It was just a few weeks ago that I wrote about the passing of Benny Golson in the October rendition of our On Air Guide. Now, writing for December, I myself, WKCR as a station, and we as a general music community are grappling with even more losses of giants. In November we lost Quincy Jones, Lou Donaldson, and the legendary Roy Haynes. Jones passed on the third, a profound loss of a multi-genre creative and a true visionary whose expertise crafted the sound of an era. Donaldson’s soulful alto saxophone reached the ears of listeners across decades of work. The profound impact of the loss of Roy Haynes cannot be adequately summarized here in this introduction. While their souls have passed on, their art, impact, and legacy will continue to live both here on our airwaves and in our hearts in perpetuity.
This guide is packed to the brim with plenty to keep you busy for this month. Notably, we are introducing a crossword puzzle to each guide for the foreseeable future! You can find it at the end of the guide or in the PDF attached to the email, which is printable, so you can fill it out by hand. I took a stab at it this month, and while I do not want to give away too much, I hope the theme does not fly right over your head. We also have a review of a unique creation by composer Michael Schumacher titled Living Room Pieces. This piece, which plays music on and off for the entire day, was reviewed by Ben Erdmann who lived with it in their living quarters for 24 hours. Finally, we of course must mention Bachfest, which is the capstone special broadcast every year here on 89.9. This annual festival will take over from December 24-December 31, a grand way to end the year. The Classical Department has been moving around the clock to make sure all the pieces are in place for a successful festival, so rest assured we will end the year on a high note.
As always, we appreciate your listenership (and readership) and we wish everyone a happy Bachfest!
Peace and love,
Ted Schmiedeler Station Manager
Sports Head
Isabelle Fishbein sports@wkcr.org Mailing Address 2920 Broadway New York, NY 10027 USA
Sonic Possibilities: Early Electronic Music and the Questions It Raised
by Ale Díaz-Pizarro
Starting December 24th, like every year, listeners in the New York metro area and the world over will be able to tune into WKCR and be assured they’ll hear nothing but Bach for the rest of the year. And when some programmer inevitably decides to stray from the traditional “Classical” instrumentation— perhaps on synth, rock guitar, or traditional Japanese instruments—they may well be met with some listeners who consider their programming choice to be “a desecration of Bach” or “disrespectful to the music.”
A work that too often suffers this designation/ denigration at the hands of these listeners is SwitchedOn Bach, Wendy Carlos’s landmark 1968 interpretation of Bach “standards” on an early Moog synthesizer. Contemporary callers may be surprised to learn that their judgment of Carlos’s work is more conservative than the reception it earned at the time: Switched-On Bach won Carlos three classical music Grammys, became only the second classical album in history, to sell over a million copies, reignited enough commercially interest in Bach to warrant a spinoff release of its same tracks but conventionally played
(aptly titled Switched-Off Bach), and earned praise from as consecrated a Bach interpreter as Glenn Gould.
That an electronic interpretation of a canon stalwart could garner so much acclaim was surprising even to me. When I Googled “switched on bach reception,” I expected to find archival clippings of critics who had hated it, thinkpieces that revisited it, and all the general trappings of a cult classic; that what I found instead surprised me, or that I’d even expected to find this, was no doubt due to a paradigm that is not unique to me: the extreme separation of “classical” and “electronic” music as diametric opposites or antitheses of each other. Their aesthetic shorthands seem to lend themselves to this: the pure, romantic, traditional, beautiful orchestra as opposed to the alienating, technological, modern, ugly synthesizer—a fragile notion that relies on surface-level understandings of either kind of music, but that is also quite subjective in its appraisal—there is something angelic about the mess of cables behind a synth, after all, not in the rosy-cherub way of the velvety opera house but in the incomprehensible,
Wendy Carlos at her Moog electronic synthesizer, on which she perfected and performed Switched-On Bach. Via ThereminVox.com.
intimidating manner of biblical angels—and can even cloak a fascist-coded sensibility. More importantly than aesthetics, however, is the fact that the forebears of electronic music did not conceptualize it as antagonistic to classical music. The French musique concrète composer Pierre Schaeffer, whose work with taped sounds—from his famous “Studies in Noises” (Études de bruits, 1948) to his live demonstrations— was regularly singled out as an affront not just to classical music but to music altogether, wrote in “Music and the Instrument” that the development of electronic music was not an aberration but rather “the same process as with images: concrete music is born with the same violence as the cinema.”
As opposed to the theater, “in the movies, objects can speak: often the best images are silent ones. [...] For all that, traditional music is not denied; nor more than the cinema supplants the theater.” Furthermore, he condemned the other extreme as well, those who in nihilism may have celebrated electronic music’s negation of music altogether, writing that “If concrete music were to contribute to this movement [toward nihilism], if, hastily adopted, stupidly understood, it had only to add its additional bellowing, its new negation, after so much smearing of lines, denial of golden rules (such as that of the scale), I should consider myself rather unwelcome.”
A newspaper clipping from a 1956 New York Times report on the scientific study of music.
The early electronic musicians were not a bunch of hell-raising punks bent on obliterating the canon and everything it stood for, but trained composers doing what experts in any field do: pushing its limits. As the German music theorist Herbert Eimert put it, what electronic and concretist composers were
after was not “translating the existing world of tone into the electro-acoustical world;” rather, new technologies meant new possibilities for sound, and “the new manner of tone production demand[ed] new artistic ideas of form” that only composers could offer. The Space Race context of electronic music (the first RCA synthesizer was presented in 1955, the same year the Space Race began), when the general cultural fascination with science— or, more accurately, the ‘science-y’—lent composers less the former affectation of romantics and bohemians and more the persona of scientists manipulating the world of sound for human use. A 1956 New York Times report on acoustic scientists studying music reported that their "object is to apply a combination of physics, psychology and architecture to extend the score of music and to increase its effect on the listener.” The self-possessed tone of the sentence is a little silly on closer scrutiny, but it does display the view fashionable at the time of the musician as scientist, of music as a manipulable variable, and that is how Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening, the fathers of electronic music in the U.S., put it in their report for the Rockefeller Grant that allowed them to establish the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and thus to nurture this union of artistic and scientific element, peculiar to music, along the paths where its enormous potential stands the best chance of bringing human satisfaction.”
