NYC Radio Live: Recent Episodes
David Ellenbogen, Host
It was an incredible thill to hang with Jaimoe, the legendary drummer of the Allman Brothers at WKCR 2014. To hear Jaimoe's song selections from the program, check out this playlist on spotify. Jaimoe shared stories and dug through our record library. When asked if he had a good time, he said "That's a f#$ng understatement!"
Also joining us was Alan Paul the band's official biographer and s Coltelli a jazz critic and force for good in music. This was during the Allman Brothers last run of shows at the Beacon and John and I went together the next day to watch from the stage.
His new project is The Brothers led by Jaimoe, Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes who just played 2 blistering shows at Madison Square Garden.
Joe Boyd is a legendary producer who helped bring artists like Pink Floyd, Nick Drake and Toumani Diabate to the world alongside producing classic albums by Toots and the Maytals, REM, Taj Mahal and countless others.
His new book is "And the Roots of Rhythm Remain" and it is an astounding and inspiring history of music from around the globe. I can't recommend it enough. Joe Boyd will be at the The Local in Saugurties March 18, and April 9th at The Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn .
Jay Gandhi (bansuri) and Ishaan Ghosh (tabla) perform Rag Malkauns at the Ragas Live Festival 2024. 12:30 AM set of the 24 hour event.
A multifaceted artist, Jay Gandhi’s music is at once reflective of his devotion to his Guru, the inimitable legend of the bansuri, Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia, as well as a diverse range of other musical influences. Jay’s initial training in Hindustani music was under Smt. Kum Kum Sanyal (vocal) and later in bansuri under Pt. Ronu Majumdar and Pt. Raghunath Seth.
Inspired to gain deeper knowledge of both the gayaki ang (vocal style) as well as the tantrakari ang (stringed instrument style), Jay has also taken valuable guidance from Pt Vidyadhar Vyas (vocal) and Pt. Nayan Ghosh (sitar, tabla). In 2006, he was blessed to have been accepted as a disciple of Padma Vibhushan Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, and has since had the honor of accompanying his Guru on stage for multiple concert tours. From his formative years, Jay’s musical inclinations were not limited to that of the Indian sub-continent and he was also strongly drawn to the music of the African diaspora and American Jazz in particular. With the desire to bring the sound and versatility of the bansuri into the jazz idiom in a meaningful way, he formally studied Jazz Performance at Oberlin College/Conservatory of Music (Ohio) and trained under such Jazz luminaries as Gary Bartz and the late Marcus Belgrave. Today, his journey into this world continues to evolve in new and promising ways, and in more recent times he has had the fortune of performing with such greats as Ravi Coltrane, Reggie Workman, Jeff “Tain” Watts, as well as of sharing the stage with one of the great voices of the tenor saxophone, Pharoah Sanders himself. A recipient of the prestigious AIIS Performing Arts Fellowship, Jay maintains a busy schedule performing for audiences across the globe. He currently is based out of New York City, where he is very active as both a teacher and performer and also as a founding member of Brooklyn Raga Massive, a prominent musicians collective.
Ishaan Ghosh stands out as one of the front-ranking Tabla players in the younger generation of the Indian classical music scene. An exceptionally gifted child prodigy, Ishaan gave his first Tabla solo recital when he was barely 2.5 years old. Subsequently, his inherent talent, perseverance and sincere dedication have carried him to unprecedented heights of success and fame as one of the most promising Tabla players of his generation. Materialising the imagination and vision of his father Pt. Nayan Ghosh, Ishaan is committed to uphold the gravity of the art form professed by his family. He is the grandson of the renowned 20th-century Tabla maestro and guru- Padmabhushan Pandit Nikhil Ghosh and the grand-nephew of the pioneer flautist, Pannalal Ghosh.
His captivating Tabla solos are an eclectic amalgamation of figured articulations and complex rhythmic tapestries groomed with appealing delineations drawn from the vast repertoire which he has inherited under maestro Nayan Ghosh’s blessed tutelage. He has carved a niche for himself in both solo Tabla playing and accompaniment. His power-packed solo performances and sensitive accompaniment have won him critical acclaim from both musicians and connoisseurs. He has performed with landmark figures in the Indian classical music field including his father Pt. Nayan Ghosh, Pt Jasraj, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pt. Buddhadev Dasgupta, Ustad Aashish Khan, Ustad Nishat Khan, Pt. Tejendra Narayan Majumdar, violin legend Dr. N Rajam, Kaushiki Chakraborty, Rakesh Chaurasia & Purbayan Chatterjee, among several other prominent artistes.
Despite being firmly grounded in the classical tradition, Ishaan continues to explore new vistas of Tabla playing through his novel interpretations and creative collaborations with musicians of various other genres like Jazz Guitarist Max Clouth of Germany, Mohammad Rasouli and percussionists Fakhroddin Ghaffari and Hamid Reza Rahbaralam of Iran, Hoo Eouling of China and Raho Langsepp of Estonia. Besides that, he has also been invited by global platforms like TEDX to participate in their events as a speaker and he continues to actively perform, lecture and tour to increase consciousness and a following for Indian classical music amongst the youth worldwide.
Since the age of 8, Ishaan has been regularly travelling and performing across USA, UK, Europe among several other countries. In 2016, he was specially invited to perform for the Habitat for Humanity project in Atlanta, USA and felicitated by the former president of United States of America, Jimmy Carter.
Ragas Live Festival is produced by Pioneer Works in collaboration with NYC Radio Live, Brooklyn Raga Massive and the Society for Arts and Culture of South Asia (Palo Alto).
Two of our favorite artists, Saraswathi Ranganathan (veena) & Swaminathan Selvaganesh (kanjira) returned to Ragas Live Festival 2024 for a late night/early morning set of Carnatic music.
It was 5:30 AM set of the 24 hour festival at Pioneer Works on 10.20.24 and Saraswathi led the audience on a journey.
Saraswathi brings with her a legacy of firsts. She is the first Indian woman and Veena artiste to win a Chicago Music Award in its 35-year history, the first Veena artiste to perform as an orchestra member of Disney’s Jungle Book production and the first Veena artiste to receive a $10,000 grant from the Logan Foundation in Chicago. She attributes her path-carving success to the inclusive energy in her music and in her life. Her goal? Bring artists and listeners together as one community united in music and understanding. – worded by Stephanie Jones, Jazzspeak.org
Saraswathi constantly endeavors for sounds of the Veena to reach a cross cultural global audience. She learned Veena from her mother Shantha Ranganathan and from Karnataka Kalashree EP Alamelu in Bangalore. She has been performing and teaching for over three decades now.
Saraswathi also has the distinction as being the first Veena artiste whose original multi-lingual song “Ennai Azhaithaen – I embraced me” was commissioned by the Chicago Humanities Fest.
Saraswathi is the first Veena artiste to perform live music for Chicago International Moves & Music Fest with original score for screening of the movie Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances.
Swaminathan Selvaganesh is a renowned percussionist hailing from a family of world-class musicians. Born into a musical dynasty, he is the grandson of Padma Bhushan recipient T.H. Vikku Vinayakram and the son of Grammy winner V. Selvaganesh, both prominent figures in the world of Indian percussion
We hang a maestro of Bulgarian music, Lubomir Smilenov, and hear his incredible performance from Ragas Live Festival 2020 with Matt Moran.
Both performers will be featured at this weekend's Zlatne Ustne Golden Festival January 17-18 in Astoria, Queens.
Lubomir Smilenov, born in Bulgaria and raised in New York City, found a unique expression of his heritage through the Kaba Gaida, the traditional Bulgarian bagpipe. He learned the intricate skills of this ancient instrument in Midtown Manhattan, where Kiril Ketev of Smolyan, Bulgaria, led a weekly Gaida workshop.
Today, Lubomir teaches at 101 Kaba Gaidi NYC, where he shares his expertise with students eager to learn the traditional music. He has performed at venues such as the MET Museum, Golden Fest, Hungarian House, and the International Bagpipe Conference, specializing in music from the Rhodope region of Southern Bulgaria. Lubomir strives to immerse his audiences and students in the vibrant musical heritage of the Gaida.
Vibraphonist and tunesmith Matt Moran "plays the vibraphone like a speed-chess master, always darting off into flurries of ingenious, unexpected activity" (Village Voice). Although he was named "Rising Star" on vibraphone by the 2014 Downbeat Critics Poll, Moran is just as often known for his work as the drummer and bandleader for brass band Slavic Soul Party! His career exists in diverse musical environments, from chamber music to jazz to Balkan folk music, and evinces a dedication to music education for incarcerated people.
Moran has released 10 albums as a leader, and performed on nearly 100 albums by other artists, including Sufjan Stevens, Theo Bleckmann, William Parker, Ellery Eskelin, and Luciana Souza. His longtime collaboration with percussionist/composer John Hollenbeck has been documented on 8 recordings by Hollenbeck's Claudia Quintet as well as recordings of his Large Ensemble and chamber music. Lengthy relationships are a hallmark of Moran's style: in addition to Slavic Soul Party!'s 20 years of music making, he has worked for many years with the artists Nate Wooley, Curtis Hasselbring, Daniel Levin, Brian Shankar Adler, Peter Hess, Raif Hyseni, Bojan Vuletic, and Mat Maneri.
For the past decade, Moran has been an educator and performer for Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute, with a special focus on education, creation, and performance for New Yorkers in many different parts of the judicial system. Currently, he co-leads Carnegie Hall's music education program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.
Moran has a Master's degree in jazz composition from New England Conservatory where he studied with composer and improviser Joseph Maneri, and a Bachelor's degree in jazz composition from Berklee College of Music where he studied with Ed Saindon and Gary Burton.
New York's greatest music bash, the Zlatne Uste Golden Festival is returning to Astoria Queens, January 17-18, 2025. Over 50 ensembles particiapte on several stages and dancefloors, brass bands, polyphonic choirs...Bulgarian, Macedonian, Romani, Turkish, Serbian, Greek, Persian, Klezmer, you name it... after 39 years of this festival it has evolved to become one incredible party.
In this episode Jerry Kisslinger a founding member of Zlatne Uste and Pontic Firebird, shares some burning tracks and we dig in to the roots of this music this wild event.
The most mind-blowing message I ever received was from the multi Grammy winning, ground-breaking kora master, Toumani Diabate, in 2020. Recorded hours earlier in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa it was a live performance he made with his sons Ahmed Diabate and Balla Diabate to contribute to that year's virtual Ragas Live Festival.
"Was it ok?" He asked.
OK? It was astounding!
In this special episode we celebrate the life of Toumani Diabate by sharing the behind the scenes messages behind this miraculous recording that almost never happened.
Toumani Diabate's ancestors became musicians in the 13th century and stayed in an unbroken line of griots, or djeles of the Manding empire. He was a 71st generation musician. More than any other Kora player he brought his instrument to the world and touched millions of hearts.
Here are some essential recordings to get you started:
Kaira
New Ancient Strings with Ballaké Sissoko
Ali and Toumani (with Ali Farka Toure)
Kulanjan (with Taj Mahal)
This was the second interview we conducted with Zakir Hussain, who passed away on December 15, 2024.
More than any other musician who came before him, he brought the tabla to an international stage. His story, like the man, is legend. I hope our conversation encourages you to dig deep into his rich catalog of astounding recordings including his own Making Music, all the Shakti albums, Planet Drum, stunning classical recordings with Ali Akbar Khan, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Hariprasad Chaurasia; his tabla solos with his Ud. Allah Rakah and much more.
He will be missed but his impact will live on.
An unbelievable live performance featuring 2024 Grammy Award winner Ganesh Rajagopalan (violin) and Anantha R. Krishnan (mridangam) as broadcast on WKCR from the Ragas Live Festival at Pioneer Works in 2024.
You can hear our conversation after the set on the previous podcast.
A virtuoso since childhood Ganesh Rajagopalan has been performing on stage since the tender age of 7 years old. He has been dazzling audiences for 50 years, most recently with John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain and the Shakti ensemble.
The grandson and disciple of mridangam maestro, Shri. Palghat R. Raghu, Anantha R. Krishnan started learning the fundamentals of the mridangam under his uncle, Shri. R. Ramkumar and then began an official tutelage under his grandfather at the age of five. He performed his first concert at the age of seven. During this period, he received many awards from traditional organizations of Carnatic Music in India, including the Best Mridangist Prize from the Music Academy, Madras, a record five times in six years. Also, he was awarded the State of the Arts Award from the New Jersey government twice in 1997-1998 as part of the National Endowment of the Arts’ effort to promote cultural awareness in the U.S.A.
Anantha holds a BA in Western Music and Philosophy from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and a Masters of Fine Arts in Electronic Music and Percussion from Mills College, California. During this time he studied Western percussion under William Winant. Specializing in contemporary 20th century percussion music. He is also a special interest student of tabla under Ustad Zakir Hussain for the past six years.
After an incredible set with Anantha R. Krishnan (mridangam)at Ragas Live Festival, we caught up with THE violin maestro, 2024 Grammy Award winner Ganesh Rajagopalan, for a quick on-air conversation about his journey in music.
A child prodigy who began performing at the age of seven, Ganesh rose to stardom performing with legends like tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and guitarist John McLaughlin of Shakti fame as well as for his solo violin work with Oscar-winning Bollywood music director A. R. Rahman and many others.
A memorable performance from Slowspin at the Ragas Live Festival 2024 featruing Zeerak Ahmed (vocals+electronics), Grey Mcmurray (guitar), Marlon Patton (drums) Shahzad Ismaily (bass) This was the 9PM set on October 21st, the 4th set during 24 hours of continuous music at Pioneer Works, in Red Hook Brooklyn.
US-based Pakistani artist, Slowspin (Zeerak Ahmed) has a distinct sound practice grounded in North Indian classical vocal traditions, dream-folk, ambient and experimental-electronic music.
By taking the thumri and recontextualizing it for contemporary music—ambient, dream pop, guitar-based folk—she is excavating this buried alternative history. These centuries-old songs and traditions send down fresh roots into new soil on TALISMAN, still aching for home but open to new possibilities for growth, new histories to write. Much like Ahmed herself, and millions of others in the South Asian diaspora. “They tell me not to plant things where they don’t belong,” Ahmed sings in understated defiance on the closing “Belong.” “What if that’s all I know?” – Pitchfork
US-based Pakistani artist Zeerak Ahmed, who performs under the stage name Slowspin, produces voice-based sculptures, sound installations and uniquely fragile sound collages. Slowspin has a distinct sound practice grounded in North Indian classical vocal traditions, dream-folk, ambient and experimental-electronic music. Poetry and melodies in her mother tongue(s)—Urdu, Farsi, Purbi and English—build new textural soundscapes. Her collaborative album, TALISMAN, opens a world of Slowspin’s uncanny and heart-wrenching refrains, delivering a balm for the migrant’s journey into the unknown: the abyss of love, loss and longing. Since the release of the TALISMAN, she has been performing with the album’s co-producer Grey Mcmurray (Tongues in Trees trio, Beth Orthon, Ali Sethi), Marlon Patton (Lonnie Holley, The Mace Hibbard Quintet) and Grammy nominated multi-instrumentalist, Shahzad Ismaily (Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, Love in Exile).
Ud. Bashir Khan (bulbul tarang) and Ud. Feroz Khan (tabla) perform Rag Desh on 10/19/2024 at the Ragas Live Festival 2024 at Pioneer Works. This was a very rare presentation of Raga on the Bulbul Tarang a unique instrument used more often in folk music and light classical from Pakistan and India.
The instrument was created in Japan in 1912 based on the concept of combining the mechanics of a typewriter with a musical instrument. By the 1930s the instrument had arrived in India and was adapted in both India and Pakistan to suit their local styles.
Mohammad Bashir Khan, originally from Rajasthan India, is one of the foremost exponents of his instrument, Bubul Tarang. He hails from a family of six generations of artists. As a follower of the Kirana Gharana under maestro Abdul Rehman Khansahib, he has applied his training to this unique instrument and regularly accompanied the highest profile artists including Ustad Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Nursrat Fateh Ali Khan, Pankaj Udas, and Hari Haran. He regularly works with Bollywood movie directors and can be heard in many movies.
7PM set of the 24 hour Ragas Live Festival at Pioneer Works 10.19.24
Ragas Live Festival 2024 opened with this beautiful set: Seema Gulati (sitar) and Anirban Roy Chowdhury (Tabla).
The grand finale of 24 hours of music at Pioneer Works! The Afghan superstars Houmayoun Sakhi (Rubab) and Salar Nader (Tabla) perform an explosive set of music.
This is the penultimate set from the Ragas Live Festival 2024 that took place during 24 hours of continuous music at Pioneer Works October 19-20th in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Debashish Bhattacharya Trio featuring the "world's greatest slide guitarist"
Debashish Bhattacharya - Hindustani Slide Guitar and Pushpa Veena
Anandi Bhattacharya - Vocals
Subashish Bhattacharya - Tabla
Subscribe to hear the rest of the festival!
Catching up with "the world's greatest slide guitarist" Debashish Bhattacharya and the amazing singer Anandi Bhattacharya before they take off for Ragas Live Festival 2024.
As excitement builds for their performance this Fall at the Ragas Live Festival, we have a chat with Afghan superstars Homayoun Sakhi & Salar Nader.
As the standard-bearers of Afghan traditional music, rubab master Homayoun Sakhi and tabla virtuoso Salar Nader carry
the rich and varied legacy of classical compositions and folk melodies of this ancient Central Asian nation.
At the heart of this musical odyssey lie the enchanting sounds of the rubab, Afghanistan's revered 21-stringed lute,
renowned for its hauntingly soulful timbre. Accompanied by the tabla's rhythmic pulse, Salar's innovative fusion of Afghan
and Indian percussion draws out the musical parallels with Hindustani music, exploring the essence of Ragas and the
profound connection between two diverse yet harmonious traditions.
These master musicians have perfected their art in the traditional ustâd-shâgird apprenticeship in the wake of their
families’ flight from Afghanistan following the chaos of the Soviet invasion – Salar, disciple of the legendary Ustad Zakir
Hussain; and Homayoun, disciple of the revered Afghan Rubab maestro Ustad Mohammed Omar. Salar has toured
extensively with NEA Jazz Master Stanley Clarke, appeared on Broadway with “The Kite Runner,” and together with
Homayoun Sakhi took part in a series of recordings of the music of Afghanistan and Central Asia sponsored by Aga Khan
Music Initiative for the Smithsonian Folkways label.
In a time when music has been banned in Afghanistan, the music of these master musicians serves as a powerful
reminder of the resilience and importance of preserving cultural heritage.
www.salarnader.com
www.homayounsakhi.com
We get to hang with Michael Gordon, the prolific composer, co-founder/co-artistic director of Bang on a Can!
Michael Gordon’s music merges subtle rhythmic invention with incredible power embodying, in the words of The New Yorker‘s Alex Ross, “the fury of punk rock, the nervous brilliance of free jazz and the intransigence of classical modernism.” Over the course of his composing career, Gordon has produced a strikingly diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy ensembles to major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio. Transcending categorization, this music represents the collision of mysterious introspection and brutal directness.
We hang with the great multi-instrumentalist, singer, song leader, composer and instrument designer Mark Stewart! I'd been dreaming of doing this interview for years, and the upcoming Bang on a Can LOUD Festival (August 1-4 at Mass MoCA) was the perfect catalyst to make this finally happen.
As musical director for Paul Simon’s band, he has recorded and toured with Simon since 1998. A founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars and the duo Polygraph Lounge with keyboard & theremin wizard Rob Schwimmer, Mark has also worked with Steve Reich, Sting, Anthony Braxton, Bob Dylan, Wynton Marsalis, Meredith Monk, Stevie Wonder, Phillip Glass, Iva Bittova, Bruce Springsteen, Terry Riley, Ornette Coleman, Edie Brickell, Don Byron, Joan Baez, Hugh Masakela, Paul McCartney, Cecil Taylor, Bill Frisell, Jimmy Cliff, Charles Wourinen, the Everly Brothers, Steve Gadd, Fred Frith, Alison Krauss, David Krakauer & Klezmer Madness, Bobby McFerrin, David Byrne, James Taylor, The Roches, Aaron Neville, Bette Midler, and Marc Ribot. He has worked extensively with composer Elliot Goldenthal on music for the films The Glorias, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Across the Universe, Titus, The Butcher Boy, The Good Thief, In Dreams and Heat. He has designed instruments for Julie Taymor’s Midsummer Nights Dream & Theater For A New Audience’s production of King Lear. He is the inventor of the WhirlyCopter, a bicycle-powered Pythagorean choir of singing tubes and the Big Boing, a 24 ft. sonic banquet table Mbira that seats 30 children playing 490 found objects, and he is a Visiting Lecturer in musical instrument design & performance practice at MIT. Mark is also a curator at MASS MoCA of the immersive Gunnar Schonbeck exhibit of musical instruments and co-founder of SoundstewArt, a company that designs immersive sound environments & community music making experiences. Since 2012, he has been the Artistic Director of Guitar Mash, leading the participatory communal Urban Campfires together with renowned artists sharing their favorite songs and life stories. Mark can be heard on Blue Note, Warner Bros., Sony, Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, Nonesuch, Label Bleu, Resonance Magnetique, Cantaloupe and CRI recordings. He lives in Brooklyn, NY & North Adams, MA, playing, singing & writing popular music, semi-popular music and unpopular music, whilst designing instruments that everyone can play.Mark Stewart! Mark has
The LOUD weekend is coming up at Mass MoCA August 1st, providing a great excuse to speak
Ragas Live Festival 2023 opened with this stunning sitar set from Gaurav Mazumdar—legendary disciple of Pt. Ravi Shankar—accompanied by Umesh Banerjee on the tabla.
8PM Set of the 24 Hour Ragas Live Festival at Pioneer Works 10.14.23
Ragas Live Festival is produced by Pioneer Works in collaboration with NYC Radio Live, Brooklyn Raga Massive and the Society for Arts and Culture of South Asia.
We’re pleased to announce Ragas Live Festival will return to Pioneer Works on October 19–20, 2024: http://www.ragaslive.com
The mindblowing Zlatne Ustne Goldenfest is returning this May 10-11, 2024 in a new home Astoria Queens!
Here's a classic episode recorded during the 2019 festivalDuring the epic annual Zlatne Ustne Goldenfest, the crowd was worked into a frenzy by a rollicking set by LITVAKUS, Zisl Slepovich's klezmer band. We get a chance to hang backstage with the maestro and renaissance man, Zisl Slepovich.
Zisl Slepovitch (Dmitri Zisl Slepovitch) is an internationally renowned multiinstrumentalist (clarinetist, saxophonist, flutist, pianist, keyboardist, singer), composer, arranger, translator, and music and Yiddish educator. Slepovitch is the founder and leader of the Litvakus klezmer band, Zisl Slepovitch Trio, Assistant Music Director / Music Director / Music Coordinator in many productions by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, including the Drama Desk Award nominated operetta The Golden Bride (2015/16) and Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish directed by Joel Grey.
Zisl Slepovitch has taught Yiddish language and culture The New School, served as educator and artist in residence at BIMA at Brandeis University, guest artist at University of Michigan, Indiana University, and Amherst College and Vassar College, a teaching fellow and performing artist at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (New York City), Vienna Klezmer Workshop (Vienna), The Moscow Sefer Center, and Eshkolot Project (both in Moscow). Some of Slepovitch’s theater, film, and TV contributions include consulting and acting in Defiance (Paramount), Eternal Echoes (Sony Classical), Rejoice with Itzhak Perlman and Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot (PBS), original scores for the documentary Funeral Season, children’s musical The King of Chelm, ballet Di Tsvey Brider, and many more.
See Zisl Slepovitch on
Zisl Slepovitch has performed/ recorded / collaborated / worked with / wrote for Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Ron Rifkin, Joel Grey, Edward Zwick, Michael Alpert, Zalmen Mlotek, Paul Brody, Psoy Korolenko, Frank London, Lipa Schmeltzer, Yale Strom, Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin, Cantor Yaakov “Yanky” Lemmer, and many others.
Slepovitch brought over from his home country Belarus a rich ethnographic collection of Belarusian Jewish music folklore collected together with Dr. Nina Stepanskaya. The collection was used in Slepovitch’s his multimedia concert program Traveling the Yiddishland. Some of Yiddish poetry by Zisl Slepovitch has been set to music and published in Israel, Russia, and the US. Over the years, Jewish music and Yiddish culture have remained the core elements of his creative inspirations.
Get the music by Zisl’s LITVAKUS’ klezmer band: Bandcamp (also as CDs), iTunes, Amazon MP3, CDBaby, and more!
In anticipation of the Ragas Live Festival 2023 coming October 14-15 to Pioneer Works, we will be broadcasting this amazing set from 2022 featuring Kane Mathis on Kora and Roshni Samlal on Tabla. Kane Mathis, a man of many talents, also mixed and mastered this and all the recordings from Ragas Live Festival 2022.
The radio broadcast will be at WKCR 89.9 FM-NY (www.wkcr.org) at 7PM on August 6, or you can enjoy here on the NYC Radio Live Podcast.
Tix and info for Ragas Live Festival are available at www.ragaslive.com
You can also watch a video of this performance on YouTube here.
In anticipation of the Ragas Live Festival 2023 coming October 14-15 to Pioneer Works, we will be broadcasting this amazing set from 2022 featuring Saraswathi Ranganathan on veena and Sriram Raman on Mridangam
The radio broadcast will be at WKCR 89.9 FM-NY (www.wkcr.org) at 7PM on August 6, or you can enjoy here on the NYC Radio Live Podcast.
Tix and info for Ragas Live Festival are available at www.ragaslive.com
You can also watch a video of this performance on YouTube here.
We chat with Qawwal legend Abu Muhammad and hear a live performance from Fareed Ayaz, Abu Muhammad Qawwal & Brothers!
Fareed Ayaz, Abu Muhammad Qawwal & Brothers are among the world’s very finest exponents of Qawwali - a hypontic, vocal-driven form of Sufi devotional music rich in poetic and mystical symbolism. Their group, in the typical style of their genre, is led by powerful vocalists, who loop through multiple verse-chorus sequences backed by other singers as well as harmonium, tabla, dholak, and hand-claps.
Fareed Ayaz (or, to give him his full name, Ustad Ghulam Fariduddin Ayaz Al-Hussaini Qawwal) leads the group, along with his younger brother Abu Muhammad, while other brothers and family members form the rest of the musical core. Fareed and Abu first learned from their father, the esteemed Ustad Munshi Raziuddin, who hails from the Qawwal Bachchon Ka gharana, a tradition stretching back to Amir Khusrow’s disciples in 14th-century Delhi.
They also perform semi-classical forms from outside the Qawwali repertoire, including tarana, thumri, and khayal. Several decades of touring has seen the brothers sing to vast crowds all around the world, as well as making over a dozen crossover excursions into film music and Coke Studio.
Bansuri maestro Eric Fraser with Mir Naqibol Islam on tabla at the 2021 Ragas Live Festival.
Hamid Al-Saadi with Safaafir
Hamid Al-Saadi - vocal Amir ElSaffar - santur and vocal Dena El Saffar - joza, violin, and vocal Tim Moore - percussion George Ziadeh - oud Zahra Zubaidi - vocal Zahra Ali - vocal Omar Dewachi
Subscribe to NYC Radio Live to enjoy the full festival.
