Hank Williams

Sunday 2/19/2017 Show: Writer Jon Else/ True South Membership Special

The next show will air on Sunday, February 19, 2017 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features an interview with Jon Else, who is the author of True South: Henry Hampton and ‘Eyes on the Prize,’ the Landmark Television Series that Reframed the Civil Rights Movement.

True South tells the inside story of Eyes on the Prize, one of the most important and influential TV shows in history. Published on the 30th anniversary of the initial broadcast, which reached 100 million viewers.

Henry Hampton’s 1987 landmark multipart television series, Eyes on the Prize, an eloquent, plainspoken chronicle of the civil rights movement, is now the classic narrative of that history. Before Hampton, the movement’s history had been written or filmed by whites and weighted heavily toward Dr. King’s telegenic leadership. Eyes on the Prize told the story from the point of view of ordinary people inside the civil rights movement. Hampton shifted the focus from victimization to strength, from white saviors to black courage. He recovered and permanently fixed the images we now all remember (but had been lost at the time)—Selma and Montgomery, pickets and fire hoses, ballot boxes and mass meetings.

Jon Else was Hampton’s series producer and his moving book focuses on the tumultuous eighteen months in 1985 and 1986 when Eyes on the Prize was finally created. It’s a point where many wires cross: the new telling of African American history, the complex mechanics of documentary making, the rise of social justice film, and the politics of television. And because Else, like Hampton and many of the key staffers, was himself a veteran of the movement, his book braids together battle tales from their own experiences as civil rights workers in the south in the 1960s.

Hampton was not afraid to show the movement’s raw realities: conflicts between secular and religious leaders, the shift toward black power and armed black resistance in the face of savage white violence. It is all on the screen, and the fight to get it all into the films was at times as ferocious as the history being depicted. Henry Hampton utterly changed the way social history is told, taught, and remembered today.

This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Jon Else will be at The Brooklyn Museum on February 25 2017 for to talk about his book as part of a panel discussion on the Eyes on the Prize series.

This is a special Fund drive broadcast and we’ll be asking for your help to raise funds for WBAI Radio. Please consider donating (any amount: starting at only $5) to the station in the name of our show to support jazz programming and the work we do. Even better is choosing to be a monthly sustaining member, which gets you extra benefits as a “WBAI Buddy” and provides a consistent, predictable revenue stream for the station. You can also choose an autographed copy of the True South book for a $35 donation, which also includes a year’s station membership!

Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 2/5/2017 Show: Lisa Fischer

Photo: Lisa Fischer | Joyce Jones/Suga Bowl Photography. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons CC-NC-BY-ND.

The next show will air on Sunday, February 5, 2017 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features vocalist and composer Lisa Fischer.

“Lisa Fischer in concert is addictive. Every performance is so enriching, so exciting, so transcendent that you want more. With remarkable vocal range and vocabulary, Fischer can sing soul, jazz, rock, gospel, pop, folk and classical with equal facility and authority. She often mixes styles in the same song, sometimes in the same vocal line. Her approach tends to be intimate, artful and almost meditative, accompanied by her interpretive dancing, but she also can cut loose and funk with fierceness and rock with abandon.” (Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 2016)

Ms. Lisa Fischer and her band Grand Baton first set out on tour in 2014, with no product to sell, no recordings or video to help book or promote shows, no t-shirts. Despite all that, based on Lisa’s reputation alone, they were invited to play in clubs, at the Newport and Monterey Jazz Festivals, and at concert halls all over the globe, winning accolades from critics, devotion from fans, and — always – invitations to return, soon.

Their music is an organic gumbo of progressive rock, psychedelic soul, and African, Middle Eastern, Caribbean rhythms and classical influences. In performance, they re-invent songs by Led Zeppelin, Amy Grant, Little Willie John, and The Rolling Stones as well as Lisa’s originals. After decades bringing raw soul to the stage for The Rolling Stones, Sting, Tina Turner and Nine Inch Nails, Lisa is emerging as the most inventive and heartfelt interpreter of classic rock songs working today.