It is true that the technological capabilities of electronic composers were just as important as their musical sensibilities: Pierre Schaeffer was praised as “at the same time technician and artist, engineer and writer;” Vladimir
Ussachevsky’s personal papers are half catalogs for equipment and descriptions of pieces; and Wendy Carlos’s incredible timbre was largely thanks to the fact that she had installed her home studio herself and continually tailored it to her liking (unsurprising given that when in school she’d earned a scholarship by building a computer from scratch). And a music critic for the New York Herald Tribune reviewing the first RCA synthesizer reassured readers that music as we knew it was safe until there existed “a superman who is both musician and engineer.” But this technological prowess was never meant to supersede the musical dimension.
Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening, the fathers of electronic music in the U.S., put it quite clearly in the report under the Rockefeller Grant that allowed them to establish the ColumbiaPrinceton Electronic Music Center: “Electronic and tape music does not attempt to displace other music but rather to add a new dimension to the existing world of sound. Decisions regarding artistic form and critical, aesthetic, and human satisfaction still rely as in the past on the genius of the artist and the response and taste of the listener.”
The anxieties around the technology of electronic music are more familiar than ever. On the one hand, new technology meant new possibilities, and early newspaper articles about synthesizers made them seem like something out of a science fiction novel: an article headlined “Electronic Device Can Duplicate All Sounds” waxed poetic on the capacity of the first RCA synthesizer to “synthesize sounds that have never on earth been heard, literally bringing to man the music of the spheres.” (The sentence immediately after this, quite humorously, described RCA’s other
invention-of-the-future presented the same day: “An electronic cooling device in which six ounces of ice have been frozen,” though with no acknowledgment that the resulting ice may be extraterrestrial or spherical in any way.) Another article, “Machine Makes Any Musical Sounds,”described the synth as “a two-ton mass of radio tubes, coils, and knobs” that could create any sound “dreamed up—or as yet undreamed—by any musician.” On the other hand, the concern that technology was outpacing human artifice and might one day completely outgrow it was inevitably packaged in with this. The same Herald Tribune critic warned that “the day may come [...] when the synthesizer will be mated to a mechanical brain of the genus Univac. On that day the music world had best pack its fifes and fiddles and look for another profession.” Though modernity, its benefits notwithstanding, always brings anxiety (one need only think of the XIX century cartoons that depicted electricity as a flying monster of death), the caliber of these concerns rings more familiar in an age
Newspaper headlines about the presentation of the first RCA synthesizer in 1955.
inundated with discourse on artificial intelligence and whether AI art is poised to replace human art. I won’t dignify this discourse with too much lip service—anyone with a working brain and any of their five senses can see that AI slop only stands to vanquish art for those who don’t actually understand what art is about—other than to say that contemporary readers wanting to get a laugh at the expense of the 50s doomsayers (as I certainly am guilty of) should look around at the present state of the cultural conversation to gage just what electronic music represented to the public at its genesis.
Front and back of an invitation among the papers of Vladimir Ussachevsky, on whose back some technical notes are scribbled.
But here I’d turn, again, to the very men and women who nurtured electronic music in its growth toward a living music form, and who never intended it to be anything other than one more tool to explore the sonic possibilities of music. A closer look at the papers of Vladimir Ussachevsky, one of the founders of the ColumbiaPrinceton Electronic Music Center and thus one of the fathers of electronic music in the U.S. (and writ large), reveals this. A technical specification is scribbled on the back of an invitation to see the Columbia University Orchestra perform Vivaldi and Bach. Amid invoices
for parts and equipment is a sheet asking humanities instructors to remind their students about a listening review for Columbia’s Music Humanities course, where (to this day) students survey the history of music from the medieval to the modern. A course listing for the music department has Prof. Ussachevsky’s class as just one option amid offerings on opera, Haydn, Mozart, the pianoforte, chamber music, and choral music, among others. Even as electronic music entered the scene, classical music wasn’t going anywhere, and those working on the former were doing so precisely because they so appreciated the latter. Viewing electronic music as a possibility required understanding music as something living—an understanding endemic to the very music departments that also cultivated an appreciation for music “of the past.”
A memo to humanities faculty at Columbia to remind their undergraduate students of the listening review for the Music Humanities survey course, still a part of the Columbia Core today.
In fact, reading contemporary critiques of electronic music is more revelatory of the critics’ own stagnant views of classical music than of any merit (or lack thereof) to its electronic counterpart. Take, to begin with, two newspapers that, reporting on the Conference on Electronic and Concrete Music at Basel in May 1955, took
issue with how serious the concretists were while making sounds that, to them, seemed absurd. “What was seen and heard” at the concretists’ presentation, wrote the Swiss weekly Die Schweizerische Woche, was “too much esprit and too little science, a hokus-pocus [sic] of games played by grown-up brutally serious children to whom an incautious person had given an enlarged tape machine as a Christmas present.” The leftist Volksrecht was similarly indignant, concluding that not only was the music terrible, but “the brutal seriousness of the solemn facial expressions and physical motions with which the unnecessarily visible
conductor seated at a fantastically dressed-up tone-steering apparatus directed the sonorities to the various loud-speakers serving the effect of spaciousness was doubly repulsive.” That these critics are offended at the seriousness of the concretists should not be taken as a preference for the Mozart of "Leck mich im Arsch" over the Mozart of Die Zauberflöte; rather, they are offended that these composers should be so serious about something that to them seems so ridiculous, as if one should only be serious about serious things—like classical music, which then becomes this immovable, almost consecrated canon about which one should be very, very serious. (Again, Mozart, who wrote one of his most beautiful arias for Così fan tutte just so he could watch a singer that annoyed him bob his head like a chicken when hitting the notes, might offer fruitful disagreement with this sentiment.)