An interview with Parvathy Baul, conducted by David Ellenbogen, produced with the support of SACSA. for the Ragas Live Festival
Parvathy Baul is a practitioner, performer and teacher of the Baul tradition from Bengal, India. She is also an instrumentalist, storyteller and painter.
She has performed in over forty countries, including such prestigious concert halls and music festivals as the Noh Theater in Kyoto, the World Music Center in New York City, Melbourne Arts Center and the Festival of World Sacred Music in Fez, Morocco.
She has also collaborated with world’s leading theater director Eugenio Barba.
She visits several dance, theatre and music institutions across the globe in the capacity of a teacher.
The depth of her mesmerising performance is rooted in her deep spiritual practice.
It is described by critics as “riveting” and “spellbinding.”
Parvathy’s performance work emerges from a long lineage of master Baul singers, dancers, and spiritual teachers.
She studied closely with two of the most respected Baul singer-gurus of the previous generation, Sri Sanatan Das Thakur Baul and Sri Shashanko Goshai.
She was recognized by her gurus as both a musical and spiritual teacher in the Baul tradition, carrying forward their spiritual legacy.
Parvathy has co-founded Ekathara Kalari along with Sri Ravi Gopalan Nair, a non-profit institution promoting ancient Indian spiritual traditions, with an emphasis on Baul arts and practice.
As per her Guru Sri Sanatan Das Baul’s vision, she has established Sanatan Siddhashram, a traditional learning center for the Baul tradition in Birbhum district, West Bengal, India.
Recognising her unbroken commitment to the tradition, the government of India conferred upon her the most esteemed Sangeet Natak Akademi award in the year 2019. It is the highest Indian recognition given to practicing artists.
She was felicitated by honorable President Sri Ramnath Kovind.
The opening set of the Ragas Live Festival 2021. Subscribe for weekly updates with the following 24 sets...
This first live set is from Ragas Live 2020 Cape Town, South Africa
Derek Gripper - Guitar
Second live set is from Ragas Live 2020 Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Dr. Toumani Diabate - kora
Ahmed Diabate - kora
Balla Diabate - kora
This live set is from Ragas Live 2020 Rubin Museum of Art
Arun Ramamurthy - violin
Jay Gandhi - bansuri
Vivek Pandya - tabla
Kavichelvan Srinivasaragavan - mridangam
This live set is from Ragas Live 2020
Mangily, Madagascar
Monika Njava: voice, percussion
Teta: guitar, voice
Jean Piso: accordion, voice
This live set is from Ragas Live 2020 Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal
Prince Nepali - sarangi
Vibha Saran Nepali - tabla
This live set is from Ragas Live Festival 2020
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Vikku Vinayakaram - ghatam
V. Selvaganesh - drum kit
Swaminathan - Kanjira, konnokol
This live set is from Ragas Live 2020 Mysore, Karnataka, India.
Mysore Nagaraj - violin
Mysore Karthik - violin
Tumkur Ravishankar - mridangam
This live set is from Ragas Live Festival 2020 Pioneer Works Brooklyn, NY
Abhik Mukherjee - sitar
Samarth Nagarkar - vocals
Dibyarka Chatterjee - tabla
Live set from Ragas Live 2020
Pioneer Works Brooklyn, NYC, USA
Roopa Mahadevan - vocal
Arun Ramamurthy - violin
Kavichelvan Srinivasaragavan - mridangam
Live from Rajasthan this set from Womanly Voices performed in front of Merrangahr Fort was produced with the support of Jodhpur Riff.
Live video produced for Jodhpur RIFF by Oijo Media
Jodhpur RIFF presents
Womanly Voices
Sumitra Devi - vocals, harmonium
Ganga & Sundar - vocals
Mohini Devi - vocals
Susheela - khartal, manjira
Shyam Rao - manjira
Asin Khan - sindhi sarangi, additional vocals
Sadik Khan - dholak
Location - Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur
This live set is from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Flute Shashank- flute
Akkarai Subhalakshmi - violin
Patri Satish Kumar - mridangam
This live set is form Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Charumathi Raghuram - violin
Anantha R. Krishnan -mridangam
This live set is from Kamardanga, West Bengal, India
Parvathy Baul - vocals, ekthara, duggi, nupur
This live set is from San Raphael, CA, USA
Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri - Teentaal Tabla Solo (excerpt)
Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri - Tabla
Suhail Yusuf Khan - Sarangi
Ali Akbar College of Music Tabla Ensemble
Jim Santi Owen - Tabla, Morsing, Kanjira
Nilan Chaudhuri - Tabla
Rohan Krishnamurthy - Mridangam
William Rossel - Tabla
Producer - Jim Santi Owen
Sound Engineer - Neil Godbole
Filmed, Recorded, Mixed, and Mastered at Airship Laboratories, Richmond, CA
Jim Santi Owen Music - All RIghts Reserved
This live set is from El Clavo, Venezuela
Betsayda Machado - lead vocals and shakers
Adrian "Ote" Gomez - vocals and culoe' puya
Oscar Ruiz - vocals and shakers
Nereida Machado - vocals, shakers and dancing
Blanca Castillo - furruco
Jose Gregorio Gomez - chorus and charrasca
Asterio Betancourt - quinto and culoe' puya
Nelson Gomez - pujao, cumaco, paila and dancing
Youse Cardozo - conga, cumaco, paila and culoe' puya
Live from San Fransisco SFJAZZ Center
This set was produced with the support of SFJAZZ Center
Zakir Hussain - tabla
Rakesh Chaurasia - bansuri
Filmed at the SFJAZZ Center
San Francisco, C
Live from B'nai Jeshurun NYC
This set from Andy Statman performed at B'nai Jeshurun NYC.
Andy Statman - clarinet, mandolin
Jay Gandhi - bansuri
David Ellenbogen - guitar
Ehren Hanson -tabla
This set was produced with the support of B’nai Jeshurun
Live from Rajasthan this set from Dhun Dhora performed in front of Merrangahr Fort was produced with the support of Jodhpur Riff.
Live video produced for Jodhpur RIFF by Oijo Media
odhpur RIFF presents
Dhun Dhora
featuring the Dhol Drummers of Rajasthan
Dayam Khan - harmonium, lead vocals
Sardar Khan - Sindhi Sarangi, additional vocals
Ghafoor Khan - khartal
Chanan Khan - dhol
Swaroop Khan - dhol, dholak
Sattar Khan - dhol-cheep
Pyaru Khan - dhol-cheep
Location - Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur
©JodhpurRIFF 2020. All Rights Reserved
Director - Divya Bhatia, Festival Director Jodhpur RIFF
Video Producer - Kavi Bhansali
Sound - Kavi Bhansali/ Raghav Suthaud
Production Supervisor - Govind Ram Singh
Production Assist - Bhawani Singh
Editor -Vikash Gupta
Special Thanks to the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Jodhpur
©JodhpurRIFF 2020. All Rights Reserved
info@jodhpurriff.org
A freewheeling interview with Zakir Hussain, widely hailed as one of the greatest percussionists of our time. Zakir Hussain is the son of Alla Rakha, the charismatic tabla player who helped Ravi Shankar capture a Western Audience (hint: you’ve seen him if checked out the Woodstock movie.) By the time Zakir was 11 he was touring … Continue reading "Zakir Hussain – Podcast 277"
Ragas Live Festival is returning to WKCR 89.9 FM-NY on November 21st-22nd from 7pm-7pm. The 9th annual festival will feature many legends of music from 13 cities from Mysore to Madagascar including Terry Riley, Zakir Hussain, Toumani Diabate and Bestayda Machado. Full lineup at www.ragaslive.org Today we'll hear a highlight of Ragas Live Festival 2019. Crossroads: Jay Gandhi & Yacouba Cissoko with Jay Gandhi (bansuri), Yacouba Cissoko (kora), David Ellenbogen (guitar) and Ehren Hanson (tabla).
This was an incredible chance to sit down with a living legend of music: Reggie Workman. Reggie will be celebrated at the the 2020 NEA Jazz Masters Tribute concert tonight. Watch here In 1961, Workman joined the John Coltrane Quartet, replacing Steve Davis. He was present for the saxophonist’s Live at the Village Vanguard sessions, and … Continue reading "Reggie Workman – NEA Jazz Master"
This is an epic hang with Jaimoe the legendary drummer of the Allman Brothers in 2014. He speaks about his early days with Otis Redding, meeting Duane and much more...
We were spinning a lot of records and hanging out...
Check out more about Jaimoe here. Also in the station was Alan Paul author of One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers and the music critic John Coltelli.
Enjoy!
Recored and broadcast live at the Ragas Live Festival 2017 from the Rubin Museum of Art, we hear the world premier of the new project: Recalling the Valley.
Jay Gandhi (bansuri) and Max ZT's (hammered dulcimer) pay tribute to their world-renowned teachers, Shivkumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia. With Ehren Hanson on tabla they will perform music inspired by their gurus’ beloved album, “Call of the Valley.”
They also have a great discussion with Andrew Shantz on the topic of creating art away from its place of origin.
Ragas Live Festival supported by the Rubin Museum of Art, WKCR and Humanities New York.
In this incredible episode we capture Innov Gnawa performing the "Sebatayin" repetoire, Gnawa music performed traditionally in Morrocco for the Jewish Community. They performed this for the end of Passover at Greenwich House Music School as part of the UNCHARTED concert series. The Jewish presence in Morocco dates back to over 2,500 years ago and upon interaction with the gnawa community, a bond formed over appreciation for gnawa music and its healing powers. Gnawa music pre-dates Islam and originally centered around animistic, spiritual, mystical concepts sung in sub-Saharan languages such as Bambara, Fulani and Sudani. Upon embracing Islam, gnawa songs began to incorporate Arabic language and themes around the Muslim prophets. Sebitiyin, meaning The Saturdays in Moroccan Arabic, is the collection of songs that grew out of the gatherings hosted by the Jewish community for the revered gnawa maalems whom they deeply respected. Themes of these songs still include the original elements of spirits and the natural world, and later came to incorporate shared saints from their Abrahamic traditions. Today, it is still rare to find a maalem that knows this full repertoire so we are especially lucky to have Maalem (Master) Hassan Ben Jaafer, son of the late Abdallah Ben Jaafer, lead us through a powerful moment of unity in music. Personnel: Maalem (Master) Hassan Ben Jaafer - vocals and sintir Samir Langus - vocals and qraqeb (castanets) Amino Belyamani- vocals and qraqeb (castanets) Ahmed Jeriouda- vocals and qraqeb (castanets) Nawfal Atiq- vocals and qraqeb (castanets) Said Bourhana- vocals and qraqeb (castanets) David Lizmi - vocals and qraqeb (castanets) Uncharted is a concert series featuring New York-based artists premiering new projects or meeting with new collaborators for the first time on stage that has consistently drawn the attention of tastemakers and curators from across the city over the past three years. The Uncharted season delivers eclectic excellence in a broad selection of musical genres representing New York City’s diverse artistic community, including Mexican folkloric, ragtime, classical, electronic, jazz, ancient Moroccan devotional and contemporary R&B.
The Coltrane Raga Tribute from Brooklyn Raga Massive has blowing some minds. As they released their album, we hang with Sameer Gupta, the tabla upstart, drummer and musical director of the project. We'll listen to a live performance from Pioneer Works. If you want to hear it all you’ll have to get the album! .
The all-star ensemble in the set we hear includes: Sameer Gupta – Drumset/Tabla, Brandee Younger – Harp, Jay Gandhi – Bansuri, Arun Ramamurthy – Violin, Pawan Benjamin – Sax, Trina Basu – Violin, Neel Murgai – Sitar, Ben Tyree – Guitar, Rashaan Carter – Bass Michael Gam – Bass
Special Guests:
Roopa Mahadevan – Vocal
Pyeng Threadgill- vocal
Anupam Shobhakar – Sarod Jessica Lurie – Sax Ken Shoji- Violin Dawoud Kringle – Dilruba Giancarlo Luigi – Chekere and Percussion
Recorded by James Clark and mixed by Sameer Gupta
I just learned of the passing of the great master Randy Weston, whose tall shadow hangs over all of us who love, Gnawa Music, African Music, jazz and the intersection of three. He was a lovely person, eager to pass along the knowledge he'd gathered through an amazing life.
I hope this podcast helps pass along some of his wisdom. He was humble, sweet and present and we're lucky to have had him on the planet for 91 years.
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.
We have a live performance in studio with Zhou Benming of the Zhou Family Band. Ethnomusicoligist Mu Quian guides us through through the music. 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 … Continue reading "Zhou Family Band – Podcast 312"
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 rituals in their hometown and the adjacent areas.
The band plays traditional wind and percussion music that has accompanied the birth and death of people in central-eastern China for more than 600 years. Coming from Lingbi, Anhui Province, part of the Central Plain area which formed the cradle of Chinese civilization, the Zhou Family Band have been musicians for seven generations, and are bearers of a tradition that represents the cream of Chinese folk music – Bolin Laba, a national intangible cultural heritage of China.
In this episode we chat with Dorit Chrysler director of of the NY Theremin 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 … Continue reading "Theremin 100, Dorit Chrysler and the Ambient Church: Podcast 311"
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 … Continue reading "Eric Thompson #310"
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 … Continue reading "Micheal Leonhardt #309"
Alexandre Tannous, a composer, musician, ethnomusicologist and researcher came to WKCR to speak about trance. Alexandre Tannous and NYC Radio Live will 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 … Continue reading "Alexandre Tannous on Trance #308"
Roopa Mahadevan, comes to WKCR to share a sneak preview of her upcoming album, Roopa in 6 Yards.
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 more hours are on their way!
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 … Continue reading "Soles of Duende – 305"
An intimate live session with two of the members of Madagascar's super-group, Toko Telo: Monka Njavaa and Joël Rabesolo.
We chat with Lucibela who is bringing the music of Cabo Verde to the world. She’ll be performing her New York debut September 17th at Merkin Hall.
A midnight set from the 24 Hour Ragas Live Festival 2018 Samarth Nagarkar (vocal) Anjana Swaminathan (violin)Rohan Prabhudesai (harmonium)Sandip Ghosh (tabla) perform Ragas Kafi Kanadaand Sohni On October 19th-20th, 2019 Samarth will return to Ragas Live Festival. Tickets and info here Samarth Nagarkar is a Hindustani classical musician, known for his captivating performances and traditionally … Continue reading "Samarth Nagarkar at Ragas Live Festival 2018 # 301"
A live set from Ragas Live Festival 2018; 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.
A beautiful traditional Carnatic performance from Rajeswari Satish (vocal);Radhika Mani (violin) and Bala Skandan (mridangam). This 9-10 am performance was recorded and broadcast from the 24 Hour/24 Set Ragas Live Festival 2018 at Pioneer Works.
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 of music.
Chico also shares selections from some recent albums including The Essence of Silence, All In The Family, Spoken Into Existence, and Elvin: Tribute to Elvin Jones.
We hang out with Shoko Nagai and Satoshi Takeshi and hear tracks from her amazing TOKALA project… Shoko Nagai’s TOKALA” explores the ancient connection between Japan and middle east via silk road where cultural exchange happenned and left an imprint which became integral part of Japanese culture. Here are their upcoming shows… Shoko Nagai is … Continue reading "Shoko Nagai’s Tokala – Podcast 298"
Partha Bose (sitar) and Aditya Narayan Banerjee (tabla) perform at the Ragas Live Festival 2018.
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. We catch up with Paul 5 years after our last conversation..
With cameos from the Hell's Angels, the CIA, the Beat Poets, the Grateful Dead's adventures encapsulates the story of counter-culture America itself. We explore this history with Dennis McNally author of A Long Strange Trip: the Inside Story of the Grateful Dead.
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 adventures encapsulates the story of counter-culture America itself... and depending on your perspective, serves as a cautionary tale.
Dennis is also the author of Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, The Beat Generation & America and Highway 61: Music, Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom.
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.”
Celebrating the retrospective release of several albums fromThe Supplicants, we hang with Sameer Gupta and take a listen to recordings of this influential Bay Area collective. Their music reflects the continuum of jazz from a global orientation, embracing the tones and textures of Africa, India, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe. The Supplicants are: David Boyce – saxophoneRichard … Continue reading "The Supplicants #293"
This was an incredible chance to sit down with a living legend of music: Reggie Workman.
In 1961, Workman joined the John Coltrane Quartet, replacing Steve Davis. He was present for the saxophonist's Live at the Village Vanguard sessions, and also recorded with a second bassist (Art Davis) on the 1961 albums, Olé Coltrane and Africa/Brass. Workman recorded frequently through the 1960s and performed with such icons as Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Eric Dolphy, Gigi Gryce, Booker Little, Roy Haynes, Wayne Shorter, Red Garland, James Moody, Abbey Lincoln, Alice Coltrane, Booker Ervin, Horace Silver, Benny Golson, Cedar Walton, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Curtis Fuller, Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Herbie Mann, Archie Shepp, Clifford Jordan, Bobby Hutcherson, Sonny Fortune, Billy Harper, and David Murray.
We got this lucky chance to speak with him because the Brooklyn Raga Massive will be performing A Love Supreme with Reggie Workman on June 9th as part of their Wall to Wall: John Coltrane Event.
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 … Continue reading "Ilusha Tsinadze – Podcast 291"
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. This episode will air on WKCR 89.9 … Continue reading "Namita Devidayal Talks Vilayat Khan – Podcast 290"
Derek Gripper has miraculously discovered the ability to bring the dazzling polyrhythmic music of the West African Harp, the Kora, onto the classical guitar. Egberto Gismonti, Bach and Keith Jarrett are all elements of his musical DNA. We hang with Derek and he treats us to some live performances and stories of how he happened upon discovering this new world of music for the guitar.
Derek Gripper has miraculously discovered the ability to bring the dazzling polyrhythmic music of the West African Harp, the Kora, onto the classical guitar. Egberto Gismonti, Bach and Keith Jarrett are all elements of his musical DNA. We hang with Derek and he treats us to some live performances and stories of how he happened upon discovering this new world of music for the guitar.
Derek Gripper was in NYC performing as part of the ongoing World in Trance Festival which continues April 11th and 12th in NYC.
A great hang with one of the greatest drummers of his generation, Eric Harland. We get into it about philosophy, meditation, his own journey, and what he’s learned from the masters like McCoy Tyner, Betty Carter and Charles Llyod. Eric will be coming to town with Zakir Hussain and the Masters of Percussion April 24 at … Continue reading "Eric Harland – Podcast 288"
We travel to India to interview 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, Mumbai. This will air on WKCR 89.9 FM-NY March 17th 2019 from 7pm-9pm EST.
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 AfroFusion music linking the Maghreb with the rest of Africa. So far, the project has recorded, documented or produced 18 African musicians from Algeria, Niger, Ghana and Burkina Faso.
Todays show features
Amine Lehchili, Abdelhak BenMedjbari Justice Nii Adjiri aka Shikome Adama Diarra Labib Benslama Younes Kati Nazim Bakour
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)
Hailing from Venezuela, Betsayda Machado & Parranda El Clavo made their New York debut at GlobalFest last year. The group’s electrifying live set, complete with pitch perfect harmonies, dazzling dancers, and irresistible rhythms earned them legions of new fans and a feature in the next days’s New York Times.
We sat down with Betsayda with her manager Juan Souki and learned more about the Afro-Venezuelan tradition. She talks us through a few tracks on their first album, Rural Recordings Under the Mango Tree, which is available through the Indiegogo campaign that brought them here.
Betsayda Machado and Parranda EL Clavo
During the epic annual Zlatne Ustne Goldenfest, the crowd was worked into a frenzy by a rollicking set by LITVAKUS, Zisl Slepovich’s klezmer band. We get a chance to hang backstage with the maestro and renaissance man, Zisl Slepovich. Zisl Slepovitch (Dmitri Zisl Slepovitch) is an internationally renowned multiinstrumentalist (clarinetist, saxophonist, flutist, pianist, keyboardist, singer), composer, arranger, translator, … Continue reading "Zisl Slepovich – Podcast 286"
We get a chance to chat with Amythyst Kia before her set Globalfest in Times Square.
A professed Southern Gothic songster based in Johnson City, TN, Amythyst Kiah’s commanding stage presence is only matched by her raw and powerful vocals—a deeply moving, hypnotic sound that stirs echoes of a distant and restless past. A graduate of East Tennessee State University, she studied old time music and music performance, and it proved to be a pivotal moment in her life as she transformed from a long-time closet musician into a well-rounded, captivating performer.
Accoutered interchangeably with banjo, acoustic guitar, or a full band (Her Chest of Glass), Amythyst’s toolbox is augmented by her scholarship of African-American roots music. Her eclectic influences span decades, drawing heavily on old time music (Mississippi Sheiks, Son House, Jimmie Rodgers, Olla Belle Reed, Carter Family), inspired by strong R&B and country music vocalists from the '50s-'70s (Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn) and influenced by contemporary artists with powerful vocal integrity (Adele, Florence and the Machine, Megan Jean and the KFB, Janelle Monae).
Before their premier of an exciting new work Nature/War/Love we hang out with Karou Wantanabe, Parul Shah and Sameer Gupta. We also check out slections from Karou Wantanabe's latest album Néo.
In Nature/War/Love Shinobue flute and taiko drum virtuoso Kaoru Watanabe, known for his work on Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and hybrid Indian classical tabla and modern jazz percussionist Sameer Gupta (Coltrane Raga Tribute, Adam Rudolph) team up with Indian classical and contemporary choreographer Parul Shah,whose work is expanding the classical medium beyond cultural boundaries.
Through the lens of lush contemporary compositions and dynamic improvisations, the thematic material found in traditional works such as Ghalib, Mahabharata, Amaterasu, and the Tale of Genji provides a framework for these three brilliant artists to explore the connections between these ancient texts and today’s world.
NYC Radio Live listeners get to hang out with Jacob Plasse from Orquesta Akokán. The 12 piece cuban Grammy Nominated band revives the sound of the renowned dance orchestras of the 1940s and 1950s with influences such as Arsenio Rodriguez, Perez Prado, and Beny Moré
Debashish Bhattacharya is simply one of the greatest guitarists walking the earth. The slide guitar master will be performing at GlobalFest this year, and we give a preview of what to expect, revisiting a Hurricane Sandy Benefit Concert Debashish performed in NYC in 2012 with his daughter Anandi and brother Subashish.
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 voices from the great symphony of wildlife.
It was a blast when he came by my apartment, played some instruments, hung out and talked about the big event coming up: His 35th Annual Winter Solstice Celebration.
The Cathedral at St. John the Divine during the spectacle of Paul WInter’s Solstice Celebration
Here's our first recording from Ragas Live Festival 2018! A beautiful set from 11pm to midnight from Anirban Dasgupta (sarod), Mir Naqibul Islam (tabla).
Anirban is the youngest son and disciple of Pt. Buddhadev Dasgupta. Needless to mention, he grew up with the very best ambience of Indian Classical music, with his older sibling, Bhavani Shankar also following his father’s footsteps. Not to be left behind, Anirban also took to playing the Sarod from an early age under the able guidance and tutelage of his illustrious father. A wonderful product of innate talent, years of grueling toil and delicate musical nurture, Anirban remains an extremely humble and self-effacing artist. In 1987, he stood first in the All India Radio Music Competition. He has performed widely in India as well as in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and USA.
Mir Naqibul Islam (tabla) is a classical music performer in Bangladesh and New York, both as a soloist and an accompanist. Though trained in a purely traditional style, he incorporates many genres and influences into his playing. He is fortunate to have Shri Ashoke Paul, a disciple of Padmabhushan Pandit Jnan Prakash ghosh, as his guru for the past 17 years, learning the technical and aesthetic aspects of tabla playing. Mir has also learned from Janab Syed Hafizur Rahman, Shri Madan Gopal Das, and Pandit Suresh Talwalkar. Mir is currently taking musical instruction from Pandit Anindo Chatterjee.
We hang with the great Turkish musician Ozan Aksoy. He performs live on Ney and Saz and we check out tracks from his new album entitled, Ozan.
The New York City based musician Ozan Aksoy’s destiny was set with his birth name - Ozan - an ancient title for mystical bards in West Asia. As a child growing up in Turkey, he first learned to play the saz (lute) from his father, and soon demonstrated remarkable breadth as a multi-instrumentalist, becoming proficient in many of the string, woodwind, and percussive instruments of the region. He developed a passion for the music of ethnic and religious minorities in his country including the Kurds, Armenians, Laz, and Alevi, among others. Later in college, as an early member of the critically-acclaimed ensemble Kardeş Türküler (meaning Ballads of Solidarity), Ozan and his colleagues performed the songs of these unrecognized and suppressed peoples, pushing the boundaries of inclusion in Turkey. During his time with the group they released four albums and toured extensively throughout Europe, spreading their message of diversity and acceptance. Ozan then relocated to the United States to complete a doctorate in ethnomusicology and further develop his multicultural repertoire.
A freewheeling interview with Zakir Hussain, widely hailed as one of the global percussionists of our time. This interview, conducted by WKCR's David Ellenbogen, is in anticipation of Zakir's upcoming performance at The Town Hall with Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Rakesh Chaurasia on November 15th.
Zakir Hussain, who first made a name for himself accompanying legends such as Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, avi Shankar, Ustad Vilayat Khan, Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, and countless others has grown to become a global figure. Prominent in world music projects, he has collaborated with artists as diverse as George Harrison, Yo-Yo Ma, Giovanni Hidalgo, Jan Garbarek, Van Morrison, John McLaughlin, and Mickey Hart.
One of the world’s foremost tabla players, Subhasis Bhattacharya has performed and recorded with his brother Debashish on many classic albums including the Grammy nominated Calcutta Chronicles. On Tablananda, his first international collaboration, Subhasis assembles an incredible line-up of musicians to produce a visionary album that showcases his incredible creativity.
We hang out with the great dancer and innovator Misa Kelly who is in town for the Collaborations in Dance Festival at Triskelion Arts.
Misa is passionate about community building. Her innovative program designs and organizational efforts have helped over 1,000 artists over the past 20 years. Kelly is a groundbreaker and innovator. As SonneBlauma Danscz Theatre her company was the first in her community to tour CA, tour to New York, tour internationally, the first to provide opportunity to non-local boutique artists, and the first to co-launch a dance festival in her community as a gesture of giving back. She became the first member of the dance community to receive a coveted indy Award. In 2012 SonneBlauma morphed into ArtBark and Kelly shared leadership and direction with Stephen Kelly, Mojca Majcen, and Trina Mannino. As a community they toured to France, Austria, Slovenia, SoCal, New York, and Connecticut. Their project Alma.Sama., three years in the making, was met with critical acclaim with a premiere at the Slovenian National Cultural Center – the Cankarjev Dom. Her choreography in this collaborative work was described as “perfect dance poetics with superior movement vocabulary” by the Slovenian publication Parada Plesa. Misa has exhibited her visual art in New York, Vienna, and Santa Barbara, and guerilla style at the Lourve, the Norton Simon, and the Belvedere. She publishes as an indie author under the pen name of Ginger Freedom and blogs regularly about dance on her Facebook page and on a sundry of topics at playfreshional.wordpress.com. This event, for her, celebrates 20 years of dance making.
