school for Theremin, KidCoolThereminSchool and L’Ecole Theremine with branches in NY and Paris. As much as the Theremin is a tool in Chrysler’...
A broadcast of the brilliant pianist made at his home in Brooklyn before he moved North.
A great discussion with Knoel Scott, a multi instrumentalist and band leader who has played with with the Sun Ra Arkestra since 1979. Recorded backstage at the Opus 1 Festival in Maryland. We also hear his original composition, "Harlem Nocturne," featuring Marshall Allen. Knoel will be back in town for this exciting show at the Town Hall on March 4th 2020 SUN RA ARKESTRA AND WILLIAM PARKER'S INSIDE SONGS OF CURTIS MAYFIELD...
Eric Thompson took up the guitar as a teenager in Palo Alto, California in the early 1960's, at a time when very few folk guitarists were playing more than basic rhythm guitar. Among his earliest bands were the Black Mountain Boys (with Jerry Garcia and David Nelson) and Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. He quickly became nationally known as an exceptional lead flatpicker, winning the World Championship Cup at Union Grove, North Carolina with the New York Ramblers (which also included David ...
Michael Leonhart Orchestra (MLO) is a genre-crossing 15-piece ensemble that has been putting on electrifying shows for the last 2 years. The Orchestra performs both Leonhart’s original compositions as well as his arrangements of Wutang, Fela, Ellington, Zappa and Bernard Herrmann. MLO features players from bands such as Sharon Jones & the Dap-kings, the Mingus Big Band, Maria Schneider’s Orchestra, the Tonight Show Band (Roots) and other soloists from the NY/Brooklyn jazz/soul/studio scene. ...
On the heels of their highly successful event featuring Brooklyn Raga Massive, Alexandre Tannous and NYC Radio Live return to The Assemblage to continue their exploration of the power of sound, meditation and trance and with the Grammy nominated group Innov Gnawa this Thursday. Details for the event are here Alexandre Tannous, a composer, musician, ethnomusicologist and researcher came to WKCR to speak about Gnawa music and trance to get us ready for the event. Alexandre Tannous has performed a ...
The great young carnatic Roopa Mahadevan, comes to WKCR to share a sneak preview of her upcoming album, Roopa in 6 Yards . As spontaneous and joyful as the singer herself, the album is refreshing and uncompromising exploration of a wide range of compositions from the Carnatic cannon. With this recording Roopa is bound to expand the audience for this traditional music.
While we begin to sift through the gold mine of multi-track recordings from 24 hour Ragas Live 2019. We have one set that we happened to mix live on stage and are able to deliver right now. Unstruck Sound are an ambient group that explore the concept of the drone. Set and Setting are 4am (about 9 hours into the fest.) Neel Murgai is Overtone vocals, Eric Fraser is on bansuri, Aaron Shregge is on Shakuhachi and Dragon Mouth Trumpet and David Ellenbogen is on lap steel guitar and electronics. 23 m...
A great discussion, originally broadcast live on WKCR, with Soles of Duende, Amanda Castro, Arielle Rosales and Brindha Guha. They'll be preforming with Frank Malloy IV & Roshni Samlal at the Ragas Live Festival at 11pm. Birthed in East Harlem, the women of Soles arrived with a single, transparent question: how do they find truth, connection, and storytelling through the rhythms of their respective cultures? Based in the rhythms of Tap (Amanda Castro), Flamenco (Arielle Rosales) and Kathak (...
A chat with Lucibela the great singer from Capo Verde who is bringing her countries music to the US right now with a 14 state tour.
We have a chat with Alexandre Tannous, a leading sound researcher, sound therapist and ethnomusicologist. On 9/18/19 Alexandre will lead an experiential exploration of the effects of this unique system of sound, consciousness, and spirituality with key members Brooklyn Raga Massive. To deepen the experience we sat had a wide ranging discussion about the effects of sound. Alexandre Tannous has been active as a musician, educator, composer, and as an ethnomusicologist. He holds a Bachelor of Music...
A midnight set from the 24 Hour Ragas Live Festival 2018 Samarth Nagarkar (vocal) Rohan Prabhudesai (harmonium) Sandip Ghosh (tabla)
As we ramp up towards Ragas Live Festival 2019, we are sharing all 24 sets of last years incredible festival. 3AM-4AM was a special moment for us all. Ross Hammond (guitar), Pawan Benjamin (sax/bansuri), Sameer Gupta (drums) Special Guests Renald St. Juste (percussion), Morgan Zwerlein (percussion) join in for the last jams. Sacramento guitarist Ross Hammond has played on large stages and in small corners throughout the United States and beyond. His sound is equal parts jazz, folk, blues, spirit...
A 9-10 am performance from Rajeswari Satish (vocal);Radhika Mani (violin) and Bala Skandan (mridangam) from the Ragas Live Festival 2018 at Pioneer Works. Ragas Live Festival 2019 will take place at Pioneer Works October 19th and 20th.