But this misguided appreciation of classical music is true of even the more charitable critics, as well. The screenwriter Enrico Fulchignoni, who had nothing but praise for Pierre Schaeffer, defended concrete music by saying that “listening to [it] was an ‘operation.’ It requires a world in which objects and beings are subject to different freedoms and different connections from the ones we know.” This description, however, could be applied to virtually any era of classical music when it was the ‘new thing:’ polyphony, too, required different sensibilities than the monophony that preceded it, and the romantic world, with its nationalistic fantasies, required just as different a political paradigm to understand it vis-à-vis its classical predecessor. A similar trap-of-platitudes belies the excited review from the Swiss illustrated Schweizerische Illustrierte Zeitung, which proclaimed of Basel 1955 that “the border lines between art and technology, so sharply delineated up till now,
A page detailing some of the course offerings for students in the Columbia University Music Department in the 1962-63 academic year.
are practically erased. But the bond between music and technology, which has always been in existence, is now, as it were, officially legitimized for the first time, and it forms the basis for all work in this new field.” Any musical instrument, after all, is a technology—and Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk, a total technology of the performance space and the music given in it, would certainly oppose the notion that art and technology were heretofore entirely segregated.
What I am trying to say in all this flurry of newspaper clippings is that to critique electronic music as something completely separate from classical music, be it negatively as an affront to or positively as an updated version of it, is to be willfully disengaged from what really drives music as a living form of art. It isn’t blind reverence for tradition, but neither is it the outright dismissal of what came before; you can’t push the limits if you don’t know where or what they are, just as you can’t innovate without an understanding of what came before you. Electronic composers certainly understood that: Wendy Carlos was not claiming to do better than Bach, but finding a new sonic possibility to express the work of a genius, and through Switched-On Bach like no other work the synthesizer was legitimized as a musical instrument in the public imagination rather than just a space-age tchotchke. But at risk of sounding too admonishing, we also do well to remember that exploring the possibilities of sound, just as electronic music offered, has always been the domain of music. When Bach sat at the organ, it was not familiar sounds he yielded. When Beethoven incorporated that motif into his Fifth, it was not a tame response he was seeking. When Paganini played Caprice No. 24, it was to stretch the violin as far as the instrument would allow (and is that not the full use of a technology?). When Dvorák looked for sounds for his New World Symphony, he looked outside of his known realm of European music. And when Stravinsky composed The Rite of Spring, he took the barest unit of harmony—a chord—and pushed it through repetition as far as it would go, all the way to scandal.
Switched-On Bach, then, was never intended as a fuck-you to Bach, and any reading of it as such is not only malintentioned, but grossly misinformed. And if you think Bach—who was as playful as he was skilled in counterpoint, who loved a challenge of arranging, who eagerly mastered and reworked musical forms from abroad, who deployed dissonance as much as ornamentation—wouldn’t have used the hell out of a synthesizer if he’d had the chance, then you might want to tune into Bachfest a little harder than usual this year.
All quoted documents were found in the Vladimir Ussachevsky papers, 1932-1969 archival collection at the Columbia University Rare Books & Manuscripts Library. All were among Vladimir Ussachevsky's personal papers. Unless otherwise noted, all photographs in the article are of archival material similarly found in the collection, and the photographs are my own.
Will you hear Switched-On Bach on Bachfest 2024? There's only one way to know for sure: tune in all 8 days, starting at midnight on December 24th and running straight to the end of day (and end of year) on December 31st. All Bach, all day, all week, in an authentic WKCR staple.
MEET A MEMBER
CInterview with Hanzlik-BarendMacy
an you introduce yourself and your involvement at WKCR?
I’m Macy and I am the News and Arts Department Head.
What made you want to join WKCR?
by Ella Marie Presiado
I’m a part of the Trinity CollegeDublin Dual B.A. which is a program at Columbia where you spend your first two years of college in Dublin, Ireland. So, I was there my freshman and sophomore year and I was part of a radio station called Trinity FM, which is a very small student-run radio station that I absolutely loved. I did a music show there for two years and was definitely looking to continue radio when I got to Columbia. So that’s kinda how I stumbled into WKCR originally.
I’m curious as to what made you interested in doing news at KCR, especially because you focused more on music at Trinity. I think a lot of it was that I was used to more free-form content, so that’s how I was drawn to the NARTS (News and Arts) sphere in general. But I wouldn’t really say I had the journalism bug before coming here—and then I ended up covering one of the first protests on campus in Fall of 2023. I actually covered it before I was licensed—I got licensed the day of our broadcast! So that was kind of my introduction to news and then it just stuck.
Do you have the journalism bug now? Definitely.
What has been your favorite part about doing news here?
I just love the community and the ethos of WKCR’s news department, especially in comparison to a lot of mainstream outlets or the news that you’re used to. At WKCR, it’s very much by students, for students. So we don’t work on a beat system. I really like that. Our stories are completely based on what students want to hear and are interested in.
How did your involvement on the news coverage team last year, especially last spring, shape your experience at WKCR as a whole?
Macy as a field reporter on Thursday, April 18th, 2024, as the NYPD arrested Columbia students participating in the first Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Photo by Maria Shaughnessy.
It was interesting, I hadn’t really been here for long compared to a lot of people when coverage started. I hadn’t even finished my first year at KCR. So, I think it was a massive moment in terms of my relation to the station. I was here for two weeks straight. I was a somewhat regular programmer beforehand, I wouldn’t say I was here all of the time. I think I developed a strong connection to the station and the people, especially those I worked with in those two weeks. It definitely changed my relationship with KCR, for sure.
