This episode focuses on American jazz in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a time when established musicians branched out and new voices expanded the jazz spectrum to include all kinds of new influences: world music, African nationalism, and a strong examination of what “Jazz” meant in America. Some turned towards history and politics, looking for the definition of Jazz in African and African-American roots music; others turned towards a new cosmic exploration of the outer limits of free improvisation. Though impossible to boil down into an hour, this episode is an attempt to explore both aspects of this historical exploration of the “roots” of Jazz in America.
with contributions from Don Cherry, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Ornette Coleman, Susumu Yokota, Larry Young, Pharoah Sanders, John Cale & Terry Riley, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, and Grachan Moncur III.
