Deep Focus

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...

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...

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...

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 bassist...

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 bassist...

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 bassist...

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 have...