Rick Petrie has hosted adventurous radio programs in Rochester since 1988, including “Nothing Is” and “Live China” on WITR, and “In All Languages” on WRUR. He currently hosts “North Star Sounds” on Jazz90.1 every Tuesday night from 9 p.m. to midnight, with Jon Greenbaum. Jon started North Star Sounds around the turn of the millennium. North Star Sounds features the musicians and composers that are directly inspired by the jazz avant garde of the 1960s, especially John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and Charles Mingus. All the artists featured on North Star Sounds have made significant commitments and sacrifices in their lives in order to create music that explores the outer limits of tonality, and that also risks disturbing their audience by telling them the secrets of their own hearts (Old Hungarian Proverb: “Tell the truth…and run!”). William Parker, Tim Berne, Odeon Pope, Bruce Eisenbeil, Joe McPhee, William Gagliardi, Anthony Braxton, Satoko Fuji, Lou Grassi, Han Bennink, Ken Vandermark, Fred Anderson, Sonny Simmons, Roscoe Mitchell, Steve Swell, Hamid Drake, the Respect Sextet, Roy Campbell, Rob Brown, Joe Morris, Mariln Crispell, Tony Malaby, Herb Robertson, Peter Brotzman, Greg Bendian, Evan Parker, and Paul Smoker are among the numerous contemporary musical artists featured on North Star Sounds.

Mr. Petrie grew up in New York State and graduated from Cornell University with majors in Chemistry and Theatre in 1985. He has written and performed his own and other writers work in Rochester since 1988. His first book of poetry, Before Jazz, was published by Clevis Hook in 2012. He also played a lot of frisbee.

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