Lisa won her first Grammy for “How Can I Ease The Pain,” from her 1991 album So Intense. With a hit song on the radio and a Grammy win, a major solo tour seemed inevitable, but Lisa was on the road, backing either her beloved mentor Luther Vandross or The Rolling Stones. Lisa was a legend in the music industry; everybody loved her sound. But she never put her own band together, never toured under her own name. Now, after years of supporting other artists, electrifying the world’s largest arenas with the power of her voice, Ms. Lisa Fischer has finally taken center stage.

The Oscar-winning 2013 documentary Twenty Feet from Stardom changed the course of Lisa’s musical journey. Featuring clips of Lisa’s legendary duet with Mick Jagger on “Gimme Shelter” and glowing testimonials from famous colleagues, the film showcased her virtuosity and vulnerability, earned her a second Grammy, and left audiences eager to see and hear more. “Ms. Fischer has become the unexpected star of Mr. Neville’s film,” said the New York Times.

Now Lisa is exploring new territory. She was recently featured on new projects by Lang Lang, Yo-Yo Ma, Billy Childs, and collaborated with the Alonzo LINES Ballet. On tour with Grand Baton, Lisa continues to inspire rave reviews

Bio adapted from Fisher’s website.

This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Lisa Fischer will be at The Blue Note from February 14-19 2017 for two sets (8:00 and 10:30 p.m.) with Grand Baton.

Web Extras:

Watch Fischer in this 2014 live performance of “How Can I Ease the Pain.”

Watch Fischer and Grand Baton perform “Gimme Shelter” in this 2016 live performance at the BRIC Music Fest.

Watch Fischer sing backup vocals on “Gimme Shelter” with the Rolling Stones in this 1997 live performance.

Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 1/22/2017 Show: Melvin Gibbs

Photo: .| Joyce Jones. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons CC-NC-BY-ND.
 
The next show will air on Sunday, January 22, 2017 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features bassist, composer and producer Melvin Gibbs.
 

 
Bassist Melvin Gibbs has played with some of the greats of ’80s and ’90s jazz and rock. A graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, Gibbs spent part of the ’80s as a member of the Power Tools trio with Bill Frisell (and later, Pete Cosey) and Ronald Shannon Jackson, and performing with Joseph Bowie’s jazz funk band, Defunkt. Later that decade, Gibbs played in legendary jazz/rock guitarist Sonny Sharrock’s band. By the time he joined the Rollins Band in 1993, Gibbs had also played in a trio with Arto Lindsay and Dougie Bowne, and in the group Eye & I. With Rollins, Gibbs toured again through Europe, and the West coast. Gibbs became a producer for Rage records after leaving the Rollins Band. By the close of the ’90s, he was active in the experimental rock band Harriet Tubman, who had a 1998 release on Knitting Factory records, had performed or recorded with Elliot Sharp, Ikue Mori, Chocolate Genius, and the Brazilian singer Marisa Monte.
 
Partial bio adapted from Allmusic.
 
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
 
Melvin Gibbs will be at The Stone on February 18 with Harriet Tubman.
 
Web Extras:
 
Watch Gibbs play with Harriet Tubman in this live 2010 clip.
 

 
Watch Gibbs play with guitar great Sonny Sharrock in this live clip from 1988.
 

 
Watch Gibbs play “When We Go” with Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Power tools in this live 1988 clip.
 

 
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 1/8/2017 Show: Winter Jazz Fest/ Liberation Music Orchestra

Photo: Charlie Haden and Carla Bley.
 
The next show will air on Sunday, January 8, 2017 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast concludes WBAI’s coverage of the 2017 Winter Jazz Festival. Our focus is the Liberation Music Orchestra, founded by late bassist Charlie Haden that is closing out the 2017 WJF. Featured guests are multi instrumentalist Joe Daley and Ruth Cameron: Haden’s widow, longtime manager and producer of several of Haden’s albums.
 

