Schedule

Medicine Singers is the name of an ongoing collaboration between Yonatan Gat, the wildly virtuosic Israeli-born, New York-based guitarist, and the Eastern Medicine Singers, an Eastern Algonquin powwow group from Rhode Island.  Now joined by the legendary Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Medicine Singers combine ancient trance and spirituality with modern psychedelia, and make inventive use of the similarities – and differences – between the steady pulse of Indigenous American drumming and the rhythms of rock.  Other special guests will include Laraaji, Mamady Kouyaté Maalem and Hassan BenJaafar.

Hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer and co-presented with the World Music Institute.

Eastern Medicine Singers is the original name of the pow wow singers and drummers led by Daryl "Black Eagle" Jamieson and Ray Two Hawks.  Dedicated to preserving the Eastern Algonquin language as well as the Indigenous culture of what is now New England, the group first teamed up with Yonatan Gat in 2017 before changing their name to Medicine Singers and inviting New Age zither legend Laraaji, the late trumpeter jaimie branch, experimental drummer/electronic musician Ikue Mori, and others to join their rotating cast of collaborators.

Yonatan Gat is an Israeli-born, NY-based guitarist and composer.  Originally part of the ferocious Israeli garage-rock band Monotonix, Gat has worked in a wide variety of avant-garde, rock, and world music settings.  He arranged Antonin Dvorak’s “American” String Quartet for rock band; performed with the Nigerien band Tal National; and produced albums for Maalem Hassan BenJaafar and Mamady Kouyate.  He is now part of the band Medicine Singers. 

Lee Ranaldo is a guitarist, songwriter and composer, best known as a co-founder of the band Sonic Youth, whose explorations of noise, alternate tunings, and song form have influenced several generations of rock musicians.   His solo projects include everything from acoustic guitar songs to visual and performance art installations. 

Mamady Kouyaté comes from one of the five great families of West African griots, the traditional storytellers/court musicians/historians who for centuries have played traditional instruments like the kora (a type of harp) and the ngoni (the lute); but he is part of the contemporary generation who honor the guitar as truly African instrument.  Mamady was born in Guinea but is now based in New York, where he leads the Mandingo Ambassadors, a group that keeps alive the sound of Guinean dance music.

Maalem Hassan BenJaafar is a Moroccan singer and sintir (bass lute) player now living in New York.  He leads the band Innov Gnawa, which plays the traditional healing and spiritual music of the Gnawa people of Morocco.  In order to be named a Maalem, or master, BenJaafar had to build a sintir from scratch, memorize the chants and their accompanying acrobatic dances, sew performance costumes, and learn the various regional styles of Gnawa music.