From DJ Tom Schnabel:
KCRW started playing Fela Anikulapo (he who looks death in the face) Kuti in 1980, long before Fela and his style, afrobeat, became popular. It was fitting that an LA-based station should give him airplay, since it was here in that Fela, an upper middle class boy from Lagos, discovered Black Nationalism and the Black Power Movement while living here in LA in1969.
Fela was also the first “KCRW Presents” show ever — in 1986, at the Olympic Auditorium in Downtown LA.
KCRW debuted King Sunny Ade (Nigerian juju …

KCRW DJ Henry Rollins dropped by Tom Schnabel’s show on Sunday to present his new Blue Note collection, Rollins’ Choice, a 2-CD import from the Netherlands.
Henry says he was approached with the idea by a friend in Europe and called it a daunting task since “almost everyone in jazz has walked through the hallways of Blue Note at one point.” He spun John Coltrane’s “Blue Train” (recorded right after he left Miles Davis and from his only record on that label) and Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” on Tom’s show, but …

From KCRW DJ Tom Schnabel:
Goethe once observed that “architecture is frozen music”.
When I told people a few years ago that I taught at SCIARC (Southern California Institute Of Architecture), people would inevitably ask “what’s music got to do with architecture?” To me the differences in the two disciplines were never that great.
Here are two great artists making the connection:

Claude Debussy, French composer (1862-1918), said this after being blown away by the 1889 Universal Exhibition, where he heard Balinese gamelan and other exotic music:
“Music is a free art, gushing forth—an …

From KCRW DJ Tom Schnabel:
I recently revisited some of Toru Takemitsu’s work, which I first heard in college with a recording called “Coral Island.”  It was way too far out for me then.
But listening now, years later, I am amazed by the color, shadings, the dialectic of abstraction and order that inhabit his work.   A few months ago, after reading the obit for boxer José Torres, I was reminded of Takemitsu’s dramatic piece in the film about the fighter, “Music of Training and Rest.”
Lately I’ve been listening repeatedly to the …

In the late 1980s we had the Gaden Shartse Monks in for a live performance on Morning Becomes Eclectic.
It was before Americans had been exposed to Tibetan music, performed by monks in crimson robes with their long alp horn-like trumpets.  The Gaden monks were here in LA with the Dalai Lama—who is associated with their monastery in Tibet—and who had,  that very day,  won the Nobel Peace Prize. They were happy and gentle beings, and brought peaceful vibrations to the studio.
– Tom Schnabel

A great new CD has just come out, and it’s called Afrocubism, and it’s from the great U.K. label World Circuit, purveyor of great world music for almost three decades and best known for producing The Buena Vista Social Club.
In fact, this is the album the Buena Vista Social Club was supposed to have been, had musicians from Mali not been stuck in Burkina Faso with no visas to get to Cuba.
Stream “Karamo“:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
It is glorious music, filled with exuberance and joy, beautifully produced and …

By KCRW DJ Tom Schnabel:
I recently bought a book compiled and photographed by the one and only jazz patroness, Baroness Pannonica (often called Nica) de Koenigswarter, a member of the old-world aristocratic and fabulously wealthy Rothschild dynasty.
The Baroness took the pictures and wrote down the wishes; the introduction is by her daugher Nadine, and the foreword is from Gary Giddins.
Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild was the daughter of Charles Rothschild and the Hungarian baroness Rozsika Edle von Wertheimstein.  She was named after a species of butterfuly her father had discovered.   She …

A few years back I got an email blurb from Giant Step Promotion in NYC, an organization KCRW used to do concerts with here in LA.  They featured a download of a band called The Bahama Soul Club, from their album “Rhythm is What Makes Jazz Jazz.”  The cover was lifted from a classic Blue Note side by trumpeter Kenny Dorham, so it caught my eye right away.
The sampler cut was called “But Rich Rhythms” and featured the voice of the late great alto sax player, Cannonball Adderley, famous for …

DJ Tom Schnabel will air a live performance with Ryuichi Sakamoto on KCRW this Sunday, October 31 at 1pm. Tom also interviewed the Academy Award-winning Japanese composer about his love for John Cage, Toru Takemitsu, his fame, and his latest two-CD set, “Playing the Piano and Out of Noise.”  Ryuichi plays a sold out show presented by KCRW at the El Rey Theatre on Friday 5, 2010.
Find the live session and interview here in the archives after it airs.
RR

Intro from KCRW DJ Tom Schnabel:
Gregory Isaacs was one of reggae’s great love rockers.  His song “Night Nurse” was a worldwide hit.  When I was music director, KCRW had a weekly 4-hour reggae show that showcased his and all of Jamaica and England’s finest—even West and South African reggae. It was one of our most popular shows and Isaacs was a core artist.
The artist gave very, very few interviews in his lifetime, but Roger Steffens, co-host and producer of the popular Sunday program, The Reggae Beat, which ran from 1979 …