Notes from the Net: Miles' On The Corner re-released; Oliver Lake reviewed, Marcus Baylor interviewed; and more

From near and far across the Internet comes this week's compilation of short news items, reviews and miscellania:

* The Complete On The Corner Sessions, a six-CD box set due out in September from Sony, will offer a expanded perspective on one of Miles Davis' most controversial and sonically challenging releases, and jazz critic Howard Mandel has a first reaction to the set over at his new blog, Jazz Beyond Jazz: "His all-star jam-band stills sounds prophetic after 35 years, and even unedited it's energies are razor sharp, infinitely more exciting than most of jazz (much less pop or new music composition) today."

* AllAboutJazz.com writer Ivana Ng has a review of Lake/Tchicai/Osgood/Westergaard, a recently issued session from 2003 recorded just after saxophonist Oliver Lake completed a brief tour of Denmark with tenor saxophonist John Tchicai, drummer Kresten Osgood and bassist Jonas Westergaard.

* Drummer Marcus Baylor (pictured) was featured in the local paper, the Daily Tribune, when the Yellowjackets played a show in Southfield, MI.

* Multi-reed player and St. Louis area native Marty Ehrlich will duet with pianist Myra Melford as part of the fall schedule at Firehouse 12, an adventurous music venue in New Haven CT.

* A blog called Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches has a review of Benjamin Looker's book Point from Which Creation Begins': The Black Artists' Group of St. Louis.

* Saxophonist and jazz enthusiast John Hess, who once owned Shattinger Music here in St. Louis, passed away at age 86 in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he had lived since 1980.

* Singer/pianist Freddie Cole, who's played St. Louis' Jazz at the Bistro and Sheldon Concert Hall in recent years, was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame as part of the Hall's class of 2007.

* Acoustic Alchemy guitarist Greg Carmichael, in St. Louis the week before last to play Finale Music and Dining, summed up the band's career for the local paper before a performance in Harrisburg, PA.

* They're lining up to buy tickets to hear Tony Bennett open the new Gallo Center for the Arts in Modesto, CA late next month. Bennett will perform at St. Louis' Fox Theatre in October.

* And finally, regular readers know I've had my gripes about the programming at the St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival, and so it seems only fair to note that at least St. Louis does have actual jazz musicians playing at its jazz festival, unlike Baltimore. "All what jazz? Not at this fest" reads the headline in the Baltimore Sun for an article about the Paetec Jazz Festival, which includes headliners like Little Richard, B.B. King and AL Green, but "offers little of its namesake musical form". Said Andy Bienstock, a jazz radio DJ in Charm City, "I wish I knew why the word jazz has a larger folllowing than the music jazz." Indeed.