What has been one of the biggest things you’ve learned in your time as a news contributor/ NARTS head?
That’s a good question. I think I’ve learned some listening skills, to be quite honest. Part of that comes with audio journalism and audio
content in general. I’ve learned who to pick out from a crowd, who has a lot to say, and how to be a mouthpiece for the student body here at Columbia.
What will you miss most about being a part of KCR?
I will definitely miss the community. The people at WKCR are so awesome and it’s so awesome. This was my first intern season not being an intern so it’s kinda fun. I really like talking to new programmers and getting people more involved. You can see when people start to fall in love with the station and it’s a really cool thing. So, I’m going to miss that a lot. I know there are a lot of alumni programmers so I might be back, who knows? But yeah, I’ll miss it.
What’s next for you after KCR? My apologies if that is a stressful question! No, it’s okay, I think it’s a question seniors get a lot. I’m getting used to it. We’ll see, I’m looking into a lot of fellowships, maybe into journalism school. So unfortunately compared to some industries I probably will not know until pretty late but, we’ll see.
Thank you for coming today!
Of course!
Tune into WKCR's News & Arts programming, Sunday-Thursday 9-10 PM, to hear some of the programming that Macy has brought to the department as its head.
Macy as a field reporter on Thursday, April 18th, 2024, as the NYPD arrested Columbia students participating in the first Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Photo by Maria Shaughnessy.
NEW MUSIC
Living Room Pieces
by Ben Erdmann
WKCR was lucky to receive Michael J. Schumacher’s Living Room Pieces before its coming exhibition downtown. Living Room Pieces is an ambient soundscape, an artwork that promises to transform your relationship with the space you inhabit. It’s entirely contained in a small metal box that includes the Raspberry Pi computer that runs the program. The rest of Living Room Pieces relies upon two speakers—ideally placed as far apart as possible—and an amp to modulate the computer.
Living Room Pieces contains seven 24-hour cycles that play a variety of ambient modules, most notably found sound, static, and clicks, among additional unidentifiable noise. They play seemingly at random, interrupting the silence that makes up a large part of Living Room Pieces. However, the randomness is purely perceptual—the Raspberry Pi inside Living Room Pieces affects a precise organization of its sounds, though they’ll be composed differently each time the computer is connected to a power source. As such, Living Room Pieces
is different for every listener, every time–a feature that compelled me to set up the artwork in my room for about three days.
While Living Room Pieces was installed in my room, the relationship to my living space did truly change. I was reminded of the power in John Cage’s 4’33”, a work that includes a performer sitting at a grand piano on stage for four minutes and thirty-three seconds while the audience waits in silent expectation. There, the audience is encouraged to pay attention to the sounds that impose themselves upon the performance space, with those sounds becoming the substance and texture of 4’33”. Living Room Pieces is similar in its silence, though sparse noise produces an effect that coheres in the unsettling nature of sound echoing and refracting across space. At times, I felt like a stranger in my own room; at others, I felt at home with the found sounds mirroring those already spilling through my cracked window. I thought about my space as if it
Graphic via Experimental Sound Studio.
was alive and responding to my presence, the fact that I was in relation to a presumably inanimate spatial schema.
This anthropomorphization of my space is the feature of Living Room Pieces I found most interesting and central to my understanding of the work. On WKCR’s oncampus Instagram page, I made a post wondering if the artwork missed me or was worried about being in a new space all alone; I was only halfjoking. Living Room Pieces forced me to ask if sonic outbursts are necessary for understanding a relation between me and an object as anthropomorphic, a two-way street that exerts influence on me as well. As such, I took away from the experience a more diffuse understanding of relation, one that emerges in every instance of connection rather than only those that become legible through sonic exchange.
Living Room Pieces; it offers to reshape your relationship with the built environment, a necessary endeavour given our contemporary commodification of space that so often alienates the inhabitant.
Living Room Pieces is certainly worth seeing if you have a chance in New York City. Several individuals have installed it in their homes for periods of up to a year, and now it’s on sale. This seems like the context most appropriate for engaging its ongoing mutation of sound and the sonic landscape of a space, but seeing it in a gallery provides a whole other range of questions to engage like, What’s the sonic nature of a gallery? Does a gallery need to be silent to be a privileged aesthetic space? How does Living Room Pieces move between multiple people in a single space, intersecting with the sounds they produce through movement or quiet conversation? I encourage you to find a chance to engage with Michael J. Schumacher’s
Ben is a habitual host of Workaround on WKCR. Tune in to hear them spin some tunes on selected Friday evenings, 9-10 PM!
Michael J. Schumacher at work. Photo by Michael Yu via Experimental Sound Studio.
am
am
am
am
Sin Fronteras
Jazz Alternatives
Nueva Canción
Som do
Special Broadcasts
SPECIAL BROADCASTS
Press Play
Saturday, December 7th & Sunday, December 8th, 12:00 - 6:00 PM both days
This year WKCR will broadcast the amazing lineup of speakers and music at Press Play publishing fair, a two-day fair hosted by Pioneer Works in Red Hook! The fair features an incredible group of independent publishers, musicians, authors, speakers, critics and more, talking about and sharing their work. On both Saturday and Sunday we will broadcast the speaker series live on 89.9 FM from noon to 6pm each day. Don’t miss it! Check out our Instagram @wkcrfm for all the details.
Donald Byrd
Monday, December 9th, all day
Last year we had two successful By(i)rd broadcasts—so why not do it again! December 9th will feature 24 hours of the great Donald Byrd, a performer beloved by programmers and listeners alike.
Bachfest
Tuesday, December 24th to Tuesday, December 31st, all day (8 full days)
How does one even begin to describe Bachfest? How does one write a short blurb to encapsulate all that is to be loved about 8 straight days of Bach?! How do I put into words the excitement I feel for the radio event of the year? Many questions, but the only answer (to all our qualms) is to tune in during the last week of the year for our annual Bachfest.
