Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Jazz this week: Anat Cohen, Eliane Elias, Michael Rosen, Bill McNally, and more

The calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis for the week before Mardi Gras is packed with performances in a variety of styles, with a handful of visiting headliners hitting local stages, plus some noteworthy shows from our hometown performers. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, February 27
Clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen (pictured, top left) brings her quartet to Jazz St. Louis for the first of five nights of performances, continuing through Sunday.

Voted the top clarinetist in jazz in the most recent DownBeat critic's poll, Cohen is a versatile player who can navigate a variety of styles with both technical facility and feeling. You can find out more about Cohen and see videos of her playing (in several different musical idioms) in this post from Saturday before last.

Also on Wednesday, this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features the Jazz Troubadours at The Stage at KDHX, along with the jam session hosted by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor at The Dark Room.

Thursday, February 28
Saxophonist Michael Rosen, a New York native and Berklee grad who expatriated to Italy in the late '80s and has made a name for himself on the European jazz scene, will play in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, accompanied by keyboardist Jay Oliver, guitarist and bassist William Lenihan. and drummer Steve Davis.

Elsewhere on Thursday, trumpeter Keith Moyer leads a jam session at Rendezvous Cafe & Wine Bar in O'Fallon, MO; Samba Bom brings a bit of Brazilian carnival to Joe's Cafe & Art Gallery; Dizzy Atmosphere plays vintage swing and Gypsy jazz for the Missouri Botanical Garden's "Orchid Nights"; and saxophonist Ben Reece's Unity Quartet plays the music of Rahsaan Roland Kirk at The Dark Room.

Friday, March 1
New music ensemble Alarm Will Sound returns to the Sheldon Concert Hall with a program featuring music by their late founding member Matt Marks, who died suddenly after a concert here last year; and Miss Jubilee plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, March 2
The Friends of Scott Joplin present ragtime pianist 
Bill McNally in a matinee concert at the Opera House of Pacific.

On Saturday evening, pianist and singer Eliane Elias (pictured, bottom left) will perform at The Sheldon. Having already proved her skills at jazz-fusion, the music of her native Brazil, and much more, Elias on her most recent recording explores something a bit different, re-imagining the score of the Broadway show Man of La Mancha in a Latin jazz style.

You can see some recent performances by Elias on video in this post from last Saturday. Also, The Sheldon and Metrotix have cut the price of some remaining tickets for the concert to $25. To get the discount, go here and use the promo code LAMANCHA.

Also on Saturday, Chicago-based Third Coast Percussion will play music from composers including Steve Reich and Wilco's Glenn Kotche in a concert at 560 Music Center.

Sunday, March 3
The St. Louis Jazz Club presents keyboardist "Bob Row's "Mardi Gras Party" at Royale Orleans; Genesis Jazz Project plays at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups; and the Jazz Troubadours return to Evangeline's.

Tuesday, March 5
The Funky Butt Brass Band will play for Fat Tuesday revelers at the Broadway Oyster Bar.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on the StLJN Facebook page.

(If you have calendar items, band schedule information, news tips, links, or anything else you think may be of interest to StLJN's readers, please email the information to stljazznotes (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)

Sunday, February 24, 2019

Sunday Session: February 24, 2019

Billie Holiday
Here's a roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* Ken Nordine, Chicago creator of 'word jazz' who had a voice that 'could give you the chills,' dies at 98 (Chicago Tribune)
* What happens when you create a fake music record label and upload bad music to Spotify (Salon.com)
* Jazz Musician And Subject Of Iconic Photo Revisits 'A Great Day In Harlem' (NPR)
* Italian town takes vow of silence for digital recording of centuries-old violins (The Telegraph)
* Cultural evolution of music (Nature)
* How streaming music could be harming the planet (BBC)
* Mandatory Music Surcharges Could Pay Musicians More (Offbeat)
* PBS to Air Nat ‘King’ Cole Special, Marking Centennial (DownBeat)
* PledgeMusic's Failed Promise Leaves Artists in Limbo and the Future of Music Crowdfunding in Jeopardy (Billboard)
* Judge Rules Against Both Parties In Lawsuit Over Kansas City's Mutual Musicians Foundation (KCUR)
* Ryan Adams and the Perils of the Rock-Genius Myth (The New Yorker)
* Ethel Ennis, Sophisticated Singer Who Reigned As Baltimore's First Lady of Jazz, Dies at 86 (WBGO)
* Whither “Musicologist”? (MusicologyNow.AMS.net)
* Rough Around the Edges: The Raw Yet Refined Art of Myra Melford (Jazziz)
* For Promotional Use Only (RockAndRollGlobe.com)
* More Than 50 Years In, Mavis Staples Is Still Delivering Messages Of Hope And Justice (NPR)
* Fans of Max Roach drumming up support to rename Bed-Stuy street after genre-busting jazz great (New York Daily News)
* Billie Holiday Documentary in the Works Featuring New Interviews With Contemporaries (Hollywood Reporter)
* McVouty! (Chisler.org)
* “Hearing” the Hammond Organ (New Music Box)
* Folk and Blues: The Tribulations of The Old Town School (NewCity.com)
* Monkees Singer and Bassist Peter Tork Dead at 77 (Rolling Stone)
* Bill Frisell: The ‘favourite guitarist of many people who agree on little else’ (Irish Times)
*''We Need a Jazz Band, but They All Have to Be Foreigners": The Discrimination Faced by Asian Musicians (The Beijinger.com)
* Peter Erskine: Up Front, In Time, and On Call (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Three-Disc Set Documents Ben Sidran’s Voyage (DownBeat)
* The strange truth behind the Amy Winehouse hologram tour (GQ)
* Debunking Green Book: Jazz Greats on What It Was Really Like to Tour During Jim Crow (Pitchfork.com)
* The Uncertain Future of KMHD and Jazz Radio in Portland (Portland Mercury)
* Save JAZZ.FM91 May Just Do It! (FYIMusicNews.ca)
* The Man Who Wasn’t Gershwin (Commentary)
* Jazz City (KCET)
* The Invisible Village - Sasha Frere-Jones on the Music of John Zorn (Art Forum)
* Ray Charles and Country’s Color Barrier (Rolling Stone)
* On the Road with Esperanza Spalding (Mother Jones)

