Music

• Lots and lots of John Cage-related reading, listening and viewing this week for the composer's centennial.

From January 1992 to September 2001, Branford Marsalis set the JazzSet pace, hosting 39 new shows a year (now we do 26) from the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band; festivals in Iowa City, Telluride, Pasadena, Mount Hood, Montreal and Brevard, N.C.; the new music festival in Groningen, the Netherlands, and the Havana Jazz Festival in Cuba; clubs from Yoshi's in California to Sculler's and the Regattabar in Boston. WGBH producer Steve Schwartz sent us lots of Boston sets during that first decade, all of them much appreciated.

In this installment of World Cafe's Latin Roots series, Raul Pacheco of the Grammy-winning band Ozomatli talks with host David Dye about how politics influence music. They've certainly affected Pacheco's music, as Ozomatli has been politically driven since its inception. The band's members started playing together 16 years ago, when they were working for the Peace and Justice Center of Los Angeles, and were asked to play for picketers during a strike.

Over the past 20 years, vocalist Karrin Allyson has recorded 13 albums that cover vast musical territory. She's explored The Great American Songbook, the musical styles of Brazil and France, the blues and the work of contemporary songwriters. She's recorded a tribute to John Coltrane and an album of late-night ballads, and she's earned four Grammy nominations.

ALL-REICH PROGRAM

• Different Trains (1988)
• Triple Quartet (1998)
• WTC 9/11 (2010)

Singer-songwriter Lucy Wainwright Roche makes her second appearance on Mountain Stage. The daughter of folk-music royalty — Loudon Wainwright III and Suzzy Roche — Roche didn't jump right in to the family business. She studied creative writing at Oberlin College in Ohio before earning a masters degree in education from Bank Street College in Manhattan.

OK, let's get the elephant out of the room right away. John Cage's most famous, or infamous, work is "4'33"," in which a musician walks onstage and sits at the piano for 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

Singer Jean Redpath first travelled from Scotland to the United States in 1961 and was soon immersed in the American folk scene. Since then, she has performed throughout the world, released over forty recordings, and won the hearts of public radio listeners through her many appearances on A Prairie Home Companion. Host Fiona Ritchie met up with Redpath to reminisce about five decades of sharing song.

Minimalist folk duo The Milk Carton Kids makes its first appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live in Charleston, W.V. Singer-songwriters Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale were pursuing their own solo careers when a serendipitous meeting led to full-time collaboration and a lovely new album titled Prologue.