Deep Focus

By Small Media LargeEducation Arts Music Music Commentary

Deep Focus episodes

March 04, 2023 2023.02.20 Ben Tyree on Jeff Beck - 2 of 3
Jeff Beck arrived at a time when all the rules were being questioned. Unlike many of his contemporaries (and many in his audience), he never lost the sense of discovery in his music. Put an instrumental band together and get it played on the radio? Sure, why not? Collaborate with Stevie Wonder and Tina Turner? I'll try that! Introduce a whole new audience to the music of Charles Mingus? That's for me. And it never sounded stale or contrived or like the work of anyone else. Always, organically, Jeff Beck; his fans loved him for it.

Jeff Beck, seemingly the eternally enthusiastic youngster, died this past January and a violent shockwave tore through the music community. No one was ready for him to go and so much felt unfinished.

This Monday from 6pm to 9pm on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD1 and wkcr.org, guitarist/sonic architect Ben Tyree joins host Mitch Goldman for a Deep Focus on Jeff Beck, with special attention to live recordings from the WKCR archives of his vibrant Seventies improvisations.

Next week it goes up at the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #DeepFocus #JeffBeck #BenTyree #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzPodcast #JazzInterview

Photo credit: Jeff_Beck 1973 by Jean-Luc Ourlin, CC BY-SA 2.0 creativecommons.org-licenses-by-sa-2.0
1 hr 6 min
February 27, 2023 2023.02.20 Ben Tyree on Jeff Beck - 1 of 3
Jeff Beck arrived at a time when all the rules were being questioned. Unlike many of his contemporaries (and many in his audience), he never lost the sense of discovery in his music. Put an instrumental band together and get it played on the radio? Sure, why not? Collaborate with Stevie Wonder and Tina Turner? I'll try that! Introduce a whole new audience to the music of Charles Mingus? That's for me. And it never sounded stale or contrived or like the work of anyone else. Always, organically, Jeff Beck; his fans loved him for it.

Jeff Beck, seemingly the eternally enthusiastic youngster, died this past January and a violent shockwave tore through the music community. No one was ready for him to go and so much felt unfinished.

This Monday from 6pm to 9pm on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD1 and wkcr.org, guitarist/sonic architect Ben Tyree joins host Mitch Goldman for a Deep Focus on Jeff Beck, with special attention to live recordings from the WKCR archives of his vibrant Seventies improvisations.

Next week it goes up at the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #DeepFocus #JeffBeck #BenTyree #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzPodcast #JazzInterview

Photo credit: Jeff_Beck in 1979 - Chris Hakkens, CC BY-SA 2.0 creative commons.org-licenses-by-sa-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
1 hr 11 min
February 19, 2023 2014.08.28 Karl Berger and Ingrid Sertso on Don Cherry - 2 of 2
Meet Karl Berger and Ingrid Sertso. In 1965, they traveled from West Germany to Le Chat Qui Pêche in Paris and found Don Cherry there. What flowed from that encounter is a tale of discovery and evolution that is still unfolding, still reaching new ears and new minds. Let's hear about it from them firsthand.
Hey, have you got any music we've never heard, Mitch? Do I? Do I!
#WKCR #DeepFocus #DonCherry #KarlBerger #IngridSertso #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast #CompleteCommunion
Photo credit: by Brian McMillen. Used by permission.
1 hr 19 min
February 15, 2023 2014.08.28 Karl Berger and Ingrid Sertso on Don Cherry - 1 of 2
Meet Karl Berger and Ingrid Sertso. In 1965, they traveled from West Germany to Le Chat Qui Pêche in Paris and found Don Cherry there. What flowed from that encounter is a tale of discovery and evolution that is still unfolding, still reaching new ears and new minds. Let's hear about it from them firsthand.
Hey, have you got any music we've never heard, Mitch? Do I? Do I!
#WKCR #DeepFocus #DonCherry #KarlBerger #IngridSertso #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast #CompleteCommunion
Photo credit: by Mitch Goldman, copyright 1982. All rights reserved.
1 hr 4 min
January 26, 2023 2023.01.09 Brian Charette on Jimmy Smith - 3 of 3
Jimmy Smith didn't invent the electric organ but, for several decades at least, you wouldn't know it. The response to his Blue Note and Verve LPs in the Fifties and Sixties made him a festival headliner and earned him the nickname "The Incredible Jimmy Smith." To this day, no one in the Jazz idiom can sit down at a Hammond B3 without contending with his influence or his very life force, even 17 years after he left this earth.

Brian Charette knows. He has been in the top 10 in Downbeat Magazine's critics' poll of best organ players for most of the last 10 years because he is a player of wit, passion, and intensity. On this Monday's Deep Focus, Mitch Goldman will lead Brian through the WKCR archives and ask him to show us what kind of live performer The Incredible Jimmy Smith really was.

It's only on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org Monday night from 6pm to 9pm NYC time.

Next week it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

Photo credit: fair use.

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #JimmySmith #BrianCharette #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzPodast #JazzInterview
1 hr 2 min
January 22, 2023 2023.01.09 Brian Charette on Jimmy Smith - 2 of 3
Jimmy Smith didn't invent the electric organ but, for several decades at least, you wouldn't know it. The response to his Blue Note and Verve LPs in the Fifties and Sixties made him a festival headliner and earned him the nickname "The Incredible Jimmy Smith." To this day, no one in the Jazz idiom can sit down at a Hammond B3 without contending with his influence or his very life force, even 17 years after he left this earth.