 
Synonymous with the legacy of late jazz bassist Charlie Haden, the Liberation Music Orchestra was one of the most influential groups to emerge from the avant-garde jazz period of the 1960s. Founded by Haden and pianist/collaborator Carla Bley in 1969 as way to protest social and political injustices — and as a vehicle for exploring large-scale works of free and forward-thinking jazz — the Liberation Music Orchestra was a vital component of the bassist’s career until his death in 2014.
 
The group’s landmark 1970 album, Liberation Music Orchestra, featured original and well-curated cover compositions arranged by Bley that touched upon an array of sociopolitical topics, from the Vietnam War to the civil rights movement. It also showcased the group’s stylistic eclecticism, incorporating jazz, folk, and world music elements. Helping to achieve this sound was a cadre of jazz luminaries including trumpeter Don Cherry, saxophonist Gato Barbieri, drummer Andrew Cyrille, trombonist Roswell Rudd, trumpeter Michael Mantler, and others.
 
Over the next five decades, Haden and Bley would reconvene the LMO with varying lineups for a handful of albums including 1982’s The Ballad of the Fallen, 1990’s Dream Keeper, and 2005’s Not in Our Name. Throughout these recordings and various live performances, Haden displayed both his abundant musical vision and his profound commitment to supporting progressive political movements, environmentalism, and social justice worldwide.
 
Having contracted polio at age 15, Haden’s health suffered in later years and he was eventually diagnosed with post-polio syndrome. The condition left him in a weakened state and severely limited his ability to perform. Haden died in Los Angeles in July of 2014. He was 76 years old. In 2016, Impulse! released Haden’s final album with the Liberation Music Orchestra, Time/Life (Song for the Whales and Other Beings). Produced by Haden’s wife, Ruth Cameron Haden, and Carla Bley, the album featured a live performance Haden gave with the Liberation Music Orchestra in Belgium in 2011, along with three new studio recordings the LMO made after his death with bassist Steve Swallow, one of Haden’s many longtime friends.
 
 
Partial bio adapted from Allmusic.
 
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
 
Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra will be closing the 2017 Winter Jazz Festival at Le Poisson Rouge at 8:00 PM on January 10 with pianist Geri Allen. This concert will be preceded by a panel discussion on social and environmental justice at 6:00 PM.
 
Web Extras
 
Read our report from Haden’s NYC memorial service on our blog. Also listen to Joyce Jones’s interview of Charlie Haden and Ruth Cameron on an earlier show.
 
Watch the Liberation Music Orchestra play “Throughout” in this live clip.
 

 
Watch the Liberation Music Orchestra play “La Pasionaria” in this live clip.
 

 
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 12/25/2016 Show: Francisco Mora Catlett

Photo: Francisco Mora Catlett.| Joyce Jones. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons CC-NC-BY-ND.
 
The next show will air on Sunday, December 25, 2016 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast continues WBAI’s coverage of the 2017 Winter Jazz Festival. Our featured musical guest is drummer, percussionist, composer and bandleader Francisco Mora Catlett.
 

 
Francisco Mora Catlett comes to his visionary work naturally: born into a family of celebrated artists (Mexican painter Francisco Mora and African-American sculptress Elizabeth Catlett) he began his musical career in Mexico, where he grew up. He studied music at the Berklee School of Music, and subsequently played with Sun Ra’s Arkestra, from 1973 to 1980. In 1987, he released his first album as a leader, the Latin project Mora!, and received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to study drumming and percussion with Max Roach in New York City. Mora-Catlett worked with Roach’s advanced all-percussion ensemble M’Boom, appearing on two Blue Moon LPs, 1990’s To the Max and 1992’s Live at S.O.B.’s New York.
 
In 1993, he became a visiting professor of music at Michigan State University, and later began leading his own Latin jazz group, Amigo, which played around the Detroit area. Mora Catlett played percussion on Bug in the Bassbin, – the 1996 debut single by Detroit techno producer Carl Craig’s groundbreaking jazz/electronica fusion project Innerzone Orchestra. He also appeared on the debut Innerzone Orchestra full-length, 1999’s Programmed. The same year, using Innerzone cohorts Craig Taborn (piano) and Rodney Whitaker (bass) as a core trio, Mora Catlett issued his acclaimed second album, World Trade Music.
 
