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American Routes
American Routes is a weekly two-hour public radio program produced in New Orleans, presenting a broad range of American music — blues and jazz, gospel and soul, old-time country and rockabilly, Cajun and zydeco, Tejano and Latin, roots rock and pop, avant-garde and classical. Now in our 15th year on the air, American Routes explores the shared musical and cultural threads in these American styles and genres of music — and how they are distinguished.
We go live in concert and conversation with two New Orleans artists who bring their family heritages forward into modern settings. Singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla has called New Orleans home for many years, but her family ties are to Haiti. She draws from her creole roots for inspiration, as well as from the poetry of Langston Hughes. Then, modernist jazz saxophonist Big Chief Donald Harrison, whose musical journey includes time in New York with Art Blakey’s band, talks about “Afro-New Orleans Culture” and demonstrates how to build a James Brown sound in jazz.
