Deep Focus

Plate tectonics, this idea that the very surface of the earth is not an unyielding solid, but a set of independent segments in a constant state of flow, was not always accepted as truth.  It was only developed in 1967, but once geophysicists saw how accurately it described familiar phenomena, there was no going back.     At the exact same time, Jack DeJohnette was emerging as a new force on drums....

Plate tectonics, this idea that the very surface of the earth is not an unyielding solid, but a set of independent segments in a constant state of flow, was not always accepted as truth.  It was only developed in 1967, but once geophysicists saw how accurately it described familiar phenomena, there was no going back.     At the exact same time, Jack DeJohnette was emerging as a new force on drums....

Listen to Henry Threadgill's music.  What a phantasmagoria of splendors and esoterica must animate his mind!  Don't you just want to go to that place?  Maybe for a night out on the town?  Or a picnic in The Secret Garden?  Aren't you curious about where his inspiration comes from?  You could read his autobiography, Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music (in fact, we recommend you do), but...

Listen to Henry Threadgill's music.  What a phantasmagoria of splendors and esoterica must animate his mind!  Don't you just want to go to that place?  Maybe for a night out on the town?  Or a picnic in The Secret Garden?  Aren't you curious about where his inspiration comes from?  You could read his autobiography, Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music (in fact, we recommend you do), but...

Listen to Henry Threadgill's music.  What a phantasmagoria of splendors and esoterica must animate his mind!  Don't you just want to go to that place?  Maybe for a night out on the town?  Or a picnic in The Secret Garden?  Aren't you curious about where his inspiration comes from?  You could read his autobiography, Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music (in fact, we recommend you do), but...

Breaking new ground requires a willingness to plunge into the unknown.  You don't know what terrors and wonders you might find there.  The risks are concealed until it's too late to turn back.  That's one thing when it's your pursuit.  What about when it's someone else's vision, and you need to lead them through it?  What do you do?  Just dive into the Vast Empty?  Yes, you do if you're trombonist...

Breaking new ground requires a willingness to plunge into the unknown.  You don't know what terrors and wonders you might find there.  The risks are concealed until it's too late to turn back.  That's one thing when it's your pursuit.  What about when it's someone else's vision, and you need to lead them through it?  What do you do?  Just dive into the Vast Empty?  Yes, you do if you're trombonist...

Breaking new ground requires a willingness to plunge into the unknown.  You don't know what terrors and wonders you might find there.  The risks are concealed until it's too late to turn back.  That's one thing when it's your pursuit.  What about when it's someone else's vision, and you need to lead them through it?  What do you do?  Just dive into the Vast Empty?  Yes, you do if you're trombonist...

If you want to change the game, first you need to master the game.  Coming up in Newark in the fifties was the exact right place and time for Larry Young to learn the idiom of the Hammond B-3 organ, and he learned his lessons well.  His early records embody the soul-jazz organ trio sound made popular by Jimmy Smith.   But as the sound of the sixties emerged, Larry Young (also known by his Muslim n...

If you want to change the game, first you need to master the game.  Coming up in Newark in the fifties was the exact right place and time for Larry Young to learn the idiom of the Hammond B-3 organ, and he learned his lessons well.  His early records embody the soul-jazz organ trio sound made popular by Jimmy Smith.   But as the sound of the sixties emerged, Larry Young (also known by his Muslim n...

If you want to change the game, first you need to master the game.  Coming up in Newark in the fifties was the exact right place and time for Larry Young to learn the idiom of the Hammond B-3 organ, and he learned his lessons well.  His early records embody the soul-jazz organ trio sound made popular by Jimmy Smith.   But as the sound of the sixties emerged, Larry Young (also known by his Muslim n...

What is the great lesson of a James Blood Ulmer for fellow guitarist/composer/bandleader Vernon Reid?  Find out this Monday (9/29) when Vernon Reid and host Mitch Goldman plunge into the WKCR archives in search of rare, live recordings.  Some of them might even feature Vernon's early spirit guide and Blood's fellow Prime Timer, Ronald Shannon Jackson.     Now, for those of you who can't stand the...

What is the great lesson of a James Blood Ulmer for fellow guitarist/composer/bandleader Vernon Reid?  Find out this Monday (9/29) when Vernon Reid and host Mitch Goldman plunge into the WKCR archives in search of rare, live recordings.  Some of them might even feature Vernon's early spirit guide and Blood's fellow Prime Timer, Ronald Shannon Jackson.     Now, for those of you who can't stand the...

