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with Laraaji

Features a special home-recorded session from New York-based musician, mystic and laughter meditation practitioner Laraaji, who has just released his new album Sun Piano.

Features a special home recorded session from New York based musician, mystic and laughter meditation practitioner Laraaji, who's just released his new album Sun Piano.
He grew up playing gospel and church music in 1950s New Jersey. To begin with he would imitate his favourite piano players, such as Fats Domino, Errol Garner, Ahmad Jamal and Oscar Peterson, before moving onto writing his own choral and doo-wop pieces whilst still in high school. From 1962 to 1964, he attended Howard University in Washington DC where he studied music theory and composition with a piano major, and he met Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway and Bobby Timmons.
At college he took a left turn into comedy, which led him to the nightclub stand-up circuit in New York City. During this period he compered at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem, warming up for artists such as Barry White and Roberta Flack, appeared in a theatre production alongside a young Morgan Freeman, and had a bit part in cult film Putney Swope wih Antonio Fargas. By the early-70s he was working at the Aquarius Coffee Shop in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and playing Fender Rhodes electric piano in a fusion band, The Winds Of Change. In the mid-70s a spiritual awakening led him to trade his guitar in for an autoharp, and he began to play more freeform, cosmically inclined improvisations on the streets of New York City. Brian Eno saw him playing one night in Washington Square Park and invited him to record an album for his seminal Ambient series (Ambient 3: Day Of Radiance, released 1980).
In the 80s Laraaji self-released a prolific series of experimental home-recorded cassette albums which were sold on the street, in psychic bookstores and new age 鈥榟ead shops鈥�. More recently he has appeared on recordings with Pharoah Sanders, Bill Laswell and Jonathan Wilson, and released collaborative albums with a younger generation of artists including Blues Control, Sun Araw and Dallas Acid.

3 hours

Last on

Fri 31 Jul 2020 21:00
大象传媒 Radio 6 Music

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Music Played

  • Kakai Kilonzo & The Kilimambogo Brothers

    Mwiitu Beth

    • No Wahala Sounds.

  • Mammal Hands

    Chaser

    • Gondwana.

  • Jessy Lanza

    Ice Creamy

    • Hyperdub.

  • Kisk

    Your Face (Lopazz & Casio Casino Remix) (feat. Robert Owens)

    • Apparel Music.

  • Vivian 'Yabby You' Jackson

    Run Come Rally (Version)

    • Pessure Sounds.

  • IamI

    UK Drift (Original Mix)

    • 1HX.

  • Future Islands

    For Sure

  • Naked Roommate

    Je Suis Le Bebe

    • Upset The Rhythm.

  • Alabaster dePlume

    Visit Croatia

    • International Anthem.

  • Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad

    Down Deep (feat. Doug Carn)

    • Jazz Is Dead.

  • Bismillah Khan

    Shehnai

    • Odeon.

  • Gajek

    When You Play The Flute, But Your Mother Is Like...

    • Throttle Records.

  • Laurence Pike

    Nero

    • The Leaf Label.

  • Laraaji

    Gracefully (Piano Improv)

  • Laraaji

    Lively (Piano Improv)

  • Laraaji

    March Softly (Piano Improv)

  • Laraaji

    Shenandoah (Piano Theme & Improv)

  • Laraaji

    Zither Celestial (Electronic Zither Imrpov)

  • Brijean

    Moody

    • Ghostly International.

  • Vanessa Worm

    Bones And Blood

    • Optimo.

  • Aziz Balouch

    Granadina Arabe Del Siglo IX

    • Death Is Not The End.

  • Shirley Collins

    Barbara Allen

    • Domino.

  • Jon Hassell

    Delicado

    • Jon Hassell.

  • Georgia

    Underpass

    • Youth.

  • ELWD

    Where R My Glasses

    • Bad Taste.

  • Babyfather

    Manna

    • World Music.

  • Slacs Bianci

    Breeze (feat. Garton)

    • The Pit London.

  • Schmeichel

    HRZN

    • Vary.

  • YTAC

    Carbon

    • Camp.

  • Angelo Vanotti

    Sketches In Anderland

    • Numero Group.

  • Whitesquare

    I've Been Here Before

    • Life And Death.

  • Million Square

    Jenova

    • Max Luthert.

  • 笔辞迟茅

    Pearls

  • Zoo Look

    Direct Contact

    • E-Beamz.

  • Anunaku & Dj Plead

    Wheele

    • AD93.

  • 4THSEX

    Line851 (Express)

    • Timetable Records.

  • Jorge B

    A3

    • Jack Dept.

  • Elisa Bee

    Orbit

    • Balkan Digital.

  • Yant

    Hydro 1

    • Blackaxon.

  • Ela Minus

    They told us it was hard, but they Were Wrong (DJ Python Little Peak)

    • Domino.

Broadcast

  • Fri 31 Jul 2020 21:00
    大象传媒 Radio 6 Music