Deep Focus

This week's show is a Deep Focus unlike any other. It's actually more like one of those sports movies in which The Kid gets to go into the championship game with his big league hero. The hero, in this case, is none other than Jaki Byard (the subject of Deep Focus episodes with both Graham Haynes and with Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran) and the part of The Kid is played by drummer Roy Weinberger.

Jaki Byard booked a date at SUNY-Binghamton in 1981 and asked the students to provide half of a band for him to play with. The students didn't have to think too hard about whom to call; Roy and his brother, alto saxophonist Bob Weinberger, were pretty much the heaviest cats in town. Was being big fish in that little pond enough to get them through the raging river of a performance with Jaki Byard? Tune in to find out. We have documentary evidence! This one is truly fascinating.

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #JakiByard #RoyWeinberger #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

Photo credit: Jaki Byard By Source, Fair use en.wikipedia.org-w-index.php-curid=50315026

This week's show is a Deep Focus unlike any other. It's actually more like one of those sports movies in which The Kid gets to go into the championship game with his big league hero. The hero, in this case, is none other than Jaki Byard (the subject of Deep Focus episodes with both Graham Haynes and with Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran) and the part of The Kid is played by drummer Roy Weinberger.

Jaki Byard booked a date at SUNY-Binghamton in 1981 and asked the students to provide half of a band for him to play with. The students didn't have to think too hard about whom to call; Roy and his brother, alto saxophonist Bob Weinberger, were pretty much the heaviest cats in town. Was being big fish in that little pond enough to get them through the raging river of a performance with Jaki Byard? Tune in to find out. We have documentary evidence! This one is truly fascinating.

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #JakiByard #RoyWeinberger #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

Photo credit: Jaki Byard By Source, Fair use en.wikipedia.org-w-index.php-curid=50315026

This week's show is a Deep Focus unlike any other. It's actually more like one of those sports movies in which The Kid gets to go into the championship game with his big league hero. The hero, in this case, is none other than Jaki Byard (the subject of Deep Focus episodes with both Graham Haynes and with Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran) and the part of The Kid is played by drummer Roy Weinberger.

Jaki Byard booked a date at SUNY-Binghamton in 1981 and asked the students to provide half of a band for him to play with. The students didn't have to think too hard about whom to call; Roy and his brother, alto saxophonist Bob Weinberger, were pretty much the heaviest cats in town. Was being big fish in that little pond enough to get them through the raging river of a performance with Jaki Byard? Tune in to find out. We have documentary evidence! This one is truly fascinating.

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #JakiByard #RoyWeinberger #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

Photo credit: Jaki Byard By Source, Fair use en.wikipedia.org-w-index.php-curid=50315026

How many drummers can you name who changed the whole conversation, just with their playing? Like, to the point that they became the North Star for the next generation or two? How many of those were also great bandleaders, and maybe even solid composers? It’s a short list by anybody’s count but one name you are probably already thinking of is Jack DeJohnette.

 

Drummer Pheeroan Aklaff joins Mitch Goldman in putting DeJohnette in Deep Focus. Mitch, of course, has some dazzling live music from the archives that you’ve probably never heard. DeJohnette's band Special Edition is ripe for rediscovery.

 

 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #PheeroanakLaff #JackDeJohnette #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

 

Photo credit: Roberto Masotti

How many drummers can you name who changed the whole conversation, just with their playing? Like, to the point that they became the North Star for the next generation or two? How many of those were also great bandleaders, and maybe even solid composers? It’s a short list by anybody’s count but one name you are probably already thinking of is Jack DeJohnette.

 

Drummer Pheeroan Aklaff joins Mitch Goldman in putting DeJohnette in Deep Focus. Mitch, of course, has some dazzling live music from the archives that you’ve probably never heard. DeJohnette's band Special Edition is ripe for rediscovery.

 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #PheeroanakLaff #JackDeJohnette #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

 

Photo credit: Roberto Masotti

How many drummers can you name who changed the whole conversation, just with their playing? Like, to the point that they became the North Star for the next generation or two? How many of those were also great bandleaders, and maybe even solid composers? It’s a short list by anybody’s count but one name you are probably already thinking of is Jack DeJohnette.