THE DANCER:
mdkellydances.com
THE VISUAL ARTIST:
http://artbarkinternation.wixsite.com/brutifuloutsiderart
PRODUCT SALES:
thehunkyteacup.com
This is a remaster of a broadcast I did in 2012 when I had just returned from almost a month in Mali making field and studio recordings. Very special stuff:
Here's the original intro:
I'm back from the Sahara, and, as promised, have a ton of recordings to share with you. This special show was originally broadcast on WKCR on 89.9 FM-NY and features rough mixes of studio recordings with up and coming guitarist and pop star Oumar Konate, Griot Royalty Noura Mint Seymali from Mauritania recording exclusively for us in her flat in Timbuktu, artists from Niger informally jamming in their tents and the Festival Au Desert and much, much more. We'll hear this Takamba band in the photo above- they use a car battery and a PA and the flute ends up sounding just like Jimi Hendrix...
Anupam Shobhakar plays a midnight set at Ragas Live Festival 2016.
Anupam Shobhakar (sarod) Shankh Lahiri (Tabla)
Live at Pioneer Works 12 am -1am
Anupam is a dazzling performer and a virtuoso of the Sarod. He has appeared many times at the Ragas Live Festival.
This year’s festival is October 21st 2017 at the Rubin Museum of Art.
Tickets here
The 9pm-10 Set Live at Pioneer Works with Snehashish Mozumdar (mandolin), Shiva Ghoshal (tabla) from the 24 Hour Ragas Live Festival.
Snehashish is an explosive, dynamic performer who is pushing the boundaries of his instrument. He has played on several Ragas Live Festivals in the past.
This year's festival is October 21st 2017 at the Rubin Museum of Art. Tickets here
Here’s a great one from the archives! A beautiful live performance and discussion with Abdoulaye Alhassane Tourewith Deep Sahara at WKCR in 2010. w/ Yacouba Diabate (Kora) Frederika Krier (Violin) and David Ellenbogen (guitar). Abdoulaye is a guitarist and singer from Gao, Mali with roots in Northern Mali and Niger. He brings all these regional sounds of this diverse part of the world into his music. He also absorbed American Jazz and Blues…you’ll hear it all.
More about Abdoulaye:
By Banning Eyre | April, 2007 [guitar player mg]
Abdoulaye Alhassane Toure has brought string-picking wizardry from the desert towns of West Africa to the nightclubs of New York City. Born in 1963, in Niamey, Niger, to a Sonrai family from Gao, Mali, he passed his youth in a multi-ethnic neighborhood surrounded by Peul, Bambara, Sonrai, and other peoples, and as he put it, “They all played music.” Local radio filled his ears with the sinuous, bluesy strains of desert folklore and the melodious bombast of Mande griots. When his parents returned to Mali, Toure recalled, “They came back with cassettes by Ibrahim Hamma Dicko, Fissa Maiga, and Ali Farka Toure, who sang in a language we understood, and I was incredibly inspired by the originality of this music.” Toure’s musical gift became obvious when he started hanging out in the Niamey nightclub where his uncle, Johnny Ali Maiga, led a band. “Johnny Ali Maiga played folklore, like Ali Farka Toure,” said Toure, “But he also loved rock. His group was on the radio in Niamey, and it sounded like the Malian music I was listening to at home, but sung in Zerma, the national language of Niger.” By the early ’80s, Toure was playing guitar and flute, and his first band incorporated electric guitar, bass, drums, and brass, and merged regional folk styles with international pop. When the group took first prize in a national competition, Toure became a full-time musician. By the late ’80s, he was leading Super Kassey—the first Niamey band to travel abroad and record in a modern studio. Before long, Toure was working as a guitar instructor at the European-run Center for the Education and Promotion of Music. In 1992, Toure teamed up with singer/flutist Yacouba Moumouni to create Niger’s most successful roots pop band to date, Mamar Kassey. Mamar Kassey’s two electrifying CDs, Denke Denke (1999) and Alatoumi (2000) showcase Toure’s guitar mastery and formidable arranging skills. The music is rooted in tradition, but molded into brisk arrangements that include key modulations and bursts of solo improvisation. “Improvisation existed in Sonrai music,” explained Toure, “but in another form. In our ceremonies, there’s an original melody that is played by the kurbu [a 3-stringed lute]. When the energy rises between the players and the dancers, the kurbu player leaves his melody, and follows his heart. But if you tell that kurbu player to work with a modern group and ‘improvise,’ you have to explain to him what it means.” Mamar Kassey’s travels eventually brought Toure to New York City, where he now lives and performs with his current band, Deep Sahara. Toure can cradle an acoustic guitar and fingerpick his way through desert trance grooves, and he can also take up a flatpick, and wail on electric—edging desert folklore into the realm of blues and rock. One day, he plans to return to Niger to set up a studio and form an international touring band. For now, Toure is merely one of the most riveting African guitarists to be found in the United States.
Jean-Claude van Itallie, is a creative force across many genres. Norman Mailer called one his works "possibly the best one-act play I have ever seen.” He's a poet, meditator, health-guru, translator, writer and it doesn't stop there. We sit on the porch with Jean-Claude van Itallie at his inspriring retreat center, Shantigar.
Today we share a WKCR broadcast featuring musicians Amir ElSaffar, Awa Sangho, Roman Diaz, Martha Redbone, and producer Hans Taparia from the India Center Foundation.
We were promoting Outside (In)dia a free concert series, at Lincoln Center featuring all those great musicians. The opening event is this Friday with Amir El Saffar and we'll hear a discussion with Amir as well as music from all these amazing musicians.
Outside (In)dia is a four-part concert series produced by The India Center Foundation and curated by Brooklyn Raga Massive that pushes the boundaries and conceptions of Indian classical music. With commissions of new works bringing raga into play with musical traditions spanning Cuba to Iraq, the series will position Indian classical music as a space for inclusion, collaboration, and conversation in a revolutionary new way.
Subsequent events in the series will feature Cuban master drummer Román Diaz (Nov 10),powerful Malian singer Awa Sangho (Feb 9) and Native American folk and soul songstress Martha Redbone (Apr 13).
Yaadcore is a cultured selector that has already began making waves on Jamaica’s music scene. Also the Dj for reggae artist Protoje.
Biography
More and more youths, seeking to connect with their cultural roots, invariably come across particular names in the field of music. No doubt they eventually stumble upon Yaadcore. As his name suggests, he is at the center of Jamaica’s Reggae Revival.
His role in the movement is cemented by the fact that he was the first person ever to play the music of Kabaka Pyramid and Chronixx on Jamaican radio. In addition to that, he is Protoje’s touring DJ and has toured California & opened for Protoje’s band performances on his European fall tour, touching places like Italy, France, Portugal, Switzerland & Belgium. Also just recently opened for Protoje on an extensive tour of the west coast of US with reputable brand sponsorship from Leafly.
Growing up observing his father operate a sound system, Yaadcore naturally gravitated toward the same profession. As an adult, maturity urged him to decide what kind of music he would play at public events. He naturally opted for spiritually healing, organic reggae music and soon stopped accepting work in other genres.
Yaadcore settled into a weekly groove of selecting tunes at his increasingly popular Dubwise Jamaica event in Kingston on Wednesdays that has grown to become and international brand. Dubwise features a weekly vibration in Miami, Florida and have been to states like Washington DC, Atlanta, New York and California and has also sown the Dubwise seed in other countries like Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Bermuda, Hungary, Romania, Malta, Germany, Kenya, & Ethiopia.
Those unable to have the Yaadcore experience in person need not go further than their computers. His SoundCloud page is a treasure chest of his globally acclaimed mixes, including the Reggae Aroma’s Volume 1 - 3 which have gained listens up to 210+ plays plus his official Protoje mixtapes that have over 100k+ hits along with a marijuana themed mix collaboration with the well renown VP Records that hits 240+ plays.
Fari Di Future
Upcoming Roots & Reggae vocalist Kemani Ifari Powell, was born on Dec 29, 1986. Rightfully known as Fari Di Future, he hails from the beautiful island of Jamaica. Raised in Kingston, within the peaceful community of Cooreville Gardens, Fari is no stranger to the arts, having been brought up in a musical family. His parents- Winston Powell and Maizy Powell, are both singers and founding members of the Reggae trio Midnight Rider. Known for classics such as ‘Wanted’, ‘Clash in a Rhythm’, and ‘Youthman Invasion’, they gained a massive following in Jamaica’s festival scene, which propelled them to tour most of Europe throughout the 70’s and 80’s.
As a child, he was exposed to the big stage performing alongside his parents any chance he could. This is where he harnessed his confident and engaging approach. Following his passion at a young age, Fari attended The Jamaica School of Music, in which he learned the many aspects of music and performance, and gained knowledge on how to play instruments in the Percussion family, and Acoustic Guitar.
Fari Di Future can easily be identified through his mellifluous, tuneful voice and insightful lyrics. Deeply rooted in Rastafari beliefs and principles, the singer has manifested the philosophy of the “H.O.W.K.L.E.A.R Movement”, an acronym which stands for Heights Of Wisdom-Know, Learn, Execute & Rise. Consisting of musical colleagues Jermaine ‘Autarchii’ Joseph and Ryan ‘Skull’ Morgan, the rapidly growing movement aims to instill the positive message: In all aspects of development, in order to gain the Heights of Wisdom, one must first Know, Learn, Execute And then Rise, exemplifying the words of H.I.M. Haile Selassie.
Upcoming projects for Fari include a lineup of live performances, features and dubs, soon to be available. An anticipated EP entitled “ALKEBULAN”,
Brooklyn Raga Massive's Coltrane Raga Tribute are about to drop their New Album - and the release party will be a free concert in Prospect Park at Celebrate Brooklyn June 23rd with Pharoah Sanders headlining!
We hang with Sameer Gupta, the tabla upstart, drummer and musical director of the project and listen to a live performance from Pioneer Works. If you want to hear it all you'll have to get the album though!
This podcast will air on WKCR 89.9 FM-NY on Sunday June 18th at 7pm.
The all-star ensemble in the set we hear includes: Sameer Gupta - Drumset/Tabla (musical director), Brandee Younger - Harp, Jay Gandhi - Bansuri, Arun Ramamurthy - Violin, Pawan Benjamin - Sax, Trina Basu - Violin, Neel Murgai - Sitar, Ben Tyree - Guitar, Rashaan Carter - Bass Michael Gam - Bass
Special Guests:
Roopa Mahadevan - Vocal
Pyeng Threadgill- vocal
Anupam Shobhakar - Sarod Jessica Lurie - Sax Ken Shoji- Violin Dawoud Kringle - Dilruba Giancarlo Luigi - Chekere and Percussion
Recorded by James Clark and mixed by Sameer Gupta
Barbès is a small Brooklyn club which has been presenting music on a daily basis for now 15 years. Started on a shoestring budget in a former barber shop in the South Slope, Barbès has for years acted as a kind of laboratory for all different kinds of new projects and become a true community hub.
They're in the hole $70,000K and have turned to the community for support. The community has answered back in a big way. You can join the movement and find about a great benefit concert here.
We hang with Olivier Conan at Barbes and hear tracks from Chicha Libre, Chicha libre's Canibalismo Las Rubias del Norte Panamericana and Miramar.
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 of music.
Chico also shares selections from some recent albums including The Essence of Silence, All In The Family, Spoken Into Existence, and Elvin: Tribute to Elvin Jones. He'll be performing at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola on June 7th and 8th.
The day after a moving performance with Ravi Coltrane, Reggie Workman, Jeff Tain Watts an other giants of Jazz, we hung out at home with Jay Gandhi! After our short conversation he shares a special live performance.
Jay is an artist who dedicated to the Hindustani tradition and is also bringing his instrument, the bansuri, into new territory.
Samarth at Sunrise during the 2016 Ragas Live Festival
The nineteenth set of the historic, Ragas Live Festival 2016, live at Pioneer Works. Samarth Nagarkar (vocal), Meghashyam Keshav (tabla), Rohan Prabhudesai (harmonium). This is a great to chance to experience music created for the sunrise. It was performed as the first rays broke through the evening sky.
Samarth Nagarkar is a Hindustani classical vocalist, known for his captivating performances and richly traditional music.
Samarth features in prominent music festivals and venues in India and the US including The ITC Sangeet Sammelan, Kolkata; Chhandayan All Night Concert, The International Fringe Festival and The Drive East Festival, NYC; Maverick Concerts, Woodstock; Ali Akbar College of Music and Basant Bahar, San Francisco; The APAP Showcase at Rockwood Music Hall, NYC; The Kashinath Bodas Music Festival, Pheonix; The Gandharva Festival in New Jersey and Universities like Stanford, UPenn, UPitt and PSU.
He has two albums titled ‘Pranali’ and ‘Pravah’ and a book, ‘Raga Sangeet’ to his credit.
He has also composed music for major international films and conventions.
Samarth is a recipient of the President’s Award for winning the All India Radio’s National Music Competition and a Fellowship from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
He was formerly head of the K. K. Kapoor Sangeet Research Academy in Lucknow and currently teaches at two prominent music schools in New York, and also teaches adjunct lectures and master-classes at schools/universities like MSM and NYU.
He is a former scholar of the prestigious ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata and has trained extensively in the strict guru-shishya parampara under two renowned gurus and top ranking musicians - Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar and Pandit Dinkar Kaikini.
Pursuing a full-fledged career as a performer, composer, teacher and author, Samarth is described by critics as one of today’s most prolific performers and a torchbearer of the traditions he represents.
Ragas Live Festival 2016 is produced with the support of The Rubin Museum of Art
Cosmas Magaya
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)
We get to hang at home with LADAMA! We recorded some songs and chat with Mafer Bandola (bandola llanera), Lara Klaus (percussion, drums), Daniela Serna (percussion) Sara Lucas (voice, guitar) and Pat Swoboda (bass).
LADAMA is an ensemble of women musicians (joined by Pat for this session) who combine the rhythms and traditional instrumentation of frevo and maracatu from Pernambuco, Brazil; joropo songs from the high plains of Venezuela; cumbia, gaita and champeta from the Colombian coast and contemporary strains of American pop and jazz.
Ladama Project em Recife - Retratos
Members of LADAMA specialize in, among other instruments, the bandola llanera from Venezuela, the tambor alegre from Colombia, and the pandeiro and zabumba from Northeast Brazil. Their performances include original compositions and traditional songs sung in Spanish, Portuguese and English combining disparate elements into a cohesive whole. The result is a sonic experience through which we can view our future as a world that communicates across continents and cultures, with sound and story.
We're psyched to see that one of one of our favorite groups in NYC Innov Gnawa is combining forces with the great Vieux Farka Tourre this Thursday at BRIC.
Last September, we got sit down and hang with Vieux Farka Toure, talk to him and record a little acoustic music…AND record his entire live set at Le Poisson Rouge in Manhattan with his moking band! Many thanks to World Music Institute and Le Poisson Rouge for making that happen.
Often referred to as “The Hendrix of the Sahara”, Vieux Farka Touré was born in Niafunké, Mali in 1981. He is the son of legendary Malian guitar player Ali Farka Touré, who died in 2006. Ali Farka Touré came from a historical tribe of soldiers, and defied his parents in becoming a musician. When Vieux was in his teens, he declared that he also wanted to be a musician. His father dissaproved due to the pressures he had experienced being a musician. Rather, he wanted Vieux to become a soldier. But with help from family friend the kora maestro Toumani Diabaté, Vieux eventually convinced his father to give him his blessing to become a musician shortly before Ali passed.
Vieux was initially a drummer / calabash player at Mali’s Institut National des Arts, but secretly began playing guitar in 2001. Ali Farka Touré was weakened with cancer when Vieux announced that he was going to record an album. Ali recorded a couple of tracks with him, and these recordings, which can be heard on Vieux’s debut CD, were amongst his final ones. It has been said that the senior Touré played rough mixes of these songs when people visited him in his final days, at peace with, and proud of, his son’s talent as a musician. He know tours internationally with many acclaimed records to his name.
With stirring vocal harmonies and luscious arrangements, Miramar breathe life into the classic bolero tradition. We got to sit down with their music director and keyboardist, Marlyse Simmons and learn about the history of boleros and hear and learn about the muse of their new album Sylvia Rexach.
The world-renowned Moroccan Festival Gnaoua et Musiques du MondeEssaouira celebrates its 20th anniversary with a debut NYC collaboration. Great Maalems (masters) and all-stars of the festival trace a musical journey of the ancient music of Gnawa during a night of trance and tradition.
There will be events all week in NYC.
In this WKCR broadcast we get to speak with master drummer, Will Calhoun; Samir Langus and Nawfal Atiq of Innov Gnawa Meera Dugal of Lincoln Center, about what to expect and delve deep into this magical tradition
Will Calhoun
March 16th | Gnaoua Festival Tour 2017 Kickoff Concert at the David Rubenstein Atrium ft. Maalem Hamid El Kasri, Maalem Abdeslam Alikkane + special guest Maalem Hassan Ben Jaafer https://www.facebook.com/events/1890793107822486/ March 17th | Gnaoua Festival Tour 2017 tradtional concert with Maalem Abdeslam Alikkane at The New School Jazz https://events.newschool.edu/…/gnaoua_festival_tour_2017_an… March 19th | Gnaoua et Jazz at Pioneer Works with Maalem Hamid El Kasri, Maalem Abdeslam Alikkane, Will Calhoun, Marcus Strickland, Marc Cary, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma https://www.facebook.com/events/657330721116926/ Monday, March 20 at 6:30 PM - 9 PM
Panel + Innov Performace at The New School Jazz https://www.facebook.com/events/246751079067805/
Randy Weston Masterclass ft. Maalam Hassan Benjaafar and Samir LanGus of Innov Gnawa (Lec/Dec) To be resecheduled due to weather https://www.facebook.com/events/393158167717471/
Mitali Banerjee Bhawmik (vocal), Meghashyam Keshav (tabla), Ramachandra Joshi (harmonium) perform Raag Miyan Ki Malhar from 5-6pm at the Ragas Live Festival 2016 in Pioneer Works.
The talented violinist Trina Basu of Karavika joined us on WKCR to present an entire month of women led ensembles at the Brooklyn Raga Massive...we'll hear from Roshni Samlal, Yalini Dream, Ganavya Doraiswamy, Morely, Karavika, Alif Leila, The Epichorus and much more.
Montreal based Thanya Iyer, creates a compelling mix of Carnatic influenced vocals, impressionist classical composition and electronica. She brought her voice and keys to WKCR for a live set with Daniel Gelinas on Drums/Synths and Alex Kasirer-Smibert on bass/synths. The new album is called "Do you Dream"
Last night at WKCR 89.9 FM-NY, Brooklyn Raga Massive members created a sea of drones for raga based improvisation, based on the calls coming into the station it seemed to be just what the city needed!
The group "Unstruck Sound" will be performing this Friday Feb 24th at the Rubin Museum of Art.. Followed by a Sound Meditation with Acoustic Mandala Project at 9:30 pm
Info Tix here
Neel Murgai -Overtone singing, loops, Eric Fraser, Bansuri, Arun Ramamurthy - Violin, David Ellenbogen, Guitar
The mind blowing singer from Mauritania has been on our radio show before and she's coming to NYC to perform for World Music Institute at (Le) Poisson Rouge Friday, February 24, 2017. We'll share our first encounter with Noura Mint Seymali when we recorded her in Timbuktu with her husband, Jeiche Ould Chighaly. It was an intimate acoustic recording with a single microphone. We'll also here a highlight of one of our greatest podcasts ever when we connected next Noura Mint Seymali in New York City and recorded her and Jeiche with Brooklyn Raga Massive musicians Jay Gandhi and Ehren Hanson.
We get to hang with Albert Mazibuko an member of Ladysmith Black Mambazo for over 30 years. Albert talks about his memories of times with Nelson Mandela, and how this angel music was both born in the mines and the land of dreams. The group plays B.B. Kings March 8th.
Albert far right with Nelson Mandela
Blato Zlato kicked the doors down at this year's Golden Fest, the amazing annual Balkan festival in NYC featuring over 60 bands. We got to talk backstage with Lou Carrig, Annalisa Kelly,Ruby Ross and check out selections from their new album Swamp Gold.
Formed in 2015, the band performs folk and composed music from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on Bulgarian songs and improvisational, dreamy, full-energy arrangements.
Blato Zlato is:
Lou Carrig – Accordion, Vocals Ian Cook – Violin Annalisa Kelly – Vocals Pete Olynciw – Upright Bass Ruby Ross – Vocals Boyanna Trayanova – Percussion
Hailing from Venezuela, Betsayda Machado & Parranda El Clavo made their New York debut at GlobalFest this week. The group's electrifying live set, complete with pitch perfect harmonies, dazzling dancers, and irresistible rhythms earned them legions of new fans and a feature in the next days's New York Times.
We sat down with Betsayda with her manager Juan Souki and learned more about the Afro-Venezuelan tradition. She talks us through a few tracks on their first album, Rural Recordings Under the Mango Tree, which is available through the Indiegogo campaign that brought them here.
Betsayda Machado and Parranda EL Clavo
The original lineup of the group heard on the recording here. Pictured at Pioneer Works
Just before we left for Cuba to record for this podcast, Brooklyn Raga Massive's Raga Cubana feat. Roman Diaz, had an intimate concert to get ready for our sold out concert a month later at the Rubin Museum of Art.
Here we are trying new things and feeling the hometown energy and love from the Raga Massive Jam Session at the Art Cafe
With
Román Díaz (conductor, batá: iyá )
Giancarlo Luigi (shekere)
Clemente la Tierra (batá: okónkolo)
Melvis Santa (vocals)
Folasona Olorunsola (batá: itótele)
Ehren Hanson (tabla)
Jay Gandhi (bansuri)
David Ellenbogen (guitar)
Arun Ramamurthy (violin)
Michael Gam (bass)
Camila Celin (Sarod)
Raga Cubana at the Rubin Museum of Art last Week with Sandy Perez and Vanessa Ayaba Irawo sitting in for Melvis Santa.
The seventh set of the historic, Ragas Live Festival 2016, live at Pioneer Works. Neel Murgai (sitar), Sameer Gupta (tabla). Neel and Sameer will be performing at the Raga Massive Concert and Jam Session at the Art Cafe (885 Pacific Street, Brooklyn) this Wednesday, Jan 4th 8pm.
Neel and Sammeer at the Ragas Live Festival 2017 @ Pioneer Works
Neel is a multi-instrumental performer, composer and teacher in New York City. He graduated with an MFA in interdisciplinary arts from Goddard College. His life long journey into the depth and beauty of sitar and Indian classical music began in Benares 20 years ago with Ravindra Goswami. Neel has studied sitar for the past 14 years with his guru and mentor Pt. Krishna Bhatt. Neel has studied and plays a variety of instruments ranging from the Persian frame drum to the kanjira, as well as the voice. Neel is interested in creating music that draws from not only Indian Classical Music, but other various traditions as well.
Ragas Live Festival 2016 is produced with the support of The Rubin Museum of Art
This is last minute post while I am in Cuba collecting great recordings for the all you listeners of the podcast!
A great performance from Dee Harris at Ragas live guitar..more to come.
The ninth set of the historic, Ragas Live Festival 2016, live at Pioneer Works. Roopa Mahadevan (vocal) Anjna Swaminathan (violin), Bala Skandan (mridangam), Kabilan Jeginathan (kanjira).
Roopa Mahadevan is a versatile vocalist rooted in the South Indian (Carnatic) classical tradition. Born and raised in San Jose, California, Roopa underwent her major formative training in Carnatic vocal music in under Asha Ramesh, disciple of the late Sangeetha Kalanidhi D.K. Jayaraman and Sri Nanganallur Ramanathan. In 2007, Roopa was awarded the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship by the U.S. Department of State to receive advanced Carnatic vocal training in Chennai, India under Suguna Varadachari, a senior guru of the Musiri Subramania Iyer tradition. Roopa has been a regular performer of Carnatic vocal concerts in the U.S. and India. She has been performing in all of the major “sabhas” in Chennai, India during the December music season, including the prestigious Music Academy. She has received praise from the Carnatic music fraternity and notable press, including The Hindu. She has also performed at the well-known Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana, which awarded her the title ‘Kala Ratna’ for her commitment to the pursuit of Carnatic music as a young American. Roopa is also an accomplished Bharathanatyam dancer who has performed her arangetram under the training of the Indumathy Ganesh, disciple of Padmashri Chitra Visweswaran. Roopa is a regular vocal peformer for several of the leading Bharathanatyam and contemporary dancers of the South Asian Diaspora.
Roopa is the artistic director of the NYC-based Navatman Music Collective, an Indian Classical Vocal ensemble. Roopa received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Master’s degree in Cognitive Science from Stanford University. She is based in New York City, where she balances a career in public health policy with the passionate pursuit of her art
Recorded by James Clark mixed by Sameer Gupta.
Ragas Live Festival 2016 is produced with the support of The Rubin Museum of Art
We hang out with Olivier Conan, the band leader of Chicha Libre, and the owner of Brooklyn's most beloved listening room, Barbes. We'll hear some of the smoking tracks from his group and his Barbes Records label and get his take on what's happening in the world.
Barbes will be hosting a free and open event this Sunday about the general state of the union entitled What Now? Post Election Gathering at Barbès from 5pm-7pm November 20th 2016.
Our next upcoming podcast will be Innov Gnawa's explosive Sufi, Trance set from the same evening at Barbes.
As NYC and the world woke up to the results of an election, we gathered, as always, on Wednesday night, our inclusive, diverse music scene taking on a new meaning. Tomchess and his quartet rose to the occasion and captured the moment with stunning soulful maquam based compositions informed by the free jazz improvisations of of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. Hear the beauty and the promise from this set at the Art Cafe.
Tomchess - Oud, Ney Morsing, Composer Zachary Swanson - Upright Bass Abraham Faure Mennon - Tenor Sax Dan Kurfirst - Drums/percussion
NYC based Multi-instrumentalist/improviser/composer Tomchess has played and recorded with some of the heaviest players in the improvisational scene (Dewey Redman, Butch Morris, Pharoah Sanders, Drew Gress, Ronald Shannon Jackson), as well as Morrocan Sintarist Hassan Hakmoun. Having deeply studied the Near Eastern, and North African traditions he incorporated the tonal palette, rhythms, and forms of these traditional musics while never losing sight of his American roots and the importance and freedom of improvising. He has performed in Africa, Canada, Holland, India and Italy. He has performed at Lincoln Center, The David Rubinstein Atrium, The Turkish Embassy, The Pakastani Embassy, the Asian Society, The Natural History Museum, The Metropolitan Museum, The Himalayan Museum of Art and The United Nations among countless other venues in NYC and the United States.
"...Chess is a superfine improviser with total command of his instrument...Chess leads the group through a buoyant assortment of song-forms as they sustain a high level of interest amid a suspenseful sequence of progressions.... They also mix it up in a jazzy sort of way. ...one of those magical efforts....They hit all the right spots while kicking out the proverbial jams via a fresh slant that yields gratifying results. "
-Glenn Astarita, All About Jazz.
Zachary Swanson is a double bassist residing in Brooklyn, NY. Using gut strings and a personalized technique, Zachary has developed a conception of the double bass that heightens the integrity of various musical environments. Zachary attended Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with double bassist Michael Formanek and saxophonist Gary Thomas.
Abraham Mennen is a South African saxophonist, improvisor and composer currently living in New York. He mostly plays free jazz, improvised and experimental music. Abraham has worked with Louis Moholo, William Parker, Joe Morris, John Lockwood, Herbie Tsoaeli, Hamid Drake, Kidd Jordan and many others.
