Randy Porter, music director at Roosevelt Middle School, is in his 40th—and final—year as a music educator with the Oakland Unified School District. Deeply rooted in the Bay Area music community, he is an active performer, improviser, composer, and guitarist. His current project, the production of an LP featuring his students performing the music of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Woody Guthrie alongside original student compositions, serves as a companion to The Saga of Padani, a similar project he recorded with his students in the 1990s, continuing a decades-long commitment to student creativity and musical exploration.