Strunz & Farah World Music Foundation Podcast | Season 1, Episode 5 "It evolves out of the guitar, and out of our individual cultures." About this Episode Originally from Costa Rica and Iran respectively, Jorge Strunz and Ardeshir Farah have brought the musical influences of their native lands into their highly virtuosic, rhythmic, and improvisation-rich original instrumental compositions, inspiring fans and many guitarists worldwide. Their meeting in 1979 in Los Angeles, where they are still based, marked the first time that Latin American and Middle Eastern music, along with other important elements, came together on [...]

Aashish Khan World Music Foundation Podcast | Season 1, Episode 4 "When I perform, I forget the world" About this Episode Aashish Khan is the eldest exponent of an Indian Classical music lineage that reaches all the way back to the court of Mughal emperor Akbar the Great. He takes us back to the creation of his pioneering Indo-Jazz fusion band, Shanti, in the early 1970s, he shares about his new project Shringar, and reveals that he has a literal treasure trove of unreleased recordings, including a track that he recorded with George Harrison, Eric [...]

Thomas Brooman World Music Foundation Podcast | Season 1, Episode 3 "At that one fateful meeting, we coined a genre." About this Episode Thomas Brooman has always had a vision of a smaller musical world -- from his early years spent among fellow awe-struck concertgoers during the European Rock & Roll boom, to his later work cultivating a collective of artists as co-founder of the globally inspired World of Music Arts and Dance festival (WOMAD). We talk about the relationship between musicians and international markets, and get a behind-the-scenes look into his involvement in the creation [...]

Paramount Records World Music Foundation Podcast | Season 1, Episode 2 "They say Delta Blues is the roots, and everything else is the fruits." About this Episode Our second episode brings us to a small town in the Northern part of the U.S. where we, surprisingly, find a deep Blues history. We follow Paramount Records through the peak of success, recording landmark artists that changed Western popular music forever, but this music, at several times, was almost lost forever. We follow the thin thread of events and recent efforts that have gone into preserving this important [...]

Dave Pietro World Music Foundation Podcast | Season 1, Episode 1 "You can't play that which you haven't lived" About this Episode Dave Pietro’s curiosity and workmanship have been the foundation of his decade’s long career as an internationally touring Jazz musician. He explains the value of truly listening— even if what you’re hearing confuses or frightens you at first. We touch on his gigging history starting in New York, his new album New Road: Iowa Memoirs, and how immersing oneself in a culture can fundamentally change your understanding of pretty much everything. [...]