Notes from the Net: Miles in Montreal; the persistence of "audiophoolery"; plus news, reviews, interviews, and more

Here's the latest compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* In this week's Miles Davis-related news, the museum exhibit in Paris devoted to the trumpeter is closing, but will be reborn on this side of the Atlantic in April as "We Want Miles" at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The multimedia retrospective includes musical excerpts; film and documentary clips; paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Mati Klarwein; and photographs by Annie Leibovitz and Irving Penn, plus Davis' own drawings, costumes, musical instruments and scores, on loan from the Davis family, and more. Though the History Museum mounted a Davis exhibit of its own here a few years ago, it sure would be nice to see this new one here in St. Louis, too...

* Here's a review from Jeff Simon of the Philadelphia Inquirer of Only Everything, the new CD saxophonist and former St. Louisan David Sanborn (pictured).

* Jason Crane's The Jazz Session recently featured a new podcast interview with multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native Marty Ehrlich.

* Moving on to news of recent visitors to our town, here's a review by AllAboutJazz.com's Martin Longley of some recent NYC shows, including The Bad Plus week at the Village Vanguard between Christmas and New Year's. TBP were in St. Louis the following week to kick off 2010 at Jazz at the Bistro.

* The Juilliard School will present the New York premiere of bassist Christian McBride's "The Movement Revisited" on Tuesday, February 2. McBride's musical tribute to the civil rights movement blends spoken texts from Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with music to be performed by the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra and Choir, under the direction of McBride and Brandon Lee. The bassist's group Inside Straight played the Bistro in December.

* Opening the "coming attractions" file, actress and singer Tyne Daly has just opened her new cabaret show in New York, and the Times' Stephen Holden has a favorable review here. Daly and her pianist and music director, St. Louis native John McDaniel, will perform February 10-13 at the Kranzberg Arts Center under the auspices of Cabaret St. Louis.

* Pianist, singer and newlywed Jamie Cullum recently let photographers have a peek inside his London recording studio, and you can see the pix here. Cullum will play St. Louis' Roberts Orpheum Theater on Sunday, March 14.

* Here's a review of Pat Metheny's new CD Orchestrion from AllAboutJazz.com's John Kelman. Metheny's label also has released an "electronic press kit" for the CD, which you can see in the embedded video window at the bottom of this post. The guitarist and the roadie's-worst-nightmare setup that is the Orchestrion are coming to St. Louis on May 8 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

* And last, but not least, from the "general interest" file: Science may have disprovne many of the claims made by manufacturers of high-end audio equipment, but that doesn't stop them from continuing to engage in what one professional audio engineer and writer calls "audiophoolery." Let the buyer beware, indeed.



(Edited after posting to add tags.)