Saturday, February 23, 2019

Site news: Post #5,000

Today, we briefly pause our regularly scheduled jazz blogging to point out that this is post number 5,000 on St. Louis Jazz Notes.

Many thanks to all the readers, commenters and sources who have been part of this site since it began in April, 2005.

To mark the occasion of today's questionable achievement, please feel free to use the comments to offer your sincere congratulations, helpful suggestions, jeering taunts, and/or bitter complaints.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase:
From Brazil to Broadway with Eliane Elias



This week, let's take a look at some videos from pianist and singer Eliane Elias, who's coming to St. Louis to perform next Saturday, March 2 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

A native of São Paulo, Brazil, Elias was something of a child prodigy as a pianist, teaching music and performing professionally while still a teenager. She first came to the US in 1981 to study at Juilliard, and began to attract wider attention upon joining the jazz-fusion group Steps Ahead the following year.

Elias released her first album Amanda, a collaboration with her then-husband, trumpeter Randy Brecker, in 1985. That was followed in 1987 by her first recording on her own as a bandleader, the trio album Illusions with drummer Steve Gadd and bassist Stanley Clarke.

In all, Elias has recorded more than two dozen albums in a variety of musical styles,  along the way winning honors including a couple of Grammy Awards for "Best Latin Jazz Album" and a "Best Jazz Album" award in DownBeat's Readers Poll.

Her most recent recording, released in 2018, finds her doing something a bit different: adapting songs from the Broadway show Man of La Mancha as instrumental Latin jazz numbers at the request of Mitch Leigh, who composed the score for the original Broadway production.

Concertgoers next week at the Sheldon probably will get a chance to hear some of that material, as well as original compositions and some the Brazilian standards that Elias has returned to periodically throughout her career.

You can get some of the flavor of Elias' show by checking out the first video up above, which documents part of her performance last July at the Edison Jazz/World festival in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, backed by her husband Marc Johnson on bass and Tiago Michelin on drums.

After the jump, you can see her perform the Brazilian standards "Desafinado" and "The Girl From Ipanema" with Johnson and drummer Rafael Barata at the 2017 Trieste Loves Jazz festival in Italy.

Next, there's a clip of Elias doing "So Danco Samba" in 2015 at the International Jazz Day All-Star Global Concert in Paris, accompanied by trumpeter Claudio Roditi, Johnson on bass, Mino Cinelu on percussion, and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums.

The penultimate video shows Elias' entire set from the 2014 Jazz a Vienne festival, backed by Johnson, Barata, and guitarist Graham Dechter.

The final clip is a version of "Chega De Saudade," made famous as the title song from João Gilberto's first album, as recorded in 2010 at the Avo Session festival in Basel, Switzerland with Johnson, Barata, and guitarist Rubens de La Corte.

For more about Eliane Elias, check out her 2017 interview on WBGO radio in NYC, her 2015 interview with Keyboard magazine, and her 2018 interview with ArkivJazz.com.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Friday, February 22, 2019

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Two St. Louis venues made it onto the music business trade publication Pollstar's list of the Top 200 Club Venues for worldwide ticket sales in 2018. The Pageant came in at number four on the list, while its sibling just down the street, Delmar Hall, was ranked at number 54.

* Keyboardist and singer Jesse Gannon was interviewed about his new eponymous album by the Riverfront Times' Christian Schaeffer.

* Saxophonists Dave Liebman and Jeff Coffin are featured on On The Corner Live: The Music of Miles Davis, a tribute to Davis' "electric period" that will be released Friday, March 1 on Ear Up Records. Liebman was part of Davis' band from 1970 to 1974. The album (pictured), which was recorded live in 2015 in Nashville, also includes bassist Victor Wooten, drummer Chester Thompson, guitarist James DaSilva, and keyboardist Chris Walters.

* The Arts and Education Council is offering a $20,000 prize for arts entrepreneurs in the St. Louis region via its the third-annual stARTup Creative Competition. The purpose of the competition is "to identify and support organizations filling a hole in the local arts economy." The deadline to apply is Friday, March 1; for more information or to submit an application, go here.

* In what must be the weirdest local music-business story of the week, St. Louis media are reporting that organizers of the ill-fated Loufest are suing the firm that was contracted to provide sound and lights for the event. The suit claims intentional sabotage, and alleges an attempt to hijack the festival's concept after the 2018 event was cancelled.

