Jazz radio
2025.01.06 Eric Person on David Murray
In the early 1980s, when saxophonist Eric Person was coming up, one big question that was being addressed was how to combine the free-swinging improv of the [...]
2024.12.23 Arturo O’Farrill on Carla Bley
Arturo O'Farrill: "Without Carla (Bley)’s influence, I wouldn’t be where I am today; there would be no Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, no Belongó, no Arturo [...]
2024.11.25 Leon Gruenbaum on Burnt Sugar
Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber is renowned for "...never playing anything the same way once." Drawing inspiration from Duke Ellington, Sun Ra, [...]
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. [...]
2024.06.24 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 [...]
2023.09.25 Henry Threadgill on John Gilmore and Von Freeman
"Easily Slip Into Another World," Henry Threadgill's recent memoir, is required reading for a full appreciation of tonight's Deep Focus. It reveals the [...]
2023.09.04 Craig Harris on Sam Rivers
In the sixties, they explained evolution to us with that March of Progress illustration, a lockstep development from the proto-human Dryopithecus to modern [...]
2023.08.21 Roy Nathanson on Eric Dolphy
If Eric Dolphy's music were a school of painting it would be analytical cubism: planar and angular, multi-directional and austere, But it's not [...]