Big Ears: Conversations About Music

What does it mean to be a curious listener?  In this episode, recorded live at Big Ears 2026, author and music journalist Liz Pelly joins legendary WNYC radio host John Schaefer to explore the art of curious listening — and what we risk losing in the age of algorithmic recommendations. Alongside guitarist Yasmin Williams, saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi, and musician/podcaster Bob Holmes, they unpack how streaming services reduce listeners to data profiles, and why the music that changes your life rarely comes from a playlist built for you.  From Guitar Hero to Tokyo listening bars, vinyl collections to trusted curators, these five share habits, communities, and happy accidents that shaped their musical lives.  In the process, they make the case that real discovery requires friction, surprise, and a willingness to sit with something you don't always immediately like or understand.

John Zorn’s musical world resists any sort of tidy summation. A constellation of projects that refuse genre’s pull, a deeply-embedded philosophy of artistic risk, and an appetite for assembling untested combinations. 

Recorded during Big Ears 2026, this panel of Zorn collaborators assembled by journalist Hank Shteamer, on the 10 year anniversary of an article he published in Rolling Stone exploring Zorn’s explorations into metal and heavy rock. In that article, vocalist and Mr. Bungle/Fantomas founder Mike Patton says Zorn “made the world bigger,” through endless curiosity and a constant desire to expand his own musical world, while also expanding the musical horizons of his collaborators and the audience.

Classical soprano Barbara Hannigan recalls a lunch in New York after which a forbiddingly difficult score landed in her inbox, a test that reshaped her craft over several years. Former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo remembers meeting Zorn at Slim’s and being coaxed from metal’s strictures into the wild freedoms of Cobra and Xu Fang. John Medeski tells of an early ’90s organ‑trio experiment that began with curiosity and, after years away, turned into a sustained collaboration. And bassist Jorge Roeder describes a meeting in a Thai restaurant that led to an ongoing series of projects in which he found himself handpicked for myriad sonic constellations.
Listening to each of these musician’s stories, one begins to appreciate the care John Zorn takes in shaping his world as a laboratory for experimentation. Where music serves as an ongoing experiment in attention, courage, and the ever‑expanding possibility of sound.

At Big Ears 2026, legendary producer Joe Boyd sat down with Big Ears & Bonnaroo founder Ashley Capps and filmmaker Robert Gordon for a conversation around festival culture, prompted by Gordon’s documentary Newport and the Great Folk Dream, which centers on the night Bob Dylan went electric at Newport in 1965.  

Boyd, who was production manager at Newport that summer at age 22, offers a firsthand account of the moment he calls the birth of a genre. He recalls the fracture that follows.  Their conversation doubles as a tribute to Newport Jazz & Folk and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest founder George Wein, who is responsible for the American music festival itself, a template for all others that would follow.  Gordon connects his own festival education directly to Wein’s curatorial legacy, while Capps traces his path from hearing music on records from Newport in his childhood home to founding numerous festivals. 

Meanwhile, Boyd closes the loop, observing that the intimacy of Big Ears feels, to him, like a full circle moment, hearkening back to the spirit of what Newport felt like back in those early days.

In this episode of Big Ears: Conversations About Music, Big Ears founder Ashley Capps sits down with saxophonist, composer, and producer Josh Johnson to explore his inspired guest curation for this year’s festival.  Josh and Ashley dig into their feelings on context, discovery and the irreplaceable human element of curation. They discuss the constellation of creative artists Johnson describes as “exceeding the frame,” refusing to be contained by genre or expectation — including Cleo Reed, Qur’an Shaheed, Will Graefe, Chicago Underground Duo, Marquis Hill, Twin Talk, and DeAntoni Parks.  This intimate talk reveals some of the secret sauce behind Big Ears' curation and how deep listening is at the heart of everything we do.

Flutist and taiko drummer Kaoru Watanabe discusses Bloodlines Interwoven, a multi-year project exploring heritage, immigration, and diaspora through music and storytelling. The son of Japanese immigrants and symphonic musicians, Watanabe’s path has included formative time on a remote Japanese island, years touring with the taiko ensemble Kodo, and collaborations with Yo-Yo Ma, Laurie Anderson, Jason Moran, André 3000, and the Silkroad Ensemble.  Launched in 2024 with support from the Mellon Foundation, Loghaven Artist Residency, and the Aslan Foundation, Bloodlines Interwoven brings together musicians and storytellers to transform family histories into shared creative work. At Big Ears 2026, the project unfolds across three performances at venues throughout downtown Knoxville.  Journalist and music critic Larry Blumenfeld has followed the project since its inception. He joins Watanabe for a conversation about its origins, and how it will comes to life at Big Ears.

Today we have an incredibly rare interview with NEA Jazz Master Pat Metheny, who appears for the first time ever at Big Ears 2026 with his Side-Eye project. One of the most prolific and influential guitarists, bandleaders and composers, Metheny has spent the last 50 years making music with the likes of Gary Burton, Ornette Coleman, Chick Corea, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Antonio Carlos Jobim, John Zorn and Meshell Ndegeocello. Here we present him in conversation with WRTI's Nate Chinen.  The 20-time Grammy winner is a lyrical and versatile musician who has seemingly played with almost everyone.  In this insider's interview, Pat discusses his collaborations with legends of yesteryear: Burton, Jaco Pastorius, Jack DeJohnette, and Roy Haynes. He discusses his contemporary tribe including Brad Mehldau, Antonio Sanchez and Christian McBride; and a new generation of players, particularly drummers, Joe Dyson and Marcus Gilmore.  Metheny reflects on the recent growth of his band-leading concept, his admiration for sincerity in music and how truly difficult it is to write one good song. He also opines about Big Ears as a world-renowned pilgrimage destination for serious music heads.

