Wadada Leo Smith joins host Michael Schell to talk about his 80th birthday, a lifetime of creative music, and two new triple-CD albums featuring him playing trumpet solo, and with Bill Laswell and the late Milford Graves. We also honor Irène Schweizer (another improviser turning 80), and sample new albums from Anthony Braxton, Peter Garland, Param Vir and Anna Webber, plus a collaboration between the Master Musicians of Jajouka and Arrington de Dionyso, the new Unexplained Sounds anthology of experimental music from Peru, and Passepartout performing on one of the oldest still-functional synthesizers in the world. A remote jam from Steve Layton and the Sound-In crew, an isolation-era piece for solo viola by Federico Gardella, and a nostalgic toy piano discourse by Alvin Curran round out the playlist. Creative and improvised music from the Northwest and around the world.
