Soundcheck

The party band, Red Baraat, is from Brooklyn, but their music grows out of the hard-partying tradition of Punjabi wedding bands. They're a big band full of brass instruments and drums, rock guitar, jazzy improvisations, occasionally some rap, (both the dhol and drumset keep the groove going), who bring the festivities with them wherever they go.

Hear their set, live from the New Sounds 40th Anniversary Party from Brooklyn Bowl, and an interview with drummer and composer Sunny Jain, who leads the band on dhol, the double-sided drum, one which is definitely an “outside” instrument. Hear Jain play his new, bigger, responsive Sufi dhol from Lahore, Pakistan, which suffered a strap malfunction during their set, and the band barely missed a beat. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: “Chaal Baby” “Kala Mukra” “Zindabad” “Gaadi of Truth” “Shruggy Ji” “Ishq Tera Tadpave” “Thumbs Up”

Portland, Oregon-based Marisa Anderson channels the history of the guitar and stretches the boundaries of tradition. From spacious melancholic laments to transcendent minimalism, Anderson is coming from a place between country, blues, and drone. On her 2018 record, Cloud Corner, she touches on Tuareg scales from "desert blues," the finger-style picking of so-called “American Primitive,” and chiming sad cowboy chords, while continuously moving and traveling on her guitar. She joins us in-studio.Marisa Anderson's new 2022 record is Still, Here: 

Still, Here by Marisa Anderson

Watch the individual songs below:

Lebanese-born Paris-based trumpet superstar Ibrahim Maalouf plays a custom four-valve trumpet that can not only play western music, but also accesses the quarter tones in Arab classical music. He’s played jazz, worked with rappers, global pop stars, and has collaborated with everyone from Angelique Kidjo to Wynton Marsalis, New Orleans’ Tank and the Bangas, Cuban funk-rapper Cimafunk, and actress Sharon Stone. On his latest record, called Capacity to Love, due Nov. 4, he has opened the doors to and between all kinds of music: classical Arab music, Western classical music, sacred music, rap, jazz, and pop music. He and his band play an intimate acoustic set in-studio ahead of a North American tour (Sept. 29-Oct. 6). -Caryn Havlik

Set list: "Feeling Good", "True Sorry", "Right Time"

Cuban-born pianist Omar Sosa has made beautiful records with musicians from West Africa, from all over East Africa, from Spain, where he's lived for many years, and now, with American friends, including sax player Peter Apfelbaum, whom we've heard over the years playing with the Kamikaze Ground Crew, the Millennial Territory Orchestra, and the Hieroglyphics Ensemble, among others. They play duo versions of music from the Quarteto Americanos project, including recorded sounds fired from a sampler pad, that Sosa has put together, in-studio. 

Set list: "umbo kondo", "Move in D", "Mis Tres Notas"

From the 2022 New York Guitar Festival at The Greene Space, listen to cosmic inventions from guitarist and composer Vernon Reid together with Laraaji on zither and electronics. 

Adept at metal, funk and jazz, Vernon Reid gained fame as the main songwriter for the rock band Living Colour, and as a founder of the Black Rock Coalition. Crashing this year’s guitar festival to join Vernon is the innovative ambient zither player and electronic musician Laraaji, who was also part of Brian Eno’s groundbreaking Ambient Music series back in 1981. Vernon Reid and Laraaji, together with an arsenal of electronics, in addition to their instruments, with occasional vocalizing, improvise a breathtaking longform set (perhaps taking inspiration from the Oblique Strategies card Ghost Echoes). 

Watch their improvisations here:

Lean Year is Virginia-based singer Emilie Rex and filmmaker/musician Rick Alverson, along with Erik Hall, who lives in rural Michigan, where he records and co-produces the band’s records with Alverson. The band’s latest, Sides, is heavy on dreamlike and beautiful melodies, yet the material is also meditation on grief and the processing of personal tragedy. Using mellotron, keyboards of many colors, guitar, and a tapestry of synth pads of sampled woodwinds, together with Rex’s distinctive voice, the music is “a balancing act between pathos and pop” (Bandcamp), which feels haunted and cinematic, while celebrating memories and embracing calm amidst the sorrow. Lean Year plays in-studio. 

Set list: "Nitetime", "Marriage of Heaven and Hell", "Trouble with Being Warm"

Watch "Nitetime":

Watch "Marriage of Heaven and Hell":

Watch "Trouble with Being Warm": 

Mafer Bandola, aka Maria Fernanda González, is originally from Venezuela, and is one of the few women who plays bandola and electric bandola professionally. The Bandola is a traditional 4-stringed instrument found in both Colombia and Venezuela; it is avacado-shaped, and related to the bandurria and mandolin (thanks, Wikipedia.)

In her music, she is constantly stretching and innovating within her tradition by incorporating jazz, blues, Brazilian influences, as she experiments with genres, sounds, and cross-cultural collaboration. González is also an educator, self-taught composer, journalist, and a co-founder of LADAMA, a multinational band of four women from four countries. She joins us remotely to perform original works, ahead of her appearance at Flushing Town Hall on Sept. 18 at 1PM. 

Set list: “Zumba que Zumba”, “Agreste”, “Pajarillo”

Watch "Zumba que Zumba":

Watch “Agreste”:

Watch "“Pajarillo”:

Wikipedia says Bill Frisell “is an American jazz guitarist.” Well they got “American” and “guitarist” right. Frisell has indeed played jazz, but also country, rock, folk, West African, classical, and lots of less easily defined styles of music. Widely considered to be one of the great guitarists of our time, he is the subject of a new biography called Bill Frisell: Beautiful Dreamer. He plays solo acoustic in The Greene Space as part of the 2022 New York Guitar Festival. - John Schaefer

Set list: Look Out for Hope, Blues from Before, Strange Meeting, Waltz For Hal Willner

Watch the set:

Colleen is the alias of French multi-instrumentalist Cécile Schott, who has been living and working in Spain for the past few years. Her musical ax of choice was a Baroque instrument - the viola da gamba (as well as modified music boxes, melodica, classical guitar, clarinet, toy gamelan frame drum, piano, and wind chimes) electronically looped and layered; on later records, she added her voice. But on her 2017 release, she’s completely put away the viola da gamba in favor of electronic devices like the Pocket Piano and the Moogerfooger. In fact, this album, A flame my love, a frequency, is her first fully electronics-based record - 100% electronics and voice. Colleen and her synth armada are here in the studio to play these unconventional avant-pop creations in their live versions today. (From the Archives, 2017.)

From his beginnings in his father’s band, Terry Riley and The All Stars, Gyan Riley has branched out into classical music (both his own and that of composers like John Zorn), spacey electric guitar excursions, and Eastern-influenced collaborations with a wide range of artists, including recent Grammy winner Arooj Aftab. Gyan Riley plays and improvises original pieces. From the 2022 New York Guitar Festival at The Greene Space, hear guitarist and composer Gyan Riley's post-minimalist jazz-limning new music. - John Schaefer

Set list: And then… (improvisation), Sparkling Pines, Sometimes You Go Back for More, Toucher les Nuages/Appa-tango

Watch "And then... (improvisation)":

Watch "Sparkling Pines":

Watch "Sometimes You Go Back for More":

Watch "Toucher les Nuages/Appa-tango":

Watch the entire show from Night 2 of the 2022 New York Guitar Festival: