Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon join David Garland to present and talk about Yoko Ono's music. Yoko and Sean tell many interesting stories, speak intimately about the music, and reminisce about the events that inspired the compositions. Plus, see photos here. This show first aired May 13, 2012.
Proportion is a key aspect to any work of art. An artist has to choose elements, tools, language, or components carefully--and some artists get lost in those details--but proportion addresses how those elements relate and balance. David Garland presents two new musical projects that display particular interest in the pleasures of playing with proportion: the albums "The Weighing of the Heart" by Colleen, and "The Adorables" by Zeena Parkins, Shayna Dunkelman, and Preshish Moments.
Guitarist/composer Don Bikoff's album "Celestial Explosion" was released in 1968. The album featured acoustic guitar gently altered with studio effects, and an Eastern-influenced take on the bluesy finger-picking of Mississippi John Hurt and American Primitivism of John Fahey. Bikoff has continued to play and compose, and to accumulate experience with a sense of adventure and joy. He joins David Garland in the WNYC Studio to reminisce, laugh, and play us some guitar.
Back in 1996 David Garland welcomed John Simon to the WNYC Studio to perform and to talk about Simon's music and career. Here are highlights from that session, featuring John Simon's solo renditions of several of his songs, music from some of the albums he produced for Leonard Cohen, Simon & Garfunkel, and The Band, and more.
Iva Bittová is a storyteller who rarely uses actual language to convey the emotions of her stories. Singing wordlessly, or using an implied language of her own, she creates intimate, engrossing narratives. David Garland welcomes Iva Bittová to the WNYC Studio to perform and talk about her music. She sings and plays violin simultaneously, sings some songs for voice alone, and with kalimba, drawing chiefly from material on her new ECM album, "Iva Bittová." Plus she tells of living in rural upstate New York, and being a film star in the Czech Republic.
The powerful, delicate music of English songwriter Nick Drake was underappreciated during his brief lifetime. But since Drake's death at age 26 in 1974, his recordings have gradually reached more and more listeners. It hasn't been entirely clear just from where he evolved his distinctive musical style. Now a brand new album gives David Garland the opportunity to show that the songwriter who had the greatest influence on Nick Drake was his mother, Molly Drake.
Climb into the cello. Make yourself comfortable. Feel the vibrations engulf you as the instrument is played. Your entire world resonates.
Composer Tyondai Braxton writes angular, energized music, teeming with ideas and sounds. He's developing a new multimedia piece, HIVE, which he'll premier at The Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan on March 21st. Braxton joins David Garland to share his thoughts behind his music, and Hive in particular.
In this episode of Spinning on Air, David Garland brings the cast of six singers and three musicians to WNYC to perform two extended excerpts from Episode 1 of "Life and Times." OK Theater's co-directors Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper also join in to talk about their work, and the thoughts and process behind it.
Heard on WNYC since 1987, Spinning On Air has always been about unusual music.
Hosted by David Garland
There was a particular renaissance back in the 1950s and '60s, bringing together poetry and jazz. Some of those vintage experiments surely laid the groundwork for the poetry slams and rap of today. David Garland presents some classic poetry and jazz recordings, including the voices of Jack Kerouac and Langston Hughes, along with music by Charles Mingus, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, Allyn Ferguson, and others.
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