What is the great lesson of a James Blood Ulmer for fellow guitarist/composer/bandleader Vernon Reid?  Find out this Monday (9/29) when Vernon Reid and host Mitch Goldman plunge into the WKCR archives in search of rare, live recordings.  Some of them might even feature Vernon's early spirit guide and Blood's fellow Prime Timer, Ronald Shannon Jackson.     Now, for those of you who can't stand the...

Who came up with the idea that the middle of the road is the right place to be?  Regular listeners to Mitch Goldman's Deep Focus know that it's those shadowy corners, those Edge Cities, where new things start to happen. And who embodied this idea more than drummer Tony Williams' late sixties supergroup, Lifetime?     Lifetime inspired another supergroup in 2008 when guitarist Vernon Reid and bassi...

Who came up with the idea that the middle of the road is the right place to be?  Regular listeners to Mitch Goldman's Deep Focus know that it's those shadowy corners, those Edge Cities, where new things start to happen. And who embodied this idea more than drummer Tony Williams' late sixties supergroup, Lifetime?     Lifetime inspired another supergroup in 2008 when guitarist Vernon Reid and bassi...

Who came up with the idea that the middle of the road is the right place to be?  Regular listeners to Mitch Goldman's Deep Focus know that it's those shadowy corners, those Edge Cities, where new things start to happen. And who embodied this idea more than drummer Tony Williams' late sixties supergroup, Lifetime?     Lifetime inspired another supergroup in 2008 when guitarist Vernon Reid and bassi...

How is it possible that you have never heard guitarist Jef Lee Johnson?  He was as incendiary and as nakedly original as any soloist you have ever heard (absolutely any!).  But his greater distinction might have been his songwriting.  You don’t learn to write songs that are that revealing, that insightful, that cleverly put-together, and that hilariously funny, just by working at it.  First, you h...

How is it possible that you have never heard guitarist Jef Lee Johnson?  He was as incendiary and as nakedly original as any soloist you have ever heard (absolutely any!).  But his greater distinction might have been his songwriting.  You don’t learn to write songs that are that revealing, that insightful, that cleverly put-together, and that hilariously funny, just by working at it.  First, you h...

How is it possible that you have never heard guitarist Jef Lee Johnson?  He was as incendiary and as nakedly original as any soloist you have ever heard (absolutely any!).  But his greater distinction might have been his songwriting.  You don’t learn to write songs that are that revealing, that insightful, that cleverly put-together, and that hilariously funny, just by working at it.  First, you h...

Ornette Coleman, one of our brightest lights, died in June of 2015.  Here is a Deep Focus from August of that year, with Eric Person as my guest, remembering Ornette.  This show features a beautiful live recording from 1978.  Officially, his band is listed as the Ornette Coleman Sextet, but his fans know them as Prime Time.

Ornette Coleman, one of our brightest lights, died in June of 2015.  Here is a Deep Focus from August of that year, with Eric Person as my guest, remembering Ornette.  This show features a beautiful live recording from 1978.  Officially, his band is listed as the Ornette Coleman Sextet, but his fans know them as Prime Time.

Ornette Coleman, one of our brightest lights, died in June of 2015.  Here is a Deep Focus from August of that year with Eric Person as my guest, remembering Ornette.  This show features a beautiful live recording from 1978.  Officially, his band is listed as the Ornette Coleman Sextet, but his fans know them as Prime Time.

This is a rare treat: a former subject of Deep Focus becomes the guest.  In 2016, drummer Will Calhoun was our guest for a Deep Focus on one of his heroes, Elvin Jones.  Will brought a cassette of a set of music that he had heard as a teenager at the Village Vanguard.  At the time, Elvin had an emerging guitarist with a sound entirely unlike that of anyone else who had ever picked up the instrumen...

This is a rare treat: a former subject of Deep Focus becomes the guest.  In 2016, drummer Will Calhoun was our guest for a Deep Focus on one of his heroes, Elvin Jones.  Will brought a cassette of a set of music that he had heard as a teenager at the Village Vanguard.  At the time, Elvin had an emerging guitarist with a sound entirely unlike that of anyone else who had ever picked up the instrumen...