For Chico Freeman , Jazz is the family business. His father played with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Ella Fitzgerald and his grandfather was an associate of Louis Armstrong. Chico has had an amazing career playing with the likes of Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Sun Ra, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Celia Cruz, Charles Mingus, Tito Puente, to name a few. We got to hang with the great musician, composer and producer and get the inside story on working with so many of these icons ...
As Martha Redbone and Brooklyn Raga Massive prepare to take the stage at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Fransisco this week, we share highlights from our first conversation with Martha and hear her first performance with BRM at the Outside (In)dia Series. This is burning set with Martha Redbone – Vocals Aaron Whitby – Keys, Piano Marvin Sewell – Guitar Charlie Burnham – Violin Tony Mason – Drums Fred Cash – Bass Sameer Gupta – Tabla Pawan Benjamin – Bansuri Neel Murgai – Sitar Special Guests: Soni M...
We hang out with Shoko Nagai and Satoshi Takeshi and hear tracks from her amazing TOKALA project... Shoko Nagai is a versatile musical artist who improvises and performs with world-renowned musicians on piano and accordion and composes original scores for films and live performances. As a teenager in her native Japan, Nagai was trained on Yamaha's electronic organ, the "Electone," to perform popular music. Since moving to the U.S. from Japan and studying classical and jazz music at Berklee, she ...
Today we share the first of 24 sets recorded at the Ragas Live Festival 2018 Partha Bose (sitar) and Aditya Narayan Banerjee (tabla) played a late morning raga at 10am, recorded and broadcast from Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The Ragas Live Festival will return to Pioneer Works October 19-20th 2019! Born on January 21,1962, Partha was initiated to the Sitar at the age of six and thereafter underwent intensive training in the tradition of Guru-Shishya parampara under the tutelage of Pandi...
5 years after our first conversation, we reconnect with Paul Winter. Seven-time Grammy® winner Paul Winter has a body of work that chronicles his wide-ranging experiences in the musical traditions and natural environments of the Earth. The saxophonist, composer and bandleader founded Living Music as the recording context for his ensemble, the Paul Winter Consort, and his community of colleagues, which includes some of the world’s finest jazz, world, and classical musicians, along with notable vo...
This is a fascinating conversation with Dennis McNally, who tells the inside story of the Grateful Dead as revealed to him during a dozen years on the road with the band, by the members themselves, and from a mountain of research. Ben Ratliff writes in the New York Times, that Dennis "had more access to his subjects and their trails of paper, recording tape and roach clips than almost all previous rock biographers." With cameos from the Hell's Angels, the CIA, the Beat Poets, the Grateful Dead's...
Celebrating the release of his new album, Monroe Bus, we get to hang out with Andy Staman! Andy Statman is one of his generation's premier mandolinists and clarinetists, and has made major contributions to both Jewish music and bluegrass. He describes his compositions and performances as "spontaneous American-roots music and personal, prayerful hasidic music, by way of avant-garde jazz."
We get to hang out with Ilusha and listen to selections from his new album , Yes & No. Singer and guitarist Ilusha Tsinadze was born in Soviet-era Georgia and emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 8. Yes & No is a musical conversation between the contemporary sounds of Brooklyn and the traditional music his family left behind in Georgia. Ilusha has become recognized for his distinct interpretations of Georgia folk music following his first album, Deda Ena (Mother Tongue), the wildly succes...
While out in Bombay, we visit the author Namita Devidayal, whose compelling new biography, The Sixth String of Vilayat Khan shines new light on the maestro's genius. Namita, author of The Music Room, speaks about this poetic new work and reflects on both dark and light sides of her subject....
We hang out with one of the greatest drummers of his generation, Eric Harland! We chat about what he's learned form the many great musicians he's played with, philosophy, meditation, his own journey and generally get into it. Eric will be coming to town with Zakir Hussain and the Masters of Percussion April 24 at the Town Hall...
This is an exclusive interview with the greatest living master of the bansuri, Hariprasad Chaurasia. David Ellenbogen and Chaurasia's Senior disciple Jay Gandhi join the maestro at his Vrindaban Gurukul, in Mumbai.
n a stunning display of North and West African fusion, El Foukr R’Assembly, a group traveling all the way from Algeria performs live on WKCR. The musicians from Algeria, Burkina Faso and Ghana come together for two explosive sets of music A taxi-driver & a farmer, a graphic designer, a sound engineer and an art-major student, Oualid Khelifi as the producer and filmmaker had met them lin 2014 at various parts of Algeria before suggesting a long term project around docfilm and experimental Afr...
This was one of my favorite early episodes. Cosmas Magya is a master of the Mbira ( a type of thumb piano) from the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe. Here he performs and explains the way the instrument is used in ceremonies to contact ancestors. We’ll also hear a track he recorded with another powerful Mbira player and vocalist Beauler Dyoko. (Rebroadcast from 2011)