Mora Catlett’s departure to Detroit’s music scene was the creation of The Outer Zone Band, featuring Marshal Allen and Craig Taborn.
After relocating to New York in 2002, Mora-Catlett while co-founding the “Oyu Oro Afro-Cuban Dance Company” with his wife Cuban dancer and choreographer Danys Perez Prades “La Mora.”
 
Partial bio adapted from Francisco Mora Catlett’s website.
 
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
 
Catlett will be leading his AfroHORN ensemble at the 2017 Winter Jazz Fest in a CD release event for the latest recording At the Edge of the Spiral at Zinc Bar at 11:40 PM on January 7. They’ll also be at Clemente Soto Velez Center on January 19 as part of Arts for Art’s nearly monthlong “Justice is Compassion/ Not a Police State” series.
 
Web Extras
 
Watch Catlett play “Blue People” in this live clip.
 

 
Watch Catlett and AfroHORN play “Spirit One Voice” live at Minton’s.
 

 
Watch the official preview video from the 2017 Winter Jazz Fest!
 

 
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 12/11/2016 Show: David Virelles

Photo: David Virelles.| Joyce Jones. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons CC-NC-BY-ND.
 
The next show will air on Sunday, December 11, 2016 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast officially kicks off WBAI’s coverage of the 2017 Winter Jazz Festival as we start the program with Festival Director Brice Rosenbloom. Our featured musical guest is pianist, composer and bandleader David Virelles.
 

 
Cuban born pianist/ composer David Virelles grew up in a musical home. He started studying music at seven, as well as being exposed to the rich Cuban musical traditions.
 
Brooklyn-based Virelles, who once became the first recipient of the Oscar Peterson award, has performed or recorded with Ravi Coltrane, Henry Threadgill, Román Díaz, Tomasz Stanko, Wadada Leo Smith, Jane Bunnett and The Spirits Of Havana, Dewey Redman, Sam Rivers, Steve Coleman, Andrew Cyrille, Hermeto Pascoal, José Luis Quintana “Changuito”, Stanley Cowell, Chucho Valdés, Paul Motian, Chris Potter, Mark Turner, Tom Harrell, Milford Graves, Alberto Lescay, among others. Virelles was named “#1 Rising Star” in the Piano category in DownBeat Magazine’s Critics Poll in 2015.
 
Virelles’ album Continuum (on the New York label Pi Recordings) made several “Best Of The Year” lists in 2012, being selected #1 in The New York Times. His album Mbòkó, released in 2014 on the Munich label ECM also ended up in virtually every “Best Of The Year” list, including The New York Times, NPR, iTunes, The Village Voice, DownBeat Magazine, among other sources. Virelles’ new release on ECM, Antenna, is available now.
 
Partial bio adapted from David Virelles’s website.
 
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
 
Virelles is scheduled for two sets at the 2017 Winter Jazz Fest’s ECM Stage at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium on January 7. He appears in a duo with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and in a set with trumpeter Tomasz Stanko.
 
We are offering autographed vinyl copies Virelles’ new release on ECM, Antenna as a thank you gift for a $35 pledge supporting WBAI-FM. We also appreciate pledges of any amount or encourage you to become a sustaining member with a monthly pledge.
 
 
Web Extra
 
Watch Virelles in this live clip with saxophonist Chris Potter’s sextet.
 

 
Watch Virelles play with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane.
 

 
Watch Virelles play with Jane Bunnett.
 

 
Watch the official preview video from the 2017 Winter Jazz Fest!
 

 
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 11/27/16 Show: Dave Holland

Photo: Dave Holland.| Joyce Jones. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons CC-NC-BY-ND.
 