THEMED SHOWS
SUNDAY PROFILES
Sundays 2:00-7:00 PM
Barry Harris
December 15th, 2:00 - 7:00 PM
Host: WKCR Jazz Department (Collectively)
The Five
December 22nd, 2:00 - 7:00 PM
Host: Casey Lamb
In the 1950s a term was coined to describe and categorize the big orchestras in the United States. The term encompasses 5 major orchestras: The New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony. The period represents a golden age in the history of American orchestras, with conductors like Leonard Bernstein, Fritz Reiner, and George Szell leading their respective orchestras. Tune in for the rare Classical Profile!
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE
Saturdays 9:00 PM-12:30 AM
Host: Ale Díaz-Pizarro
Armida (Rossini)
December 7th, 9:00 PM-12:30 AM
La Wally (Catalani)
December 14th, 9:00 PM-12:30 AM
Messiah (Handel)
December 21st, 9:00 PM-12:30 AM
OPERA
Show Listings
JAZZ
Daybreak Express, weekdays 5-8:20am
Out to Lunch, weekdays 12-3pm
Jazz Alternatives, weekdays 6-9pm
The core of our jazz offerings, these three programs span the entire range of recorded jazz: everything from New Orleans jazz, jazz age, swing era, bebop, hard-bop, modal, free, and avant-garde. Hosts rotate daily, offering an exciting variety of approaches, some of which include thematic presentation, artist interviews, or artist profiles.
Birdflight, Tues.-Thurs. 8:20-9:30am
Archival programs from the late Phil Schaap, one of the world’s leading jazz historians, who hosted this daily forum for the music of Charlie Parker for about 40 years.
Now's The Time*, Fri. 8:20-9:30am
The newest show from WKCR Jazz is dedicated to jazz as a living art form, providing a weekly space to listen to the young and current musicians pushing the genre forward.
Traditions in Swing, Sat. 6-9pm
Archival programs from the late Phil Schaap, this awardwinning Saturday night staple presents focused thematic programs on jazz up until about World War II. Schaap presents the music, much of it incredibly rare, from the best sound source, which is often the original 78 issue.
Phil Lives*, Mon. 3-5am
Archival broadcasts of longform programs from late NEA Jazz Master Phil Schaap.
CLASSICAL
Cereal Music, Mon.-Thurs. 9:30am-12pm
An entirely open-ended classical show to start your weekdays. Tune in to hear the most eclectic mix of classical music on the New York airwaves!
The Early Music Show, Fri. 9:30am-12pm
Dedicated primarily to European medieval, Renaissance, and baroque music, all from before 1800 (±50 years).
Extended Technique*, Wed. & Thurs. 3-6pm
WKCR’s first interdepartmental show (in the New Music and Classical departments) dedicated to contemporary classical music. You’ll hear everything from 12-tone and minimalist compositions to film and video game scores, and all things in between.
Afternoon Classical, Fri. 3-6pm.
Similar to Cereal Music, most of Afternoon Classical has no restrictions on what type of classical music to play. The last hour of the show, however, is dedicated fully to the music of JS Bach.
Saturday Night at the Opera, Sat. 9pm-12:30am.
One of NYC’s longest running opera shows, Saturday Night at the Opera is a 3.5 hour show that allows operas to be played in their entirety, with room for commentary, descriptions, and some history.
NEW MUSIC
Afternoon New Music, Mon. & Tues. 3-6pm
Our daytime new music program features a wide variety of music that challenges boundaries and subverts categorizations. Shows include everything from seminal new music compositions to the most challenging of obscure deep cuts and new releases.
Transfigured Night, Tues./Thurs./Sat. 1-5am
Our overnight explorations into the world of new music, Transfigured Night rewards our late night listeners with a wide range of sounds and experimental music.
Workaround*, Fri. 9-10pm
WKCR presents live DJ sets from Columbia students and local artists.
Live Constructions, Sun. 10-11pm
This weekly program features a live in-studio performance or a performance pre-recorded specially for the show.
AMERICAN
Honky Tonkin’, Tues. 10-11pm
One of WKCR’s longest-running American music programs, Honky Tonkin’ lands in the harder side of Country music. Emphasizing the greatest voices in the genre, Honky Tonkin’ is a country music dance party every Tuesday night.
Tuesday’s Just as Bad, Tues. 11pm - Wed. 1am
Tuesday’s Just as bad explores the world of blues prior to World War II. Shows weave their way through the first decades of recorded music history and turn to the postwar years in the final half hour.
* Indicates show was created after January 2022
LISTINGS FOR LISTENERS
Night Train, Wed. 1-5am
All aboard! One of our two overnight programs in the American department, Night Train rolls through the postwar R&B and soul tradition, from the genre’s emergence in the 1940’s and 50’s through the funk revolution in the 1970’s. Shows often feature extended live recordings and concerts.
Offbeat, Fri. 1-5am
Offbeat is committed to broadcasting undiscovered new hip hop music. Shows typically focus on exposing underplayed or up-and-coming new artists, including experimental instrumental artists not typically played on mainstream hip hop radio.
Across 110th Street, Sat. 12-2pm
Kicking off our Saturday afternoon American music run, Across 110th Street airs soul, funk, and dance music from the 1960’s through the 1980’s and 90’s.
Something Inside of Me, Sat. 2-4pm
Something Inside of Me is WKCR’s Saturday afternoon blues show, focusing mostly on the electric and post-war styles.
Hobo’s Lullaby, Sat. 4-6pm
Rooted in the folk revival of the 1950s and 60s, Hobo’s Lullaby airs American folk and traditional music styles from the early 20th century through the present day. From old staples like Leadbelly, Elizabeth Cotton, and Woody Guthrie to contemporary stalwarts like the Carolina Chocolate Drops and lesser known artists, domestic traditions are alive and well on Hobo’s Lullaby.
