WKCR

2023.11.27 Tru Born (Anthony Michael Peterson) on “Finding the thread”

"Rock." "Jazz." "Classical." "Blues."  We rarely question the value of categorizing music.  These words are handy buckets to drop songs into: "I [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

2023.08.07 Steven Bernstein and Scotty Hard on Miles Davis 1970

You're Miles Davis.  It's March of 1970 and you're about to release Bitches Brew, your most incendiary album yet.  You have an electric band of [...]

2023.07.24 Ahmed Abdullah and Monique Ngozi Nri on Sun Ra, Abbey Lincoln

The future that Sun Ra sang of has arrived in so many ways.  No one knows this better than the musicians who made the music with him.  Ahmed [...]

2023.07.10 William Hooker on Joseph Jarman

Who was Joseph Jarman?  A shaman?  A conjurer?  A Buddhist priest?  A poet?  An Aikido sensei?  In the words of his fellow [...]

2023.06.12 Vijay Iyer on McCoy Tyner

Yes, I am starting to see the pattern!  Vijay Iyer has joined Mitch Goldman for Deep Focus programs on Andrew Hill, Thelonious Monk, and Geri [...]

2023.05.29 William Parker on Don Cherry

William Parker has perhaps done more than any musician alive to spread understanding and support for open improvised music.  More than that, he is a [...]
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