The next show will air on Sunday, November 27, 2016 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features an interview bassist, composer, bandleader and 2017 NEA Jazz Master inductee Dave Holland. Holland’s latest project Aziza has scheduled Birdland dates from Tuesday, November 27 through Saturday, December 3, 2017.
 

 
Holland was born in Wolverhampton, United Kingdom in 1946, and even before reaching puberty played ukulele and then guitar, having fallen under the spell of skiffle music like most British youth during the 1950s and early ‘60s. As an adolescent, he switched over to the low end of the string family, an uncle fabricating his first “tea-chest bass” out of the thin wooden crates in which tea was shipped. The bass ultimately proved the instrument that steered him away from a working-class destiny. At the ripe age of 14, he began playing R&B, rock and pop tunes for dances and in clubs with local bands, and visiting U.S. artists like Roy Orbison, Chet Atkins, and Johnnie Ray. By his late teens Holland began exploring an expanding palette of jazz styles and it was clear that music was Holland’s calling.
 
Holland was a mere 19 years old when he began to appear at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in London’s Soho district, supporting touring jazz veterans like Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins and Joe Henderson. That was the venue in which famed trumpeter Miles Davis—who was about to transition from purely acoustic music to more electric instrumentation in 1968, including rock and funk influences—first heard Holland. Davis asked him to take over the bass chair in his band at a time when generations of musicians and music fans were intensely focused on every step the trumpeter was taking.
 
Joining Davis’s groundbreaking, semi-electric band was the catapult that launched Holland’s career to the international stage. As the world watched and listened, he contributed to albums that pointed the way to the future—Filles De Kilimanjaro, In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew—and performed in jazz clubs and rock festivals, helping to lay the groundwork for the rise of Fusion jazz, an important member of a brotherhood of innovators adept at older and newer jazz vocabularies. While still with Davis, Holland gigged and recorded with other musicians as well, including the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Chick Corea, and Joe Henderson.
 
Holland left Davis’s employ in 1970 and immediately co-founded Circle—the influential if short-lived free-jazz quartet, with Corea, Anthony Braxton and Barry Altschul. After the breakup of Circle in late ’71, Holland found himself working in bands led by the likes of Stan Getz, Thelonious Monk, Braxton, and initiating an enduring relationship with saxophonist/bandleader Sam Rivers.
 
In 2003, Holland departed ECM and formed his own label, Dare2 Records, on which he has issued almost all of his recent recordings. In 2005, Dare2 premiered with Overtime, a big band project including music commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival. A year later, Critical Mass featured his Quintet (the first with Nate Smith), and Pass It On in 2008, a sextet performing arrangements in a mini-big band style (with, among others, Robin Eubanks, pianist Mulgrew Miller, drummer Eric Harland.)
 
The remarkable rate at which Holland leads or collaborates his way into fresh and exciting projects proves he has no plans to diminish the range nor frequency of his creative drive. His band lineups reveal that his ear is still to the ground, listening for and recognizing fresh and deserving talent, and that many are the musicians who are happy to perform or record with him. As Holland prepares to celebrate his 71st year, he is currently playing with a new group, the Aziza quartet, co-founded with Harland, saxophonist Chris Potter, and guitarist Lionel Loueke.
 
As a leader and collaborator, Holland continues to tour the world and it comes as no surprise that he has and still serves the music in an educational role, having worked during the 1980s as artistic director of the Banff Centre’s jazz summer program (Canada), and as a faculty member for two years at the New England Conservatory of Music in the ‘90s, where he still serves as an artist in residence (as he does at the Royal Academy of Music.) He has also been elected a Fellow of the Guildhall School—his alma mater—and has received honorary doctorates from Birmingham Conservatoire (UK), Berklee College of Music, and the New England Conservatory.
 
Partial bio adapted from Dave Holland’s website.
 
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
 
Holland’s latest project Aziza has scheduled Birdland dates from Tuesday, November 27 through Saturday, December 3, 2017.
 
Web Extra
 
Watch Holland’s Quintet perform “Concert of the Birds” live in Sao Paulo.
 

 
Watch Holland’s Aziza Quintet perform in this 2016 live show.
 

