Deep Focus

By Small Media LargeEducation Arts Music Music Commentary

Deep Focus episodes

April 17, 2022 2019.08.05 Michael Dorf on Sonny Sharrock - 2 of 3
This time it’s personal. Many of my happiest music memories are of performances at Michael Dorf’s Knitting Factory between the mid-Eighties and the early-2000’s. Michael must have heard thousands of bands in those years but when I asked him who we should hail on Deep Focus, he answered immediately: Sonny Sharrock. Sonny, who reinvented the guitar to suit his own extravagant purposes every time he played it, left us nearly 28 years ago but he is not forgotten. His music is indelible and we’ve got the goods to prove it! In this rebroadcast from 2019, the WKCR archives deliver the kind of jaw-dropping annihilations that make Sonny Sharrock a cult hero to this day.

This Monday night (4/11) from 6pm to 9pm NYC time on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org. Tuesday morning it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #SonnySharrock #MichaelDorf #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast #NoWave

Photo credit: no publishing information available.
1 hr 11 min
April 12, 2022 2019.08.05 Michael Dorf on Sonny Sharrock - 1 of 3
This time it’s personal. Many of my happiest music memories are of performances at Michael Dorf’s Knitting Factory between the mid-Eighties and the early-2000’s. Michael must have heard thousands of bands in those years but when I asked him who we should hail on Deep Focus, he answered immediately: Sonny Sharrock. Sonny, who reinvented the guitar to suit his own extravagant purposes every time he played it, left us nearly 28 years ago but he is not forgotten. His music is indelible and we’ve got the goods to prove it! In this rebroadcast from 2019, the WKCR archives deliver the kind of jaw-dropping annihilations that make Sonny Sharrock a cult hero to this day.

This Monday night (4/11) from 6pm to 9pm NYC time on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org. Tuesday morning it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #SonnySharrock #MichaelDorf #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #JazzPodcast #NoWave

Photo credit: no publishing information available.
1 hr 22 min
April 07, 2022 2015.02.09 Andy Caploe on Sonny Rollins - 3 of 3
There is no living artist in the Jazz firmament more revered than Sonny Rollins. He is admired for, among other things, eluding his audience's expectations of him. Never was this more true than on July 19, 1985 when he performed a set entirely unaccompanied in the Sculpture Garden at the Museum of Modern Art. Listening to this set, the listener gets to hear Sonny working the puzzles, rebuses, puns and equations that inform his best improvisations. It is as revealing as the glass and steel structure of the modern buildings that surrounded MoMA.

And who was it that invited Sonny Rollins to do that performance? None other than WKCR alumnus Andy Caploe. On this Deep Focus from 2015, Andy and I listen to that set, as well as some other Rollins prizes from the WKCR archive. Andy offers memories and insights that can only come from one who was present at the moment of creation. Trigger warning: Andy and I were having way too much fun. Our recommendation: join in!

On WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wckr.org. Tuesday morning it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #SonnyRollins #AndyCaploe #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzPodcast

Photo credit: Sonny Rollins by Brianmcmillen at English Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 creativecommons.org licenses-by-sa-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
40 min
April 03, 2022 2015.02.09 Andy Caploe on Sonny Rollins - 2 of 3
There is no living artist in the Jazz firmament more revered than Sonny Rollins. He is admired for, among other things, eluding his audience's expectations of him. Never was this more true than on July 19, 1985 when he performed a set entirely unaccompanied in the Sculpture Garden at the Museum of Modern Art. Listening to this set, the listener gets to hear Sonny working the puzzles, rebuses, puns and equations that inform his best improvisations. It is as revealing as the glass and steel structure of the modern buildings that surrounded MoMA.

And who was it that invited Sonny Rollins to do that performance? None other than WKCR alumnus Andy Caploe. On this Deep Focus from 2015, Andy and I listen to that set, as well as some other Rollins prizes from the WKCR archive. Andy offers memories and insights that can only come from one who was present at the moment of creation. Trigger warning: Andy and I were having way too much fun. Our recommendation: join in!

On WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wckr.org. Tuesday morning it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #SonnyRollins #AndyCaploe #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzPodcast

Photo credit: Sonny Rollins by Brianmcmillen at English Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 creativecommons.org licenses-by-sa-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
1 hr 8 min
March 29, 2022 2015.02.09 Andy Caploe on Sonny Rollins - 1 of 3
There is no living artist in the Jazz firmament more revered than Sonny Rollins. He is admired for, among other things, eluding his audience's expectations of him. Never was this more true than on July 19, 1985 when he performed a set entirely unaccompanied in the Sculpture Garden at the Museum of Modern Art. Listening to this set, the listener gets to hear Sonny working the puzzles, rebuses, puns and equations that inform his best improvisations. It is as revealing as the glass and steel structure of the modern buildings that surrounded MoMA.

