Oct 18 2020
Welcome to episode 29, The Magic Rustling, featuring renowned filmmaker, painter, and musician David Lynch (1946-present). From Eraserhead to the latest season of Twin Peaks, Lynch has forged a dream-soaked art so abstractly unique that it spawned the adjective Lynchian…
Oct 9 2020
Welcome to episode 28, A Sound Within, featuring Buddhist musician, poet, translator, and world traveler, Louise Landes Levi. She has translated renowned mystic writers such as Mirabai, René Daumal, and Henri Michaux. She's released over a dozen books of her…
Sep 10 2020
Welcome to episode 27, “Dance of the Seven Rays,” featuring Armenian priest, author, teacher, and composer/performer Torkom Saraydarian (1915-1997). Raised in Turkey, he survived the Armenian genocide to become a minister in the Armenian Apostolic Church. Immigrating to California, Saraydarian…
Aug 7 2020
Welcome to episode 26, “The High Priestess of Delphi,” featuring composer, choreographer, master weaver, and Sapphic feminist, Eva Palmer-Sikelianos (1874-1952). After almost founding a lesbian artist colony on the Greek island of Lesbos with fellow Sapphic pioneer, Natalie Barney, Eva…
Jul 27 2020
Welcome to Episode 25, “The Dawnbreakers,” featuring Russell & Gina Garcia. Raised in Oakland, CA, Russell Garcia (1916-2011) was a world-renowned composer, arranger, and conductor, working for decades with jazz icons, as well as for major Hollywood film and tv…
Jul 22 2020
Welcome to Episode 24, “The Song of the Violet Flame,” featuring harpist, composer, and religious leader, Lotus Ray King, aka Edna Ballard (1886-1971). Raised in Chicago, Ballard got into metaphysical literature and harp playing as a teenager. With her…
Jul 16 2020
Welcome to episode 23, Music of the Gods. Rather than focus on a single artist, this episode explores the role of the Five Percent movement in the origins and development of American hip hop. Founded in 1967 by Clarence 13X…
Jul 9 2020
Welcome to Episode 22, The South Side Shaman, featuring trumpeter, harpist, composer, teacher, community activist, and astronomer Kelan Philip Cohran (1927-2017). Early on, Cohran joined the cosmic discipline of Sun Ra’s Arkestra for two years. Next he worked with Malcolm…
Jul 7 2020
Welcome to episode 21, A Wandering Monk, featuring the brilliantly black, queer, composer, dancer, conductor, pianist, and grammy-nominated singer—Julius Eastman (1940-1990). His music often employed his unique “organic method” of composition, while some works, anticipating post-minimalism, fused avant-garde and…
Jun 30 2020
Welcome to Episode 20, The Obeah Man, featuring Bahamian born singer/songwriter, painter, and Obeah practitioner, Tony McKay (1942-1997). Coming to Greenwich Village in the 1960s, McKay took on the identity of Exuma, the Obeah Man. His mystical wardrobe, lyrics, paintings…
Jun 27 2020
Welcome to Episode 19, “The Religion of Dreams,” featuring Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1935-1937). Blind from the age of 2, Kirk became a maverick figure in the jazz world, notably for his ability to play three reed instruments at the same…
Jun 8 2020
Espiode 18, A Strange Mastery, focuses on Thomas Wiggins, aka, Blind Tom (1849-1908). Wiggins was born blind and sold a slave with his parents to a plantation family in Georgia. From a young age Wiggins was a musical prodigy, and…