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...

This live set is from San Rafael, CA, USA Alam Khan  -sarod

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,...

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...

This is the first podcast release of a set from Ragas Live Festival 2019.  The event was broadcast live on WKCR 89.9 FM-NY in front of an enthusiastic audience at Pioneer Works.   Saraswathi Ranganthan is performing the veena here and was joined by her Raghavan Sai on Mridangam.  In a spontaneous decision Swaminathan Selvganesh who had played an amazing set earlier in the evening sat in on the set. Ragas Live Festival is a 24 hour annual broadcast with over 60 musicians.  We will return in...

 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!  

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.      

William Parker is a force in music and if you listen his words, he'll change your mind about what exactly the mystery of music might be. He will be performing this big double bill on March 4th: SOUNDS OF JUSTICE: SUN RA ARKESTRA AND WILLIAM PARKER'S INSIDE SONGS OF CURTIS MAYFIELDi  This is a celebration of 25 years of the Vision Festival. We had an amazing conversation until the batteries ran out on my recorder...enjoy!

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...

In this episode we chat with Dorit Chrysler director of of the  NY Theramin 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 the first international school for Theremin, KidCoolThereminSchool and L’Ecole Theremine with branches in NY and Paris. As much as the Theremin is a tool in...

A broadcast of the brilliant pianist made at his home in Brooklyn before he moved North.  

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 became nationally known as an exceptional lead flatpicker, winning the World Championship Cup at Union Grove, North Carolina with the New York Ramblers (which also included...

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 Big Band, Maria Schneider’s Orchestra, the Tonight Show Band (Roots) and other soloists from the NY/Brooklyn jazz/soul/studio...

On the heels of their highly successful event featuring Brooklyn Raga Massive, Alexandre Tannous and NYC Radio Live 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, a composer, musician, ethnomusicologist and researcher came to WKCR to speak about Gnawa music and trance to get us ready for the event.     Alexandre Tannous has...

The great young carnatic Roopa Mahadevan, comes to WKCR to share a sneak preview of her upcoming album, Roopa in 6 Yards. As spontaneous and joyful as the singer herself, the album is refreshing and uncompromising exploration of a wide range of compositions from the Carnatic cannon.  With this recording Roopa is bound to expand the audience for this traditional music. 

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....

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 through the rhythms of their respective cultures? Based in the rhythms of Tap (Amanda Castro), Flamenco (Arielle Rosales) and...

An intimate live session with two of the members of Madagascar's super-group, Toko Telo:  Monka Njavaa and Joël Rabesolo. Monika Njava, voice & percussion“The voice of Madagascar.” Banning Eyre, Afropop Worldwide Celebrated across Madagascar as the national diva, Monika Njava sang lead with Njava, recording two critically acclaimed albums for EMI. She has recorded with platinum-selling Deep Forest and continues to perform with the band. A solo world-pop album, Haizina, featured musicians...

A chat with Lucibela the great singer from Capo Verde who is bringing her countries music to the US right now with a 14 state tour.   

We have a chat with Alexandre Tannous, a leading sound researcher, sound therapist and ethnomusicologist.  On 9/18/19 Alexandre will lead an experiential exploration of the effects of this unique system of sound, consciousness, and spirituality with key members Brooklyn Raga Massive. To deepen the experience we sat had a wide ranging discussion about the effects of sound.  Alexandre Tannous has been active as a musician, educator, composer, and as an ethnomusicologist. He holds a Bachelor of...