Notes from the Underground, Sun. 12:30-2am
Notes from the Underground showcases contemporary hip hop and rap music with an emphasis on emerging and experimental artists. The program also hosts local and visiting artists for interviews, freestyles, and guestcuration.
Amazing Grace, Sun. 8-10am
Greeting listeners on Sunday morning, Amazing Grace shares with listeners the world of the African-American gospel tradition.
The Moonshine Show, Sun. 10am-12pm
On the air for nearly 60 years, The Moonshine Show showcases the American Bluegrass tradition, from the earliest roots in vernacular string-band music, through
* indicates show was created after January 2022
the genre’s pioneers in the 1940s and 50s and advancements in the 60s and 70s, through the leading innovators and stars of today.
The Tennessee Border Show, Sun. 12-2pm
One third of WKCR’s country music programming, along with Honky Tonkin’ and the Bluegrass Moonshine Show, Tennessee Border highlights the singer-songwriter tradition, from Hank Williams and Townes Van Zandt to Lucinda Williams.
LATIN
Caribe Latino, Mon. 10pm-12am
Caribe Latino is a music program that features the diverse, upbeat music from numerous Latin communities in the Caribbean. Popular Latin rhythms such as Salsa, Merengue, Bachata and Latin Jazz take center stage throughout the program.
Urbano Latinx, Tues. 12-1am
A weekly Latin show airing contemporary sounds from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the diaspora, Urbano Latinx features mixes of salsa, merengue, Latin punk rock, and more.
Sin Fronteras*, Wed. 12-3pm
Falling in the space of Out to Lunch on Wednesday afternoons, Sin Fronteras explores the tremendous Latin Jazz tradition.
Nueva Canción, Wed. 10-11pm
Nueva Canción is an exploration of protest music created throughout Latin America during the 60s and 70s and its numerous other manifestations throughout other countries and time periods.
Som do Brasil, Wed. 11pm - Thurs. 1am
From samba and bossa nova to MPB, hear the numerous and enchanting sounds and rhythms of Brazil.
Sonidos Colombianos, Fri. 10-11pm
Sonidos Colombianos presents music from one of the most culturally diverse countries of Latin America: Colombia! Our bilingual musical tour is guaranteed to include not only cumbia, but also the guitar-based bambuco from the Andean region, the harp llanero music from the Eastern Plains, the marimba-infused currulao from the Pacific Region, and the accordiondriven vallenato of the North Atlantic Coast.
LISTINGS FOR LISTENERS
The Mambo Machine, Fri. 11pm - Sat. 2am
The Mambo Machine is the longest running salsa show in New York City. The program presently plays a wide spectrum of Afro-Latin rhythms, combining new and old into an exciting, danceable mix.
El Sonido de la Calle*, Sun. 2-4am
A companion show to Saturday night’s American Notes from Underground, El Sonido de la Calle highlights the diverse world of contemporary Spanish-language hiphop and dance music.
IN ALL LANGUAGES
The Celtic Show, Mon. 12-1am
Music from across the island of Ireland throughout the era of recorded music, particularly focusing on traditional folk and vernacular music forms.
Coordinated Universal Time, Mon. 1-3am
Coordinated Universal Time brings our listeners the latest cut of music from anywhere in the world, especially highlighting music that does not get attention in America. Our programming tries to bring the hottest and the most recent tunes to WKCR’s airwaves.
The African Show, Thurs. 10pm-12am
The longest running African music radio show in the United States, the African Show brings you a variety of music from the entire continent of Africa.
Middle Eastern Influences, Fri. 12-1am
During the hour-long show, Middle Eastern Influences features a wide range of beautiful tracks from regions of the Middle East, North Africa, and even, at times, South Asia.
Sounds of Asia, Sat. 6-8am
Rechristened from Sounds of China, Sounds of Asia explores the recorded musical traditions and innovations of Asia and the Pacific islands.
Eastern Standard Time, Sat. 8am-12pm
One of New York’s most popular Reggae programs, Eastern Standard Time takes listeners through Saturday morning from 8 am to noon with the hypnotic sounds of Reggae and Jamaican dance music.
Field Trip, Sun. 6-8am
Field Trip focuses on the music and practice of field recordings: music recorded outside of a studio. Tune in and you may catch field recordings that were recorded fifty years ago, others that were experimented with by your favorite Afternoon New Music artist, or even those documented in New York City by WKCR itself.
Raag Aur Taal, Sun. 7-9pm
Raag Aur Taal explores the sounds and rich cultural heritage of South Asia. The term “Raag Aur Taal” roughly translates to “melody and rhythm,” indicating the classical nature of this program.
Back in the USSR, Sun. 11pm-12am
Back in the USSR features music from across the former Soviet Union and soviet states across Eastern Europe and East and Central Asia, from the mid-20th century through the present.
NEWS & ARTS
Monday Morningside*, Mon. 8:30-9:30am
Monday Morningside is WKCR’s morning news broadcast to kick off the week, featuring news segments on events around Morningside Heights and upper Manhattan. If you’re not an early bird, all episodes are available as podcasts on Spotify!
SUNDAY PROFILES
Sunday Profile, Sun. 2-7pm*
A WKCR staple, programmers use five hours to showcase longform profiles of pioneering artists. While the primary focus remains on jazz music, we also feature other styles and traditions from across WKCR’s different programming departments.
