The Great Give takes place Wednesday, May 6th and Thursday May 7th.

Advance gifts can be made for The Great Give beginning at 8:00 a.m. on Friday, May 1.

Donation pages will remain open until 8:00 a.m. on Monday, May 11.

The Great Give
Donate to WPKN on the Great Give

“Mr. Lage sounded almost miraculous …. A guitarist of extravagant technique, he made each solo feel like an onrushing discovery, reeling off lines and phrases while neatly sidestepping cliché. And for all the self-possession in his playing, it felt tempered by an introspective humility, ….” Nate Chinen (NY Times, 4/18/12)

They spent much of the time reviewing Larry’s long and illustrious career, including time with Taj Mahal and his almost 30 years with Gil Scot-Heron.

The loquacious octogenarian is currently a member of the Legendary/Legacy JA ska band, the Skatalites, touring regularly world-wide. Larry Mac, as he is affectionately called, is also a part of the NYC Ska Orchestra, Dave Hillyard & the Rocksteady Seven, Sub-Atomic Sound System, and an on-going project he co-leads with sax player Anant Pradhan.

Rockers Arena with the Night Nurse can be heard first and third Fridays, 12noon-3pm on WPKN. 

Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/parranda-y-salsa-at-the-downtown-cabaret-bridgeport-ct-tickets-1976784458529

Each of their installations is influenced by the unique community, site, and architectural background in which it will come to life. Similarly, the design team is a creative collaboration led by Atelier Cue between client, community, and Cue's network of fabricators curated specifically for each project.

The Cue: from curlicue, a prevalent graphic in the visual and decorative arts which can be both precise and unpredictable. 

 For the past three decades, Paul has worked on electronic, time-based media that avoid technology-heavy processes like coding and digital editing, and rely on basic computer / electronic components to exist in a minimal capacity.

My work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally and nationally and can be found in corporate and public collections including Log-Me-In Headquarters in Boston, MA and Sloan Kettering Hospital in NYC. 

Meghelli earned his BFA from the School of Fine Arts in Algiers, Algeria, where he was mentored by the founders of modern Algerian painting, particularly M'hamed Issiakhem (1928-1985), Choukri Mesli (1931-2017), and Ali Ali-Khodja (1923-2010). He later received his MFA from the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, France, where his main studio professor was renowned Belgian painter Gustave Singier (1909-1984). Meghelli immigrated to the United States in 1974, settling in New Haven, CT, where he has been a practicing artist and art educator for 50 years, having exhibited widely and taught at a range of institutions.

Click Link.

elmshakespeare.org

WPKN is a media partner in Trova Y Salsa, Mikata, 40 Year Anniversary Celebration happening Friday July 18, at 9PM, at Park City Music Hall, in Bridgeport. Mikata celebrates 40 years of music making. This event is paired with Park City Music Hall’s Trova y Salsa monthly series, dedicated to the ritmo, cultura, and community of regional salsa. Tickets and more information are available at parkcitymusichall.com

Richard Hill also serves as WPKN's Director of Public Affairs.

Sans Serif Recording
The Tines on Bandcamp

“…one of the foremost Asian musicians in North America…she has plucked her way through classical, experimental and world music, even jazz, in the process introducing the pipa’s twang to any number of concertgoers.” New York Times

Selcouth Quartet is a dynamic ensemble featuring Joe Russo (drums, keys), Stuart Bogie (saxophone, flute, clarinet, keys), Jon Shaw (upright & electric basses), and Jonathan Goldberger (acoustic & electric guitars). Their self-titled debut album, recorded at Floki Studios in Iceland with producer and engineer D James Goodwin, is a mesmerizing exploration of a range of styles and moods. Born of creative immersion in a remote and otherworldly environment, their sound seamlessly drifts between hauntingly beautiful melodies, propulsive improvisation, expansive atmospheres, and towering sonic constructs.