* The Missouri History Museum has launched "The Townsend Piano Project," a campaign to raise $25,000 to restore a piano that belonged to the late St. Louis blues musician Henry Townsend and incorporate it into the museum's "St. Louis Sound" exhibition planned for 2021. The Museum is accepting donations online, and will stage a fund-raising concert on Sunday, May 26 at BB’s Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Jazz this week: Cyrus Chestnut, a salute to Richard Henderson, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes the return of a popular pianist, a tribute to one of the city's most visible longtime jazz fans, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, February 20
Pianist Cyrus Chestnut (pictured, top left) leads his trio in the first of two nights (plus a "coffee concert") at Jazz St. Louis.

Among current jazz pianists, Chestnut would seem be one of the most prominent exponents of the virtuoso tradition of Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, as you can see in this collection of videos in a post from when he played the Bistro in 2016. If you're planning on going, though, do keep in mind that this time around, due to the "coffee concert" performance, Chestnut will playing one set only each evening, starting at 7:30 p.m..

Also on Wednesday, Cabaret Project of St. Louis presents their monthly "Singers Open Mic" at Sophie's, and this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" includes Gypsy jazz band Coco Rico at The Stage at KDHX, the weekly jam session hosted by bassist Bob DeBoo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor at The Dark Room.

Thursday, February 21
The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University will present a free concert showcasing the talents of student jazz musicians; singer Joe Mancuso returns to 50/Fifty Kitchen; and pianist Adam Maness leads his trio at Thurman's in Shaw.

Friday, February 22
Jazz St. Louis pays tribute to a recently deceased St. Louis "jazz hero" with the first of two nights of  "Swingin' at the Bistro: A Salute to Richard Henderson," described as "an all-star weekend of swing in remembrance of a dear friend."

Performers celebrating Henderson (pictured, center left) will include drummer Montez Coleman, bassist Bob DeBoo, trumpeter Danny Campbell, vibraphonist Peter Schlamb, guitarist Eric Slaughter, saxophonist Kendrick Smith, keyboardist Matt Villinger, and on Saturday only, keyboardist Adam Maness.

Also on Friday, Miss Jubilee plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom, and singer and multi-instrumentalist Tonina Saputo returns to The Dark Room.

Saturday, February 23
Keyboardist Mo Egeston plays the late show at The Dark Room.

Sunday, February 24
The Folk School of KDHX presents their monthly "Traditional Jazz Jam Session," and the Genesis Jazz Project performs at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups

Monday, February 25
"Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective return to BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

Tuesday, 
February 26
The Route 66 Jazz Orchestra (pictured, bottom left) plays a "Notes From Home" concert at The Sheldon.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on the StLJN Facebook page.

(If you have calendar items, band schedule information, news tips, links, or anything else you think may be of interest to StLJN's readers, please email the information to stljazznotes (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Sunday Session: February 17, 2019

Herbie Hancock
Here's a roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* Pop Hits Were Really Slow (Again) in 2018 (Rolling Stone)
* Daversa, Blanchard, Salvant Win Grammys (DownBeat)
* The Spectacular Failure of the World's Only Hard Rock Theme Park (Vice.com)
* Details of "Bizarre World of Frank Zappa" Hologram Tour Announced (Guitar Player)
* Huey Lewis battles through a hearing loss nightmare (San Francisco Chronicle)
* 2019 Grammy Awards: Why I'm using my nomination to speak out about sexism in the world of jazz (NBC News)
* ‘In jazz, the piano gets to do what guitars get to do in rock’ (Irish Times)
* The Final Days of EMI: Selling the Pig by Eamonn Forde – review (The Guardian)
* Students in Kazakhstan just built a BANANA piano – and it’s rather appealing (ClassicFM.com)
* Alice Coltrane’s spiritual jazz, 1968-1971 (MusicAficionado.com)
* Minneapolis festival honors Pulitzer-winning jazz great Henry Threadgill: 'Discovery is the greatest thing' (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
* A two-day Walker festival celebrates composer-bandleader Henry Threadgill (City Pages)
* Q&A with Rudresh Mahanthappa: A Jazz Festival Grows in Princeton (Jazziz)
* Herbie Hancock, coming to Clearwater, talks about working with Kendrick Lamar and his big Grammy upset (TampaBay.com)
* Extraordinary Popular Delusions play free jazz two centuries deep (Chicago Reader)
* People Laughed When This Philly Lawyer Sued Led Zeppelin. Nobody’s Laughing Now. (PhillyMag.com)
* A day in the life of Emily Lazar, Grammy-winning mastering engineer (CBCMusic.ca)
* Who’s Hazel Scott? (Unsung Women of Jazz #11) (CurtJazz.com)
* How Talking Heads and Brian Eno Wrote “Once in a Lifetime”: Cutting Edge, Strange & Utterly Brilliant (OpenCulture.com)
* Blue Note Records, 80 years on – A brief History (Jazz in Europe)
* Church of St. John Coltrane Marks 50 Years, Sets Fundraiser (DownBeat)
* Oscar-Nominated Terence Blanchard On 30 Years Of Jazz And Film Scoring For Spike Lee (NPR)
* Pop, Prince and Black Panthers: the glorious life of Chaka Khan (The Guardian)
* Edition Festival a Celebration of Anthony Braxton’s Oeuvre (DownBeat)
* Scam Season Comes for the Orchestra (Vulture.com)
* Ken Nordine, 'Word Jazz' Creator, Dies at 98 (KQED)

Saturday, February 16, 2019

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase:
Spotlight on Anat Cohen



This week, it's time to check out some videos featuring clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen, who's coming to St. Louis to perform with her quartet starting Wednesday, February 27 through Sunday, March 3 at Jazz St. Louis.

