Friday, June 03, 2011

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short local news items of interest:

* PBS' Newshour ran a story this week about Jazz at Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington competition that included brief appearances by East St. Louis High School's Carlos Brown, Jr. and ESLHS jazz band director Delano Redman. See it online here.

* And while we're on the subject of East St. Louis, the Belleville News-Democrat has coverage of last week's Miles Davis birthday celebration at ESL City Hall.

* With everything else going on this week, there hasn't been time until now to tell you about the first Float Yr Face festival of experimental music being held this weekend at Floating Laboratories on the south side. (It also didn't help that organizers somehow neglected to send any info on the event our way.) Fortunately, the Riverfront Times' Diana Benanti has the scoop and a schedule of events here.

* St. Louis native and jazz trumpet legend Clark Terry (pictured) has finally penned his autobiography, which will be released October 1. Amazon currently is offering a substantial discount on pre-orders placed now, selling the book at $23.07 when it eventually will list for $34.95.

Titled simply Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry, it tells the story of Terry's life and his long and storied career, which, among many accomplishments, has included work with both Duke Ellington and Count Basie as well as helping to break the network TV color barrier when he joined the band of NBC's Tonight Show in 1960. The book also includes a preface from Quincy Jones and a forward from Bill Cosby, as well as jacket blurbs written by famous names ranging from Dave Brubeck to Snoop Dogg.

(If you place your pre-order using this link, you'll not only get the discount, but a few pennies from the purchase will accrue to yr. humble StLJN editor; I promise the funds will be used for the purchase of blogging essentials such as tacos, caffeinated beverages, and bandwidth.)

(Edited 6/4/11 to fix a garbled sentence.)

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