Dan Kurfirst is an NYC based percussionist, composer and improviser. Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, His playing incorporates aspects of Middle Eastern, West African and Indian music, while being clearly rooted in the American traditions he grew up with. He regularly performs with top musicians in NYC's world-music scene including Tomchess, Matt Darriau, Gabriel Marin, Brian Prunka, Brandon Terzic and Kane Maths. Dan currently serves as creative director of the American Sufi Project, a cross cultural, interfaith ensemble dedicated to re-interpreting traditional Sufi music in a modern context.
Composer, songwriter, bandleader and multiple instrumentalist Sean Cronin isn't afraid to let the music get strange. The only thing you can count on is to be surprised... and leave with a smile on your face.
We hung out with Sean at his house as his chamber-rock ensemble Very Good was getting ready to play one of Brooklyn's great venues, Barbes. Sean will be playing a vinyl release show for his album Adulthood tonight at Jalopy Theater
The fourth set of the historic, Ragas Live Festival 2016, live at Pioneer Works. Dan Weiss (Drumset) and Michael Gam (bass).
Weiss has been studying tabla and Indian classical music with his Guru (teacher) Samir Chatterjee since 1998. With his Tintal Drum set Solo, Dan takes the concept of a traditional Indian tabla solo and migrates it to a conventional drum set.
When listening to Tintal Drum set Solo, the trick is to reverse more conventional roles. Whereas, in a typical Western context, one would expect the guitar or bass to be the melodic centre and the drums to be the rhythmic support, here one needs to place Weiss' kit up front, with the other melodic instruments in the supporting role.
Ragas Live Festival 2016 is produced with the support of The Rubin Museum of Art
This was an amazing experience. We got to hang in the studio with two legends of Afro-Cuban Jazz: Bobby Carcassés and Arturo O'Farrill! After the two recorded an improvised set we got to sit down and talk music. We also get to hear some music from Bobby's record celebrating his 50 years of creating music in Havana and NYC: 50 TH Aniversario, De La Habana A Nueva York.
ARTURO O’FARRILL, pianist, composer, educator, and founder and Artistic Director of the nonprofit Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. His debut album with the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, Una Noche Inolvidable, earned a first GRAMMY Award nomination in 2006. His next album Song for Chico, earned a GRAMMY Award for Best Latin Jazz Album in 2009. The 2015 release of The Offense of the Drum was yet another Grammy Award winner. Arturo was, in addition, the winner of the Latin Jazz USA Outstanding Achievement Award, and a Cubadisco Award for The Offense of the Drum in 2015. His newest album release (August 21, 2015) is Cuba:The Conversation Continues on the Motéma label. This album’s Afro Latin Jazz Suite was warded the 2016 GRAMMY award for Best Instrumental Composition.
Arturo received his formal musical education at the Manhattan School of Music, Brooklyn College Conservatory, and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. As his professional career began to expand, Arturo was the pianist with the Carla Bley Big Band from 1979 through 1983. He then went on to develop as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, The Fort Apache Band, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte.
BOBBY CARCASSES - Born into a Cuban family (his maternal grandfather worked as a diplomat in Jamaica at the time of his birth), Carcasses moved with his family back to Cuba aged four, where he was surrounded by the various forms of local music. However, he started out as an opera singer before switching to Cuban music and working as a vocalist at the famous Tropicana nightclub. It was here that he first began to experiment with incorporating scat and bebop influences into his vocal style. By 1960 he was also known as a dancer and athlete (he was Cuba’s Long Jump Champion for that year) and as a multi-instrumentalist (playing trumpet, bass, congas and drums). Later in the decade he travelled, including a year in Paris playing with resident jazz greats Bud Powell and Kenny ‘Klook’ Clarke.
On his return to Cuba Carcasses formed his own jazz group, as well as acting in films and television. In 1980 he organized the first Jazz Plaza Festival, bringing to Cuba a host of international artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Haden and Airto Moreira. The festival became an annual event, with Carcasses and his band performing each year. He also toured extensively throughout Europe and the USA, performing alongside Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri and many other big names of Latin jazz. Jazz Timbero was recorded in Havana in 1997 with an all-star Cuban big band (including members of Irakere and Los Van Van), playing a funky mix of Latin and jazz. His son is Roberto Carcasses the jazz pianist.
This was an amazing experience! We sit down with one of the great families of rhythm for a live performance and interview. TH Vikku Vanyakram and family will be back in NYC, starting Oct. 24th teaching an incredible workshop on rhythm. Recorded at the East Indian Music Academy, this is a legendary lineup: TH Vikku Vanyakram, Uma Shankar -ghatam Selva Ganesh, Swaminathan - khanjira, konnakol. A. Ganesan - morsing Avirodh Sharma, tabla
Left to Right: A. Ganesan, Avirodh Sharma, Swaminathan, TH Vikku Vanyakram, Selva Ganesh, David Ellenbogen, Uma Shankar
Special thanks to Avorodh Sharma for expertly mixing and hosting us. TH Vikku Vanyakram Rhythm has always been a quintessential facet of Carnatic music, and in the modern generation of percussionists, perhaps no other individual has mastered the intricacies and the laya endowments of the ghatam to such a great degree as Sri Thetakudi Harihara Vinayakram. T.H. Vinayakram, affectionately known as Vikku, has transformed himself into an international celebrity with his imaginative and beautiful drumming on the ghatam.
Well known as a Carnatic artiste, Vikku came to international prominence as part of the famous fusion group Shakti, and went on to participate in many other international fusion music projects.
WEBSITE
V. Selvaganesh Selvaganesh Vinyakaram is the world’s premiere performer on the kanjira, the South Indian frame drum. The T.H. Vinayakram, he is also a veteran of the fusion group 'Remember Shakti' with John McLaughlin. His solo album Soukha (2006) featured all of the members of Remember Shakti, as well as his father and Masters of Percussion sitarist Niladri Kumar.
Selvaganesh is also a major force in Tamil film making circles, composing songs in a beguiling mixture of genres, from folk to hip-hop to romantic ballads, and backed by a wide array of players from all over the world. Avirodh Sharma is one of the leading Tabla Players from the West Indies and the United States. He is featured on Zee TV, TV Asia, NPR radio on the leonard lopatte show, NY Daily News, and at the end of 2015 making an appearance on the Starz Network Season Premiere, "flesh and bone"..
Amir ElSaffar brings his deep knowledge of Iraqui maqam to the context of jazz, creating a fresh, new, vibrant style of music. The multi-instrumentalist (vocalist, trumpet player and dulcimer) joined me for an intimate, at home, interview. He shares tracks from his stunning new album Crisis. His 17 piece ensemble is coming to Pioneer Works this Friday!
This was a real incredible experience. We got sit down and hang with Vieux Farka Toure, talk to him and record a little acoustic music...AND record his entire live set at Le Poisson Rouge in Manhattan with his smoking band! Many thanks to World Music Institute and Le Poisson Rouge for making this happen. This podcast will air on WKCR 89.9 FM-NY at 11pm Sunday Oct 2nd and stream and www.wkcr.org.
Often referred to as “The Hendrix of the Sahara”, Vieux Farka Touré was born in Niafunké, Mali in 1981. He is the son of legendary Malian guitar player Ali Farka Touré, who died in 2006. Ali Farka Touré came from a historical tribe of soldiers, and defied his parents in becoming a musician. When Vieux was in his teens, he declared that he also wanted to be a musician. His father dissaproved due to the pressures he had experienced being a musician. Rather, he wanted Vieux to become a soldier. But with help from family friend the kora maestro Toumani Diabaté, Vieux eventually convinced his father to give him his blessing to become a musician shortly before Ali passed.
Vieux was initially a drummer / calabash player at Mali’s Institut National des Arts, but secretly began playing guitar in 2001. Ali Farka Touré was weakened with cancer when Vieux announced that he was going to record an album. Ali recorded a couple of tracks with him, and these recordings, which can be heard on Vieux’s debut CD, were amongst his final ones. It has been said that the senior Touré played rough mixes of these songs when people visited him in his final days, at peace with, and proud of, his son’s talent as a musician. He know tours internationally with many acclaimed records to his name.
The eighth set of the historic, Ragas Live Festival 2016, live at Pioneer Works. Vivek Pandya (tabla), Kalpit Pandya (harmonium). This 11 year old tabla prodigy is a disciple of Pt Anindo Chatterjee, and he was 1st place winner of the Swaradhara competition held on 23rd Feb 2013.
As you can hear and se from his performance, he has a bright, musical future ahead of him.
Vivek and Kalpit at the Ragas Live Festival
Ragas Live Festival 2016 is produced with the support of The Rubin Museum of Art. This music was expertly mixed by Sameer Gupta.
It was great to connect with Maya Kamaty, a dazzling singer and band leader from the La Reunion, a small Island near Madagaskar. After an amazing show at New York's Sub Rosa we got to sit down with her and learn more about Maloya music. This will broadcast on Oct 2nd at 11pm.
Four time winner of the ‘Music of the Indian Ocean’ prize, Maya Kamaty wins hearts with her island blues melodies and halting ternary rhythm of Reunion Island Maloya. Despite being cradled by the stories told by her mother, and the music and poetry sung by her father Gilbert Pounia and his band Ziskakan, she did not take to music as her calling until she left her homeland of Reunion Island to study in France.
Distanced from Creole culture, she sought out her roots and explored her identity through music. While her music is grounded in maloya, she transcends its boundaries to create her own intimate folk style of music by blending it with French chanson, Indian, and African influences. Making Reunion Island maloya music her own, Maya Kamaty is breaking down barriers as one of the few popular female singers what is a traditionally music sung by males. Accompanied by traditional instruments such as kayamb and rouler, and driven by an intense passion for mixing cultures, Maya Kamaty (a name formed by combining two names, her own, and that of a woman standing marginal and intense) has the most promising voice of her generation.
With super-ambitious arrangements and grooves from all corners of the globe, Numasbala brings a joyous, fun, freedom-loving spirit to the dancefloor. Fabio Montenegro - Bass / Voice (Colombia), Felipe Piedrahita - Guitar / voice (Colombia) and Javier Samayoa - Hammond B3 / Keys / voice (Guatemala) joined me at WKCR.
Their first time playing together, Max ZT (Hammered Dulcimer) Karsh Kale (tabla) and Kane Mathis (kora) played an amazing set from 3am-4am on the Ragas Live Festival 2015.
Ba-Ere Yotere a master of the African Gyil performs live with great percussionists Valerie Naranjo (also on Gyil) and Barry Olsen. We hung out at Valeries house and recorded a few songs as well as talking to Ba-Ere about his early days with a man I searched for but never found, the great Kakraba Lobi.
Valerie Naranjo
The thrid set of the historic, Ragas Live Festival 2016, live at Pioneer Works. Arun Ramamurthy (violin), Sameer Gupta (tabla), Perry Wortman (bass).
The Arun Ramamurthy Trio (ART) performs Jazz Carnatica. Rooted in the style of the virtuoso violinist Dr. Mysore Manjunath, Arun brings a fresh approach to the age-old South Indian classical repertoire. The trio’s collaborative sound is driven by the propulsive rhythm section of drummer Sameer Gupta & and bassist Perry Wortman. The Carnatic canon is remixed in this seamless integration of styles as the group expands on the traditional compositions in explosive, improvisational flights of fancy. Arun’s original compositions pay homage to Carnatic rhythmic structures and rich tonalities while expanding the music with a modern jazz backbeat.
Ragas Live Festival 2016 is produced with the support of The Rubin Museum of Art
The second set of the historic, Ragas Live Festival 2016, live at Pioneer Works. Akshara (lit. imperishable, immutable, inalterable) is comprised of: Bala Skandan (mridangam), Arun Ramamurthy (violin), Trina Basu (violin), Jay Gandhi (bansuri), Kabilan Jeginathan (kanjira), Max ZT (dulcimer), Shivalik Ghoshal (tabla).
Akshara is an exciting dynamic percussion group rooted in Indian classical musical traditions. Comprised of virtuosic performers in Carnatic and Hindustani classical genres, Akshara performs an energetic blend of classical Indian melody and rhythm highlighted with solo and scale-based improvisations. The group performs original compositions by Bala Skandan, demonstrating the powerful and complex rhythmic structures inherent in South Indian classical music.
Recorded by James Clark mixed by Sameer Gupta
Ragas Live Festival 2016 is produced with the support of The Rubin Museum of Art
The blazing first set of the historic, Ragas Live Festival 2016, live at Pioneer Works. Comprising of members of Brooklyn Raga Massive - Neel Murgai (sitar), Sameer Gupta (tabla), Arun Ramamurthy (violin), Eric Fraser (bansuri), Trina Basu (violin), Michael Gam (bass), Samarth Nagarkar (vocal) - the Ravi Shankar Tribute ensemble inaugurates the Brooklyn Ragas live festival by playing several of Pt. Ravi Shankar's compositions.
Ragas Live Festival 2016 at Pioneer Works
Ragas Live Festival 2016 is produced with the support of The Rubin Museum of Art
Recorded by James Clark, mixed by Sameer Gupta.
As we recover from our legendary 24 hour Ragas Live Festival this weekend, we share two great past episodes with talents that will be performing very soon. We'll hear some of Awa Sangho and the BRM's All Stars blistering set as the group is set to return to the Rubin Museum of Art on August 12th. Hear her full set Pioneer Works here. And we'll revisit our chat with Lech Wierzynski of the California Honeydrops who play the knitting factory tonight. More to come!
Wow! A chance to talk with a legend of African Music, King Sunny Ade! For me this is a dream come true, there are few musicians as influential as King Sunny Ade who brought the Juju music of Nigeria to the world. Here we speak with him in depth about his life and the roots of his music.
King Sunny Ade came on the scene in 1966 and made his first big record in 1967. He became an international star across Africa during the mid-1980s, touring and gaining a significant audience in the United States and Europe as well. He is known as "the Minister of Enjoyment" or "the King Of Juju Music."
If you are new to the music, I highly recommend you start with his Juju Music or Synchro System albums. Also for the roots of this music search for "apala" music . Much gratitute to World Music Institute for arranging this interview! This episode is supported by the Rubin Museum of Art.
Eric Krasno is the amazing guitarist/producer with artists ranging from Soulive and Lettuce (both of which he co-founded)to Norah Jones, 50 Cent, Aaron Neville, Phil Lesh, Derek Trucks, and, well, the list keeps going!
To celebrate the upcoming release of his new album, Blood From A Stone, we got to hang with Eric at his home studio, hear him play some guitar and share what he's learned so far in an incredibly prolific career.
The new album comes out July 8th.
In part 1 of this podcast we spend time at home with Jay Gandhi (bansuri) and Abhik Mukherjee (sitar) as they prepare for the a special evening of Monsoon Ragas at the Rubin Museum on June 15. The two perform live and share insights and legends about the malhar group of ragas, those that praise the monsoon rains. This episode was broadcast on WKCR 89.9 FM-NY on Sunday June 5th.
In part two we hope to share their performance with the virtuoso tabla player Suryaksha Deshpande as the trio perform at the Rubin and the following Brooklyn Raga Massive Jam session.
Last month, maestro Román Díaz brought a world class group of Afro-Cuban musicians to perform with the Brooklyn Raga Massive All-Stars during the artist collective's epic residency at Pioneer Works. We'll share the recording of that innovative concert, where, for the first time, sarod, bansuri and Carnatic violin dialogue with Afro-Cuban vocals and the sacred Batá drums. This concert will air on WKCR 89.9 FM 7-9pm Sunday May 22nd.
Raga Cubana is:
Román Díaz ( conductor, Batá: Iyá ) Giancarlo Luigi (Shekere) Clemente la Tierra (Batá: Okónkolo) Melvis Santa (vocals) Folasona Olorunsola (Batá: Itótele) Camila Celin (Sarod) Ehren Hanson Ttabla) Jay Gandhi (Bansuri) David Ellenbogen (Guitar) Arun Ramamurthy (Violin) Michael Gam (Bass)
photo credit: Rob @ Pioneer Works
I've never heard a radio show go off the rails like this one! Counterculture hero, ethnobotanist and "psychonaut" Dennis McKenna, in a freewheeling conversation with ethnomusicologist Alexandre Tannous and comedian Greg Barris. This was broadcast in NYC on the radio in 2013, when McKenna had just published his memoir The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss about his wild experiences with his legendary brother Terence McKenna, who has been called the Timothy Leary of the 90's." The conversation hovers around the spaces where comedy, sound and ethnobotany meet the legacy of Terrance.
Dennis McKenna is an American ethnopharmacologist, research pharmacognosist, lecturer and author. He is the brother of well-known psychedelics proponent Terence McKenna and is a founding board member and the director of ethnopharmacology at the Heffter Research Institute, a non-profit organization concerned with the investigation of the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic medicines.
Greg Barris is a staple in New York’s downtown stand-up scene and is the creator of Heart Of Darkness: a psychedelic showcase of comedy, live music and fringe scientists. Comedians who have appeared on Heart of Darkness include Reggie Watts, Fred Armisen, Janeane Garofalo, Jim Gaffigan, Marc Maron, Kristen Schaal, Eugene Mirman, Greg Behrendt, and Chelsea Peretti. Alexandre Tannous has been active as a musician, educator, composer, and as an ethnomusicologist. For the past eight years he has been researching the therapeutic and esoteric properties of sound from three different perspectives - Western scientific, Eastern philosophical, and shamanic societal beliefs. He one of the leaders of investigating the sound mediation experience.
Debo band explores the rich and varied traditions of Ethiopian music with a dose of funk, punk and soul. With a large instrumental ensemble and a charismatic singer Bruck Tesfaye it all adds up to an undeniable party band. We got to hang with the leader of this amazing group, Danny Mekonnen and here excerpts of their upcoming album Ere Gobez (FPE Records; May 20, 2016). They'll be playing in NYC with Antibalas May 18th at the Brooklyn Bowl.
Debo Band is
Bruck Tesfaye vocals Danny Mekonnen saxophones Gabriel Birnbaum tenor saxophone Danilo Henriquez trumpet and percussion Stephanie Baird trombone Jonah Rapino electric violin Kaethe Hostetter five-stringed violin Marié Abe accordion Brendon Wood guitar Arik Grier sousaphone PJ Goodwin bass Adam Clark drums
A legendary percussionist, Román Díaz is a pillar of the New York City Afro-Cuban folkloric tradition and one of the music's great innovators. He is considered an Olú Aña or “keeper of the sacred drum” Before his Raga Cubana concert with the Brooklyn Raga Massive (we hope to share that soon!) he gave this workshop where he spoke of the legends, history and musical foundations of Afro-Cuban Music.
The California Honeydrops are more than a band, they're a traveling party. All stellar musicians they've earned their stripes playing with folks like B.B. King, Dr. John, Buddy Guy, and Allen Toussaint. We caught up with them as they were touring with Bonnie Raitt at NYC's Beacon Theater and got to sit down with their lead singer, multi-instrumentalist Lech Wierzynski. We also got to hear some selections from their latest album, A River's Invitation.
As a lifelong fan of Shakti, hanging with V. Selvaganesh was a dream come true. Here the master percussionist V. Selvaganesh talks about his music and shares his experience with John McLaughlin's Remember Shakti and other great collaborations. He breaks down the South Indian rhythmic system and we hear selections from his album Souhka. Our friend Arun Ramamuthy joins the discussion.
At our home studio with Selvaganesh
Born in Chennai to Grammy-winning musician Vikku Vinayakram, a former member of the original Shakti, he is the grandson of T. R. Harihara Sarma, who founded the Sri Jaya Ganesh Tala Vadya Vidyalaya (Sri JGTV school) in Chenna
Selvaganesh first gained world fame through tours with John McLaughlin's group,Remember Shakti. His debut international solo album, Soukha, was released in 2006 featuring all other regular members of Remember Shakti including John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, U. Srinivas and Shankar Mahadevan, as well as sitar player Niladri Kumar and Selvaganesh's father T.H. "Vikku" Vinayakram. He has also formed a new group called dr JSM, with the UK-based Goan songwriter/producer dr.Joel and the young Carnatic singer Mahesh.[citation needed]Their Indo-Celtic album entitled Turn on the dreams was released in the UK in 2005.
In 2012, Selvaganesh made his film directorial debut with Bodhai, a short film in Tamil. He also composed the soundtrack which was released in digital format by Saregama.
Here he is with Remember Shakti
Whoa! This one went viral. Here is the full hour podcast interview and below is a half hour of video interview with George Porter. As the bass player of the Meters, George Porter, Jr. defined one of the most influential styles of popular music. It's now called "Funk." Beyond that he's on a million records including all the killer material coming out of the Sea-Saint studio in New Orleans with cats like Allen Toussaint, Earl King, Lee Dorsey, Johnny Adams, Irma Thomas, The Lastie Brothers and later with people like Paul McCartney and John Scofield, (check out Sco's Piety Street Album!)
George Porter Jr. and his Funky Friends will be in performing in New York City Saturday, April 16, 2016 at American Beauty - 251 W. 30th st 6:30pm 9:30pm. Tickets here
Here's the full half hour of video from the second part of the interview where he teaches how NOT to play "Cissy Strut"
New music! A burnin' set of classical raga from last week's Brooklyn Raga Massive's Raga Roots Night, as broadcast on WKCR 89.9 FM-NY and performed at Pioneer Works.
Anirban Dasgupta – sarod
Suryaksha Deshpande – tabla
Present Raag Kafi Kanada
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 original band in this new genre Afrika Meets India, led by Kevin Nathaniel on Mbira and Eric Fraser on Bansuri.
Here we'll hear Awa Sangho's complete set with the Brooklyn Raga Massive All-Stars the first time these artists came together. You can feel the energy from this explosive set! This was recorded live by James Clark and mixed with love by Sameer Gupta.
This video from Josh Adler at Treeline Pics really captured it! Check out his whole web series chronicling the "Raga Rennaisance"
This concerts was broadcast on WKCR 89.9 FM-NY 7-9pm Febuary 7th at 2016.
Awa Sangho, Vocals, percussion
Daniel Moreno, percussion, Joshua Geisler, bansuri Michael Gam, bass David Ellenbogen, guitar Arun Ramamurthy, violin Jay Gandhi, bansuri Kane Mathis kora, Roshni Samlal, Tabla Malick Koly, drumset
On the opening day of Brooklyn Raga Massive's residency at Pioneer Works, perhaps the world's greatest carnatic violin player, L. Subramaniam, came and joined us for a revealing interview. His son Ambi and he then treated us to a live performance right in our humble little container studio.
Yehudi Menuhin wrote, “each time I listen to him, I am carried away in wonderment.” A Grammy-nominated artist, Mr. Subramaniam has made more than 200 recordings and has performed with such artists as Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Al Jarreau and Maynard Ferguson.
L. Subramaniam will be performing this Friday, Febuary 5 at 92nd Street Y, This is his first performance in New York since 2006 and is the only North American event in the Lakshminarayana Global Music Festival, which he founded and leads. He will be joined by his son, violinist Ambi Subramaniam, drummer Mahesh Krishnamurthy, and Ravi Balasubramanian, ghatam.
The concert is co-presented by World Music Institute and 92nd Street Y.
. Thanks to WMI for bringing L. Subramaniam to NYC Radio Live! And thanks to Sameer Gupta for mixing this.
L. Subramaniam and his son Ambi performing for NYC Radio Live in the Pioneer Works Container Studio.
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 3rd Orakel will be playing as part of the Africa/India Series. Brooklyn Raga Massive Shapeshifter Launch Party with Awa Sangho and the BRM-All-Stars and and Afrika Meets India.
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) Amino Belyamani (Vocals, percussion) Said Sayed (Vocals, percussion) Nawfal Atiq (Vocals, percussion) BRM ALL-STARS Guy Mintus (Piano, Melodica) David Ellenbogen (Guitar) Adam Maalouf (Percussion) Kevin Nathaniel (mbira, percussion) Hany ElDiwany (Surbahar) Michael Gam (Bass) Sitting in: Pawan Benjamin (Sax), Aaron Shregge (trumpet) Ken Shoji (violin) Vin Scalia (percussion) Jessica Lurie (Sax)
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.
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, swing and different emotional spaces which are not often associated with Indian-Jazz collaborations.
The Jazz Messengers are, Sameer Gupta, drums; Jay Gandhi, Bansuri, Pawan Benjamin - Saxophone, Sharik Hasan, Piano and Michael Gam, Bass.
In this very special podcast we speak with Banning Eyre and Thomas Mapfumo. Eyre's critically acclaimed biography Lion Songs: Thomas Mapfumo and the Music That Made Zimbabwe has recently hit shelves and Banning takes us through the companion CD, providing a deep musical education of this towering figure. Later we'll hear an interview I recorded with Thomas Mapfumo in Brooklyn in 2011.
This episode will broadacast on WKCR 89.9 FM-NY 11pm December 6, 2016 and stream at www.wkcr.org.
Thomas Mapfumo, the Lion of Zimbabwe, stands beside Fela Kuti, Youssou N’Dour and Franco as one of Africa’s greatest and most consequential composer/bandleaders. For over 40 years, he has merged ancient African traditions—especially that of the sacred, metal-pronged Shona mbira—into the currents of international music, from rock to reggae to rap. Mapfumo’s artfully barbed lyrics have targeted the racist regime of Ian Smith and the corrupt one of Robert Mugabe with equal resolve and courage. That’s the essence of chimurenga—the music of struggle: past, present and future.
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 Milo, Double Bass. We also hung out with Hadar as she shares some gems from wide and varied musical journeys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA6C9K26uTI
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: Sameer Gupta - Drumset/Tabla (musical director), Brandee Younger - Harp, Jay Gandhi - Bansuri, Arun Ramamurthy - Violin, Pawan Benjamin - Sax, Trina Basu - Violin, Neel Murgai - Sitar, Ben Tyree - Guitar, Rashaan Carter - Bass Michael Gam - Bass
Special Guests:
Roopa Mahadevan - Vocal
Pyeng Threadgill- vocal
Anupam Shobhakar - Sarod Jessica Lurie - Sax Ken Shoji- Violin Dawoud Kringle - Dilruba Giancarlo Luigi - Chekere and Percussion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITeAOXxw_kE
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 and genius, Randy Weston remains one of the world's foremost pianists and composers today, a true innovator and visionary.
Encompassing the vast rhythmic heritage of Africa, his global creations musically continue to inform and inspire. "Weston has the biggest sound of any jazz pianist since Ellington and Monk, as well as the richest most inventive beat," states jazz critic Stanley Crouch, "but his art is more than projection and time; it's the result of a studious and inspired intelligence...an intelligence that is creating a fresh synthesis of African elements with jazz technique".
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 members of the Brooklyn Raga Massive All-Stars perform Terry Riley's in C on August 28th.
Amir ElSaffar brings his deep knowledge of Iraqui maqam to the context of jazz, creating a fresh, new, vibrant style of music. The multi-instrumentalist (vocalist, trumpet player and dulcimer) joined me for an intimate, at home, interview. He shares tracks from his stunning new album Crisis.
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 !
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 this ancient healing Gnawa music.
InnoVe Gnawa is a gnawa band comprised of artists from different parts of Morocco. Led by master Maalem Hassan BenJaafer, InnoVe Gnawa celebrates this ancient spiritual music of North Africa in NYC with an innovative, hypnotic, and ecstatic take on this trance-inducing folk tradition.