Born in Israeli and educated at Berklee, Cohen moved to New York after college and began her career by touring with the all-woman big band the Diva Orchestra and working with Brazilian groups. Over the past decade, she has become perhaps the most prominent clarinet player in jazz, building a reputation in part on her ability to play convincingly in a variety of styles, from vintage swing to modern jazz to Brazilian music.

Cohen released her most recent recording, a live album of duos with pianist Fred Hersch, in 2018, after putting out three albums - two of Brazilian music, and one with her Tentet - in 2017.

Today's collection of clips shows off at least some of Cohen's versatility in dealing with a variety of settings and styles, starting with the first video up above, in which Cohen plays the swing-era staple "China Boy" in 2018 with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

After the jump, you can see a full set by Cohen fronting a quartet with Jason Lindner (piano) Joe Martin (bass) and Daniel Freedman (drums), recorded in 2013 at the Istanbul Jazz Festival.

Next, it's Cohen and pianist Fred Hersch teasing and tumbling their way through a discursive version of Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz," recorded in 2016 in the studios of public radio station KNKX in Tacoma, WA.

After that, you can check out a couple of performances of Brazilian music by Cohen. The first is a duet with guitarist Marcello Gonçalves (with whom she recorded the 2017 album Outra Coisa), playing Moacir Santos' "Coisa No. 5/ Nanã," recorded in 2017 at the Buffet Crampon showroom in Paris.

That's followed by "Espinha de Bacalhau," recorded in October 2014 at Jazz at Lincoln Center with Choro Aventuroso, which also includes accordionist Vitor Gonçalves, guitarist Cesar Garabini, and pandeiro player Sergio Krakowski.

The final video shows Cohen with her brothers, saxophonist Yuval Cohen and trumpeter Avishai Cohen, performing as the 3 Cohens Sextet and playing Ellington's "The Mooch" in 2018 at the Jazz à La Villette festival in Paris.

For more about Anat Cohen, read her interview published in January 2019 on the website Music & Literature, and her June 2018 interview with AllAboutJazz.com's R.J. DeLuke.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Friday, February 15, 2019

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Intuition: Songs From The Minds of Women, the new album (pictured) from singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja that's set for release next Friday, February 22,  was reviewed by DownBeat.

* Poet K. Curtis Lyle, who will perform tomorrow night with multi-instrumentalist J.D. Parran and trumpeter George Sams at St. Louis University, was interviewed by the St. Louis American's Kenya Vaughn.

* The Kranzberg Arts Foundation on Friday, March 15 will release The Sound of St. Louis - Jazz Compilation Volume 1, an album featuring original music from the nine participants in their music artists-in-residence program.

The album will include tracks from bassist Bob DeBoo; keyboardists Mo Egeston, Jesse Gannon, Owen Ragland and Ptah Williams; singer Anita Jackson, saxophonist Ben Reece; multi-instrumentalist and singer Tonina Saputo; and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor.

Recorded last year and mixed at Clayton Studios by Tazu Marshall and Mike Silverman, the compilation will be available on streaming services, as a digital download, and as a CD, which will be sold locally at Vintage Vinyl, Music Record Shop, and Euclid Records, and at various affiliated venues such as Sophie’s Artist Lounge and The Dark Room.

* In a separate announcement, the Kranzberg Arts Foundation has put out a call for applicants for their next group of music artists-in-residence. In addition to a chance to appear on next year's compilation album, selected participants will get "performance, rehearsal and recording opportunities, as well as marketing support, office space, and industry education and access to assist them with advancing and building their careers."

Sunday, March 31 is the deadline to apply; for more information or to complete an application, visit the KAF website.

* The Sheldon Concert Hall has posted to Facebook an album of photos from last Saturday's performance by singer Dianne Reeves.

* Poet and author Quincy Troupe, in town this week to discuss Miles Davis for Jazz St. Louis' "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series, was interviewed by Don Marsh of St. Louis Public radio.

Edited 3/7/19 to correct the date of the Kranzberg Arts Foundation album release.

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Jazz this week: Grace Kelly, J.D. Parran & K. Curtis Lyle, Eighth Blackbird, and more

It's another busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with several noteworthy headliners in town, plus a whole bunch of shows from our hometown musicians, including a jam-packed Valentine's Day evening.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, February 13
Saxophonist and singer Grace Kelly (pictured, top left) begins a five-night engagement at Jazz St. Louis, continuing through Sunday. Kelly's most recent album Go Time: Brooklyn 2, which came out last October, expands her musical palette a bit, with more pronounced influences from pop, electronic music, and more. For more about that, plus some videos of recent performances by Kelly, check out the video showcase post from last Saturday.

Also on Wednesday, JSL's "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series continues with "Miles and Me: An Evening with Quincy Troupe," a free event at the St. Louis County Library's main branch on South Lindbergh. The poet, author, professor, St. Louis native, and Miles Davis biographer will speak about his work, his relationship with Davis, and more. For a preview, see Troupe's interview with Dan Durchholz for the Post-Dispatch.