 

This Monday, drummer Pheeroan Aklaff joins Mitch Goldman in putting DeJohnette in Deep Focus. Mitch, of course, has some dazzling live music from the archives that you’ve probably never heard. DeJohnette's band Special Edition is ripe for rediscovery.

 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #PheeroanakLaff #JackDeJohnette #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

 

Photo credit: Roberto Masotti

Want a hot-button issue for a Jazz listener? Just mention "electric Miles." If you really want to get them going, talk about the profoundly disruptive years, 1973 to 1975. Some will gush about it-- "visionary," "powerhouse," "mind-bending"-- while others, like Wynton Marsalis, will dismiss Miles at this time as, "...on the bandstand looking like, basically, a buffoon.”

But in neither case does the respondent often look under the hood. How did this band actually work? Who was directing the music's movement? How were they doing it? What was the nature of the conversation that was happening in the music? The truth is that, love it or hate it, few people actually know the answers to these questions.

One exception: Mitch Goldman's guest on this Deep Focus from 2011, cornetist Graham Haynes. Graham was introduced to Miles as a kid. Then, as a 14-year-old, he hung out on Miles' block until Miles invited him in to the band's rehearsals. Graham actually witnessed the creation of this music and, being the far-reaching bandleader that he is as an adult, he talks about the music with rare passion and insight. Plus, y'know, the WKCR archives bring the ruckus.

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #GrahamHaynes #MilesDavis #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzRockFusion #JazzPodcast

 

Photo credit: Miles_Davis - JPRoche - CC BY-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org-licenses-by-sa-4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Want a hot-button issue for a Jazz listener? Just mention "electric Miles." If you really want to get them going, talk about the profoundly disruptive years, 1973 to 1975. Some will gush about it-- "visionary," "powerhouse," "mind-bending"-- while others, like Wynton Marsalis, will dismiss Miles at this time as, "...on the bandstand looking like, basically, a buffoon.”

But in neither case does the respondent usually look under the hood. How did this band actually work? Who was directing the music's movement? How were they doing it? What was the nature of the conversation that was happening in the music? The truth is that, love it or hate it, few people actually know the answers to these questions.

One exception: Mitch Goldman's guest on this Deep Focus from 2011, cornetist Graham Haynes. Graham was introduced to Miles as a kid. Then, as a 14-year-old, he hung out on Miles' block until Miles invited him in to the band's rehearsals. Graham actually witnessed the creation of this music and, being the far-reaching bandleader that he is as an adult, he talks about the music with rare passion and insight. Plus, y'know, the WKCR archives bring the ruckus.

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #GrahamHaynes #MilesDavis #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzRockFusion #JazzPodcast

 

Photo credit: Miles_Davis - JPRoche - CC BY-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org-licenses-by-sa-4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

On the next Deep Focus, the band that rewrote all the rules, Joseph Bowie's Defunkt. Bassist Oren Bloedow joins host Mitch Goldman, not to listen to the band's narrow studio discography, but to revel in some of the live shows from the early Eighties that made this band one of the world's most notorious dance floor destroyers (and little did those gambolers realize that they were grooving to the trombone skronker from the Human Arts Ensemble and Black Artists Group... OR DID THEY?!).

 

 

We now have over 150 episodes with more going up every week. Join our thousands of listeners in over 40 countries.

 

Photo credit: courtesy of Hannibal Records

On the next Deep Focus, the band that rewrote all the rules, Joseph Bowie's Defunkt. Bassist Oren Bloedow joins host Mitch Goldman, not to listen to the band's narrow studio discography, but to revel in some of the live shows from the early Eighties that made this band one of the world's most notorious dance floor destroyers (and little did those gambolers realize that they were grooving to the trombone skronker from the Human Arts Ensemble and Black Artists Group... OR DID THEY?!).

 

 

We now have over 150 episodes with more going up every week. Join our thousands of listeners in over 40 countries.

 

Photo credit: courtesy of Hannibal Records