The 24 hour festival concluded with this beautiful performance from Tripti Mukherjee. She performed with Samir Chatterjee (tabla) and Jay Gandhi (bansuri)
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
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.
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.
Sandip Bhattacharjee and Anirban Roy Chowdhury (tabla) open the 24 hour Ragas Live Festival from Midnight-1am
Sandip will be teaching and performing in the New York Area until November 5th.. He can be reached at www.Sandipraga.com and sandipvocal@yahoo.com.
The spontaneous jam sessions that close the weekly Brooklyn Raga Massive are reaching epic proportions with established masters sitting in with young musicians from inside and outside the classical tradition. Clearly we are in a Raga Renaissance This latest one 6/11/2015 (last night!) features
Jessica Lurie (sax); Kane Mathis (oud), Hadar Noiberg (flutes), Jay Gandhi (bansuri), Subhen Chatterjee (vocal tabla bols), Shivalik Ghoshal (tabla); Michael Gam (bass), Adam Maalouf (frame drum), Anirban Roy Chowdhury (vocal tabla bols), Ken Shoji (violin) David Ellenbogen (guitar) Neel Murgai (frame Drum), Megumi (violin)
Jump six and half minutes into this podcast and you'll hear music as organic as it gets: a group of children playing traditional rhythms on pots and pans as they sing the songs of their village. Tom Rossi recorded this 25 years ago as he was biking from from Lome, Togo to Accra, Ghana.
The podcast continues with Tom's recordings with the all-star world musicians of New York City, Yacouba Cissoko, Dave Eggar, Matt Kilmer, Rob Garcia and many others and to top it off Tom performs live on the Kora of his own invention.
Tom Rossi is a composer, producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical style is indeed a global mosaic, a border-dissolving symphony of tones and beats and harmonies from Africa and Asia and the Middle East, South America and the Caribbean and Brooklyn, USA.
Rossi himself was born in Texas, raised in Massachusetts, and went to college in the Pacific Northwest, but a moment of transformation came in a village of unpaved roads and mud huts in Togo, where Rossi grasped the raw psychotropic power of music in voodoo ceremonies.
Already an accomplished guitarist, Rossi kicked his polyglot education into a high gear. He went to Ghana to enroll in a drum and dance school run by the master percussionist Mustapha Tetty Addy. After returning from further expeditions to Brazil, Cuba and Turkey, Rossi released his world music debut record, Salma Har, in 2005.
Hospice Work
Drawing from his talents as a musician and his love for humanity, Tom Rossi gives peace and serenity to those facing the most difficult time in their lives… their death.
His travels around the globe have not only given Tom a broad musical education, but a unique perspective on humanity as well.
During six months of arduous recovery from a surgery to remove a debilitating blood clot, Tom taught himself the kalimba, a South African thumb piano. Through music, he created an atmosphere which helped to facilitate his healing process and alleviate much of his stress and pain.
Upon his recovery, Tom immediately enrolled at the IM School of Healing Arts in Manhattan where he spent six years studying the art of healing and developed ways to channel it into his music. He now plays for terminally ill patients in Hospice care several days a week.
"I sing softly and play either the kora, kalimba or guitar. The music is not performance, but creating an atmosphere for the patient and family to relax, savor the passing moments or to bring new energy into what can easily become a dark place. The patients and families remind me of how precious life is, how important it is to keep growing towards fulfillment and to enjoy, and how something so simple and sincere can touch so deeply."
Tom's efforts have helped literally hundreds of families, prompting many of them to write poignant, moving letters of gratitude...
"Thank you again for being such a warm, shining light – showering others with the peace that is so obviously within your heart and soul. You will always be in my heart, Tom, and I will never forget the gift you gave to my mom… and to me."
"It's been difficult to be with my Mom these days, but listening to your heavenly sounds puts a totally different perspective on things. I know that you will always be remembered in my heart as someone who was 'there' through these times."
"David loved the music. He said it relaxed him. He passed away today and he was listening to your music when he did. I feel that you led him peacefully toward his light, and I am forever grateful."
It was great to spend an hour on the radio with the great saxophone player, Lisa Parrott.
The annual 2013 and 2014 Down Beat Critics Poll recently voted hera Rising Star for baritone saxophone players. Lisa was featured alongside her sister, bassist Nicki, at the prestigious Tribute to Mary Lou Williams Festival at the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C. in 2002. She has also performed with such names as Dave Brubeck, Nancy Wilson, Rachel Z, Cindy Blackman, Virginia Mayhew, Gunther Schuller, Jason Linder’s Big Band, the Diva Jazz Orchestra and the Jimmy Heath Big Band. Her own trio features bassist Chris Lightcap, and either Gerald Cleaver or Matt Wilson on drums.
More recently, her latest album Round Tripper recorded May 2014 in Brooklyn NY, features bassist Chris Lightcap, Matt Wilson on drums, and fellow Australian musicians Carl Dewhurst on guitar and Nadje Noordhuis on trumpet.
This podcast features three weeks of live recordings I made recording traditional music, while serving as the artist-in-residence at the Ureuk World Music House in Chungju Korea. We'll hear performances on a dozen instruments like the Gayageum, Haegeum and Piri arranged by WonHaeng Cho he Conductor of the Chungju Municipal Ureuk Orchestra for Korean Traditional Music.
We'll even hear a recording I made of the music they played during a private Shamanic ceremony.
This is the most work I've put into a podcast since the recordings from Mali episode . Enjoy!
The weekly Brooklyn Raga Massive Jam Sessions have an incredibly deep bench. The same night Neel Murgai proposed in 7.5 beats (podcast 139) the next set was Max ZT and Ehren Hanson.
This recording sounds particularly good because it was mixed and mastered by Phil Duke at Continental Studio in Long Island City, NY.
Lauded as the “Jimi Hendrix of Hammered Dulcimer" by NPR, and a "Force of nature" by NY Music Daily, Max ZT is an innovator of the instrument. Taking his roots from classical Irish folk music, Max has transplanted his compositional techniques to both Senegal, where he studied the Mandinko technique with the Cissoko griot family, and to Mumbai, India, where he received a grant to study under the great santoor master Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. His fresh perspective and bold experimentalism have been the backbone to beautiful, complex, and genuine compositions, while his unorthodox playing style has been a pioneering force in revolutionizing dulcimer techniques.
Max has enlivened the conceptual framework of traditional folk music by fusing multi-cultural roots and traditions to create a truly compelling sound.
Max ZT has shared the stage with some of the most influential international and national musical leaders of the century including Pt. Ravi Shankar, Jon Bon Jovi, Karsh Kale, Bela Fleck, Victor Wooten, Tinariwen, Jimmy Cliff, and more. With his eighth record released, he is, as Timeout NY states “A sight to behold."
MaxZT is based out of Brooklyn, New York, and in 2005, won the National Hammered Dulcimer Championship. He's recorded with a vast array of artists across musical genres, ranging from Victor Wooten, to The Goo Goo Dolls, to 2012 American Idol Phil Phillips, to Of Montreal.
After a beautiful set from the Neel Murgai Ensemble, Neel proposes to Brooklyn Raga Massive member Seema Pandya, in 7 and half beats! Not a dry eye in the house...
We'll speak with one of outstanding members of the Nile Project, Steven Sogo. Steven Sogo was born in 1983 in Kamenge, a popular area of Burund´s capital Bujumbura, and started to play the guitar and to sing at an early age. Rapidly music became a passion and in 1997 he became an active member at the Kamenge Youth Center where he started to work with different bands before forming his own band “Hope Street” in 2005. Today Steven is a leading bass player in Burundi and recently he has been selected by the World Bank Institute to be Burundi’s music ambassador. Sogo sings in Kirundi, Swahili and in French.
We spoke backstage after the Nile Project performed in New York City.
The brilliant pianist Michele Rosewoman shares the music of her incredible ensemble New Yor-Uba, a group that has been exploring the beauty of the Jazz/Cuba/Yoruba traditions. They'll be at Dizzy's at Lincoln Center 3/27-29.
Michele Rosewoman, a vanguard and pioneering artist in her field, mines acoustic modern jazz, sophisticated funk, dynamic electric fusion and elements of Cuban folkloric music, to create a distinct musical experience. Her command and rich vocabulary elegantly expands the horizons and boundaries of jazz while remaining firmly rooted in tradition. With a more than 30-year history, Rosewoman stands out in her class as a visionary pianist, composer bandleader and gifted performer.
Before moving to New York in 1978, Rosewoman performed at venues in the San Francisco Bay Area with her own ensembles, including the renowned Keystone Korner, and with Julian Priester, Julius Hemphill, Baikida Carroll and Oliver Lake and other fellow jazz innovators. In New York, she formed new ensembles and continued to present her music with New York- based jazz masters and collaborators.
Her debut recording as a leader, THE SOURCE (Soul Note/1984) was praised for its radiance and ingenuity, and in a review published by DownBeat, Rosewoman’s direction was likened to that of master innovator Charles Mingus. With her maiden voyage on record, she distinguished herself as both a talented player and a composer of unique vision and had began to establish a reputation as one of the most ingenious and prolific bandleaders of her generation.
Rosewoman went on to perform with notable New York-based jazz artists Jimmy Heath, Freddie Waits, Billy Hart, Reggie Workman, Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill, James Spaulding, Gary Bartz, John Stubblefield, Rufus Reid, Howard Johnson, Billy Bang and Carlos Ward, among many others. Her very first recording was as pianist and arranger for the Cuban songo group, Los Kimy in 1984 and in the Latin genre she has performed with Celia Cruz, Paquito D’Rivera, Chocolate, Orlando 'Puntilla' Rios' “Nueva Generacion,” Daniel Ponce, Chocolate, Pedro Martinez, Roman Diaz, Ernesto Gatell, Nicky Marrero, Andy Gonzales and many others.
A fearless bandleader and mentor, her Quintessence ensemble, with 5 releases to date, brings together some of the most inventive voices in jazz including Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, Gary Thomas, David Sanchez, Steve Wilson, Miguel Zenon, Steve Lehman and Mark Shim; trombonists VIncent Gardner and Robin Eubanks, bassists Kenny Davis, Lonnie Plaxico and Brad Jones, drummers Terri Lyne Carrington, Gene Jackson and Tyshawn Sorey and guitarist Liberty Ellman, while New Yor-Uba, with its uncompromised synthesis of contemporary jazz and traditional Cuban folkloric music, unites master musicians from both musical worlds. Many have cited that working with Rosewoman made an indelible mark on their artistic development as musicians, composers and bandleaders.
Guitar legend Stanley Jordan returns to NYC Radio Live to share his ideas of finding one's voice and role as an artist and bringing his heartfelt new duet album with Kevin Eubanks. “Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles, but it has been applied rightfully to Stanley Jordan, the guitar virtuoso.” -Leonard Feather
Stanley’s original style of two handed tapping, the touch technique, allows him to play the guitar with the freedom of a keyboardist. The voices are so independent on his instrument that on record it is almost hard to believe that the music is coming from one person (See the video below!). A four time-Grammy nominee, Jordan’s album Magic Touch was #1 on Billboard’s jazz chart for 51 weeks, setting a new record. He has toured in over 60 countries and now focuses much of his attention to the direct healing power of music: music therapy.
You can hear Stanley play live at WKCR on NYC Radio Live Podcast 80
The OM Gam ensemble turned it out at Studio 487 last night! Another packed house and inspiring music.
The was the third concert in out Africa/India series, co-presented by NYC Radio Live, Brooklyn Raga Massive and Afro-Roots Tuesdays.
Michael Gam
Om Gam ensemble takes it’s name from the mantra for the Hindu deity Ganesh – “Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha.” Ganesh is often referred to as the “remover of obstacles” and in reference to this, Om Gam ensemble seeks to remove musical obstacles, specifically by bringing together musicians from Indian Classical and Traditional African musical backgrounds, while also drawing upon the more modern influence of Jazz music. This group features Kane Mathis (kora), Arun Ramamurthy (violin), Pawan Benjamin (saxophone), Shiva Goshal (tabla), and is led by Michael Gam (bass & composition).
Shiva Ghoshal on Tabla and Kane Mathis on Kora at Studio 487
Michael Gam is a sought after upright and electric bassist/composer living in New York. As a versatile musician skilled in many styles of music, Michael has performed with cutting edge jazz musicians like Ambrose Akinmusire and Tigran Hamasyan, top classical virtuoso Hillary Hahn, and Indian classical stalwarts Subash Chandran and Ganesh Kumar. Michael has also been studying Indian classical music since 2010, and is a budding sarod performer of the Maihar gharana.
Juan Ospina of M.A.KU. Soundsystem joined me on the radio last night.
M.A.K.U. is an exciting and eclectic band which hails mostly from Colombia. On stage MA.K.U juxtaposes traditional Colombian percussion, drum-set, synthesizers, electric base, guitar and sizzling horns, creating an explosive performance filled with unshakable grooves. Lyrically M.A.K.U talks about the realities of everyday people, encompassing love, hardships, culture, and the immigrant experience, but with a positive, spiritual and sometimes humorous spin.
Check out their new vinyl release M.N.D (Music Never Dies).
Robert Browning, New York City's most prolific producer of World Music events shares his personal recordings, highlights from his concerts from over the last 30 years.
We'll hear rare recordings from Abida Parveen of Pakistan, Dimi Mint Abba from Mauritania, Noura Mint Seymali of Mauritania, Said Shanbehzadeh-bagpipe from Bushear Iran a; Village group from Luristan (South West Iran), Hassan Hakmoun of Morocco, Farid Ayaz, Abu Muhammad & Brothers Qawwal from Pakistan and a rare recording from India's master of the Rudra Veena, Ustad Asad Ali Khan.
Ustad Asad Ali Khan and his cosmic instrument, the rudra veena
Robert Browning has produced over 1,500 concerts of World Music, including the Musical World of Islam (1993-94, 1995-96) concert series that featured artists such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Pakistan), Simon Shaheen (Palestine), Sabah Fakhri (Syria), Necdet Yasar (Turkey), Alim Qasimov (Azerbaijan), the Master Musicians of Jajouka (Morocco), Shahram Nazeri (Iran) and Dimi Mint Abba (Mauritania). The Festival of Greek Music & Dance (2000-2005) which included rembetika music as well as regional styles from throughout mainland Greece and the islands; and the New York Flamenco Festival(2001 - 2011), which featured many of Spain's greatest musicians and dancers. Artists from Africa and the African diaspora played a major role in his concerts and included Kandia Kouyate, Oumou Sangare and Toumani Diabate (Mali). Ladysmith Black Mambaso (South Africa), Les Ballets Africains (Guinea) and Los Munequitos de Matanzas (Cuba) and the Skatalites (Jamaica).
His Festival of India featured some of India’s must celebrated classical artists, including Lalgudi Jayraman, Maharajapuram Santhanam, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Shivkumar Sharma, and Zakir Hussain. The festival continued the following year with a concert at Carnegie Hall with some of the finest Rajasthani folk musicians opening for the celebrated sitarist Nikhil Banerjee.
Here's the Coyote Anderson Quartet's live set as broadcast on WKCR,: Corina Hernandez on Voice & Vocal Harmonizer, Carl Limbacher on Electric Bass &Diego Maldonado on Drums. Coyote has quickly become regarded as one of the most promising up-and-coming artists in New York, both as a guitarist and a composer. As a member of the BMI Jazz Composer’s Workshop he has honed his compositional & arranging voice, which has culminated into a recording project and the formation of The Coyote Anderson Quartet. One thing that makes this ensemble unique is that vocalist Corina Hernandez is used to replace the traditional role of a horn. This allows the ensemble to not only do 'instrumental' tunes but also newer works of Coyote’s that set the poetry of others into a jazz context. 'Innervoices' is Coyote’s first official release as a leader and the debut of this fantastic band. Through the Quartet’s incorporation of vocals, poetry & electronics into arrangements, Coyote’s compositions have become fully-realized in a form that has been described as “...pure musical genius Thanks to Dan Crowley for editing and mastering this performance.
Kiran Ahluwalia, a powerful and elegant singer/composer with roots in Hindustani Music and Ghazal, came by the radio station to share her new album: Sanata : Stillness. Her CD Release Concert is Febuary 21st at Roulette in Brooklyn.
This podcast features a burning live set from the 10 piece band straight out of São Paulo Brazil, Bixiga 70, at the amazing East Village venue, Nublu.
We then went to WKCR the next day to broadcast a radio interview with bandmembers Mauricio Fleury (keys and guitars) and Cuca Ferreira (baritone sax) which will follow this live set.
Bixiga 70 combines Afro- beat, Guinean malinké, Brazilian candomblé, samba, cumbia and funk...to name a few of the influences that create their irresistible sound.
Bixiga 70 with your host at WKCR
62 Avenue C between 4/5th street
East Village NYC, NY
NYC Radio Live is collaborating with Brooklyn Raga Massive and Afro Roots Tuesdays to present a new monthly live event: The Africa/India Series at Art Cafe.
This is the jam session that followed Africa Meets India in the last podcast Kensuke Shoji on violin, Michael Gam, bass and Shivalik Ghoshal, tabla. This is 100% improv. These guys had never played together before. Later, Kevin Nathaniel, joins on Mbira and Kenya Kawaguchi(shakuchachi) and me (on guitar) play on the last song.
The next live concert in the Africa/India series will be Feb 4 at Art Cafe. Come join us!
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Brooklyn Raga Massive, an artist collective dedicated to the Indian Classical Musicians of Brooklyn, hosts weekly concerts followed by jam sessions every Wednesday at 8pm at Art Cafe, 884 Pacific st at Underhill, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Art Cafe is a bar and venue connected to The Village @ Gureje, an arts center and creative community that brings together artists, teachers and leaders from Brooklyn and beyond.
NYC Radio Live is collaborating with Brooklyn Raga Massive and Afro Roots Tuesdays to present a new monthly live event: The Africa/India Series at Art Cafe.
It couldn't have gone better. The premier concert was last night, with Afrika Meets India. The line-up of Eric Fraser, bansuri; Kevin Nathaniel, mbira; Salieu Suso, kora; Giancarlo Luiggi, Hosho: Neel Murgai, sitar and Sameer Gupta, tabla. I joined the band on the last song. Despite being 10 degrees out, Art Cafe was packed and the band rewarded the audience with this great performance.
The jam session with Kensuke Shoji, Michael Gam and Shivalik Ghoshal, was also stunning...that will be the next podcast.
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Brooklyn Raga Massive, an artist collective dedicated to the Indian Classical Musicians of Brooklyn, hosts weekly concerts followed by jam sessions every Wednesday at 8pm at Art Cafe, 884 Pacific st at Underhill, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Art Cafe is a bar and venue connected to The Village @ Gureje, an arts center and creative community that brings together artists, teachers and leaders from Brooklyn and beyond.
Kevin Nathaniel, Eric Fraser and Neel Murgai of the BRM All-Star Party Band
These two performances from members of the Brooklyn Raga Massive All Star Party Band started off the 6 hour Pan-Global Flute Solstice Celebration broadcast on the radio throughout New York City on 12/21/2014. In this podcast not only was the bansuri featured, as played by Eric Fraser, in the last set Kevin Nathaniel puts down the mbira and plays a Mbuti style African reed flute. They were joined by Michael Gam on bass and Neel Murgai on Sitar and frame drums.
The Brooklyn Raga Massive All Star Party Band will perform in its full line-up this New Year's Eve!
At the end of this program I play a recording of a song I wrote to play with the BRM All Stars on New Years. It was recorded last weekend with Michael D'Agostino on drums and myself on kamale ngoni and guitars.
The Pan Global Flute Solstice celebration featured players from Indigenous Colombia traditions, Turkish Ney, West African Fula, Indian Bansuri, Japanese Shakuhachi and more.
In Podcast 126 we heard Tom Chess performing on Ney and Oud with Dan Kurfirst on percussion. In later episodes we'll hear from the other musicians who partipated KenYa Kawaguchi, Sylvain Leroux, Sebastián López, Laura María Calderón, Robert Puesaquiyo.
The oldest instrument ever discovered was a 35,000 year old flute. That was 25,000 years before agriculture, before cities, before the idea of nations,... Yesterday, to celebrate the Winter Solstice, I produced a pan global musical event live on New York City radio. We had players from Indigenous Colombia traditions, Turkish Ney, West African Fula, Indian Bansuri, Japanese Shakuhachi and more. In this podcast we'll hear the set from the great Tom Chess performing on Oud and Ney. Dan Kurfirst provides amazing accompaniment on frame drum, calabash and various percussion.
In later episodes we'll hear from the other musicians who partipated Eric Fraser, KenYa Kawaguchi, Michael Gam, Sylvain Leroux, Sebastián López Laura María Calderón, Robert Puesaquiyo , Kevin Nathaniel Hylton, Neel Murgai...
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 voices from the great symphony of wildlife.
It was a blast when he came by my apartment, played some instruments, hung out and talked about the big event coming up: His 35th Annual Winter Solstice Celebration.
The Cathedral at St. John the Divine during the spectacle of Paul WInter's Solstice Celebration
The Arun Ramurthy Trio perform centuries old classic South Indian compositions with jazz instrumentation and improvisation. This live performance, recorded this Wednesday at the Brooklyn Raga Massive Jam was a a celebration of the release of their new album Jazz Carnatica.The trio’s collaborative sound is driven by the propulsive rhythm section of drummer Sameer Gupta & and bassist Perry Wortman. The Carnatic canon is remixed in this seamless integration of styles as the group expands on the traditional compositions in explosive, improvisational flights of fancy. Arun’s original compositions pay homage to Carnatic rhythmic structures and rich tonalities while expanding the music with a modern jazz backbeat.
This performance was recorded to a packed house this Wednesday at the Brooklyn Raga Massive Jam Session at the Art Cafe. Max ZT sat in with the group on Hammered Dulcimer.
Brooklyn Raga Massive, an artist collective dedicated to the Indian Classical Musicians of Brooklyn hosts weekly concerts followed by jam sessions every Wednesday at 8pm at Art Cafe, 884 Pacific st at Underhill, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Art Cafe is a bar and venue connected to The Village @ Gureje, an arts center and creative community that brings together artists, teachers and leaders from Brooklyn and beyond.
Trilok Gurtu is one of the most inventive percussionists of all time. I was thrilled to have a chance to sit down and talk with him and renaissance man Christopher Janney.
A world class, virtuoso percussionist, now in his mid fifties, Trilok has attracted a world class set of collaborators over a long career; these started with John McLaughlin in whose trio, Trilok flourished as the featured soloist for 4 years, other jazz greats continued this path – Joe Zawinul, Jan Garbarek, Don Cherry, Bill Evans, Pharoah Sanders, Dave Holland were all attracted to Trilok’s burning sense of rhythm. Of course he is deeply rooted in the Indian tradition, so it is no surprise to see that collaborations also took place with the glitterati of Indian musical society – his mother, Shobha Gurtu, Zakir Hussain, L. Shankar, Shankar Mahadevan, Hariprasad Chaurasia, The Misra Brothers and Sultan Khan. World music has become an established genre in which Trilok has further “ploughed his own furrow” with his own group, to great effect, performing and recording with Salif Keita, Oumou Sangare, Angelique Kidjo, Neneh Cherry, Omara Portuondo, Tuvan throat singers, Huun Huur Tu, to such effect that . Rita Ray of BBC Radio described him as “a serial collaborator”.
Christopher Janney is an American composer/artist/architect known for his work on the interrelation of architecture and music. Sometimes he attempts to make architecture more like music as in his sound sculptures titled "Urban Musical Instruments" of which "Soundstair" (musical stairs)and "Sonic Forest" are examples. Other times, he develops performance projects which make music more like architecture as in his "Physical Music" series which includes "HeartBeat," a piece danced by Mikhail Baryshnikov. Much of Janney's permanent work has sought to create "permanent participatory soundworks for public spaces," including installations for airports in Dallas, Boston, Miami and Sacramento, Atlanta and the New York City Subway.
Janney has toured his "Sonic Forest" in both the US and Europe at major music festivals including Bonnaroo and Coachella as well as Glastonbury and Hyde Park Calling in the UK.
A book on his work, titled Architecture of the Air was released in February, 2007.
Radhika Joshi-Ray, Vocal; Amod Dandawate, tabla; Achyut Joshi, harmonium
Live at Brooklyn Raga Massive 's Jam Session at Art Cafe
Radhika Joshi-Ray is a Indian classical vocalist of the Jaipur Atrauli Gharana. She is a versatile singer and has a firm grounding in Hindustani classical music, as well as semi-classical forms of music such as Thumri, Dadra, Kajri, Hori and Chaiti.
Over the years, Radhika has evolved into a fine musician with a characteristic style of her own. The alaaps she renders in each Raga are a reflection of her deep thought on the various emotions and moods portrayed by various notes in a Raga. As a result, her music is a fine blend of both emotion and intellect.
Although classical music is Radhika’s forte, her Gurus have inspired her to respect and learn from all musical forms and traditions. Radhika has been eager to explore different styles of music and has sung in various Indian regional languages.
In addition to her pursuits in music, Radhika has a masters in Economics from Tufts University, Boston and is presently pursuing a PhD in Economics at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.
Brooklyn Raga Massive, an artist collective dedicated to the Indian Classical Musicians of Brooklyn hosts weekly concerts followed by jam sessions every Wednesday at 8pm at Art Cafe, 884 Pacific st at Underhill, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Art Cafe is a bar and venue connected to The Village @ Gureje, an arts center and creative community that brings together artists, teachers and leaders from Brooklyn and beyond.
Back from his successful mission to start teaching music literacy in Guinea, Sylvain Leroux returns to NYC Radio Live to share the recordings he made with the children out there and tell us of his experience. The episode starts with a a spontaneous live performance from Sylvain Leroux accompanied by our host.
Sylvain will be producing an event this week in celebration of this effort.
CD release / film premiere / performance / photo & flute exhibition
Judson Memorial Church 7pm, Thursday, November 20, 2014 Manhattan at 55 Washington Square South & Thompson Street Admission is free.
This podcast we were joined by Hatim Belyamani, executive director of remix ←→ culture. Hatim has been making incredible field recordings throughout Morocco in remote locations. (Check out the picture below). He will share these amazing recordings with the WKCR audience and conclude with a live remix of his own.
One location in Morocco!
remix ←→ culture is a nonprofit artist collective committed to growing a conversation between traditional music(ians) and digital remix art(ists). They love folk music traditions that have been evolving for a long time, and so and go find them in remote corners of the world. They make high quality audio and video recordings of their live performances, using several microphones and cameras, each on different instruments. This allows them not only to make beautiful videos of the original performance, but also to then create vide o remixes of the separate instruments, and bring them to the public via participatory remix experiences.
The Brooklyn Raga Massive All-Stars perform a live, in-studio performance of Terry Riley's masterpiece, "In C" live on the airwaves of WKCR-FM NY. Riley was deeply influenced by his studies of Hindustani vocal music but according to the composer himself, as far as he knows, the Massive is the only group that performs “In C” with an ensemble of mostly Indian instruments. The group includes sitars, tablas, sarods, bansuri, vocals, cello, guitars, vibes, dilruba, and more.
We packed 16 musicians into the tiny live room at WKCR!