Thursday, February 14
The evening of Valentine's Day offers more than dozen options for live jazz, so you'll probably want to visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes calendar to see the full range of options. 

If you're on a budget, the pick show might be the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University's presentation of "My Funny Valentine - Music of Miles Davis," a free concert featuring trumpeter Randy Holmes, saxophonist Paul DeMarinis, bassist/guitarist William Lenihan, pianist Ken Kehner, and drummer Steve Davis. As a bonus, author and scholar Enrico Merlin will give a talk about Davis before the concert, starting at 7:30 p.m.

Also of note, singer Jan Shapiro and pianist Dave Venn, both of whom gig less frequently than many local listeners might like, will be performing along with bassist Ben Wheeler at Bar Italia.

Meanwhile, singer Erin Bode will meet the demand from her fan base with the first of two nights at Cyrano's, and saxophonist Tim Cunningham will be on a similar schedule playing Thursday and Friday at Gauge Cigar Club (the latest re-branding of what originally was Troy's Jazz Gallery.)

Friday, February 15
Chicago-based new music ensemble Eighth Blackbird returns for a concert at 560 Music Center.

Also on Friday, singer Chuck Flowers performs at 50/Fifty Kitchen; the Joe Bozzi Band returns to Evangeline's; and Cornet Chop Suey plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, February 16
Multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native J.D. Parran (pictured, bottom left) will team up up with poet K. Curtis Lyle and trumpeter George Sams for a performance at Xavier Hall on the SLU campus.

Sunday, February 17
Miss Jubilee will perform for brunch at Evangeline's, while guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran is at The Dark Room.

Monday, February 18
The Webster University Jazz Collective, featuring faculty members from Webster's music department, performs at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on the StLJN Facebook page.

(If you have calendar items, band schedule information, news tips, links, or anything else you think may be of interest to StLJN's readers, please email the information to stljazznotes (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)

Sunday, February 10, 2019

Sunday Session: February 10, 2019

Archie Shepp
Here's a roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* Alice Coltrane - Journey in Satchidananda (Pitchfork.com)
* 'Holy relic' blues guitar could sell for £120k (Gazette and Herald)
* Wadada Leo Smith Reflects on Civil Rights and Large-Scale Works (DownBeat)
* 'Green Book' doesn't do justice to Don Shirley's brilliant musicianship (Los Angeles Times)
* Roomful of Teeth Is Revolutionizing Choral Music (The New Yorker)
* SFJAZZ Honors Chucho Valdés at Annual Gala (DownBeat)
* 'American Pie' isn't a song about Buddy Holly, Don McLean says: 'It's about America' (Des Moines Register)
* "A Great Day In Harlem": Remembering the iconic 1958 photo of legendary musicians (CBS News)
* The One That’s Got the Mojo: The Ric and Ron Records legacy (Offbeat)
* Loop History: Skull Snaps’ “It’s A New Day” (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* Malaco Records: A soul survivor celebrates 50 years (MississippiToday.org)
* Bobbie Gentry's Box of Surprises (PopMatters.com)
* When Jazz Was a Public Health Crisis (JStor.org)
* The Divine Madness of Bill Laswell (JazzDaGama.com)
* How Did They Do That? The Extraordinary Story of Tomorrow’s Warriors. (Jazz in Europe)
* Lost in the woods with James Brown’s ghost (CNN)
* Musicians Attempt Class-Action Lawsuits Against UMG & Sony to Reclaim Rights to Recordings (Billboard)
* Andy Statman: Practical Mystic (BrooklynRail.org)
* Restoration of Nina Simone’s childhood home to begin this spring (GoUpstate.com)
* How Saxophone Player Jean-Baptiste Jacquet Integrated Houston Audiences (Houstonia)
* Prospectus Feature: Baseball and Jazz (BaseballProspectus.com)
* Joseph Jarman (1937–2019) (Art Forum)
* Folklore as a political act: William Ferris on preserving Mississippi Delta blues (CBC)
* Travels with Joni Mitchell - An oeuvre inaugurated by disavowal (NPlusOneMag.com)
* Marvin Gaye's Unreleased Album 'You're The Man' To See The Light Of Day (NPR)
* The Anger Inside Gary Clark, Jr. (Rolling Stone)
* Did academia kill jazz? (TheConversation.com)
* Trumpeter Marquis Hill Has a Message (DownBeat)
* At 81, jazz titan Archie Shepp’s legacy comes into clear focus (Washington Post)
* The New Cool: Ben Wendel talks about his album that's not an album, until now (KNKX)

Saturday, February 09, 2019

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase:
It's "Go Time" for Grace Kelly



This week, let's check out some videos featuring saxophonist and singer Grace Kelly, who's coming to St. Louis to perform starting Wednesday, February 13 through Sunday, February 17 at Jazz St. Louis.

Already a music business veteran at age 26, Kelly grew up in the Boston area, recording and releasing her first album when she was just 12 years old. She subsequently earned her GED at 16, and went on to study at the New England Conservatory and Berklee, graduating from the latter at age 19.

Since then, Kelly has enjoyed increasing recognition both nationally and internationally, performing at major jazz venues and festivals all over the world, and getting occasional opportunities to cross over to a larger audience, such as her sit-ins with keyboardist Jon Batiste's band on Stephen Colbert's CBS talk show.