Brian Charette knows. He has been in the top 10 in Downbeat Magazine's critics' poll of best organ players for most of the last 10 years because he is a player of wit, passion, and intensity. On this Monday's Deep Focus, Mitch Goldman will lead Brian through the WKCR archives and ask him to show us what kind of live performer The Incredible Jimmy Smith really was.

It's only on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org Monday night from 6pm to 9pm NYC time.

Next week it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

Photo credit: fair use.

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #JimmySmith #BrianCharette #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzPodast #JazzInterview
1 hr 8 min
January 16, 2023 2023.01.09 Brian Charette on Jimmy Smith - 1 of 3
Jimmy Smith didn't invent the electric organ but, for several decades at least, you wouldn't know it. The response to his Blue Note and Verve LPs in the Fifties and Sixties made him a festival headliner and earned him the nickname "The Incredible Jimmy Smith." To this day, no one in the Jazz idiom can sit down at a Hammond B3 without contending with his influence or his very life force, even 17 years after he left this earth.

Brian Charette knows. He has been in the top 10 in Downbeat Magazine's critics' poll of best organ players for most of the last 10 years because he is a player of wit, passion, and intensity. On this Monday's Deep Focus, Mitch Goldman will lead Brian through the WKCR archives and ask him to show us what kind of live performer The Incredible Jimmy Smith really was.

It's only on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org Monday night from 6pm to 9pm NYC time.

Next week it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

Photo credit: fair use.

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #JimmySmith #BrianCharette #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzPodast #JazzInterview
1 hr 19 min
December 30, 2022 2022.12.12 David Soldier on Miles Davis 1974 - 3 of 3
Mitch Goldman's Deep Focus this Monday (12/12) is on Miles Davis with guest David Soldier. Soldier's punk chamber music, elephant orchestra (yes, the elephants play the instruments), Most Unwanted Song (which we absolutely love!) and tons of other off-center music had to come from someplace, but where? What inspires an emerging composer to take such brash risks and leaps of musical derring-do? Could it be from hearing one of Miles Davis' most outré bands at a formative age? Could there be a recording of such a show? Could there be a photograph of our young composer in the front row of the audience at such a show?!? COULD THAT BE HIM IN THIS PHOTO?

The Shaboo Inn, in a remote corner of Connecticut, might have been the smallest venue Miles played in 1974 (he would play Carnegie Hall 2 months later). Even at that, even after canceling the first of 3 nights because Miles was too, er, "distracted," only 50 or 60 people showed up. So the stakes were low, Miles was high and the band (as ferocious a Murderers' Row as Miles ever assembled) was ready to eviscerate the songs that had been in the book for the previous 5 years.

This one! THIS ONE, I tell ya!

Tune in to WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 or wkcr.org this Monday from 6pm to 9pm NYC time. Next week it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast, along with hundreds of other episodes, on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #MilesDavis #DavidSoldier #DaveSoldier #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

Photo credit: no publishing information available.
40 min
December 25, 2022 2022.12.12 David Soldier on Miles Davis 1974 - 2 of 3
Mitch Goldman's Deep Focus this Monday (12/12) is on Miles Davis with guest David Soldier. Soldier's punk chamber music, elephant orchestra (yes, the elephants play the instruments), Most Unwanted Song (which we absolutely love!) and tons of other off-center music had to come from someplace, but where? What inspires an emerging composer to take such brash risks and leaps of musical derring-do? Could it be from hearing one of Miles Davis' most outré bands at a formative age? Could there be a recording of such a show? Could there be a photograph of our young composer in the front row of the audience at such a show?!? COULD THAT BE HIM IN THIS PHOTO?

The Shaboo Inn, in a remote corner of Connecticut, might have been the smallest venue Miles played in 1974 (he would play Carnegie Hall 2 months later). Even at that, even after canceling the first of 3 nights because Miles was too, er, "distracted," only 50 or 60 people showed up. So the stakes were low, Miles was high and the band (as ferocious a Murderers' Row as Miles ever assembled) was ready to eviscerate the songs that had been in the book for the previous 5 years.

This one! THIS ONE, I tell ya!

Tune in to WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 or wkcr.org this Monday from 6pm to 9pm NYC time. Next week it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast, along with hundreds of other episodes, on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #MilesDavis #DavidSoldier #DaveSoldier #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

Photo credit: no publishing information available.
1 hr 4 min
December 19, 2022 2022.12.12 David Soldier on Miles Davis 1974 - 1 of 3
Mitch Goldman's Deep Focus this Monday (12/12) is on Miles Davis with guest David Soldier. Soldier's punk chamber music, elephant orchestra (yes, the elephants play the instruments), Most Unwanted Song (which we absolutely love!) and tons of other off-center music had to come from someplace, but where? What inspires an emerging composer to take such brash risks and leaps of musical derring-do? Could it be from hearing one of Miles Davis' most outré bands at a formative age? Could there be a recording of such a show? Could there be a photograph of our young composer in the front row of the audience at such a show?!? COULD THAT BE HIM IN THIS PHOTO?

The Shaboo Inn, in a remote corner of Connecticut, might have been the smallest venue Miles played in 1974 (he would play Carnegie Hall 2 months later). Even at that, even after canceling the first of 3 nights because Miles was too, er, "distracted," only 50 or 60 people showed up. So the stakes were low, Miles was high and the band (as ferocious a Murderers' Row as Miles ever assembled) was ready to eviscerate the songs that had been in the book for the previous 5 years.

This one! THIS ONE, I tell ya!

Tune in to WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 or wkcr.org this Monday from 6pm to 9pm NYC time. Next week it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast, along with hundreds of other episodes, on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #MilesDavis #DavidSoldier #DaveSoldier #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast

Photo credit: no publishing information available.
1 hr 14 min