Led by Neel Murgai, on sitar, the group's lineup for this broadcast is:
Neel Murgai, sitar Camila Celin, sarod Eric Fraser, bansuri Sameer Gupta, tabla Ehren Hanson, tabla Andrew Shantz, harmonium, vocals Dawood Kringle, dilruba David Ellenbogen, guitar Michael Gam, bass Dana Leong, cello Christian VerHalen, guitar Vin Scialla, vibes Joel Harrison, guitar Timothy Hill, vocals Alan Rigoletto, guitar Timothy Hill, vocals Rima Fand, violin
The BRM-All Stars Performing "In C" at Art Cafe
Brooklyn Raga Massive began in the Fall of 2011 as a cooperative alliance between several Indian Classical Musicians in the Brooklyn, NYC area. Brooklyn Raga Massive is not a band, and it is not an exclusive club with members. The Massive is a platform for all lovers of Raga music, listeners and practitioners, to get closer to the pulse of NYCs live Raga music scene. The Brooklyn Raga Massive is managed by artists, and is meant to help bring the community of Raga lovers together. The Massive’s collaborative approach towards unifying and building the scene of Raga music in NYC leads its members towards each other, as well as provides the spark for the Brooklyn Raga Massive events and gatherings. The Massive is dedicated to presenting and representing Indian Classical Music in all its diversity of today.
The Brooklyn Raga Massive has a weekly residency at the “Art Cafe”- 884-886 Pacific St., Brooklyn, New York 11238. Every Wednesday night from 8pm-11pm $5-10 admission
Ba-Ere Yotere a master of the African Gyil performs live with great percussionists Valerie Naranjo (also on Gyil) and Barry Olsen. We hung out at Valeries house and recorded a few songs as well as talking to Ba-Ere about his early days with a man I searched for but never found, the great Kakraba Lobi.
Valerie Naranjo
This was pure joy: hanging out with the master jazz pianist, Jean-Michel Pilc, in his Brooklyn home. Speaking about music, he illustrated his ideas by playing compositions, improvisations and even a Chopin waltz. We recorded this session for WKCR's musician show to be broadcast in New York City, Wednesday Oct 22nd at 6pm on 89.9 FM-NY and stream at www.wkcr.org. Later in that broadcast, guitarist Coyote Anderson will perform live with his quartet. Jean Michel Pilc has been described as a "musical genius" by the Washington Post and "dazzlingly inventive" by the New York Times, he's worked with the greatest musicians in the world from Roy Haynes to Harry Belafonte with whom he served as musical director. "Coyote Anderson has quickly become regarded as one of the most promising up-and-coming artists in New York, both as a guitarist and a composer. As a member of the BMI Jazz Composer’s Workshop he has honed his compositional & arranging voice, which has culminated into a recording project and the formation of The Coyote Anderson Quartet.
Coyote Anderson: Guitar & Compositions
Corina Hernandez: Vocals & Harmonizer
Carl Limbacher: Bass
Diego Maldonado: Drum
Shubhangi Sakhalkar-Vocal
Samit Banik - Tabla
Rohan Prabhudesai - Harmonium
Samita Sinha - Tanpura and Vocal Support
August 27th 2014.
Another amazing night at the Art Cafe. Shunbhangi Sakhalkar began the evening with this ethereal performance of Rag Bihag
Shubhangi Sakhalkar brings a brilliant pedigree to her music. After her early tutelage with Smt. Kunda Vaishampayan, she spent several years learning from the renowned artistes Dr. Prabha Atre and Smt. Padma Talwalkar. In addition, Shubhangi has brought her own ardent riyaaz, creative imagination, and keen intellect to bear upon her art. She has developed a dynamic yet thoughtful vocal style that remains rooted in tradition while being uniquely her own. Besides accompanying her guru in concerts all over the country, she has performed in several musical circles in cities in India including Mumbai and Pune.
After moving to the United States in 1992, Shubhangi has captivated music aficionados with numerous charismatic concerts from coast to coast. Some of the cities where she has performed are Atlanta, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Phoenix, San Jose, and Los Angeles. Some of her more prestigious concerts include a SPICMACAY concert at U.C. Davis, a concert hosted by Lata Mangeshkar Foundation U.S.A. where she was accompanied by Ustad Tari Khan, and Basant Bahar's first annual music festival where she was accompanied by Pt. Swapan Chowdhari and Pt. Ramesh Mishra. Her energetic yet melodious singing has met with enthusiastic appreciation and has created many fans in several U.S. cities.
A gold medallist with an M.A. degree in Hindustani classical music, Shubhangi believes in sharing her knowledge and raising awareness about Indian Classical music. She is recognized as one of the finest artistes and teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an inspiring mentor to many students, some of who have begun to give performances of their own.
Brooklyn Raga Massive, an artist collective dedicated to the Indian Classical Musicians of Brooklyn hosts weekly concerts followed by jam sessions every Wednesday at 8pm at Art Cafe, 884 Pacific st at Underhill, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Art Cafe is a bar and venue connected to The Village @ Gureje, an arts center and creative community that brings together artists, teachers and leaders from Brooklyn and beyond.
I feel like this recording is as good anything I've produced for radio. This podcast is a live performance from Kora legend Foday Musa Suso. Suso is most known in the West from his collaborations with Phillip Glass, Herbie Hancock, Paul Simon, Pharaoh Sanders, Jack DeJohnette and countless others. Foday Musa Suso is an internationally recognized musician and a Mandingo griot from the West African nation of Gambia. Griots are the oral historians and musicians of the Mandingo people, who live in several West African nations. Griots are a living library for the community, providing history, entertainment, and wisdom while playing and singing their songs. The history of empires and kingdoms, tribal conflicts, cultural heroes, and family lineage are all part of a griot's traditional repertoire. It is an extensive verbal and musical heritage that can only be passed down within a griot family. Foday is a direct descendent of Jali Madi Wlen Suso, the griot who invented the kora over four centuries ago. Foday spent his childhood in a traditional Gambian village, in a household filled with kora music. He began to play his father's kora even before he could hold the instrument on his own. Though his father was a master kora player, in griot tradition a father does not teach his own children the instrument. So from age 9-18, Foday studied music and history under master kora player Sekou Suso in the village of Pasamasi, Wuli District.--
After many years of rigorous study, in 1974 Foday spent 3 years teaching the kora at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Legon, Ghana. In 1977, he moved to Chicago and became the first kora player to establish himself in the United States. He formed The Mandingo Griot Society with 3 American musicians, playing a fusion of traditional and jazz that is now known as "world music". Since 1977, he has performed as a soloist and with other musicians throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America. Interested in both traditional and cutting-edge music, he has also written many original compositions, toured and recorded with many prominent musicians. In addition to his virtuosic kora playing and singing, Foday Musa Suso is very skilled in playing traditional West African drums, as well as many other instruments.
After a smoking live set last night from Foday Musa Suso, the great guitarist Raja Kassis came into WKCR with his smokin' new album Human Being. Raja is known for his work with Blitz the Ambassador, Damian Marley, Angelique Kidjo, Seun Kuti, Antibalas and many others.
We conclude the broadcast with a track from Edwin Quirk's new Fractal Caravan album.
Live! Brooklyn Raga Massive Presents: T.H. Subash Chandran’s Rhythms of India, at Art Cafe
Rhythms of India – led by T.H. Subash Chandran T.H. Subash Chandran – ghatam/konnakkol Akshay Anantapadmanbhan – mridangam Arun Ramamurthy – violin Abhik Mukherjee – sitar Max ZT – hammered dulcimer Sri T H Subash Chandran is legendary figure in the world of percussion. He is a master of multiple Carnatic percussion instruments including Mridangam (Barrel Shaped Drum), Ghatam (Claypot), Kanjira (South Indian Frame Drum), Morsing (Jaws Harp) and Konnakkol (Vocal Percussion). His compositions were performed by an ensemble of some of Brooklyn Raga Massive’s finest musicians. Sri T H Subash Chandran has developed international repute through his spellbinding performances at the United Nations, the Festivals of India in USA, Russia, Switzerland, Japan and with the various philharmonics such as, NY Philharmonic with conductor Mr Zubin Mehta, Norwegian Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic with renowned violinist Dr L Subramaniam. Subash Chandran has shared stages with all time greats Yehudhi Menuhin, Stephen Grapheli, renowned drummers Tony Williams, Max Roach and Indian great artists Smt M S Subbulakshmi, Dr Bala Murali Krishna, Dr L Subramaniam, U Srinivas and others.
Brooklyn Raga Massive, an artist collective dedicated to the Indian Classical Musicians of Brooklyn hosts weekly concerts followed by jam sessions every Wednesday at 8pm at Art Cafe, 884 Pacific st at Underhill, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Art Cafe is a bar and venue connected to The Village @ Gureje, an arts center and creative community that brings together artists, teachers and leaders from Brooklyn and beyond.
Kane Mathis and Brandon Terzic performed live sets of incredible beauty of the NYC radio airwaves. First Kane Mathis played solo (on the 21-string Mandinka Harp) and then he was joined by Brandon on the Oud and later the Ngoni.
Kane began taking trips to The Gambia, West Africa in 1997 and has continued rigorous study of the Mandinka Kora. Over the past ten years his performances have earned him recognition by the Gambian president, The Gambian minister of culture, and both national television and radio of The Gambia. Kane’s primary kora teachers are Malamini Jobarteh of Brikama, The Gambia and Moriba Kouyate of The Gambia. The Jobarteh family remain one of The Gambia’s most important musical legacies. Tata Din din Jobarteh, Pa Bobo Jobarteh, and Siffai Jobarteh are the families current most visible exponents touring the world. Brandon Terzic has performed in the states and Internationally, traveled to Morocco, Senegal and Egypt studying music, and playing with many incredible Musicians, amongst them Tomchess, Matt Kilmer, Matt Darriau, Rufus Cappodocia, Shane Shanahan, Luke Notary, Hassan Houkmoun, Peter Slavov, John Shannon, Gilad Dobrecky, Mal Stein, George Stathos, Sylvain Leroix, Tom Rossi, Max ZT and many many more. He currently teaches and performs in his band Xalam Project amongst other projects. Both Kane and Brandon also perform on the Oud.
Fela used music as a weapon against injustice. He was beaten, arrested over 200 times, married 27 women and was buried in a glass coffin with a spliff in his hand. We're still trying to get a handle on who he was and what he means. In this podcast we'll be talking with his son Femi Kuti, Alex Gibney, Academy Award winning director of the new documentary "Finding Fela," his friend and manager Rikki Stein and producer Stephen Handel.
The Hills and The Rivers and Cousin Boneless bands perform Street Folk Music. The Hills and The Rivers This band formed when Isaac Hill and his sister Heidi began recording an album of Isaac's new songs. Gathering their street musician friends together they formed a band that became bigger than the initial project. Cousin Boneless Solo acoustic acts Average Joey and Crisp Lake went on tour together, and eventually joined forces. Cousin Boneless plays Spooky Folk Punk with a revolving door of other members. They're trying to raise funds in the next week or so to buy a van to more efficiently tour. If you'd like to support them, check out their indiegogo campaign.
Fresh from the inspiration of Ragas Live Festival, we tried our hand at a novel combination of styles an instruments. Mauritania's greatest singer, Noura Mint Seymali and her husband/guitarist, Jeiche Ould Chighaly performed live in studio with two Brooklyn-based Hindustani musicians Jay Gandhi (bansuri flute) and Ehren Hanson (Tabla). They met at the ASAMAAN Festival of Music & Astronomy in the Gorée Island – Dakar, Sénégal on April 2013 but had never performed together until this day.
We also got a chance to share a track from Noura's burning new album Tzenni.
Noura Mint Seymali is a nationally beloved star and one of Mauritania’s foremost musical emissaries. Born into a prominent line of Moorish griot, Noura began her career at age 13 as a supporting vocalist with her step-mother, the legendary Dimi Mint Abba. Trained in instrumental technique by her grandmother, Mounina, Noura mastered the ardine, a 9-string harp reserved only for women. Seymali Ould Ahmed Vall, Noura's father and namesake, sparked her compositional instincts, himself a seminal scholar figure in Mauritanian music; studying Arab classical music in Iraq, devising the first system for Moorish melodic notation, adapting the national anthem, and composing many works popularized by his wife, Dimi. Reared in this transitive culture where sounds from across the Sahara, the Magreb, and West Africa coalesce, Noura Mint Seymali currently drives the legacy forward as one of Mauritania's most adventurous young artists. Fueled by the exploratory sound of her husband Jeiche Ould Chighaly’s emotive psych guitar lines, Noura and Jeiche formed their first "fusion" band in 2004. Jeiche, a master of the tidinit (aka. ngoni, xalam), brings the force of yet another important line of Moorish griot to bear, translating the tidinit's intricate phrasing to a modified electric guitar with heroic effect. His unique sound, mirroring vocal lines and then refracting their melodies into the either, was born out of years presiding over wedding ceremonies, directing the dance often as the sole melodic instrument. In addition to his work with Noura, Jeiche remains one of Nouakchott's most sought after guitarists for traditional ceremonies. After two albums - Tarabe (2006) & El Howl (2010) - released locally in Mauritania and years of experimentation adapting Moorish music to various pop formations, Noura Mint Seymali's current band is a concise return to the roots, a light formation led by the "azawan," a word in Hassaniya that refers to the collective ensemble of traditional instruments; the ardine, tidinit, guitar. Backed by a declarative, funk-speaking rhythm section, composed of Ousmane Touré (bass) and Matthew Tinari (drums), the band has made a formidable debut on the international stage, releasing two EPs - Azawan (2012) & Azawan II (2013) - and touring widely. The band's first full-length album for the international market - TZENNI - is set for release via Gliiterbeat Records on June 20, 2014 and to be followed by an extensive North American tour.
Though performances at events like globalFEST (USA), Festival-au-Desert (Mali), Hayy Festival (Egypt), Jeux de Francophonie (France) and Festival Timitar (Morocco) and collaborations with artists like Tinariwen, Bassekou Kouyaté, and Baaba Maal, the band is actively exposing Mauritanian roots music to the world. In a rare merger of cultural authority and experimental prowess, Noura Mint Seymali applies the ancient musical traditions of the griot with a savvy aesthetic engagement in our contemporary moment, emerging as a powerful voice at nexus of a changing Africa.
Eric Fraser performs on bansuri with Meghashyam Keshav (tabla) from 6-7am on the Ragas Live Festival 2014.
Max ZT on hammered dulcimer and Karsh Kale on tabla perfom at 2-3am on Ragas Live Festival 2014
Ragas Live Festival 2014 # 2
Anupam Shobhakar - Sarod and Dan Weiss - Tabla perform Raga Hemant.
Anupam Shobhakar, is an Indian musician, composer, instrumentalist, record producer, and classically trained sarodist currently living in Brooklyn, New York. He has released three World Fusion albums, and one classical Indian music album. He has performed live around the world at various venues and for charitable causes. Shobhakar's track "Water" made it to the first round of the Grammy Awards. Shobhakar met Ustad Aashish Khan briefly when he came to do a concert in Bombay and stayed at Shobhakar's apartment. Shobhakar states that he was "blown away by Khan's command over the Sarode," and has been studying with him ever since. Shobhakar lists Khan, and his father, Ustad Allaudin Khan (guru to Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan), as his main playing style influences: "Slightly aggressive in approach, but never at the cost of the melodic charm." Shobhakar was recognized for his talents as an Indian Classical Music performer by the Priyadarshni Academy, who awarded him the Best Young Artist Award. Shobhakar's current focus is World Fusion and Jazz Fusion.
A real thrill: One of the most legendary musicians of Morocco, Hassan Hakmoun stopped by WKCR to give a sneak peak of his new album, Spirit, and performed live with Said Damir.
Hakmoun at WKCR, with his daughter Aya.
As a master musician whose vision and contributions have enabled a unique fusion and blending of traditions, cultures and genres in a world of ever-expanding global communication and exchange, his work maintains its profound and enormous capacity to joyously inspire and heal the individuals and communities it reaches, as Hakmoun undoubtedly remains a commanding and intriguing artist in the world music scene.
Hakmoun'’s musical origins are rooted in the African folk music of the Islamic Gnawa sect, descendants from West African slaves brought to North Africa several hundred years ago. Their music combines complicated West African syncopations with long, sinuous North African melodies. Tracing their roots back to the Bilal, a freed slave known for his beautiful voice and believed to have been chosen by the Islamic prophet Mohammed to serve as the first muezzin to call the people of the faith to their prayers, Gnawa musicians often express their religious devotion through their music, using it to enter into spiritual trance states.
Since moving to the US in 1987 his music has absorbed elements from a variety of popular styles, from jazz and "world music" to neo-classical contemporary Western music and cerebral pop, resulting in a diverse, award-winning and critically acclaimed body of work.
It’s been 26 years since the talented vocalist and sintir player released Gift of the Gnawa. yet the time has been spent well. Hakmoun’s latest album, ‘Unity’ is the finest example of ritual music combined with the heart of American rock, soul and blues ever recorded.
With super-ambitious arrangements and grooves from all corners of the globe, Numasbala brings a joyous, fun, freedom-loving spirit to the dancefloor. Fabio Montenegro - Bass / Voice (Colombia), Felipe Piedrahita - Guitar / voice (Colombia) and Javier Samayoa - Hammond B3 / Keys / voice (Guatemala) joined me at WKCR.
The world of music has just lost the Gentle Giant, Yusef Lateef. WKCR will celebrate his life by playing his music for 33 hours from the stroke of midnight as January 1, 2014. His bravery and expansive musical vision is unmatched. I was lucky enough to interview Dr. Lateef in March of 2013, his longtime collaborator Adam Rudolph joined the conversation.
Clarinetist Shankar Tucker performs with an all-star band of Rajna Swaminathan (mridangam), Michael Gam (bass), Max ZT (hammered dulcimer) and Jomy George (tabla), and for the 2013 Ragas Live Festival.
Shankar composed several of the pieces here for this Ragas Live broadcast and Michael Gam contributed a composition as well. This was the first time this incredible ensemble performed together.
Shankar Tucker is most widely known through his youtube channel the ShrutiBox, an ongoing series of internet music videos composed, recorded, performed and directed by the young clarinetist and composer. The videos have created great excitement over the past year, garnering over 12 million views and a combined 100,000 fans. The series has been featured on the front page of YouTube, MTV India, and has recently been included in the Smithsonian Museum’s exhibition on Indian American Culture. As a clarinetist, Shankar has shared the stage with such legendary artists as Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasia, and Raghu Dixit and recorded with music director Amit Trivedi for MTV’s Coke Studio. Shankar’s ensemble has had the distinction of performing at the White House Diwali function of 2012, hosted by Vice President Joe Biden.
Shankar blends Classical Indian music, jazz and popular music to create a unique and original fusion sound, both in solo recordings and with some of the most talented and accomplished young Carnatic and Hindustani vocalists and instrumentalists, including Vidya and Vandana Iyer, Nirali Kartik, Mahesh Vinayakram, B. Sree Sundarkumar, and others. Shankar himself plays a wide range of instruments in his recordings: piano, bass, kanjira, tabla, and other percussion instruments. The videos feature his own compositions, and his arrangements of traditional and classical songs, film and popular music, in Hindi, Tamil and English.
Shankar’s videos are featured on the front page of YouTube and the MTV show, “Roots”, and in articles in The Indian Express, The Hindustan Times, and notably in The Hindu – “everything about this young American screams fusion, beginning with his name…” Shankar was in fact the name given him as a young child by “Amma” – the spiritual leader and renowned humanitarian Mata Amrityanandamayi Devi on her US tour, and he has gone by it ever since. He started to learn classical clarinet at age 10, and earned a scholarship to the New England Conservatory from an appearance on “From the Top”, the nationally syndicated youth radio show. He became deeply interested in improvisation, both in jazz and classical Indian music, while he continued to study and perform Western classical music at such venues as Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall in Boston. At the Conservatory he studied with Tom Martin of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, while the sitar player Peter Row taught him the fundamentals of Indian classical performance.
More than anything else, Shankar wanted to study classical Indian music at its source in India, and on graduating from the Conservatory he was awarded a grant by the Frank Huntingdon Beebe Fund to pursue his ambition to adapt the clarinet to Indian classical performance. He was accepted as a student by the world famous Hindustani flute player Hariprasad Chaurasia at his Gurukul in Mumbai in the summer of 2010. Shankar describes this experience as “nothing short of life-changing” and that his “musical standpoint has completely shifted. Instead of thinking Western notation and chords or counting to 8 or 16, I think teentaal or aadhi taalam .” While in India he had the opportunity to perform Hindustani classical music on clarinet on stage with such legendary artists as Zakir Hussein and Hariprasad Chaurasia, and to record for MTV’s premier music platform, Coke Studio. Shankar has also performed with other leading musicians at major venues in Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore, and has been invited to perform on Indian MTV, and at upcoming festivals throughout India,
Though this show has always been exclusively music, this topic is so timely I thought it worthwhile to spread the word. Currently the fate of the Indian Point nuclear power plant hinges on whether the government grants them a 20 year license renewal and the state is holding public hearings. In this jaw-dropping interview, Susan Hito-Shapiro of the Radiation and Public Health Project tells us of the conditions at Indian Point where 1,500 tons of radioactive waste are stored 22 miles from midtown.
If you are moved to take action, as I was, after hearing her, there are links here and at www.riverkeeper.org.
"Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles, but it has been applied rightfully to Stanley Jordan, the guitar virtuoso." -Leonard Feather
It was a thrill to have one of the world's most inventive guitarists visit us at WKCR. Stanley Jordan, hosting the musician show, performs here live, solo, and with the good friend of NYC Radio Live, Abdoulaye Alhassane Tourre (Check podcast 49 for more Live Abdoulaye Alhassane.)
Stanley's original style of two handed tapping, the touch technique, allows him to play the guitar with the freedom of a keyboardist. The voices are so independent on his instrument that on record it is almost hard to believe that the music is coming from one person (See the video below!). A four time-Grammy nominee, Jordan's album Magic Touch was #1 on Billboard's jazz chart for 51 weeks, setting a new record. He has toured in over 60 countries and now focuses much of his attention to the direct healing power of music: music therapy.
A musician her whole life, Camila Celin began playing guitar at age 9. For the last 5 years she has been intensely studying the Indian Sarod. In Kolkata she learns from sarod player Sougata Roy Choudhury, and in New York she learns from sitar maestro Pandit Krishna Bhatt. In 2009 she was nominated for a Grammy for best world music album in a collaboration with slide guitar maestro Debashish Bhattacharya and has been a very active performer in her native Colombia, the US and in India. She has composed music for several films, theater, as well as commercials and currently lives between New York and Kolkata, India.
Ehren Hanson has been playing tabla for over 17 years. A disciple of the great Pandit Anindo Chatterjee, he is an active performer as both a soloist and an accompanist. His recent review in the "Times of India," Kolkata called his solo performace "enthralling."
Together, the couple have founded the Anindo Chatterjee School of Tabla in New York, where they host some of the greatest maestros of our time, hosting classes, workshops, and concerts. Their performance is celebrated for its intimacy with the deep and fated connection between them felt in every beat.
Krishna Bhatt and Anindo Chatterjee, two of the premier musicians on their instruments, performed Raga Darbari Kanada from 9-10pm on the 24 hour 2013 Ragas Live Festival. The video of the live broadcast was filmed and edited by Bernhard Fasenfest, and audio was mixed by Ahmet Ali Arslan.
To study with either of these giants of music check out Krishna Bhatt's school and Anindo Chatterjee's school.
Samarth Nagakar, Anirban Roy Chowdhury and Indradeep Ghosh performed from 4-5pm on the 2013 Ragas Live Festival.
Samarth Nagarkar is described by critics as one of today’s foremost torchbearers of Indian classical vocal traditions. He is known for his eclectic, captivating performances rendered within a traditionally rich approach towards raga exposition and gayaki.
After graduating as a Grade-A scholar of the prestigious ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata, Samarth currently divides his time between India and the US pursuing an active music career as a leading performer, composer, teacher and author
Indradeep Ghosh:
One of the most talented young Violinist of India & a torch bearer of Seni – Maihar gharana, Indradeep was initiated in the art of playing Violin at his tender age of six under the able guidance of Sri Anamitra Mustafi. From the year 1991, he is under the tutelage of Prof. Smt. Sisirkana Dhar Chowdhury. He has also the privilege of getting occasional talim from other maestros of Indian Classical Music like Pt. V.G.Jog and Pt. Kumar Bose. Apart from Indian Classical Music, Indradeep has the fondness toward the Western Classical Music too, and he has received his western lessons from late Sri Samir Sil.
Along the years, Indradeep has participated in several music festivals and concerts of India and abroad like – Asia Festival in Barcelona, Memorial Concert for Chile in Koln, Biswa Banga Sammelan, Baba Allauddin Memorial Festival, Salt Lake Music Festival, Prativa Utsav organised by EZCC, Dover Lane Music Festival, Kal Ke Kalakar Sangeet Sammelan Mumbai, Kala Prakash Varanasi, Kashi sangeet Samaj, Cultural Exchange Programme organised by Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan in Chennai, IIT Delhi, Delhi Cant.etc and has also performed extensively in USA and several European Countries like Germany, France, Austria, Luxemburg, Spain, Denmark, Netherland etc. Moreover he has participated as a guest violin player in “Evening Live Show” & “Subha Savere” from Doordarshan Kendra New Delhi and is a regular performer from All India Radio Kolkata. He is also associated with several top grade fusion music bands like “Rhythmscape” of percussionist Bikram Ghosh and “Karma” of Subhen Chatterjee. He has composed theme music for the Kolkata Children’s Book Fair 2008. He has to his credit many Classical and Fusion Music albums. The major among them is “Flames – The passion of Indian Raga”, where he has been accompanied on tabla by Pandit Kumar Bose.
Anirban Roy Chowdhury born in a musical family in Assam is a young promising tabla player, both as a soloist as well as an accompanist. Anirban's training in tabla started at a very young age of 5 years from his father Akhil Roy Chowdhury and afterwards from his elder brother Animesh Roy Chowdhury.
In the year 1995, Anirban arrived in mumbai and had the privilege of getting direct training from the great tabla Maestro Ustad Allarakha Khan for a period of 7 years. Later on, he continued his training under Ustad Zakir Hussain & Pandit Yogesh Samsi, one of the senior most disciples of Ustad Allarakha Khan.
He has had the privilege of tabla accompaniment with musicians like Anup Jalota, Pankaj Udhas, Ghulam Ali, Rakesh Chaurasia, Rupak Kulkarni, Pandit Dinkar Kaikini,Pandit Arvind Parekh, Pandit Dhruv Ghosh, Pandit Pradeep Barot, Smt. Konkana Banerjee, legendary flute Maestro Pandit Hariprasdhad Chaurasia, Ken Zukerman, pandit Tejemdra narayan Majumder & Grammy Award Winning Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt..
Anirban is currently a faculty member at the Academy Of Indian Music (AIM) South Plainfield New Jersey and has been regularly composing rhythms for famous Bollywood composer Jatin- Lalit.
Michael Braudy and Roger Lipson with Roshni Thomson plus Ravi Rao on sitar with Roshni Thomson 3-4pm on the Ragas Live Festival #17
Michael Braudy is a violinist who specializes in Western classical and Celtic music and the music of India. A versatile improviser, he collaborates with poets, storytellers, dancers, theatre and mime, and performs in the US and abroad. He has also explored the effects of music on health, and teaches workshops worldwide on sound and meditation. His recordings include Awakening Peace, Vriddhi, Sumanas, Celtic Afternoon and From the Ganga to the Tay.