Kelly's most recent album, her 11th as a leader, is called GO TiME: Brooklyn 2. Released in October of last year, it incorporates elements of pop, funk, electronic music and more, moving Kelly a bit further away from the straight-ahead jazz she did as a teen being mentored by the likes of Phil Woods and Lee Konitz.

Still, you can hear a bit of that traditional vibe in the first video up above, which shows Kelly performing the bluesy ballad that served as the title song from her 2016 album Trying To Figure It Out, as recorded in October 2018 at the Jarasum Jazz Festival in South Korea.

After the jump, you can see live-in-the-studio videos of two songs recorded for GO TiME Brooklyn 2, "Unchain My Heart" and "Billie Jean" (though the latter apparently didn't make it on to the CD).

Next, it's "You Are My Sunshine," recorded in July 2018 at Paste Studios in NYC. The final two videos, "Amazing Grace" and "Lemons Make Lemonade," are from April 2017 and were made at the studios of public radio station KNKX in Tacoma, WA.

For more about Grace Kelly, see her interview from October 2018 in the Korea Herald; from September 2018 in JazzEd magazine, and January 2018 on AllAboutJazz.com.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Friday, February 08, 2019

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Jazz St. Louis has been named one of 16 arts organizations nationwide to receive a 2019 Leadership Grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation "in recognition of their existing bodies of work and for their potential continued impact on their respective fields."

The grants range in size from $100,000 to $500,000, with JSL getting get $350,000 for demonstrating "outstanding artistic programs and visionary leadership."

* Singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja was the subject of a feature story in the February issue of DownBeat, which now can be read online. Olatuja will self-release her latest album Intuition: Songs From The Minds Of Women on Friday, February 22 via "iTunes, Amazon, Google Music and all other online music vendors."

* Also putting out new music this month is drummer/keyboardist and U City native Ronnie Burrage. Recording under the group name Holographic Principle, Burrage, keyboardist Michal Wierba, and bassist Nimrod Speaks will release Dance of the Great Spirit on Friday, February 15 via Truth Revolution Records. They'll promote the album (pictured) with a performance on Saturday, February 16 at the Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts in Philadelphia.

* And speaking of new albums, vintage swing and Gypsy jazz ensemble Dizzy Atmosphere has a new, eponymous recording out this month, as described by bandleader Christopher Voelker to St. Louis magazine's Thomas Crone.

* Cabaret Project of St. Louis' monthly open mic night is the subject of a feature story on HEC-TV.

* With the premiere of the new documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool last week at the Sundance Film Festival, the movie's director Stanley Nelson, Davis' son Erin, and the trumpeter's nephew Vince Wilburn were interviewed by Essence magazine. Nelson also was interviewed by Colorlines.com, and the premiere was reviewed by Film Threat magazine and Nonfics.com.

Thursday, February 07, 2019

Nu-Art Series to present concerts by J.D. Parran, Oliver Lake at St. Louis University

The Nu-Art Series has announced three more concerts in their "Jazz n’ Tongues" series presented in cooperation with St. Louis University's music department.

The series resumes with multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native J.D. Parran, who will perform with poet K. Curtis Lyle and trumpeter and Nu-Art Series head George Sams on Saturday, February 16.  

Next up, saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake (pictured) will play with Sams, pianist Greg Mills, and dancers Antonio Douthis-Boyd and Kirven Douthis-Boyd on Friday, March 22. 

Sams then will complete the spring series by leading a date of his own on Friday, April 5.

All three concerts will start at 8:00 p.m. in the University Theatre in Xavier Hall on the SLU campus. General admission is $10 per person, free for students with a valid student ID,  and tickets for all three shows are on sale now via Metrotix.

Bonerama set to "get the Led out" on Friday, March 22 at The Bootleg at Atomic Cowboy

The trombone-centric, New Orleans-based band Bonerama (pictured) is headed back to St. Louis for a show at 8:00 p.m. Friday, March 22 at The Bootleg at Atomic Cowboy.

Promoted as "Bonerama Gets The Led Out," the band's current tour features a "special tribute set to Led Zeppelin."

General admission tickets for the 21+ performance are $15 in advance, $18 day of show, and are on sale now via TicketWeb.

Victor Wooten Band to perform
Tuesday, April 16 at Old Rock House

Bassist Victor Wooten is returning to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 16 at the Old Rock House.

The show is billed as "The Wooten Band and the Wooten Woods Experience," the latter referring to the bassist’s Center for Music and Nature, an educational retreat located near Nashville.

Along with music from Wooten, his brothers Regi and Joseph Wooten on guitars and keyboards, and Derico Watson on drums, the evening apparently will include an "audience participation demonstration" related to the educational programs offered at the Center.

Wooten (pictured) most recently played St. Louis with drummer Dennis Chambers and saxophonist Bob Franceschini in March of last year at the Old Rock House.

Tickets for Wooten Band's all-ages show in April are $32 for general admission, and are on sale now via all Metrotix outlets.

Wednesday, February 06, 2019

Jazz this week: Chucho Valdes; Aldana, Cohen & Hill; Dianne Reeves; Branch, Lonberg-Holm & Solberg; and more

It's a busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with two very different shows featuring special combinations of multiple headliners on one stage, plus headlining performances from a couple of other major jazz stars, and more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, February 6
The estimable pianist Chucho Valdés continues with his "Jazz Bata" show, featuring a mix of jazz and Cuban folkloric elements, through Thursday at Jazz St. Louis.

