Show for Jan. 22, 2012. They Might Be Giants at 30
The last time I spoke to John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants, it was about the group’s science album for kids. This time we talked about the whole TMBG phenomenon: their beginnings and surprising success, aesthetic aims, being taken seriously while also having fun, and Sleestaks. TMBG turns 30 this year and is about to launch a national tour (1st stop, Santa Cruz) with some retrospective elements. Seemed like a good time to look back on their singular career.
TMBG’s two Johns: Linnell (L) and Flansburgh (R).
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Show for Jan. 1, 2012: The Real Vocal String Quartet (Rebroadcast)
For our New Year’s day we replayed my interview/live recital with the wonderful Real Vocal String Quartet, originally broadcast in Jan 2011. More info here.
Show for Sept. 18, 2011. Donny McCaslin: The Making of a Jazzman
Donny McCaslin grew up in Santa Cruz, where this program is based, and got his musical start here. Today he’s a widely-known, much-admired tenor sax player based in New York. Donny returned to our area recently to play at the 2011 Monterey Jazz Festival. We talked about his formative years (playing with his dad’s band on the streets of Santa Cruz) and rapid success (he joined Gary Burton’s quintet right out of college). Donny’s a very thoughtful and knowledgeable musician, and I took advantage of the occasion to ask some detailed questions about his work and development.
Click the “play” arrow above to listen to the show, or download the MP3 here (if using a Mac, control-click the link and choose “Save Link As…” If using a PC, right-click and choose Save Target As…”)
Show for August 14, 2011. Guitarist/Composer D.J. Sparr.
“Classically trained to rock your *#!@ socks off,” to quote Tenacious D. The very tenacious guitarist D.J. Sparr was in town to perform at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and he swung by our studio with instrument in hand. We talked about his many musical loves (country, rock, classical), his career from toddlerhood on, the folly of aesthetic snobbery and the moment he realized it’s OK to play a G major chord. We also listened to a selection of his wide-ranging performances and compositions, and he demonstrated some wicked picking and finger tapping.
D.J. Sparr as an up-and-coming country star back in the day, as orchestra front man now, and in our studio (with a sweet Taylor T5 hollowbody).
Click the “play” arrow above to listen to the show, or download the MP3 here (if using a Mac, control-click the link and choose “Save Link As…” If using a PC, right-click and choose Save Target As…”)
Show for July 31, 2011. Composers Elena Kats-Chernin and Behzad Ranjbaran
Two composers coming to the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music demonstrate once again how outmoded that term “classical music” is. Elena Kats-Chernin, who grew up in Russia and now lives in Australia, is a joyous musical pluralist, cozy with modernism, minimalism, tango, ragtime and pop. Elena and I discussed a sampling of her work, including her surprise hit Eliza Aria (used in the Lloyd’s Bank advert below) and Re-Collecting ASTORoids, her tribute to Nuevo Tango maestro Astor Piazzolla, to be performed at the Cabrillo Fest Aug. 6. Also on the bill that night will be Behzad Ranjbaran’s Concerto for Piano, written for virtuoso Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Thibaudet will be on hand at Cabrillo to perform it. Behzad was born in Iran, and we talked about the echoes of Persian folk music in his concerto and other compositions.
Click the “play” arrow above to listen to the show, or download the MP3 here (if using a Mac, control-click the link and choose “Save Link As…” If using a PC, right-click and choose Save Target As…”)
Heads-up: I’ll be anchoring KUSP’s live broadcast of Cabrillo’s opening night concert on Aug. 5. The broadcast starts at 7PM; concert’s at 8. Visit the Cabrillo Festival website to see all the performances and events.
Show for July 24, 2011. John Waters and Philip Glass.
I’m not sure what John Waters and Philip Glass have in common, other than their shared birthplace (Baltimore) and prolific output. Also the fact that they’re both appearing at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur in coming weeks, which gave me an opportunity to chat with them. I spoke with John about his life, career, role models and preoccupations, picking up on another interview I did with him a few years ago. Philip Glass discussed the new Days and Nights Festival he’s spearheading in Big Sur and Carmel Valley, featuring music, dance, theater and film.
John Waters is bringing his live one-man show to the Henry Miller Library on Aug. 13. Philip Glass will be there later this summer. On Aug. 31, he and HML’s Magnus Toren will be curating an evening of poetry and live music. On Sept. 1, the Philip Glass ensemble will play Philip’s original score for Todd Browning’s film Dracula (the one with Bela Lugosi), as the movie screens. More on the Henry Miller Library events here. More on the Days and Nights Festival here.
Click the “play” arrow above to listen to the show, or download the MP3 here (if using a Mac, control-click the link and choose “Save Link As…” If using a PC, right-click and choose Save Target As…”)
Show for July 10, 2011. All About Fado (Rebroadcast)
For today’s show, we re-aired our Nov. 2009 program about Portuguese Fado music. The original post is here. Please note: references in the show to Mariza’s “upcoming” performances are from 2009.
Show for May 22, 2011. Tamazight Music of North Africa
Fattah Abbou and Mohamed Aoualou grew up in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, eventually settling in California, where they formed the band Aza. They’re both versatile musicians conversant in a range of North African styles: notably their own Tamazight* (Berber) traditions, but also Gnawa and Arabic music. Fattah and Mohamed dropped by our studio to play some lovely tunes and talk about their music, Amazigh culture and their lives in Morocco and the U.S.