Guitarist Nels Cline has been thinking about Lovers for most of his adult life. First imagined in the early 1980s as a darker, more bruised meditation on romance, Lovers slowly evolved as Cline evolved himself. When the album finally emerged in 2016 after 30 years of gestation on Blue Note Records, it had become something far more expansive and inviting—a sweeping meditation on intimacy, vulnerability, and emotional truth. On this episode, journalist Natalie Weiner joins Cline and trumpeter-arranger Michael Leonhart to reflect on the long road to Lovers: a project built from unlikely but complementary dualities—lush orchestration and jazz improvisation, American Songbook standards alongside music by Annette Peacock, Jimmy Giuffre, The Ambitious Lovers, and even Sonic Youth.

Along the way, they discuss the musicians who shaped Cline’s musical language, from Jim Hall to Marc Ribot, and the surprising touchstones that helped unify the work. Cline and Leonhart talk about bringing the music to the stage, joined by the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra—for a one-of-a-kind performance at Big Ears 2026.

Guitar legend Marc Ribot in dialogue with guest host, cultural critic Larry Blumenfeld (WSJ, The Nation). A true original, Ribot has always gone his own way, recording over two dozen records as a leader, while appearing on an estimated 600 or so albums by others - from Tom Waits’ singular Rain Dogs to Alison Krauss & Robert Plant’s Raising Sand; plus the likes of Elvis Costello, Henry Grimes, John Zorn, Wilson Pickett and Marianne Faithfull. Here, Marc reflects on his early experiences on the New York music scene and his singular evolution as an artist; shares thoughts about the three projects he’s bringing to Big Ears 2026, and discusses his activism, specifically the challenges facing musicians in an age of streaming and AI, and what it means to create—and organize—in ever-changing times.

In this special edition of Big Ears: Conversations About Music, four deeply engaged listeners -Ayana Contreras, Piotr Orlov, Liz Pelly, and Steve Smith - survey the sounds that moved them in 2025—offering a preview of just a few of the highlights in store for Big Ears 2026. The conversation encompasses a fiercely prolific Downtown innovator (John Zorn), a wide embrace of the contemporary classical landscape (JACK Quartet, Hania Rani); fiercely independent rock bands (Deerhoof, YHWH Nailgun); folk music deeply rooted in history and identity (Haley Heynderickx, Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band) gospel music ripe for the dance floor (Annie & The Caldwells), two vastly different fusions of electronics and improvisation (Patricia Brennan & Flying Lotus) and two trumpeters from Baltimore & Chicago whose sound is deeply informed by local community and collaborators (Brandon Woody & Marquis Hill). This episode offers the kind of snapshot of outsider music scenes that only Big Ears can offer. Explore the common and contrasting musical DNA that defines our ethos. Give it a listen!

Tracks Played in this Episode:

Annie & the Caldwells

• I Made It

• Don’t You Hear Me Calling

Marquis Hill

• I Promise to Listen

• The Cool

Brandon Woody

• Real Love, Pt. I

• We, Ota Benga

John Zorn (Masada / related works)

• Jachin (Masada Quartet – Live at Tonic 2001)

• Sacred Beasts (John Zorn & Dave Lombardo – Memories, Dreams & Reflections)

JACK Quartet

• Conjurations (from Necronomicon, Complete String Quartets)

• Spectral Waves (from Waves & Particles)

Hania Rani

• Chilling Bambino (from Ghosts)

• Piano Concerto “Non-Fiction”: I

YHWH Nailgun

• Penetrator

• Castrato Raw (Fullback)

Flying Lotus

• Ingo Swann

• Arkestry

Patricia Brennan

• Palo de Oros (Suit of Coins)

• Antilia

Deerhoof

• Kingtoe

Haley Heynderickx

• Song for Alicia

• This Morning I Am Born Again

Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band

• New Threats From the Soul (Studio)

• New Threats From the Soul (Live in Cambridge)

On this episode of Big Ears: Conversations About Music, journalist and author Marcus J. Moore sits down with the formidable LA-based saxophonist, composer and producer Josh Johnson, a ubiquitous presence in today’s jazz scene. Big Ears' Ashley Capps was so taken by Johnson’s many performances at Big Ears 2025 that he asked him to curate a series of seven concerts at our 2026 festival. He’ll join Ashley on a future podcast to talk about his curation. Meanwhile, here we shine a light on his warm exploratory sound, often enhanced by electronics. The conversation moves from his early influences, digs into his critically-acclaimed solo records Freedom Exercise and Unusual Object, and discusses his collaborations with Leon Bridges, Jeff Parker and producing Me'shell Ndegeocello's GRAMMY-winning The Omnichord Real Book.  Lastly, we hear about the origins of his collaboration with Carlos Niño and Nate Mercereau on Openness Trio, his experience at Big Ears 2025 and how his curiosity has evolved over the years.