Also on Wednesday, this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features multi-instrumentalist TJ Muller and Friends at The Stage at KDHX, the weekly jam session hosted by bassist Bob DeBoo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor at The Dark Room.

Thursday, February 7
Guitarist Dan Rubright of The Wire Pilots leads a quartet in a free concert of original music for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Also on Thursday, singer and multi-instrumentalist Tonina Saputo performs at Joe's Cafe, and St. Charles County's own 636 Big Band, directed by trumpeter Keith Moyer, will be playing at Red Fish, Blue Fish, located just south of I-70 in Hawks Nest Plaza.

Friday, February 8
Saxophonist Melissa Aldana, pianist Emmet Cohen and trumpeter Marquis Hill (pictured, top left) will wrap up a week-long educational residency by joining forces for the first of two nights of performances at Jazz St. Louis.

At ages 30, 28, and 32 respectively, Aldana, Cohen and Hill all could be considered among the top young players on their respective instruments now working mostly in the mainstream tradition, and all three are bandleaders in their own right.

As is usually the case with one-off ensembles, it's hard to know how sympatico their individual styles may be until they actually hit the stage together, but on paper, these three seem like a good match. And if things are bit looser than they might be with a regular working band, listeners still will be getting three headliners for the price of one.

Also on Friday, the Arcadia Dance Orchestra will be joined by special guest multi-instrumentalist  Andy Schumm of the Chicago Cellar Boys for a show at The Stage at KDHX.

Saturday, 
February 9
New Music Circle presents trumpeter Jaimie Branch, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and percussionist Stäle Liavik Solberg (pictured, center left) at The Stage at KDHX

Though they're not a regular working band, the three have performed together before, which should provide just enough familiarity to ease them into an evening of freely improvised music.

The concert also marks the St. Louis debut of Branch, a Chicagoan-turned-New Yorker who is one of the more noteworthy young trumpeters to emerge on the improvised music scene in recent years. You can find out more about her and see some performance videos, including one with Lonberg-Holm and Solberg, in this post from last month.

Also on Saturday, singer Dianne Reeves (pictured, bottom left) performs at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Generally acknowledged as one of the most accomplished female jazz vocalists working today, Reeves last year was named an NEA Jazz Master, a significant milestone in a four-decade-long career that fortunately shows no signs of slowing down yet.

Reeves also has some musical connections to the St. Louis area, and you can find more about those and see some videos of recent performances in this post from last Saturday.

Sunday, February 10
Trumpeter Jim Manley plays for brunch at Evangeline's, while bassist/singer Janet Evra performs at The Dark Room.

Then on Sunday evening, singer Will Downing will be in town for a "Valentine's Weekend Kick-Off" performance at Harris-Stowe State University, with St. Louis' Lamont Hadley opening.

Monday, February 11
Dizzy Atmosphere returns to The Shaved Duck, and keyboardists Kim Portnoy and Nick Schlueter will team up for a duo concert at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on the StLJN Facebook page.

(If you have calendar items, band schedule information, news tips, links, or anything else you think may be of interest to StLJN's readers, please email the information to stljazznotes (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)

Sunday, February 03, 2019

Sunday Session: February 3, 2019

Lionel Loueke
Here's a roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* The most sampled drum loop in history (Boing Boing)
* New Sounds (London Review of Books)
* Spotify Is Hosting a High-Priced Executive Retreat In Cancun (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Antonio Sanchez's 'Lines In The Sand' Is Inspired By Migrants' Stories (NPR)
* Underrated Blue Note Musicians: 12 Artists Worth Rediscovering (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Not just a 'glass ceiling' but 'cement': Female film composers struggle to be heard (CBC)
* Think David Crosby Is Too Gruff? “Tough Shit” (Vanity Fair)* Photos: Roy Hargrove Musical Celebration (Jazz Times)
* For Betty Carter, 'The Music Never Stops' — Even 27 Years Later (NPR)
* Dave Liebman: Archives and Improvisations - The Past and the Now of a Life in Jazz (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The mystery tracks being 'forced' on Spotify users (BBC)
* David Gilmour on Why He’s Selling 120 Guitars: ‘Everything Has Got to Go’ (Rolling Stone)
* These might be the 5 most powerful people in the music business – despite none of them working in the music business (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Gonzalo Rubalcaba Discusses Chucho Valdés, creativity, and the SFJAZZ Lifetime Achievement Award (SFJAZZ.org)
* Peter Jackson to Direct New Beatles Documentary Film (Pitchfork.com)
* Brian Eno: ‘I’ve spent longer in Ireland than I have almost anywhere else’ (Irish Times)
* Big Ears Festival Will Pay Tribute to 50 Years of ECM Records (Jazz Times)
* Vintage piano turned into analog hybrid of 20 instruments controlled by piano keys (DesignBoom.com)
* New Collection Spans Gary Burton’s Boundless Career (DownBeat)
* Bob James Looks Back (Jazz Times)
* Young people are turning to classical music to escape ‘noise of modern life’ (The Guardian)
* John Coltrane 1958 Vinyl Box Set Announced (Pitchfork.com)
* 2019 Grammys: Breaking Down the Jazz Category Nominees (Billboard)
* Stewart Copeland on his Police career: "We fought like cat and dog over the f**king hi-hat" (MusicRadar.com)
* How gospel music gave birth to rock and soul (UPenn.edu)
* Lionel Loueke’s Journey of Empathy (DownBeat)
* Aretha’s Grace (New York Review of Books)

Saturday, February 02, 2019

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase:
Spotlight on Dianne Reeves



This week, let's check out some videos featuring singer Dianne Reeves, who will perform next Saturday, February 9 at The Sheldon.