Roger Lipson
Roger has played the classical music of India since 1988, and he has toured all over the country. He trained on the sitar under Pandit Krishna Mohan Bhatt of Jaipur, India, and master musician Frank Menusan of New York City. Roger also plays the shehnai (sometimes described as the Indian oboe), an historic instrument which is featured in Indian weddings and temple ceremonies. For the shehnai, Roger studied with Pandit Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, including an intensive residency in Benares, India.
As a classical Indian musician on sitar and shehnai, Roger can be heard playing sitar on The Easy Star All Stars’ #1 Billboard recording of “Lonely Hearts Dub Band” and The Cringe’s “Tipping Point”. He was a consultant to the Weinstein Company to get the Indian oboe (shehnai) into the movie Our Idiot Brother (directed by Jesse Peretz. Roger’s sitar can also be heard in other collaborations: on recent albums “The Tipping Point” by The Cringe, and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band” by The Easy Star All Stars, as well as on the Nova episode “Saved by the Sun” for PBS.
Ravi Rao and Roshni Thomson at WKCR, photo by Veronique Lerebours
Ravi Rao studied with Krishna Bhatt and Shahid Parvez amongst many other top players and dedicated his performance or Raga Madhuvanti to his late father.
Roshni Thompson is a NY based tabla player who hails from the West Indies, where she was initiated into the ancient tradition of indian classical music by her vocalist father. She has continued her tutelage in the Benares style of tabla playing under Shri Tapan Modak and is currently a student of the epic Farukhbad exponent, Pt. Anindo Chatterjee. While her passion is Indian classical tabla, she has played in folk, jazz and multi-genre modalities. Roshni has performed at notable local venues such as Pianos, Knitting Factory, The Bitter End, The Shrine and Tea Lounge.
Suphala performed a tabla solo accompianied by Andrew Shantz on Harmonium from 2-3pm on the 24 hour Ragas Live Festival on WKCR.
Suphala is one of the most versatile young tabla artists making music today. Raised in the U.S. by Indian parents, Suphala began learning western classical music on the piano at age four, performing at age five, and as a teenager transferred her passion to one of the world’s most complex percussion instruments: the tabla. She combines an unparalleled technical command of her instrument with a playful sense of experimentation as she switches effortlessly between composing, producing and performing.
Suphala is a protégé of the great tabla masters Ustad Allarakha and Ustad Zakir Hussain, whose constant inspiration compels her not only to dedicate herself to the study of Indian classical music but also to extend the reach of the tabla into an ever-growing variety of musical genres and cultural contexts. Her fluency in a diversity of musical traditions informs her unique compositions and her highly improvisational performances. The three albums she has released to date – Instru Mental (2000), The Now (2005) and Blueprint (2007) – go beyond the limits of genre and style while referencing such diverse influences as Western classical, Indian classical, jazz, folk and soul. But it’s not just her original music that is groundbreaking, her concerts provide an inspiring case-study in cultural diplomacy: she made history in early 2005 when she traveled to Kabul, Afghanistan as the first musician to play in public since the fall of the Taliban. According to The New York Times, “Kabul’s badly depleted music scene received a welcome injection of excitement last week. [Her] arrival… caused a sensation in the war-torn country. ‘I have not played with a woman before,’ one Afghan tabla master said. ‘Our grandfathers do not even know of it.’”
Collaboration is one of the touchstones of her prodigious musical output: the musicians she has recorded or performed with include Norah Jones, Perry Farrell, Edie Brickell, Vernon Reid, Timbaland, Sean Lennon, 4Hero, Harper Simon, Yoko Ono, Vijay Iyer, Joan Osbourne, and Michael Bland among others. Many of these artists have sought Suphala out to lend her talents to tours, her songwriting skills to specific tracks or her producing prowess to recordings. The artistic alliances Suphala forms — including ensembles with vocals, strings, woodwinds, reeds and percussion — are an integral part of her innovative approach to making music.
2 days shy of turning 9 years old, Vivek Pandya performed this incredible tabla solo accompianied by Kalpit Pandya on harmonium from 1-2pm on the Ragas Live Festival at WKCR 89.9 FM-NY.
Vivek Pandya is disciple of Pt Anindo Chatterjee and the 1st place winner of the Swaradhara competition held on 23rd Feb 2013. An interview revealed that he was excited for the end of school.
Interview by Sophie Rubashkin. Engineered by David Ellenbogen
Eric Fraser on Bansuri and Naren Budhkar on tabla performed noon-1pm on the 2013 Ragas Live Festival.
Eric Fraser is a disciple of Pandit Gopal Roy of Kolkata, India, a leading exponent of the Padmabhushan Pannalal Ghosh and Pandit Gour Goswami lineage. Eric's “gayaki ang”or vocal approach to the bansuri flute is unique and rare, deep and sincere. Merging a healing breath with craft and musicality, Eric brings an exciting, meditative and moving performance. While at home in New York, Eric continues to perfect his art under the guidance of master musician Steve Gorn, a bansuri player from the same "Gharana" (lineage). Eric regularly performs Indian classical music on the bamboo flute in India and the USA, including much collaboration as an accompanist for dance and theatre. He has made contributions with his bansuri to music ranging from Hip Hop to children's music. Besides flute, Eric Fraser is a music therapist (MA-BC), freelance teaching artist and singer/songwriter. Check out his new album of lullabies, Raga Bye Baby .
Naren Budhakar was born in Pune, India, and was first exposed to classical music by his father who was a violinist. From his cousin Shashikant Purandare he learned Delhi style percussion and began performing at a young age. He was initiated as a disciple by Tabla Maestro Ustad Shabbir Nisar. Naren has been performing and teaching both in the U.S. and abroad, lending his percussion skills to various forms of world music. He is on the faculty of the East-West School of Music, where he teaches Tabla classes and performs regularly.
Rajeswari Satish, vocals; Radhika Mani, violin; A.R. Balaskandan, mridangam; Arthi Suresh vocals for the 11am-noon performance on the 2013 Ragas Live Festival. Rajeswari opened with Raga Hamsadhwani and Puri Kalyan then most deeply explored Raga Vasantha
As a performer of South Indian Classical (Carnatic) vocal music, Rajeswari strives to balance both tradition and trend. As a teacher, she strives to impart this art form in all its purity to her students , but with a modern approach.
Rajeswari was introduced to music at early childhood by her mother Vijayam Ranganathan, who is a vainika. She began her formal music education at the age of seven, under the caring and nurturing tutelage of Prof. Sri M.A. Venugopal. In three years, Rajeswari won the Government of India National Talent Search Scholarship and pursued thirteen years of advanced training with the renowned teacher and scholar, Sangeetakalacharya Sri C.S. Krishna Iyer. At present, she continues to receive guidance from Padmabhushan Sri P. S. Narayanaswamy. Rajeswari had the opportunity to learn new repertoire with renowned musicians Sangeetakalacharya Sri Chingleput Ranganathan and Sangeetakalanidhi Smt. R. Vedavalli on various occasions.
Rajeswari has performed extensively in India, USA and the UK. Notable among the venues are All India Radio, December music festival (Chennai, India), Cleveland St. Tyagaraja Aradhana, Milapfest (UK).
Rajeswari's approach to music is based on the soul of the raga, with bhava and sahitya given utmost priority. She has received critical acclaim for her variety of repertoire and sensitive approach to rendering kritis. Her training with eminent teachers, coupled with a sincere and dedicated approach , has molded Rajeswari into a capable and sought after teacher.
At present, she resides in NJ, USA, where she teaches a select group of students.Many of her students have won top awards in prestigious competitions, and are upcoming concert artists.
Roger Lipson performed raga Malkauns on Shenai and Saraswati on Sitar, with Stephen Celluci on Tabla and Andrew Shantz on harmonium from 8am-9am on the Ragas Live Festival 2013
Roger Lipson is currently playing bass (he’s also on sitar, vocals) with The Truants, a New York City band specializing in early garage and British Invasion rock, blues, and soul, and he also makes regular guest appearances with other musical groups. Roger has played alongside Shawn Pelton, Glen Burtnik, Larry Russell, John Korba, Dan Weiss, The Easy Star All Stars and many others. His performances include such well respected venues as the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival, Symphony Space, Joe’s Pub, World Live Café in Philadelphia, the Count Basie Theater and State Theater of New Jersey, and others around the country. He was recently named aHofner Artist as an electric bass player.
Roger has played the classical music of India since 1988, and he has toured all over the country. He trained on the sitar under Pandit Krishna Mohan Bhatt of Jaipur, India, and master musician Frank Menusan of New York City. Roger also plays the shehnai (sometimes described as the Indian oboe), an historic instrument which is featured in Indian weddings and temple ceremonies. For the shehnai, Roger studied with Pandit Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, including an intensive residency in Benares, India.
As a classical Indian musician on sitar and shehnai, Roger can be heard playing sitar on The Easy Star All Stars’ #1 Billboard recording of “Lonely Hearts Dub Band” and The Cringe’s “Tipping Point”. He was a consultant to the Weinstein Company to get the Indian oboe (shehnai) into the movie Our Idiot Brother (directed by Jesse Peretz. Roger's sitar can also be heard in other collaborations: on recent albums “The Tipping Point” by The Cringe, and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band” by The Easy Star All Stars, as well as on the Nova episode “Saved by the Sun” for PBS.
Stephen Cellucci has studied tabla under the guidance of Pdt. Samir Chatterjee since 2000. He was initiated as a disciple of his Guruji in 2005 and has shared the stage with him several times since. He performed at the well-known Chhandayan All Night Concert of Indian Music in New York City in 2004 and 2009. He also has extensive experience playing with kirtans and accompanying dance -- both traditional Indian kathak and western modern forms.
Stephen's background in western classical music and piano complement his ongoing, rigorous study of Indian music. His scope of musical influences gives him the versatility to adapt the tabla to most any musical need. He resides, teaches, and plays in New York City. Contact him at sjcellucci@gmail.com.
Andrew Shantz is an emerging keyboard improviser, vocalist and composer with a background in Jazz and an appetite for musical exploration. Since graduating from William Paterson University in 2003 with a B.M. in Jazz Studies Andrew has continued to develop his musical skill and vocabulary and in 2006 began studies of Hindustani classical music in Kolkata, India with Pandit Samar Saha and Shrimati Madhumita Saha. This year Andrew debuted his group Colors of Tarab at Alwan for the Arts in a concert featuring traditional pieces and original compositions combining elements of Indian and Arabic music and Jazz improvisation.
Indrajit Roy-Chowdhury, Sitar; and Ehren Hanson, Tabla performed the raga Nat Bhairav at the Ragas Live Festival 2013 at 7am for the Ragas Live Festival.
Indrajit Roy-Chowdhury is a disciple of the sitar maestro Pandit Subroto Roy-Chowdhury. Groomed in the Veen-kar style of the Senia Gharana, which maintains the Dhrupadi origins of Indian Classical music, Indrajit strives to innovate while keeping a firm connection with the past. While completing his undergraduate studies at Duke University, Indrajit received the Bennenson Award for the Arts to further his study of Indian Classical music. Since then he has taken the profession of a full-time sitarist and has performed on stages across the world including such prestigious venues as Gyan Mancha (Kolkata), Hammerstein Ballroom (New York), Kennedy Center (Washington D.C.) and has had his concerts telecast by Doordarshan (Indian National Television). During the 2010 Fall semester Indrajit was a visiting faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and taught the University's sitar course.
Ehren Hanson began learning tabla when he was 15 years old under Misha Masud of New York City. In 2000, he was accepted as a disciple by the great Pandit Anindo Chatterjee and has developed into an exciting performer and a dynamic teacher. Ehren then went on to teach rhythm as an assistant professor at Bard College in 2002 and in 2005 he received the prestigious Senior Performing Arts Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies. He has had the honor of accompanying great musicians such as Pandit Debi Prasad Chatterjee, Pandit Subrata Roy Chaudhuri, Steve Gorn, and others. In 2012, The Time of India described his tabla solo performance as "enthralling." Ehren currently lives in New York where he is an active performer and teacher. He is also the director of the Anindo Chatterjee School of Tabla.
Mithun Radhakrishna (mandolin) and A.R. Balaskandan (mridangam) treated the WKCR Ragas Live Audience to Carnatic ragas from 6am-7am They performed 1) Raga Bhairavi - Viriboni, 2) Raga Kanakangi - Sri Gananatham 3) Raga Mohanam Kapali and finally, 4) Raga Sindhu Bhairavi - Srujana Mithun has been playing the Mandolin since the age of 10.Inspired and initiated to the instrument by the pioneer of Carnatic mandolin, Mandolin Srinivas, Mithun began performing at the age of 15. Mithun has undergone rigorous training under Vid Sri Prasanna Kumar and from renowned violinist Vid Sri TKV Ramanujacharyulu with whom he is still learning. Mithun has performed throughout India under various platforms and also been performing in New York since 2009.
A.R. Balaskandan is a performer, teacher and composer in Carnatic Violin and South Indian Percussion (Mridangam, Kanjira and Konnakkol).
As a Mridangist, he belongs to the school of Sruthilaya of Sri Karaikudi R. Mani of Chennai, where he has received advanced training from Guru Karaikudi Mani.
As a Carnatic Violinist, he initially trained under Sri Sarweswara Sarma and obtained his Teaching Diploma. He has been under the guidance of Smt. T. Rukmini of Chennai since 2000.
He has also received advanced training in Carnatic Vocal from Sri Seethrama Sharma and in general Percussion Techniques from Prof. T. V. Gopalakrishnan
Balaskandan has accompanied established international artists such as Sri O. S. Thyagarajan, Prof. T. V. Gopalakrishnan, Sri T. K. Govinda Rao, the Carnatica Brothers, the Bombay Sisters, Smt. Sankari Krishnan and others. He has also accompanied senior Bhratanatyma dancers from both India and the US.
He has been performing for over 20 years in prestigious venues around the world including India, Europe and North America. Performance credits include the Lincoln Center, NY, the Lighthouse International Theatre in NY and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.
He also has several large music and dance productions to his credit, including "Urban Kutcheri," which premiered at the Joyce/SoHo in June 2006, “Pallavi: Exchange of Ideas between Western and Indian Classical Traditions over the Century” presented in London, “Innovation and Inspiration: A Rhythmic Project to Encourage Creativity Among Young Musicians” in London, as well as the dance dramas “Mother Theresa” and “Kastur Bhai” in Canada.
He is a featured musician on several music recordings. He is also a recognized composer of rhythmic segments, known as Jathis, in Carnatic music. He is the founder and lead artist of “Akshara,” a percussion based orchestra.
Balaskandan has worked in the development of organizations promoting South Indian music and dance in Canada and in the UK. He co-founded SIMDA, a promotional organization, in Toronto, Canada. He was a founding member and trustee of Sruthi Laya Seva (UK) Trust, an educational and promotional organization under the auspices of Guru Karaikudi R Mani.
He is currently based in New York, NY, where he teaches and performs regularly.
Dinesh Mirchandani performed rag Malkauns and Basant on the fourth performance of the 24 hour Ragas Live Festival.
Dinesh Mirchandani comes from a family of gifted singers. He started singing at the age of 6, performing stage and private music shows. Born and brought up in Mumbai, Dinesh has won several national music awards in India.
His first TV performance in Bombay was at the age of 15, when he sang traditional Indian folk music. Since then, he has performed several times on Bombay Doordarshan and National Network Television in India. He has performed on stage with great playback singers like Mahendra Kapoor, Sudha Malhotra and Rajkumari.
Dinesh acquired his initial training in Hindustani Classical music from Pt. Govindprasad Jaipurwale in Bombay. With Panditji, he trained in ragas and taals and vocal enhancements. Next, under the guidance of Shri C. Laxmichand, Dinesh learned traditional folk Sufi kalams, Sindhi Ladas, Ghazals and Bhajans. He currently learns Hindustani Classical music under the guidance of his Guru, Smt. Tripti Mukherjee, who is a disciple of Pt. Jasraj.
Kanika Pandey, (Vocals) Arun Ramamurthy (Violin) Samir Chaterjee (tabla) The second set of the Ragas Live Festival 2013 featured vocalist Kanika Pandey. Kanika belongs to the new generation of musicians who believe in developing and evolving a personalized musical idiom while still maintaining the authenticity of the Hindustani classical music. Kanika has a rich and mellifluous voice and a very eloquent style of singing. She carries with her a rare artistic blend of Kirana and Banares gharana. Her training is very evident in her shruti shuddha swara, gradual unfolding and development of the raga, combining the poetry and its expression into singing. Her music emerges not only from her own virtuosity and versatility as a performer but also from her intellectual and diligent eclecticism as a student of Hindustani classical music. Besides maintaining the technical aspects, Kanika also gives a lot of focus on the aesthetics and the mystical/spiritual aspect of Hindustani music, thus resulting in a unique style that is technically fine and yet very soulful and aesthetically appealing.
The 2013 Ragas Live Festival, was 24 hours of raga performed live in the studio by over 50 world class artists. It was broadcast throughout New York City WKCR 89.9 FM-NY and worldwide at www.wkcr.org. The first set was a beautiful jam session by members of the Brooklyn Raga Massive, represented by Max ZT (hammered dulcimer), Eric Faser (bansuri), Camila Celin (guitar) , Sameer Gupta (tabla) and Ben Stuart (tabla). These great musicians jammed on the Raga Kirwani. Engineered by Ahmet Ali Arslan.
23 more performances to come!
This episode came from a WKCR broadcast a year after the passing of the master drummer Frisner Augustin whoose Troupe Makandal has brought Vodou ceremonial drumming to the world.
It features a recent live performance from La Troupe Makandal recorded at the Afro-Roots Series at the Space at 9 Bleecker. Guests Morgan Zwerlein from Troupe Makandal and producer of the Afro-Roots series and good friend, Kevin Nathaniel joined me to explain about the man and the magic of Vodou drumming.
This is from his obituary in the New York Times:
Mr. Augustin had an encyclopedic knowledge of the rhythms of vodou (the word is the Haitian Creole spelling of voodoo), in which more than 100 spirits are represented and summoned, each by a distinctive rhythm...
La Troupe Makandal has performed for both Haitian and world-music audiences. When it brought abridged vodou ceremonies to public stages, the rhythms were so traditional and intense that unplanned spiritual possessions sometimes took place in secular spaces. The troupe also performs choreographed programs devoted to Haitian history and culture. It has made four albums of traditional Afro-Haitian music: “A Trip to Vodou,” “Èzili,” “The Drums of Vodou” and “Prepare.”
Hugh Masekela is the most well known jazz musician from Africa. His first big hit was in 1968 and he has sold millions of albums, won multiple Grammys and worked with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Dizzy Gillespie. Fresh off a tour with Paul Simon, he and his band are super-refined, with perfect vocal harmonies, deep grooves, and inspired improvisations. Masekela is considered a legend of South African Music and the apartheid struggle, but that's not how he see's it.
I got to spend sometime backstage with him and now so do you!
Here's one quote from the interview:
"I never had a career, I had an obsession with music. And my obsession with it, and maybe a little gift that I had, threw me into the area, but my aim, even when I came overseas, was to learn and to study and everything else is a coincidence. But I didn't plan to make it for myself. If you look at anybody who is out there to make it for themselves they self-destruct. They become very big and then they self-destruct. As long as you've got the "me" thing in your head you're doomed." - Hugh Masekela
As the world's eyes turn to her hometown of Timbuktu, Awa Sangho, the golden voice of Mali, visits NYC Radio Live. Awa, who learned song-craft from Ali Farka Toure, has since toured the world with a who's who of African Music: Salif Keita, Manu Dibango, Amadou and Mariam, Habibe Koite, Cheick Tidiane Seck, Marc Cary, Bassekou Kouyate and Oumou Sangare. Her exquisite new album, yet to be released, was first heard this night by the listening audience of WKCR. She is joined by master percussionist Daniel Moreno, who has collaborated with countless jazz and world music legends from George Benson and Roy Haynes to Chico Buargue.
Sunny Jain at WKCR - Photo by David Ellenbogen
To celebrate the release of their new album Shruggy Ji, (currently #1 on iTunes World Music Chart) NYC Rado Live is going back to the archives to share a 2009 live radio performance by Red Baraat. Red Baraat is the first and only dhol ‘n’ brass band of its kind in the States, melding the infectious North Indian rhythm Bhangra with brass funk and expressing the human spirit through improvisation and a powerful, live, raw sound. Comprised of dhol (double-sided, barrel-shaped North Indian drum slung over one shoulder), percussion and horns, this NYC-based group plays fresh originals, as well as traditional Punjabi songs and Bollywood numbers with a modern touch.
Baraat is Hindi for a marriage procession. In North India, it is a tradition on the day of the wedding for the groom to travel to his bride’s home on a magnificently decorated horse, surrounded by an entourage of family and friends. Led by a dholi and/or a marching band, this joyous celebration naturally induces dancing and singing and is inseparable from the energy and excitement of the musical festivities.
Sunny Jain's famous Dhol at WKCR - Photo by David Ellenbogen
The line-up when we broadcast this show was:
Sunny Jain Dhol, drumset, percussion, vox Rohin Khemani Tavil, percussion Greg Gonzalez Drumset, percussion Arun Luthra Soprano saxophone Mike Bomwell Tenor saxophone Sonny Singh Trumpet MiWi La Lupa Bass trumpet Dave Smith Trombone John Altieri Sousaphone
Sonny Singh at WKCR - Photo by David Ellenbogen
Jeffery Kandel and David Ellenbogen produced and engineered the original broadcast.
Taylor Kuffner
This is not your grandmother's Gamelan. Gamelan are the mesmerizing orchestras of giant gongs and other metal percussion instruments from Indonesia. Taylor Kuffner's Gameletron project combines the instruments of the Gamelan with robotics, creating an incredible immersive experience. He came to WKCR to share his own recordings he made throughout Indonesia highlighting rarities in the genre including ensembles made of bamboo, iron and beyond.
Podcast: Download on iTunes
Grammy Nominated, BBC Award winner Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya is widely recognized as one of the worlds greatest guitarists. A prodigy, he first performed on-All India Radio at the age of 4. He has since amazed audiences worldwide performing with such luminaries as John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Jerry Douglas and Dereck Trucks. NYC Radio Live, Bread and Yoga, Rageshree Music, and HarmonyOm teamed up to create a benefit concert for the victims of Hurricane Sandy Featuring the legendary slide-guitarist from India
Pandit Debashish Bhattarcharya with Subhasis Bhattarchaya / Tabla and Introducing - for the first time in New York, his daughter Anandi Bhattarcharya / Vocal
Guitarist Rez Abbasi brought his burning new trio of John Hebert on the bass and Satoshi Takeishi on the drums to WKCR before their new album -Continuous Beat- is released on November.
Here's his words on the trio: “I wanted to excite the listener with a new guitar trio experience. One that retains the warmth of the established trio sound but also employs electronics in order to expand the timbral pallet, especially for the melodies. Ultimately, this approach not only gives clarity to the solos but also keeps the listener’s aural sense stimulated.” More info on http://www.reztone.com/
Recorded on Friday, October 12th in WKCR studios. Engineered by Ahmet Ali Arslan.
Oumar Konate and Dramane Toure
Oumar Konate performs live at the WKCR studio joined by guitarist Dramane Toure, bassist Mohamed Ag Mohamed, and percussionist Mahalmadane Abbanassane. We were lucky to catch these gentlemen on their way to perform at Lincoln Center. Earlier in the summer they had been touring and recording with Tibuktu's Khaira Arby, the "Nightingale of the North."
Like Abdoulaye Alhassane of Podcast 49, Oumar was born in Gao in Northern Mali an area where all music has been silenced by extremists this year, we'll hear an interview with him about that along with his manager, the producer and music critic, Christopher Nolan. For more music recorded by Oumar check out Podcast 19.
Abdoulaye Alhassane performs live with Deep Sahara at WKCR in 2010. w/ Yacouba Diabate (Kora) Frederika Krier (Violin) and David Ellenbogen (guitar)
By Banning Eyre | April, 2007 [guitar player mg] Abdoulaye Alhassane Toure has brought string-picking wizardry from the desert towns of West Africa to the nightclubs of New York City. Born in 1963, in Niamey, Niger, to a Sonrai family from Gao, Mali, he passed his youth in a multi-ethnic neighborhood surrounded by Peul, Bambara, Sonrai, and other peoples, and as he put it, “They all played music.” Local radio filled his ears with the sinuous, bluesy strains of desert folklore and the melodious bombast of Mande griots. When his parents returned to Mali, Toure recalled, “They came back with cassettes by Ibrahim Hamma Dicko, Fissa Maiga, and Ali Farka Toure, who sang in a language we understood, and I was incredibly inspired by the originality of this music.” Toure’s musical gift became obvious when he started hanging out in the Niamey nightclub where his uncle, Johnny Ali Maiga, led a band. “Johnny Ali Maiga played folklore, like Ali Farka Toure,” said Toure, “But he also loved rock. His group was on the radio in Niamey, and it sounded like the Malian music I was listening to at home, but sung in Zerma, the national language of Niger.” By the early ’80s, Toure was playing guitar and flute, and his first band incorporated electric guitar, bass, drums, and brass, and merged regional folk styles with international pop. When the group took first prize in a national competition, Toure became a full-time musician. By the late ’80s, he was leading Super Kassey—the first Niamey band to travel abroad and record in a modern studio. Before long, Toure was working as a guitar instructor at the European-run Center for the Education and Promotion of Music. In 1992, Toure teamed up with singer/flutist Yacouba Moumouni to create Niger’s most successful roots pop band to date, Mamar Kassey. Mamar Kassey’s two electrifying CDs, Denke Denke (1999) and Alatoumi (2000) showcase Toure’s guitar mastery and formidable arranging skills. The music is rooted in tradition, but molded into brisk arrangements that include key modulations and bursts of solo improvisation. “Improvisation existed in Sonrai music,” explained Toure, “but in another form. In our ceremonies, there’s an original melody that is played by the kurbu [a 3-stringed lute]. When the energy rises between the players and the dancers, the kurbu player leaves his melody, and follows his heart. But if you tell that kurbu player to work with a modern group and ‘improvise,’ you have to explain to him what it means.” Mamar Kassey’s travels eventually brought Toure to New York City, where he now lives and performs with his current band, Deep Sahara. Toure can cradle an acoustic guitar and fingerpick his way through desert trance grooves, and he can also take up a flatpick, and wail on electric—edging desert folklore into the realm of blues and rock. One day, he plans to return to Niger to set up a studio and form an international touring band. For now, Toure is merely one of the most riveting African guitarists to be found in the United States.
Tomchess (Oud) and Shane Shanahan (Frame Drums and Percussion) performed live at WKCR on Sunday July 15, 2012.
Tomchess is a Multi-instrumentalist/Improviser/Composer. He plays Reeds, Western Flute, Arabic/Turkish Ney flute, Oud, and Guitar. He also has a history of using electronics /sampling/live-sampling/loops/fx. He has performed with Drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson' Decoding Society, Butch Morris's Sheng Skyscraper, recorded with Tenor players Dewey Redman, Pharoah Sanders, Morrocan Sintarist Hassan Hakmoun and Butch Morris. He has also led a guitar trio with Drummer Phil Haynes and bassist Drew Gress called Seven Times a Year. He has studied Middle/Near Eastern and West African musics, spending time in West Africa playing and performing.