* Imazighen is the preferred term for what outsiders call “Berbers”; Timazight and Amazigh are adjectival forms (at least I think that’s right).
Mohamed Aoualou Fattah Abbou
Heads up: Mohamed, Fattah and Aza are performing at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, CA, Saturday, May 28. More info at the Aza website.
Click the “play” arrow above to listen to the interview, or download the MP3 here.
Show for May 15, 2011. Committed to Memory: Trimpin and the Gurs Zyklus
The Gurs prison camp in southern France didn’t rank with the most notorious Nazi concentration camps. There were no gas chambers or ovens. But conditions were bad enough for the thousands of Jews interned there, and the lack of a fitting memorial has long troubled the German-born sound artist Trimpin. His latest work, the Gurs Zyklus (the Gurs Cycle), commemorates this little-known chapter of the Holocaust with an elaborate stage performance, featuring some of Trimpin’s fanciful musical inventions. I talked to participants on the eve of the piece’s premier at Stanford University. Included are interviews with Trimpin, director/performer Rinde Eckert, Gurs survivor Manfred Wildman, and Victor Rosenberg, whose grandparents and uncle were imprisoned at Gurs. Also included: some of the sounds of the Gurs Cycle, such as the fire organ, shown here:
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Show for March 20, 2011. No Regrets: Biographer Carolyn Burke on Edith Piaf
Carolyn Burke’s previous two biographies—of the poet Mina Loy and photographer Lee Miller—documented the lives of trailblazing and under-recognized women artists. Her third effort, just released, takes on a much better-known subject. No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf sheds new light on the singer and her songs, looking past the Piaf legend to sketch a fuller portrait of France’s indispensable chanteuse. It may be impossible to really say what makes a great artist great, but Carolyn and I do our best in this interview, while listening to some examples from the Piaf canon. Subjects include Piaf’s guttersnipe beginnings, the French penchant for misérabilisme, her wartime exploits, her physical decline and final, improbable comeback.
Click the “play” arrow above to listen to the interview, or download the MP3 here.
Here’s a video of Piaf singing La Foule (The Crowd), one of Carolyn’s favorites, and mine, too:
Show for Jan 23, 2011: The Real Vocal String Quartet
They play, they sing and make beguiling, original and uncategorizable music. I visited the quartet in their Berkeley practice studio for some conversation and a live recital. In the first part of the program, RVSQ founder and violinist Irene Sazer and violist Dina Maccabee discuss the ensemble’s wide-ranging influences (classical is just the start), their distinctive sound and special chemistry as we listen to tracks from their recent CD. Then, Irene and Dina are joined by the group’s other half, violinist Alisa Rose and cellist Jessica Ivry, to perform some lovely new pieces they’re working on.
Click the “play” arrow above to listen to the interview, or download the MP3 here.
Show for Oct. 24, 2010: Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin on Musicality and Evolution
The best-selling author of This is Your Brain on Music returns to our show. Neuroscientist, musician and record producer Dan Levitin discusses his most recent book, The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature. Levitin contends that music played a key role in human evolution. (Interview originally boradcast in 2008.)
Click the “play” arrow above to listen, or download the MP3 here.
Show for Sept 19, 2010: Mark Levine and the Art of Latin Jazz
Pianist Mark Levine jumped into Latin Jazz almost by accident 40 years ago. It became a lifelong pursuit, and Mark became a leading exponent of the music. He talks about his beginnings in the genre, his continued apprenticeship, his Latin Grammy-nominated tribute to Brazilian composer Moacir Santos and his performance at the 2010 Monterey Jazz Festival. He also explains some of the fundamentals of the form, like the clave rhythm.
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Show for Sept 12, 2010. Rudresh Mahanthappa: Trans-Oceanic Jazz
It’s not so much what Rudresh Mahanthappa is doing, mixing jazz and South Indian classical music. Jazz has always been multicultural, and east-west cross-pollination is nothing new. It’s how he does it, honoring both traditions and compromising neither, creating a confluence so fully realized, the two streams become one. He and his bandmates pull off other balancing acts as well, making music that’s both cerebral and physical, rigorously composed while swinging hard.
In this interview, we listen to a lot of musical examples, and Rudresh talks about his jazz beginnings, his Indo-American identity crisis and ensuing exploration of Indian classical music, his love of mathematical form and his collaborations with Kadri Gopalnath, Bunky Green and others. With some side trips into raga theory, time signatures, intervalic progression and other musical wonkery.
Rudresh Mahanthappa Rudresh and Bunky Green
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Show for August 15, 2010. They Might be Giants and One Ring Zero.
This seemed like a natural pairing: two endlessly creative, eclectic, eccentric two-man songwriting teams, both with new albums on sciency subjects. They Might Be Giants bring the pedagogy (and lots of TMBG whimsy) to Here Comes Science, a collection of science songs for kids. One Ring Zero takes a looser, more metaphorical approach in their celestial song cycle Planets. We talked with John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants about the former, and with Michael Hearst of One Ring Zero about the latter, while auditing some choice tracks.
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Visit One Ring Zero’s website.
One Ring Zero performs Venus (with numerous sightings of Michael on claviola):