Reeves, who last year was named an NEA Jazz Master, appeared here most recently in December 2016, presenting a Christmas show at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. She's considered one of the top jazz vocalists working today, having won five Grammy Awards for "Best Jazz Vocal Album," served as the first-ever creative chair for jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and won an honorary doctorate of music from Julliard, among many other honors.

The Denver native also has something of a St. Louis connection, as she was mentored early in her career by Clark Terry, and for years has employed two musicians from here - pianist Peter Martin, who's from U City and also serves as her music director, and drummer Terreon Gully, who's from East St. Louis.

Today's collection of videos features a couple of older performances showcasing those St. Louis connections, a couple of interviews with insight into Reeves' background and creative process, and a couple of recent performances, starting up above with the first clip, which shows Reeves singing Duke Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood" during the 2018 International Jazz Day 2018 all-star concert in Saint Petersburg, Russia, accompanied by David Goloschekin (violin), Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez (drums), Makoto Ozone (piano), and Ben Williams (bass).

After the jump, you can see a short biographical video about Reeves produced by the NEA when she was named a Jazz Master last year.

Next, there's another clip of a recent performance, in which Reeves sings "The Windmills of Your Mind" with the NYO Jazz big band, directed by trumpeter Sean Jones, as recorded in August 2018 at the Konzerthaus in Berlin, German.

The fourth video features a full set of Reeves and her working band - Martin, Gully, guitarist Romero Lubambo, and bassist Reginald Veal - in 2012 at the Internationale Jazzwoche Burghausen in Germany. The fifth goes way back to show her alongside a couple of other musicians from St. Louis, saxophonist David Sanborn and singer David Peaston, singing the T-Bone Walker blues standard "Stormy Monday" in 1988 on Sanborn's NBC program Night Music.

The final video is an extended interview with Reeves, recorded in 2017 in conjunction with her concert "Dianne Reeves Sings Ella" at the Library of Congress, in which she discusses her career and and her interpretations of Ella Fitzgerald's music.

For more about Dianne Reeves, read the review of her concert in march 2018 at Wigmore Hall in London; her 2017 interview with SoundExchange.com; and the feature story about her published in 2018 on the NEA's Arts.gov site.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Friday, February 01, 2019

Recently on Heliocentric Worlds

It's the start of a new month, so it's time to check in on StLJN's sibling site Heliocentric Worlds, where each day there's posted a different online music video drawing on genres including jazz, blues, soul, funk, classic rock, prog rock, experimental, and more.

The five most-watched videos added to the site last months were:

Albert King - Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival
Family - "Strange Band"
Junior Wells - "Low Down Dirty Shame"
James Booker - Live at the Molde Jazz Festival
Ahmad Jamal - "Autumn Leaves" 

Other recent posts have included videos featuring performances by Chuck Berry, Etta James, Soul Coughing, The Comet Is Coming, Charlie Musselwhite, Charlie Haden & Kenny Barron, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Manhattan Transfer, Lee Ritenour, Paul Simon, Amina Claudine Myers Quartet, Cedar Walton Quartet, Isaac Hayes, Gary Bartz, Bill Frisell, Kermit Ruffins, The Kinks, Sun Ra Arkestra, Houston Person Sextet, Barbara Dennerlein, Gladys Knight, James Taylor, Elvis Costello, Miguel Zenón Quartet, and McCoy Tyner.

If you have missed out on all this up until now, you still can see all these videos, plus thousands more from the archives, by going to https://heliocentricworlds.blogspot.com/.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Bassist and St. Louis native Tom Kennedy (pictured) is the subject of an AllAboutJazz.com feature story by writer Jim Worsley.

* Drummer Marcus Baylor and The Baylor Project were featured on a recent episode of John King's Arts and Rhythm Live in San Antonio on NBC affiliate WOAI.

* The Gaslight Squares' New Years Eve performance at Pacific Opera House was reviewed by The Syncopated Times.

* The new documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival, so far has been reviewed in the Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and Salt Lake City's SLUG magazine. Director Stanley Nelson also was interviewed about the film on an episode of "Radiowest" on Salt Lake City NPR affiliate KUER.

* Ron Sikes, percussionist for the Funky Butt Brass Band and director of bands at Jefferson R-VII District in Festus, will direct the Southeast Missouri All-District Jazz Band and serve as a clinician at Three Rivers College's 28th annual Jazz Festival on February 7 and 9.

* The St. Louis Banjo Club has elected a slate of officers for 2019 including John Williams as the organization's new president and Tina Miller as the new treasurer, with Don Dempsey continuing as secretary and Joe Feager as music director. The group meets on the fourth Thursday of each month at Affton Elks Club, and will celebrate their 50th anniversary this year with an event in November at the National Blues Museum, date and details TBA.

* SeatGeek.com and the NBA's New Orleans Pelicans have teamed up to produce a video about trumpeter, singer and U City Native Jeremy Davenport as part of a online series called "The Sounds of New Orleans."