* indicates show was created after January 2022
by Caroline Nieto AMERICAN
OElliott Smith, Roman Candle
n July 14, 1994, Elliott Smith released his debut album, Roman Candle. It’s been thirty years since Elliott Smith went solo—releasing his debut album after a step back from his rock band, Heatmiser. He stripped away the band’s gritty guitar and full drum set, and what remained was Roman Candle, nine songs that relied almost exclusively on Smith and his acoustic guitar. The album was recorded in the house he shared with Heatmiser’s manager, JJ Gonson, in Portland. Gonson said Smith worked in the basement and “sang quietly, perhaps so as not to be heard by all the people always coming and going upstairs, so you can hear every breath and string squeak.” He left the songs in their primitive forms because they weren’t intended for public release. Smith passed around the demo in Portland in hopes of getting signed, but it wasn’t until Cavity Search Records convinced him to release it that Roman Candle could be widely heard. Despite its relative minimalism, the album is passionate, full of pent up anger that swims just below the surface of each song. Smith is careful when to show his hand, building tension
through the contrast of cutting lyrics with music that’s more pared down. No song demonstrates this better than the album’s title track, which finds its chorus in the low hum of “I wanna hurt him / I wanna give him pain.” Under this lyric is a rapidly strummed acoustic guitar, laden with unresolved melodies. These smaller moments of musical tension never outright erupt, but they don’t fully settle. This is where the title comes in— both Smith and his song are like a Roman candle, something that can illuminate and explode in one fell swoop.
There’s a push and pull between passion and reservedness on this record, each pointing to one sector of Smith’s musical influences. A song like “Drive All Over Town” could easily accommodate a full band version; its sleepy repetition in the chorus is enough to stoke the fires of 90s grunge. The fallout from Heatmiser gave Smith the attitude of his peers in the rock revival without these bands’ heavy instrumentation. Smith also grew up with the music of The Beatles, and cites the White Album as his initial inspiration to be a musician. Being a debut, Roman Candle is a bit more rough around the edges than
a career-defining Beatles record. It’s more like a Harrison demo—its bareness puts the songwriting on full exposure. His quieter, folksounding songs are a product of his childhood affinity for artists like Simon and Garfunkel and Bob Dylan. Smith once commented: “My father taught me how to play ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.’ I love Dylan’s words, but even more than that, I love the fact that he loves words.”
Smith’s creative inspiration often lived outside of music—religion, philosophy, and literature all played a role in his artistic psyche. He shied away from overly-evocative messaging in his songs since he found the singer-songwriter tradition “manipulative lyrically,” saying “It has this connotation of being super sentimental, [...] as if the person singing is trying to get everybody to feel just like them.” Instead, Smith adopts a form of narration that often includes a direct dialogue with the subject of his songs. On “No Name #1,” he tells the illusive “he” to “go home and leave with your pain / because you know you don’t belong here.”
These second person commands are all over Roman Candle, notably in “Last Call,” the
penultimate track. It’s the best example of how arresting Smith’s songwriting can be. One of the most cutting lines in his discography comes from this song, when he spits out: “You’re a tongueless talker, you don’t care what you say / You’re a jaywalker and you just / Just walk away.” The verses of the song tee up a lyrical spiral at the end of the song where Smith repeats, “I wanted her to tell me that she would never wake me” eight times in a double-tracked duet with himself. His self-awareness can so easily fall into the overindulgent, sentimental writing he so despises, but he always knows just when to pull away, just when to quiet the storm. Elliott Smith can be brash, he can be queerly calm, but there’s no mistaking that he can go from one to the other expertly. He’s right in self-identifying with a Roman candle— fiery and bright and unpredictable. It’s this impassioned artistry that made Roman Candle so anomalous, securing Smith a spot as one of the definitive songwriters of his generation.
Elliott Smith at his last show, New York City, 2000. Photo by Alexis “Flybutter” Scherl via Flickr.
by Eamon Costello NEW MUSIC
WMore Massive Than Ever
hen General Levy released the indelible song “Incredible,” he was the first to say that “jungle is massive.” With the subsequent virality of the song, he willed his own statement into existence. But the emergence of jungle, a genre characterized by high-speed breakbeats and vocals from other genres like dub and reggae, was a long time coming. In the period following World War II, the United Kingdom encouraged the people of Jamaica to re-enlist as soldiers or find employment in the UK. They brought with them the concept of the sound system, which consisted of a DJ who used turntables and speakers to play genres like dancehall, reggae, and ska. At parties throughout London, the Jamaican sound system began to mash with the English breakbeat scene. Jungle was born, hit its peak around 1995, and gradually faded away. A plethora of other electronic subgenres, most notably drum and bass, began to permeate throughout the clubs of London. There were small revivals of jungle by artists like Shy FX, but it did not see the light of day until a few years ago.
Arguably, Nia Archives is single-handedly reviving the genre. She got her start with the song “Sober Feels” in 2020, in which she dipped her toes in the defining percussion loops and breakbeats of jungle. She sent the song to a multitude of record labels and all of them turned her down. She decided to release the song under her own label, Hijinxx. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Kingdom was on lockdown and young Londoners were unable to go out to clubs. This, however, did not stop them from streaming the music they wanted to hear at the club. The song’s plays shot
into the millions and propelled Nia Archives into fame. She blazed ahead with tracks like “Headz Gone West” and “Forbidden Feelingz” in 2021. But the song that solidified her position as the world’s preeminent jungle artist of the modern day was “Baianá”. She remixed the eponymous Barbatuques song that has become entrenched in the soccer culture and national identity of Brazil.
Nia has just finished the U.S. leg of her tour and is now moving on to shows in the U.K., Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, and more. If one were to travel back in time and tell junglists of the ‘90s about Nia’s success, they would likely stare in shock. The fact that jungle has now entered what one can effectively call “the mainstream” may be a source of complaint for some of the junglists of today. But Nia’s rise, her musical assertion of her half-Jamaican, half-English identity, is nothing short of a jungle revival. She is bestowing the genre with new life and making way for other modern Jungle artists like Dazegxd, Tim Reaper, and 4am Kru. Since its fade from prominence in the ‘90s, jungle has been looking for a proper representative. Nia Archives is the solution.
Tune into Coordinated Universal Time, Sunday nights/Monday mornings 12:302:00 AM, to hear Eamon program.