Joe Russo Bio:

Joe Russo is an American drummer and half of the Benevento/Russo Duo. He has toured, performed and recorded with a number of other bands, including Cass McCombs, Robert Walter’s 20th Congress, Bustle In Your Hedgerow, American Babies, the Trey Anastasio/ Mike Gordon duo, the Gene Ween Band, and Furthur (featuring Phil Lesh and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead). Russo’s drumming is fierce and complex (he has been nicknamed “The Madness” by fans). Russo has twice won the New Groove award at the Jammys, in 2000 and 2005. In the summer of 2006 he was the drummer in a collaboration with Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon, and Marco Benevento (sometimes referred to as GRAB or Mike & the Italians). In December 2008, Russo joined Ween front man Gene Ween and fellow Bustle in your hedgerow band mates Scott Metzger and Dave Dreiwitz for a short east coast tour with an outfit called the Gene Ween Band. On this tour, Joe played his “house kit,” which notably includes a rare 30-inch bass drum purchased off of eBay. In Fall 2009, Russo joined Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Jay Lane, Jeff Chimenti and John Kadlecik (from Dark Star Orchestra) to form the band Furthur. Jay Lane left Furthur in March 2010 to rejoin Primus, and Russo continued to tour with the band as their sole drummer until they disbanded in November 2014 but has been touring with Joe Russo's Almost Dead and other projects. 

https://heatsyncrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-buddy-city-ep

Poet, God Is Tymani Rain, the 2024 Connecticut Grand Slam poetry champion, one fifth of the Connecticut Verbal Slap Slam Team, and host of Poetz Realm Open Mic in Bridgeport as an arts educator and community builder.

Poet, Oso, from Hamden Connecticut, a rising star, and founding member of the Transcribers poetry collective in Hartford, Connecticut.

And many more...

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, the Housatonic Museum of Art will host a special storytelling session highlighting Buffalohead's painting, Resurrection, which is currently on display at the museum.

Wednesday, November 20 from 3:00pm - 6:00pm

Storytelling through the Art of Julie Buffalohead

Beacon Hall Event Center, CT State Housatonic

900 Lafayette Blvd. Bridgeport, CT 06604

Nilsa Laine is the Director of "Undergraduate Experiences of Black Women at PWI Campuses" [14.57] a short documentary exploring the undergraduate experiences of Black Women - touching on freshman experience, intersectionality, and 'Black Girl Magic.'

Brian Russell is the Director of SilverSizzle [13.35] a short described as: a cemetery caretaker embarks on a quest to help two recent widowers find new love among widows visiting their departed spouses.

https://www.bridgeportfilmfest.org/

Funk, blues, jazz, hip-hop, zydeco, swampadelic guitar - the music and culture of New Orleans hits Long Island wine country. WPKN partners on this festival featuring a staggering lineup of New Orleans greats including Fred Wesley of the JBs, Sonny Landreth, Preservation Hall Legacy Band, Cyril Neville, CJ Chenier & The Red Hot Louisiana Band and so many more. Could this be NOLA JazzFest east in years to come?

“James Brandon Lewis, a jazz saxophonist in his 30s, raw-toned but measured, doesn’t sound steeped in current jazz-academy values and isn’t really coming from a free-improvising perspective. There’s an independence about him, and on “Days of FreeMan” (Okeh), he makes it sound natural to play roaming, experimental funk, with only the electric bassist Jamaladeen Tacuma and the drummer Rudy Royston, and without much sonic enhancement. The record sounds a little reminiscent of what James Blood Ulmer and Ornette Coleman were doing in the late ’70s and early ’80s — on records that included Mr. Tacuma — but it’s not clearly evoking a particular past. Maybe it’s an improvised take on early ’90s hip-hop, as Mr. Lewis has suggested, but it sounds less clinical than that. It sounds like three melodic improvisers going for it.”
— The New York Times

As a producer of boxed sets and archival music reissues, Zax has been responsible for restoring and remastering the catalogues of Talking Heads, Rod Stewart, Echo & The Bunnymen, Television, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, The Sisters Of Mercy, David Axelrod and Lee Hazlewood, among others. His reissues of once-obscure cult favorites such as Television's Marquee Moon, John Cale's Paris 1919, Judee Sill and Heart Food by Judee Sill have successfully brought those albums to larger audiences that had eluded them upon their initial release, while his exploration of record company tape vaults has yielded discoveries such as the lost masters of Johnny Mathis's 1981 Chic-produced I Love My Lady.

In late 2005, Zax visited a Warner Brothers tape storage space in Los Angeles and encountered dozens of boxes of one-inch eight-track recordings from the Woodstock Festival. "From the moment I saw those tapes", he said, "I was like, 'Oh my God, there's so much more than I'd ever thought'", he said. "It was clear to me that no one was exploring this stuff and dealing with it in totality. Here was this vast trove of material not treated correctly."

In 2009, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, Zax produced the boxed set Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm, for which he was nominated for a Grammy for Best Historical Album.