2024.10.14 Kenny Wessel on Badal Roy - 1 of 3

Here's another Ph.D. topic for you: Miles Davis vs. Ornette Coleman. Both blazingly original innovators lived most of their lives in Manhattan and they were roughly contemporaries (Miles was 4 years older) so they drew from the same talent pool to make up their bands.  But across 30+ years of simultaneous bandleading and the hiring of dozens and dozens of sidemen, how many can you think of who toured and recorded extensively with both?  We've got one for you: tabla player Badal Roy.  

 

And Badal Roy did so much more than play with those two giants!  His bubbling groove and enormous sonic textures can be heard on albums by everyone from Yoko Ono to Richie Havens, John McLaughlin to Pharoah Sanders, not to mention half a dozen albums under his own leadership.  He died in 2022.

 

But if you talk to those who knew him, they all speak of a singular warmth, humanity, and unabashed joy.  Maybe that, more than the pure musicianship, is what caught the ear of Miles and Ornette in the first place.  

 

Few know this better than guitarist Ken Wessel. Wessel toured and recorded with Badal Roy in Ornette's band for 13 years, and the two worked on a number of their own projects together.  Wessel will be celebrating Badal Roy in this week's Ragas Live Festival in Brooklyn.  

 

Deep Focus host Mitch Goldman is delighted to welcome Ken Wessel to the WKCR studios this Monday (10/14) from 6pm to 9pm NYC time.  It's on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR-HD or wkcr.org.  Or join us next week when it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/.  Subscribe right now to get notifications when new episodes are posted.  It's ad-free, all free, totally non-commercial.  

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Photo credit: source unknown.

 

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