Illustration on next page by Iris Pope.
Ale Díaz-Pizarro, Librarian & On Air Editor, host of Saturday Night at the Opera: For the stamina and willpower to (mostly) finish my senior thesis. For peace in the places that have been robbed of it. And (for the third year in a row) for new boards for the station.
Georgia Dillane, Program Director: For little to no traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel, new boards God please new boards, my mom’s chili.
have the means to—we need to modernize our tech and that is… quite costly. Also that everyone enjoys Bachfest!
McKenna Roberts, Chief Engineer: For one sunny day before I leave New York for nine months and for Ben to get into grad school.
AROUND THE STATION
What is your wish for this holiday season?
Tanvi Krishnamurthy, Publicity Director: For the neverending opportunity to play games—poker, trivia, badminton, card games of many varieties such as but not limited to Spoons, Hearts, Kemps, Egyptian Rat Screw, Gin Rummy, etc.—with my friends and family.
Ted Schmiedeler, Station Manager: More doorstops, tape, and plastic cups for the station and more time to read for fun. For the talkback on the Comrex to work again.
Ben Erdmann, Director of Operations & Engineering: Finish reading my book and getting into grad school!
Casey Lamb, Business Manager, host of Afternoon Classical: That everyone reading this make a contribution during the fund drive if they
Ben Rothman, Music Acquisition Director: For the resources to get all our microphones working properly again, and for us to keep building our collection of records and CDs.
Natalie Najar, Latin Department Head: To get married.
Vivien Sweet, New Music Director: For another world to be possible and imminent!
McCartney Garb, programmer: More records for the KCR library! And more records for my personal library, particularly Bridge Over Troubled Water, which for some reason disappears from record shops the moment I'm in the vicinity.
Ella Presiado, programmer, host of Monday Morningside: For the smell in [subsidiary studio] CA to go away.
Rachel Smith, Jazz Department Head: For more beautiful things in this world and people with the heart to appreciate them. Also, for boards with a working phone pot so that I can finally broadcast a call live on the air.
Ian Pumphrey, programmer, former News & Arts Department Head: For Ben to get into grad school and for new boards... someday.
Dear Listener,
You may not be able to help Ben get into grad school (though you can certainly wish it!), change the weather for McKenna, find a spouse for Natalie, or dispense with Lincoln Tunnel traffic for Georgia (and, quite frankly, half of the New York Metro Area). But this holiday season, you can help WKCR make its other wishes come true before they come of age (seriously, some of these technical desires are almost 21 years old...).
One way to do it is to donate during our winter fundraiser, running now through Sunday December 8th. There are three ways to donate:
1. From now until December 8th, call in at 212-851-2699. A programmer will assist you with a donation over the phone.
2. Go online at wkcr.org and press the big yellow "Donate" button. Then, simply fill out your info in the gift system.
3. Mail us a check to 2920 Broadway, NY, NY 10027 with WKCR in the memo line.
No amount of support is too small (though, certainly, none is too large either...), and a little goes a long way to make sure that WKCR can stay on the air bringing you the music you love for a long time to come. Whether you tune into WKCR for Bachfest, Birdflight, or birthday broadcasts, every kind of music has a home on our airwaves, and every kind of listener has a home in our station. We are so grateful to you for being a part of this community, and for any contribution that can help us keep it alive.
With
love, The WKCR Staff
WKCRossword: "Take Flight"
by Ted Schmiedeler edited by Ale Díaz-Pizarro
SUPPORT WKCR
TOP 5 REASONS TO DONATE TO WKCR
1. You’d be helping a student-run, listener-funded, and volunteer-based radio station continue to bring you the absolute best in what radio has to offer. Music, arts, news, and sports— we’ve got the works!
2. You wouldn’t be a free-rider anymore.
3. WKCR donations are tax-deductible (so make sure you donate before tax season). For more info on that, or anything else business-related, email business@wkcr.org
4. Being “the Original FM,” our equipment is getting a bit old. Thanks to your 2023 donations, we were able to retire Buzz, the hamster that ran the wheel powering us. But our new hamster, Roach, needs to start saving for retirement... can you blame him?
5. Isn’t OnAir cool? Without proper funding, projects like this can’t come to fruition and, if they do, don’t make it very long. Donate to allow the little OnAir minions to stay in the job (we are all OnAir minions).
HOW TO DONATE TO WKCR IN 4 STEPS
BY MAIL
Step 1: Locate your nearest checkbook
Step 2: Indicate “WKCR” as payee and fill out as usual
Step 3: Mail check to CU Gift Systems, 622 West 113th Street, MC 4524, New York, NY 10025
Step 4: ...and VOILÀ! Just like that, you have become a WKCR supporter!
WKCR also accepts checks to our direct address. Just follow the same steps listed above but mail the check to: 2920 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
ONLINE
Step 1: head to www.wkcr.org
Step 2: Click the yellow “DONATE TO WKCR” banner at the top of the page
Step 3: Fill out the form in the giving portal and enter your information...
Step 4: ...and VOILÀ! Just like that, you have become a WKCR supporter! Did you know you can make recurring donations to WKCR when you donate online?
Just indicate your frequency preferences on the giving portal when prompted!
On Air 's editorial board is Ale Díaz-Pizarro.
Special thanks to Artemis Edison, Ben Erdmann, Ben Rothman, Caroline Nieto, Casey Lamb, Eamon Costello, Ella Presiado, Ella Werstler, Georgia Dillane, Ian Pumphrey, Iris Pope, Lilia Miller, Macy Hanzlik-Barend, Maria Shaughnessy, McCartney Garb, McKenna Roberts, Michael Onwutalu, Natalie Najar, Olivia Callanan, Rachel Smith, Sam Seliger, Tanvi Krishnamurthy, Ted Schmiedeler, & Vivien Sweet.
