Deep Focus

From the outside, Big Ideas seem to emerge in one complete piece. But If you find yourself inside them, either because you are part of their genesis or because your focused attention has brought you wisdom, you might see the narrative very differently. You might see it as an assemblage of parts, as an ongoing discussion among bright, divergent minds.

 

Guitarist Vernon Reid has been part of creating a few Big Ideas and he has peeped the inner workings of quite a few more. On Deep Focus this week, he expounds on the band Weather Report during their crucial mid-Seventies period. Host Mitch Goldman brings rare, live recordings from the WKCR archives, recordings that reveal a band playing trailblazing music for enormous crowds of adoring fans. As always, Vernon brings the urbane, the incisive and the hilarious.

 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #VernonReid #WeatherReport #LivingColour #JoeZawinul #WayneShorter #AlphonsoJohnson #Fusion #JazzRockFusion #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

 

Photo credit: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

From the outside, Big Ideas seem to emerge in one complete piece. But If you find yourself inside them, either because you are part of their genesis or because your focused attention has brought you wisdom, you might see the narrative very differently. You might see it as an assemblage of parts, as an ongoing discussion among bright, divergent minds.

 

Guitarist Vernon Reid has been part of creating a few Big Ideas and he has peeped the inner workings of quite a few more. On Deep Focus this week, he expounds on the band Weather Report during their crucial mid-Seventies period. Host Mitch Goldman brings rare, live recordings from the WKCR archives, recordings that reveal a band playing trailblazing music for enormous crowds of adoring fans. As always, Vernon brings the urbane, the incisive and the hilarious.

 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #VernonReid #WeatherReport #LivingColour #JoeZawinul #WayneShorter #AlphonsoJohnson #Fusion #JazzRockFusion #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

 

Photo credit: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Many people think it was Miles Davis who first fused Rock and Jazz. Sorry, folks: Tony Williams got there sooner (and louder!). His band Lifetime gave musicians from both genres an infinite array of new roads to explore and no one flew farther and faster down them than drummer Billy Cobham. Cobham was already established in the Jazz scene when Lifetime emerged in 1969 but his work with Miles, with Mahavishnu Orchestra and with his own ensembles revealed possibilities that not even Tony Williams had considered. This was surely the journey of a Lifetime.

In 2013, Billy Cobham joined host Mitch Goldman for a memorable Deep Focus on some rare live recordings of Tony Williams’ Lifetime. Truly, this is one of the Great Secret Vaults. If you know, you know (and if you don’t, now you do).


#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #BillyCobham #TonyWilliams #JazzRadio #JazzRockFusion #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

Photo credit: Gisle Hannemyr, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons

Many people think it was Miles Davis who first fused Rock and Jazz. Sorry, folks: Tony Williams got there sooner (and louder!). His band Lifetime gave musicians from both genres an infinite array of new roads to explore and no one flew farther and faster down them than drummer Billy Cobham. Cobham was already established in the Jazz scene when Lifetime emerged in 1969 but his work with Miles, with Mahavishnu Orchestra and with his own ensembles revealed possibilities that not even Tony Williams had considered. This was surely the journey of a Lifetime.

In 2013, Billy Cobham joined host Mitch Goldman for a memorable Deep Focus on some rare live recordings of Tony Williams’ Lifetime. Truly, this is one of the Great Secret Vaults. If you know, you know (and if you don’t, now you do).

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #BillyCobham #TonyWilliams #JazzRadio #JazzRockFusion #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

Photo credit: Gisle Hannemyr, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons

McCoy Tyner was one of the many greats who we lost in this year of Covid-19 but the light his music shines on the music world is as bright as ever. Had he not been an anchor of what many consider the greatest ensemble of all time-- the classic Coltrane Quartet-- he would still be revered as a mighty innovator: a seeker who sought new, higher ground and took us all there with him. But he WAS a vital part of that band; in fact, he was the last surviving member. He was!

 

Saxophonist Eric Person has been a dedicated Tynerologist for most of his days. He and host Mitch Goldman take us through some rare live recordings in this Deep Focus from 2011.

 

 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #EricPerson #McCoyTyner #JazzRadio #JazzInterview

 

Photo credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/.../13/Mccoy_Tyner_1973_gh.jpg

 

McCoy Tyner was one of the many greats who we lost in this year of Covid-19 but the light his music shines on the music world is as bright as ever. Had he not been an anchor of what many consider the greatest ensemble of all time-- the classic Coltrane Quartet-- he would still be revered as a mighty innovator: a seeker who sought new, higher ground and took us all there with him. But he WAS a vital part of that band; in fact, he was the last surviving member. He was!

 

Saxophonist Eric Person has been a dedicated Tynerologist for most of his days. He and host Mitch Goldman take us through some rare live recordings in this Deep Focus from 2011.

 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #EricPerson #McCoyTyner #JazzRadio #JazzInterview

 

Photo credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/.../13/Mccoy_Tyner_1973_gh.jpg

Say the name “Jimmy Lyons” to lovers of creative music and they will immediately think of Cecil Taylor. The bounty that Lyons’ work on alto sax brought to Taylor’s music was one of the most fruitful and enduring in the history of the music. But Eric Person knows that Lyons was also a bandleader in his own right and that, while he will always be associated with the ferocious innovator with whom he played for 20 years, had the two never met, we would still be talking about Lyons 30+ years after his death. His sound and his concept are without compare.

 

See ya on the radio!

 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #JimmyLyons #EricPerson #JazzRadio #JazzInterview

 

Photo credit: Brianmcmillen, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Say the name “Jimmy Lyons” to lovers of creative music and they will immediately think of Cecil Taylor. The bounty that Lyons’ work on alto sax brought to Taylor’s music was one of the most fruitful and enduring in the history of the music. But Eric Person knows that Lyons was also a bandleader in his own right and that, while he will always be associated with the ferocious innovator with whom he played for 20 years, had the two never met, we would still be talking about Lyons 30+ years after his death. His sound and his concept are without compare.

 

See ya on the radio!

 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #JimmyLyons #EricPerson #JazzRadio #JazzInterview

 

Photo credit: Brianmcmillen, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Say the name “Jimmy Lyons” to lovers of creative music and they will immediately think of Cecil Taylor. The bounty that Lyons’ work on alto sax brought to Taylor’s music was one of the most fruitful and enduring in the history of the music. But Eric Person knows that Lyons was also a bandleader in his own right and that, while he will always be associated with the ferocious innovator with whom he played for 20 years, had the two never met, we would still be talking about Lyons 30+ years after his death. His sound and his concept are without compare.

 

See ya on the radio!

 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #JimmyLyons #EricPerson #JazzRadio #JazzInterview

 

Photo credit: Brianmcmillen, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Some musicians seem to emerge fully formed. It’s as if they just show up doing what they do and reliably keep doing it as long as there is breath. Others seem to be on an eternal search for new ways of expressing and identifying themselves; Geri Allen was one of these. Maybe that is part of why the death of this brilliant, soulful, inventive pianist in 2017 at age 60 was so heartbreaking for the music world. She hadn’t finished! There was so much left to say.

We continue our month of Deep Focus programs with composer/bandleader/reed man Eric Person.  In this rebroadcast from 2018, he and host Mitch Goldman will explore the supergroup Geri Allen co-led with drummer Paul Motian and bassist Charlie Haden. Oh, this is the good stuff!

 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #GeriAllen #EricPerson #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

 

Photo credit: Bryan Thompson, CC BY 2.0 creativecommons.org-licenses-by-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.