And who was it that invited Sonny Rollins to do that performance? None other than WKCR alumnus Andy Caploe. On this Deep Focus from 2015, Andy and I listen to that set, as well as some other Rollins prizes from the WKCR archive. Andy offers memories and insights that can only come from one who was present at the moment of creation. Trigger warning: Andy and I were having way too much fun. Our recommendation: join in!

On WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wckr.org. Tuesday morning it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #SonnyRollins #AndyCaploe #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzPodcast

Photo credit: Sonny Rollins by Brianmcmillen at English Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 creativecommons.org licenses-by-sa-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
1 hr 14 min
March 24, 2022 2019.08.19 Ben Tyree on Frank Zappa - 3 of 3
Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Steely Dan, Weather Report... All created challenging instrumental music in the Seventies, all had large, dedicated audiences and all have been the subject of Deep Focus. Add tonight's subject to that list.

Guitarist/sonic architect Ben Tyree and I will put Frank Zappa in Deep Focus Monday from 6 pm to 9 pm EDT on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org in this rebroadcast from 2019. I'm amazed that no one has called for this one before!

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #BenTyree #FrankZappa

Photo credit: Frank Zappa_in_glory Heinrich Klaffs, CC BY-SA 2.0 creativecommons.org licenses by-sa 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
32 min
March 20, 2022 2019.08.19 Ben Tyree on Frank Zappa -2 of 3
Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Steely Dan, Weather Report... All created challenging instrumental music in the Seventies, all had large, dedicated audiences and all have been the subject of Deep Focus. Add tonight's subject to that list.

Guitarist/sonic architect Ben Tyree and I will put Frank Zappa in Deep Focus Monday from 6 pm to 9 pm EDT on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org in this rebroadcast from 2019. I'm amazed that no one has called for this one before!

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #BenTyree #FrankZappa

Photo credit: Frank Zappa 1973_2 Discreet Records, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.jpeg
1 hr 18 min
March 15, 2022 2019.08.19 Ben Tyree on Frank Zappa - 1 of 3
Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Steely Dan, Weather Report... All created challenging instrumental music in the Seventies, all had large, dedicated audiences and all have been the subject of Deep Focus. Add tonight's subject to that list.

Guitarist/sonic architect Ben Tyree and I will put Frank Zappa in Deep Focus Monday from 6 pm to 9 pm EDT on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org in this rebroadcast from 2019. I'm amazed that no one has called for this one before!
#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #MitchGoldman #BenTyree #FrankZappa

Photo credit: Frank Zappa and The Mothers - ©1992 George Rodríguez, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution NPG-B5000108C
1 hr 13 min
March 10, 2022 2011.08.15 Pheeroan akLaff on Coltrane and Miles in Japan - 3 of 3
The music I love has porous boundaries. If the audience responds to what they hear, the musicians will give that energy right back to them. If the acoustics are kind, the music will communicate better among the musicians, between musician and audience. But what about the people the artists met that day? And the food they ate and the air they breathed? Can an audience hear all of that? What about the lives people have lived in that place? The love and sacrifice that was made there? And what about what was in that place before all of that? Does a place have a spirit and can it live in the music? Oh, hell yes it can and it does!

Don't believe me? Drummer Pheeroan akLaff and I will prove it to you on this week's Deep Focus, recorded in 2011. We explore rare live recordings of Miles Davis and John Coltrane in Japan in the Sixties when that country was just taking its place on the world's stage.

This Monday on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org. Tuesday morning it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #MilesDavis #JohnColtrane #PheeroanakLaff #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzPodcast #JazzInterview #LiveJazz #JazzInJapan #Japan

Photo credit: John Coltrane stamp - Copyright United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.
59 min
March 06, 2022 2011.08.15 Pheeroan akLaff on Coltrane and Miles in Japan - 2 of 3
The music I love has porous boundaries. If the audience responds to what they hear, the musicians will give that energy right back to them. If the acoustics are kind, the music will communicate better among the musicians, between musician and audience. But what about the people the artists met that day? And the food they ate and the air they breathed? Can an audience hear all of that? What about the lives people have lived in that place? The love and sacrifice that was made there? And what about what was in that place before all of that? Does a place have a spirit and can it live in the music? Oh, yes it can and it does!

Don't believe me? Drummer Pheeroan akLaff and I will prove it to you on this week's Deep Focus, recorded in 2011. We explore rare live recordings of Miles Davis and John Coltrane in Japan in the Sixties when that country was just taking its place on the world's stage.

This Monday on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org. Tuesday morning it goes up on the Deep Focus podcast on your favorite podcasting app or at https://mitchgoldman.podbean.com/

#WKCR #JazzAlternatives #DeepFocus #MilesDavis #JohnColtrane #PheeroanakLaff #MitchGoldman #JazzRadio #JazzPodcast #JazzInterview #LiveJazz #JazzInJapan #Japan

Photo credit: John Coltrane stamp - Copyright United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.
1 hr 7 min