 
Watch Holland with Pat Metheny, Jack De Johnette, and Herbie Hancock in this live show.
 

 
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 11/13/2016 Show: Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary

Photo: John Coltrane. Courtesy of DOC NYC.
 
The next show will air on Sunday, November 13, 2016 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features interviews with DOC NYC Director of Programming Basil Tsiokos and veteran documentarian John Scheinfeld, who is behind the film Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary. The NYC premiere of Chasing Trane will screen on the closing night of DOC NYC, which takes place from November 10-17, 2017.
 

 
Saxophonist, composer and tireless innovator John Coltrane expanded the frontiers of the jazz idiom, introducing elements from musical traditions the world over. From his magnum opus A Love Supreme to his magical cover of “My Favorite Things,” Coltrane always pushed his music to search deeper and farther. That he accomplished everything he did before his death at age 40 is at once heartbreaking and inspiring.
 
In Chasing Trane, veteran documentarian John Scheinfeld (The U.S. vs. John Lennon) explores the life and work of this singular artist. The film makes inspired use of archive materials, animated murals, readings of Coltrane’s own words by Denzel Washington and a wealth of new interviews. The list of participants is catnip for music lovers: jazz elder statesmen Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins and Reggie Workman; rock legends Carlos Santana and John Densmore; and younger artists such as Common and Kamasi Washington. Scheinfeld also speaks with critic Ben Ratliff, philosopher Cornel West and Coltrane fan Bill Clinton. Their testimonies are eloquent, but there are moments when they fall speechless, reminding us that such powerful music touches something that is beyond words.
 
We will also spend a moment with DOC NYC Director of Programming Basil Tsiokos. Find out more about DOC NYC and get the schedule at their website.
 
Film summary adapted from the DOC NYC website.
 
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
 
Chasing Trane will be shown at 7 PM on Thursday November 17 at the SVA Theater in Manhattan as part of the 2016 DOC NYC Festival
 
Web Extra
 
Watch the trailer for Chasing Trane.
 

 
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 10/16/2016 Show: Jane Bunnett

Photo: Jane Bunnett’s Oddara album.
 
The next show will air on Sunday, October 16, 2016 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features an interview with composer/saxophonist/flautist Jane Bunnett.
 

 
Multiple Juno Award winner, Jane Bunnett has turned her bands and recordings into showcases for the finest musical talent from Canada, the U.S and Cuba. She has been up for Grammy Awards, numerous Juno’s, received The Order of Canada, The Queens Diamond Jubilee and most recently The Premiers Award for Excellence. An internationally acclaimed musician, Jane Bunnett is known for her creative integrity, improvisational daring and courageous artistry. Her exploration of Afro-Cuban melodies expresses the universality of music and her ability to embrace and showcase the rhythms and culture of Cuba has been groundbreaking. She has toured the world bringing her own special sound to numerous Jazz festivals, displaying her versatility as a flutist, saxophone player and pianist.
 
Bunnett’s debut recording hit the Jazz world in 1987 with the Stunning Juno-nominated In Dew Time featuring American Jazz legends Dewey Redman, Don Pullen and Canadian icon Claude Ranger.
 
During and in-between her Cuban explorations Bunnett released recordings and toured with a powerful group of Jazz innovators. She recorded New York Duets with legendary pianist Don Pullen and Live at Sweet Basil with Pullen and drummer Billy Hart. She also appears on Water is Wide with Pullen as well as Jeanne Lee, Sheila Jordan and Billy Hart. Double Time is a duet with Paul Bley. On Spirituals and Dedications, Bunnett joins Dewey Redman, vocalist Dean Bowman and master pianist Stanley Cowell.
 
Two documentaries have been made about Bunnett’s work. The National Film Board (NFB)’s Spirits of Havana (2000) was presented at numerous film festivals internationally, television (CBC, PBS) as well as in Europe.
 
Bunnett’s most recent recording and touring group Maqueque is turning heads internationally. The group consists of Bunnett with five dynamic young Cuban women instrumentalists and composers. Their 2nd release Oddara was released this week.
 