He says:"...My inspiration is drawn from my evolving realizations of love and life; listening to an inner convergence, the rhythms of life, nature/city sounds, my experiences as a human being and artist and listening to music from all parts of the world. The deeper I listen, the more I hear unity/universals in how sound is used and celebrated, as well as differences. The World is chock-full of beautiful and multi-colored infinitudes of expression through sound. Music embraces within it the means to overcome and transcend religious, political and social boundaries as a powerful transformative vehicle. Its also simply just alot of fun. My playing is an expression of my past experiences re-coded into a vision through the present co-emergent moment towards beneficial future possibilities; its an expression of celebration.
Shane Shanahan with Yo Yo Ma and Colin Jacobson
Shane Shanahan has cultivated his own unique and highly sought after sound by combining his studies of drumming traditions from around the world with his background in jazz, rock and Western art music. His interest in other cultures has lead to extended visits to Turkey, India, and Tajikistan, among others. Shane’s rare set of diverse skills is what attracted Yo-Yo Ma when he was forming the Silk Road Ensemble. In the summer of 2000, Shane was invited to Tanglewood where he played an important role in the formation of the group. Ever since, he has been touring around the globe performing side-by-side with Mr. Ma as an original member of the award-winning Silk Road Ensemble. Shane's playing can be heard on all three of the ensemble's top-selling recordings for the SonyBMG label and the two most recent albums feature his arranging skills, as well. These arrangements have brought ecstatic audience to their feet in the top concert halls of North America, Europe and Asia. Shane can also be seen and heard on Mr. Ma's Grammy Award winning holiday CD/DVD release "Songs of Joy."
He is also a member of frame drum master Glen Velez' Handance Ensemble and cellist Maya Beiser's Provenance project. He has performed and/or recorded with Philip Glass, Alison Krause, Sonny Fortune, Fantasia,
Chaka Khan, G. E. Smith, Simon Shaheen, Jamey Haddad, Cyro Baptista,
Anindo Chaterjee, Sandeep Das, Shahram and Hafez Nazeri, Alim
Qasimov, Kayhan Kalhor, Howard Levy and Steve Gorn, among others.
Kiran Ahluwalia (vocals), Rez Abbasi (guitar), Nitin Mitta (tabla). Ragas Live Festival #24
11 pm-12 am during our 24 hour Ragas Live Festival.
Expressing her muse through ghazals and Punjabi folk songs, Kiran Ahluwalia explores the language of the heart with beautiful artistry and smoldering intensity. Born in India, raised in Canada, and now living in New York City, her enchanting and seductive music has garnered glowing praise from critics around the world. Her’s is “a voice destined to enchant more than one generation” (fROOTS) and she possesses “a deep spirituality and tranquility that borders on the mystic” (Sing Out Magazine). But most of all, Kiran Ahluwalia is a unique and inspiring performer and composer, who’s legion of fans continues to grow with every captivating performance and each new recording project.
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, removed at the age of four to relocate to Southern California, schooled at the University of Southern California and the Manhattan School of Music in jazz and classical music, as well as a pilgrimage in India under the tutorial of master percussionist, Ustad Alla Rakha, Rez Abbasi is a vivid synthesis of all the above stated influences and genres.
Making New York home for the past 18 years, Abbasi has developed a unique sound both as a composer and an instrumentalist and is considered by many to be one of the foremost modern jazz guitar players the world over. He has honed his skills with performances through out Europe, Canada, the U.S., Mexico and India. He has performed and recorded with many jazz greats including, Grammy winner Ruth Brown, Peter Erskine, Kenny Werner, Barre Phillips, Tim Hagans, Marc Johnson, Billy Hart, Marvin ‘Smitty’ Smith, Gary Thomas, Rick Margitza, DaveDouglas, DD Jackson, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Tony Malaby, George Brooks, PanditRonu Majumdar, Pandit Kadri Gopalnath, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, MarilynCrispell, Greg Osby, Howard Levy and a host of others.
Shanti Shivani (vocal), Peter Fagiola (pakhavaj). Ragas Live Festival # 21
11 am-12 pm during our 24 hour Ragas Live Festival.
Shanti Shivani is one of the few Western pioneers bringing the sacred traditions of Nada Yoga and Dhrupad, the most ancient style of Hindustani classical music, to the West. She brings a wealth of vocal, meditative, movement and experience to her classes and performances. She had the great fortune to be accepted as a paramparastudent of the premier family of the Dhrupad lineage, the Dagar family. Her first teacher was Dr. Ritwik Sanyal before continuing her studies with his gurus, the late rudra veena maestro Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and his brother Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar. Their family has been passing on the Dhrupad tradition for nineteen generations. Her studies with Ustad Rahim Fahimuddin Dagar enriched her understanding of Nada Yoga.
Camila Celin (sarod), Stephen Cellucci (tabla)
3-4 pm during our 24 hour Ragas Live Festival.
Sketched by Rachel Meirs.
Below is what the press has said about Camila Celin's beautiful guitar work. This afternoon the New York City was treated to her performance on the Sarod.
"Grammy nominated Guitarist Camila Celin strumms elegant classical tempos, occasionally sustaining violent bursts of flamenco with inhuman endurance, all while gracefully poised in her chair" ......The West County News ......“…her playing is profound unique, commanding, luminary. She plays a nylon string, flamenco, all these different techniques, modal scales… She is a well trained classical guitarist who also has the ability to improvise… Striking young female…” ......Gayle Olson- Director of Hilltown music ......“… I was especially amazed at the guitar playing of Camila. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the way her fingers were moving on that guitar like cutting hot butter." ......Roy Knowles- Director of Recovery of Spirit
Stephen Cellucci has studied tabla under the guidance of Pdt. Samir Chatterjee since 2000. He was initiated as a disciple of his Guruji in 2005 and has shared the stage with him several times since. He performed at the well-known Chhandayan All Night Concert of Indian Music in New York City in 2004 and 2009. He also has extensive experience playing with kirtans and accompanying dance -- both traditional Indian kathak and western modern forms.
Stephen's background in western classical music and piano complement his ongoing, rigorous study of Indian music. His scope of musical influences gives him the versatility to adapt the tabla to most any musical need. He resides, teaches, and plays in New York City
Ashvin Bhogendra (vocal), Arun Ramamurthy (violin), Akshay Anantapadmanabhan (mrigdanam).
9-1opm during our 24 hour Ragas Live Festival.
Ashvin Bhogendra (D.B. Ashvin) hails from a family of musicians. His maternal grandfather Kalaimamani Late Shri T.K.Rangachary is one of the doyens of Carnatic Music and his paternal great-grandfather Dharmavaram Ramakrishnamacharlu is one of the greatest playwrights of Telugu drama. Ashvin was initiated into carnatic vocal by his mother Smt Mallika Jayanth Kumar at the age of 5. Subsequently he was under the tutelage of B.Seetharama Sharma and KalaimamaniLate Shri Vairamangalam Lakshminarayanan for about 15 years. He is currently undergoing advanced training under Shri D Seshachary (Hyderabad Brothers). Ashvin has given concert performances in leading sabhas and organizations all over India and the USA.
Steve Gorn - Bansuri; Naren Budhakar - Tabla
Of all the Westerners who have approached Indian Raga, Steve Gorn has be considered to be the ones who has accomplished the most. We were very thankful he joined us for the raga festival.
Naren is a wonderful, versatile tabla player who has played with Shahid Parvez and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt on our show.
Here's his bio from website:
Steve Gorn is creating a new idiom, a music that combines the essence of classical Indian tradition with a contemporary world music sensibility. The strength of this music is grounded in a virtuoso mastery, generating a vibrant fusion, alive and accessible to western ears. From Indian classical music to world music and jazz projects with Paul Simon, Jack DeJohnette, Paul Winter and others, Steve infuses great mastery with a haunting, lyrical sweetness to bring the healing breath of the sacred to our demanding contemporary lives.
Steve’s first steps on this path were taken as a young jazz musician studying composition at Penn State. He noticed how John Coltrane and Charles Lloyd had begun to incorporate aspects of Indian music into their playing. He investigated modal music and listened to Bismallah Khan who played the shenai, (Indian oboe), and to Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan who were then only beginning to become known to Western audiences. Drawn by these sounds, he followed the music east and found himself in Benares, India in 1969, in a boat on the Ganges with the famous sarangi master, Gopal Misra, listening to his classical raga float out over the water in the evening light. I suddenly saw how this music went beyond notes, beyond what we think of as music. How it is, in truth, a yoga, a form of meditation, devotion, a form of love.
In Benares, Steve studied shenai with a local teacher and then traveled to Calcutta where he was invited to meet the Bengali bansuri master Sri Gour Goswami.
BANSURI MASTER SRI GOUR GOSWAMI
“We went to Hedwa in North Calcutta, passing through narrow lanes lined with sweet shops, tea stands and sari merchants. Bells were ringing from small neighborhood temples and the air was thick and pungent with everything from sandalwood incense to cow dung. We were directed to a doorway that led along a corridor into a small courtyard. A servant motioned to a room on the south end of the courtyard and we entered the stone compound.
Seated on the floor, in a circle, were six men all dressed in white. In the center of the circle was a robust middle-aged man, his feet tucked under his dhoti, his lips red from the betel-nut he was chewing. A cup of tea was at his side and a harmonium and flute case lay on the floor before him. This was the teacher I had heard so much about.
I was introduced in Bengali (although I learned later that these men spoke fluent English) and they proceeded to talk about me at length in a language I couldn’t understand. I stood there, grinning awkwardly, being discussed as if I were a specimen from Mars. Finally, the master looked at my flute case and said, “So, let me see your flute.” I took it out and gave it to him. He looked at it, shrugging his shoulders, “It’s not very good,” he said, “it’s not made right.” I started to say something but he continued, “Who did you learn from?” When I told him he let me know that I had learned from an insignificant person.
I was becoming annoyed at being so readily dismissed. I wanted to play for him and show him what I knew, but they continued to sip their tea, conversing endlessly in Bengali. Finally, they asked me to play a raga for them. I was very nervous by then but managed to play. When I finished, Gour Goswami said, “You have a good sense for this music, but you have not been taught properly.” He then took out his flute and played for me. The tone was deep, warm and velvety, utterly weightless. The raga unfolded and time stopped. It was breathtaking as the passages came faster and faster,
Snehasish Mozumder (Mandolin), Nitin Mitta (Tabla)
2 pm - 4 pm from our 24 hour Ragas Live Festival.
Snehasish Mozumder and Nitin Mitta performing at WKCR
In accordance with his family tradition, Snehasish Mozumder, born in 1967, started playing the tabla at the age of 4; first playfully, later conscientiously, he learned from his grandfather, Bibhuti Ranjan Mozumder until the age of 14. At the age of 10 (in keeping with family tradition), the mandolin was added as a second instrument. Here, his grandfather, his father, Himangshu Mozumder, his uncle, Ranjan Majumdar, and the latter´s son, Tejendra Narayan Majumdar, equally took care of instructions.
In 1983, Snehasish Mozumder was then to learn a "serious" instrument of Indian classical music, and so he began with playing the sitar under Pandit Ajoy Sinha Roy. Since Snehasish Mozumder never stopped imitating on the mandolin at home what he had learned on the sitar, Pandit Ajoy Sinha Roy agreed four years later to instruct him directly on the mandolin. After Roy´s passing, Snehasish Mozumder continued his education under Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty.
As a mile stone in his decade-long struggle for acceptance of the mandolin as an instrument of Northern Indian classical music, in November 2002 Snehasish Mozumder received an invitation from Pandit Ravi Shankar to the Royal Albert Hall (London) to participate in the George Harrison Memorial Concert (Concert for George). The modifications undertaken on his mandolin by Snehasish Mozumder and his special playing technique are increasingly taken up today by following generations of musicians.
Nitin Mitta is one of the most accomplished and distinctive tabla players of his generation, with a reputation for technical virtuosity, spontaneity, clarity of tone, and sensitivity to melodic nuances.
Apart from being a dynamic soloist, he is a highly sought after accompanist who has performed with some of India’s most celebrated Hindustani classical musicians, including Pandit Jasraj, Dr. Prabha Atre, Pandits Rajan and Sajan Mishra, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, and Ustad Shahid Parvez, as well as many Carnatic musicians, such as Lalgudi G.J.R Krishnan and Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi.
Nitin has also made a mark as a versatile collaborator in other spheres. He recently joined forces with 2010 Grammy Nominee Pianist Vijay Iyer and electric guitarist R. Prasanna to produce a studio album titled Tirtha that blends elements of contemporary jazz with the North and South Indian traditional ragas and compositions. Another collaboration with R. Prasanna can be heard on the soundtrack of the Oscar-winning documentary Smile Pinky. He has also performed and toured with singer and Juno Award nominee Kiran Ahluwalia.
Born in Hyderabad in 1975, Nitin received his early training in Hyderabad from Pandit G. Satyanarayana. Blessed with raw talent, he gave his first solo tabla performance at the age of ten. During his studies he won many accolades, including first prize in the All India Competition held in Calcutta. To expand his repertoire of tabla compositions, he sought the guidance of Pandit Arvind Mulgaonkar of Mumbai, one of the most highly respected mentors of his generation.
Under Mulgaonkarji’s tutelage, Nitin not only broadened his tabla vocabulary, but sharpened his understanding of how to bring the material to life in performances through interpretation, improvisation and respect for the dynamics between instrumentalist and rhythmic accompanist. Both of Nitin’s gurus are disciples of the late Ustad Amir Hussain Khan Saheb, legendary doyen of the Farukhabad Gharana.
After moving to the United States in 2002, Nitin received a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on Arts. He was a member of the faculty at the Learn Quest Academy of Music in Waltham, MA. He maintains a busy schedule of performances and tabla workshops, traveling throughout the U.S, Europe, Canada and India. He has performed at several prominent venues incl...
Dave Eggar is a cello virtuoso and one of our most frequent guests at WKCR - I am posting this short podcast up now because he'll be performing live today 6-9pm on May 2, 2012! A prodigy, he first played with Metropolitan Opera at the age of 7. He is not limited by genres, his latest album, Kingston Morning features legend of bluegrass Ralph Stanley, and reggae legends Sly and Robbie and Luciano. He's performed and recorded across the spectrum from Beyonce to Bon Jovi to Lucinda Williams to Michael Brecker. This sweet version of "Bird Cage" capped off an extended jam at WKCR. This group features Tom Perozzi on Bass and Chuck Palmer on drums.
Here's video of another performance of Dave and the Quartet on our show.
On Feb 5, 2012, Kaleidhaphonic treated the WKCR FM-NY listening audience to a live performance. It was a magical evening. Kaleidhaphonic is
Kevin Nathaniel Hylton - Mbira, Rattles, Shakere Tripp Dudley - Tabla Salieu Suso - Kora John Ragusa - Flutes, Conch Shell
Originally broadcast live on WKCR radio in NYC, this podcast features live performance and interview with Karavika. Karavika was formed by violinist Trina Basu and cellist Amali Premawardhana who created a sound that combines their love of the music from the golden age of Bollywood, Indian and Western classical traditions and improvisation. They perform live and are joined by bassist Perry Wortman and Sameer Gupta. Their new album Sunrise is now available as a pre-release at their website.
I'm back from the Sahara, and, as promised, have a ton of recordings to share with you. This special show was originally broadcast on WKCR on 89.9 FM-NY and features rough mixes of studio recordings with up and coming guitarist and pop star Oumar Konate, Griot Royalty Noura Mint Seymali from Mauritania recording exclusively for us in her flat in Timbuktu, artists from Niger informally jamming in their tents and the Festival Au Desert and much, much more. We'll hear this Takamba band in the photo above- they use a car battery and a PA and the flute ends up sounding just like Jimi Hendrix...
NYC Radio live will be heading to Timbuktu with the incredible singer Kiran Ahluwalia! Here we will hear an excerpt from a radio broadcast when we first met, and hear some of the tracks from her new album Aam Zameen: Common Ground. Future podcasts will feature musicians from the Festival in the Desert in Mali and other recordings I'll make, Inshallah, during my travels through Mali.
Abdoulaye Diabate
Abdoulaye Diabate from Mali has been called the greatest griot singer living in the United States.
We recorded this duo track in my studio this year and I thought that rather than selling it, I'd like to share it as a holiday gift to show appreciation to current and future friends who have been enjoying this podcast, Acoustic Mandala Project, or life in general. On this track, Abdoulaye plays rhythm guitar, bass, djembe and sings, I play some rhythm guitar and all the lead guitars. This is part of a bigger project called Abdoulaye Diabate's African Ladyland.
I hope you enjoy it and that you have a a wonderful New Year.
Here's a bio of Abdoulaye from Wikipedia:
Abdoulaye Diabaté was raised in the Mande tradition to a djali family (traditional musicians and story tellers). His brother Kasse Mady has achieved worldwide fame and his sister Mama Diabate is a great star in Guinea. At age 18, having developed into a formidable singer and guitarist he left his village.[1] He joined Tenetemba Jazz in Bemako, the capital of Mali.[1] In 1975, he moved to Abidjan in Ivory Coast where he formed his own band called Super Mande. Super Mande became one of the foremost ensembles in the capital performing all over the country. At times, some now most famous West African stars such as Salif Keita, Mory Kante and Ousmane Kouyate joined the group for performances. The career of Super Mande culminated with the release of their album "Wahabiadashi" which was eventually banned from airplay because the title track criticized hypocritical Marabouts (religious leaders). In the early nineties, Diabate was recruited as a star singer in the world renowned "Ballet Koteba" led by Souleymane Koli to replace Sekou Camara "Cobra" after his death; and also as rhythm-guitarist with the "Go de Koteba" the world famous women group. He toured the world with these ensemble for several years. In 1996, he relocated in New York City. He has since taken part in many cultural events as leader of the re-formed Super Mande group and with many collaborations with artists such as jazzman Don Byron, Peter Apfelbaum, Sean Noonan, and the groups Source and Fula Flute Ensemble.[3]
Hawaiian Guitar Virtuoso Jeff Peterson
Jahkey B., a musician and producer, has dedicated over a decade of his life to recording the music of Shamans of the Amazon. He came to WKCR recently with many of these recordings, some which have never been officially released. We’ll hear music from Don Solon Tello, Don Guillermo Ojanama and Jose Campos (aka Don Evangelino Murayay) curanderos of a lineage of traditional healing that spans hundreds of years. You can learn more about Jahkey and the albums at http://mamancuna.com/sounds/
Later in part 2 of this podcast – we’ll be joined by 2 musicians who perform live on the same show, Grammy Award winner Jeff Peterson of Hawaii and violinist Frederika Krier. Jeff and Jahkey will talk about the relationship between the roots music of Hawaii and the Amazonian sounds – there’s quite a connection.
Don Evangelino Murayay
Jahkey B., a musician and producer, has dedicated over a decade of his life to recording the music of Shamans of the Amazon. He came to WKCR recently with many of these recordings, some which have never been officially released. We'll hear music from Don Solon Tello, Don Guillermo Ojanama and Jose Campos (aka Don Evangelino Murayay) curanderos of a lineage of traditional healing that spans hundreds of years. You can learn more about Jahkey and the albums at http://mamancuna.com/sounds/
Later in part 2 of this podcast - we'll be joined by 2 musicians who perform live on the same show, Grammy Award winner Jeff Peterson of Hawaii and violinist Frederika Krier. Jeff and Jahkey will talk about the relationship between the roots music of Hawaii and the Amazonian sounds - there's quite a connection.
Cosmas Magaya
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.
Oran Etkin is a Grammy Nominated clarinetist and saxophone player, who has been making waves with his band Kelenia which combines his love of jazz and the music of West Africa. Featured in this live performance is Lionel Loueke of Benin, West Africa, one of the most exciting jazz musicians today. He's been playing with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter and coming out with amazing albums for Blue Note.
Oran Etkin and Lionel Loueke at WKCR
There is video from this session at WKCR
Famoro Dioubate is a master of the balafon from Guniea, West Africa. He performs live on the radio with Yacouba Cissoko on kora, Raul Rothblatt on cello and Sean Dixon on drums. We also hear him with his full ensemble Kakande. Famoro is djele, or griot, and his family have been an unbroken chain of musician/historians for almost 800 years.
A live set from the David Rogers and Kairos, an all-star band featuring Kenny Wessel, guitar; Sylvain Leroux, flutes, Matt Pavolka, Bass and Rob Garcia on Drums recorded a couple months ago at WKCR. Also a live recording from the Bernard Woma Ensemble on Jumbie Records. David Rogers is an artist who lived and studied in West Africa for many years and his music is deeply informed by those grooves and his jazz roots. Bernard Woma is a master of the gyil, the wooden xylophone of northern Ghana. He is the master drummer of the Ghana Dance Ensemble, Ghana's National Dance Company and keeps a busy schedule on 3 continents.
This week on WKCR we had an exciting live performance from the Arun Ramamurthy Quartet who combine traditional Carnatic (South Indian) music with some Western instruments like the drum kit and the double bass.
Arun Ramamurthy, violin; Perry Wortman, bass; Akshay Anantapadmanabhan, mridangam; Sameer Gupta, drums
Arun performs Carnatic music at the Cornelia Street Cafe on the fourth Sunday of every month and there will be a festival of Carnatic music there from Aug 15-17.
You can hear Sameer Gupta playing tabla with Srinivas Reddy on Sitar on podcast 3.
Thomas Mapfumo - Photo by George Estreich
Thomas Mapfumo, of Zimbabwe, is a revolutionary musician in every sense of the word. Musically, his band was one of the first to experiment with combining the mbira (thumb piano) and electric guitars and he was the first to put his own lyrics to traditional Shona melodies. Politically, these songs became the anthems of the freedom fighters during White minority rule.
When the revolution succeeded and Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, he continued to be a gadfly. He questioned the integrity of Robert Mugabe and the current government. He now lives in exile and while immensely popular his music is banned in the country where he is most beloved.
A couple recordings I made with a mini-disc recorder in Independent Samoa in 2002 0r 2003. Every Samoan can sing, if you started to sing a song on a public bus everyone would join you. The houses have thatched roofs and walls of woven leaves that are folded up during the daytime so the breeze sweeps through. Here are some pics: the father and son are from the Falonga Bay village in Upolo, where I recorded the outstanding youth chours.
Falonga Bay, Upolo, Samoa
Brandon Terzic's Xalam Project and Negar Bouban This special show features an Oud Virtuoso from Tehran, Negar Bouban, and an Oud Virtuoso based in New York, Brandon Terzic. They met and played together for the first time live on the air for this show. Brandon also brought his amazing band, Xalam Project. Xalam's line-up that evening was Luke Notary and Matt Kilmer on Percussion, Matt Darriau on winds and sax, Ethan Mees on Bass and Brandon on the Oud.
Kojiro Umezaki at WKCR Kojiro Umezaki - Shakuhachi- Live Performance and Interview This podcast features live performances and interview with Kojiro Umezaki, who plays the Japanese Zen instrument, the shakuhachi, a bamboo flute. While Kojiro performs the instrument traditionally, he is also experimenting with some new directions in music. Kojiro designs computer programs so that during performances the programs will generate sounds that react to his flute playing in the moment. We'll hear live performances with and without this technology and learn a lot about the history of this amazing instrument.
Kojiro Umezaki performs regularly with the Grammy-nominated Silk Road Ensemble and has recorded on the Sony BMG, World Village, and Smithsonian Folkways labels.
Abdoulaye Diabate
Live Performance from the Source featuring Abdoulaye Diabate, plus a demonstration of the fula flute and interview with the founder of the Source, Sylvain Leroux.
This episode features a demonstration of one of the signature techniques of the Fula Flute by Sylvain Leroux and a live performance recorded at the Zinc Bar by Erik Gunderson and originally aired on WKCR when Sylvain was my guest.
The lineup on the recording is
Sylvain Leroux -Fula Flute, Western flutes and Saxophone
Abdoulaye Diabate - Guitar and vocals
Bailo Bah - Fula Flute
Abdoulaye Alhassane - guitar
Mamadou Ba - Bass
Emi Yabuno - Keys
Sean Dixon - Drums
You can catch the Source the first Friday of the month and the Zinc Bar on 3rd street between Sullivan and Thomson in the West Village. Sylvain also has an exciting show coming up for the River to River festival on June 25 with his Fula Flute Ensemble.
Live performance and interview from Adam Rudolph. Adam Rudolph is a master percussionist, pioneer of world music, and creative music visionary. He came to the radio station to celebrate the release of his new album Both/And by his group Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures with the Organic Orchestra Strings. He also was kind enough to share an exclusive perfomance recorded live by Moving Pictures at the Painted Bride in 2010. The line-up for the live performance featured here, and the new album is: Adam Rudolph - handrumset (kongos, djembe, tarija, zabumba) thumb piano, bata (itotele), mouth bow, percussion
Ralph M. Jones - hulusi, bass clarinet, alto and c germanic flutes, soprano and tenor saxophones, bamboo trumpet, bamboo flutes
Joseph Bowie - trombone, organic/electronics, vocal, harmonica, congas, bamboo trumpet, percussion
Graham Haynes - cornet, flugelhorn, bamboo trumpet, percussion
Brahim Fribgane - oud, cajon, bendir, tarija, percussion
Kenny Wessel - electric and acoustic guitars, banjo
Jerome Harris - acoustic bass guitar, slide guitar, vocal
Matt Kilmer - frame drums, kanjira, bata (okonkolo), percussion
Many thanks to Adam for sharing this amazing performance with us!
This podcast is a beautiful live performance by Srinivas Reddy and Sameer Gupta when they came to the studio to celebrate the release of their album Hemant and Jog in December of '08.
Sameer, who is great tabla player and jazz drummer, has recently released an amazing album on Motema called Namaskar. The lineup includes jazz musicians like pianist Mark Cary, who co-produced the album, and maestros of Indian Raga such as Pt. Anindo Chatterjee and Pt. Ramesh Mishra.
Srini has been busy since then as well. He just published a book called The Giver of the Worn Garland: Krishnadevaraya's Amuktamalyada The work is a literary translation of a famous Telugu epic that poetically describes the devotional love of the ninth century South Indian mystic Antal.
These are some heavy cats!
Wasifuddin Dagar comes from the most famous lineage of singers of an ancient style of Indian raga called Druhpad. He is part of an unbroken chain of generations of musicians in his family that has lasted over 400 years. He started his training with his father at 5 years old. In this musical interview, he both speaks of the philosophy behind this ancient style and sings to exemplify the elements behind this deep, emotional and spiritual style.
McCoy Tyner is true jazz royalty. He’s recorded over 50 albums as a leader and, with John Coltrane, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones, created the sound which critics refer to as John Coltrane’s “Classic Quartet.” This group’s transcendent sound completely changed the course of music. Sitting down with him for a discussion was one of the great honors of my life.
John Coltrane and McCoyTyner
The Mandingo Abassadors are a classic band, half from West-Africa and half from Brooklyn. Their leader Mamady Kouyate, from Guinea is best known as the guitarist in the classic Bembeya Jazz National.
They were happy enough with the sound I got in the studio that they released the recordings from that session as a album:
Ismael Kouyate – vocals; Mamady Kourouma – guitar; Oran Etkin – tenor sax & clarinets; Sylvain Leroux – flute, tambin and alto sax; Andy Algire – drums; Nick Cudahy – bass and Mamady Kouyate – guitar.