Jazz Alternatives
2024.10.14 Ken Wessel on Badal Roy
Here's another Ph.D. topic for you: Miles Davis vs. Ornette Coleman. Both blazingly original innovators lived most of their lives in Manhattan and they were [...]
2024.09.16 Lewis “Flip” Barnes on William Parker
Let's present an award: who would you say has been the most prolific artist on NYC's forward-looking music scene and who has contributed the most to [...]
2024.08.19 Melvin Gibbs on Sun Ra
Tonight (8/19) bassist/composer Melvin Gibbs joins host Mitch Goldman for a Deep Focus on Sun Ra with unheard rarities from the WKCR archives. [...]
2024.07.08 Matt Garrison on Miles Davis 1981
People love to talk about Miles Davis reinventing himself and reinventing the music. They talk about the First Great Quintet in the fifties, the [...]
2024.06.24 Eric Person on Art Blakey
Listen to any song by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. There will be no question in your mind about who is driving the bus or who is riding on [...]
2024.05.13 Gary Lucas on Rahsaan Roland Kirk
"Who has the hippest chops in the world?"
If you're going to ask that question on a record, you had better have the nuts to back it up. I mean, [...]
2024.03.18 Graham Haynes on Woody Shaw
What confers greatness? There are many pathways, the most obvious being distinctive playing. Are there others? What about brilliant [...]
2024.01.22 Steven Bernstein on “The Don Cherry Tapes”
Tonight's Deep Focus (Jan. 22) is on Don Cherry, a wonderful and deeply missed friend of WKCR. Back in the Eighties, Don was a frequent guest on Mitch [...]
2024.01.08 Peter Apfelbaum on Andrew Hill
This music is at its best when the artist is telling you exactly who they are. Pianist Andrew Hill always seemed able to take us inside his internal [...]
2023.10.09 Matthew Shipp on Albert Ayler
There is a point at which the usefulness of language ends. You are simply not going to be able to express in words the sense of awe that you feel when [...]