As an educator, spokesperson and social activist, she remains unafraid to explore uncharted territory in her quest for excellence.
 
Bio adapted from the Jane Bunnett website.
 
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
 
Jane Bunnett and Maqueque will be at Birdland for the 8:30 and 11 PM sets on October 25th.
 
Jane Bunnett’s just released Oddara CD with the Afro Cuban Maqueque group is available for a pledge of $35 to WBAI during this fall fund drive. There are also a few autographed copies of Quincy Troupe’s Miles and Me book or Will Calhoun’s Celebrating Elvin Jones CDs available and either would make a unique holiday gift. There are also copies of the MAC Power Trio’s Perfection CD with former Suga’ guests David Murray, Geri Allen, and Terri Lyne Carrington. You can also donate as little as $5. Even a little bit helps a lot and will be greatly appreciated!
 
Web Extras
 
Watch Jane Bunnett and Maqueque perform “New Angel” in this 2014 live show.
 

 
Watch Bunnett and the Spirits of Havana perform “The River/ El Rio” in this live show.
 

 
Watch Bunnett and Maqueque perform Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” in this 2014 live show.
 

 
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 10/2/2016 Show: Milford Graves

Photo: Milford Graves at the Vision Festival – 6/13/2013 | Joyce Jones. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons CC-NC-BY-ND.
 
The next show will air on Sunday, October 2, 2016 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features a rare interview with percussionist/drummer, acupuncturist, herbalist, gardener, builder, scientist, inventor and martial arts master Milford Graves.
 

 
Milford Graves (born August 20, 1941 in Queens, New York) is an American jazz drummer and percussionist, most noteworthy for his early avant-garde contributions in the early 1960s with Paul Bley and the New York Art Quartet alongside John Tchicai, Roswell Rudd, and Reggie Workman. He is considered to be a free jazz pioneer, liberating the percussion from its timekeeping role. In fact, many of his music contemporaries, musician inspirees, and fans world-wide would argue that Graves is perhaps the most influential known musician in the development and continuing evolution of free-jazz/avant-garde music, to date. Milford Graves taught at Bennington College, in Bennington, Vermont, being a tenured professor from 1973 to 2011; in 2011, he is awarded Emeritus status.
 
Initially playing timbales as a kid growing up in Queens, Graves has worked as a sideman and session musician with a variety of jazz musicians throughout his career, including Pharoah Sanders, Rashied Ali, Albert Ayler, Don Pullen, Kenny Clarke, Don Moye, Andrew Cyrille, Philly Joe Jones, Eddie Gómez, and John Zorn. He has invested his time in research within the field of healing through music.
 
In 2013, Milford Graves along with Drs. Carlo Tremolada and Carlo Ventura received a patent for an invention that relates to a process of preparing a non-expanded tissue derivative, that is not subjected to cell proliferation in vitro, which has a vascular-stromal fraction enriched in stem and multipotent elements, such as pericytes and/or mesenchymal stem cells, or for preparing non-embryonic stem cells obtained from a tissue sample or from such tissue derivative, wherein the tissue derivative or such cells are subjected to vibrations derived from a heart sound to control the degree of differentiation or possible differentiation of the stem and multipotent elements into several other types of cells and optimize their potency. The invention relates also to a device for carrying out the process, to stem cells obtainable by the process as well as a drug for the regeneration of an animal tissue.
 
Bio adapted from Graves’ Wikipedia entry.
 
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
 
Graves will be appearing at The Village Vanguard with saxophonist Jon Zorn on October 9th and at The Stone in a trio with guitarist Marc Ribot on December 3.
 
Web Extras
 
Watch Milford Graves and saxophonist John Zorn in a 2013 duo performance at the Museum of Modern Art.
 

 
Watch Graves play with saxophonist Marshall Allen and bassist Henry Grimes in this live 2012 set.
 

 
Watch Milford Graves lead a trio in this vintage 1973 clip from European TV.
 

 
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.