April is Jazz Appreciation Month

It's almost time once again for Jazz Appreciation Month, the annual celebration of jazz music sponsored every April by the Smithsonian Institution.

Now in its 18th year, Jazz Appreciation Month (or JAM) was created "to draw greater public attention to the extraordinary heritage and history of jazz and its importance as an American cultural heritage. In addition, JAM is intended to stimulate the current jazz scene and encourage people of all ages to participate in jazz—to study the music, attend concerts, listen to jazz on radio and recordings, read books about jazz, and support institutional jazz programs."

This year, JAM "celebrates jazz beyond borders by looking at the dynamic ways jazz can unite people across the culture and geography," tying in to an upcoming tour of cities in North America, Europe and Asia by the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, with the intent of using "the power of music as a springboard into important discussions around diversity, identity, diplomacy, and innovation."

The featured artist for 2019 is Nat "King" Cole, who is cited as "an innovative artist, world influencer, and dynamic performer" who "pushed racial boundaries that sought to prevent him from success" and was the first African-American to host his own television series. You can learn more about Cole at the Smithsonian's website.

At the end of the month, jazz fans worldwide also will celebrate the eighth annual International Jazz Day on Tuesday, April 30. Sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), International Jazz Day is designed to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe.

The "global host city" for 2019 in Melbourne, Australia, which will serve as the site of an all-star International Jazz Day concert with artistic direction by pianist Herbie Hancock and Australian trumpeter James Morrison and featuring musicians from all around the world. There also will be hundreds of related events taking place in cities all over the world (though, alas, there are none scheduled here in St. Louis). Some of these performances will be live-streamed from the International Jazz Day website, though details are TBA.

In the meantime, if you'd like to plan your own festivities, the Smithsonian offers a list of "ways to celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month," and has produced a poster (pictured) depicting seven musicians - drummer Gene Krupa, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis, and Miles Davis, and trombonists J.J. Johnson, Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey - who "pushed boundaries of innovation, race, politics, and music."

The final part of a three-year series featuring a triptych of artwork by LeRoy Neiman, the 2019 posters were distributed for free to schools, libraries, music and jazz educators, music merchants and manufacturers, radio stations, arts presenters, and U.S. embassies worldwide, and are available to the general public as a downloadable PDF. You also can see and download commemorative posters from the previous 17 years of JAM here.

Sunday Session: March 31, 2019

Matthew Shipp

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:

* Jazz in Troubled Times: Watson Professor, WSJ contributor Larry Blumenfeld Riffs on ‘Relevance, Resonance’ of Jazz Culture (Syr.edu)
* Bootsy Collins: The Warner Bros. Era (CultureSonar.com)
* 1918-2018: 20 works that defined a century (Classical-Music.com)
* Michael Wolff’s Miraculous Turn (DownBeat)
* 30 Years of 'Nick of Time': How Bonnie Raitt's 'Underdog Record' Swept the Grammys & Saved Her Career (Billboard)
* The Art Ensemble of Chicago on the Past and Future of Their ‘Great Black Music’ (Rolling Stone)
* Carla Bley Plays the Big Band With Her Hands (Westword)
* Pianists Born 100 Years Ago Prove: There's No One Way To Play Jazz (NPR)
* How the music of 1950’s Cuba revolutionized the sound of young Senegal (QZ.com)
* Carla Bley Stretches Out at Big Ears (DownBeat)
* Signature Moves - A brief conversation with underground jazz piano great Matthew Shipp (RockAndRollGlobe.com)
* Resonance Records to Release Archival Recordings by Wes Montgomery, Bill Evans (Jazz Times)
* DJs of the Future Don't Spin Records—They Write Code (Wired)
* Big Ears Festival 2019: The Best (Echoes.org)
* The best decade for pop music has been revealed – according to science (NME.com)
* Frank Sinatra And Elvis Presley: When The Chairman Met The King (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* The Brotherhood of Alfredo Rodríguez and Pedrito Martinez (DownBeat)
* The Eclectic Artistry of Gary Lucas (Van Wyck Gazette)
* How the Music of Hawaiʻi’s Last Ruler Guided the Island’s People Through Crisis (Smithsonian)
* Downtown Music Acquires CD Baby Owner AVL Digital Group (Price Tag: $200 Million) (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* ‘What The F*** Is Happening Right Now’: A Look At ‘The Bizarre World Of Frank Zappa’ (Pollstar.com)
* Aaron Diehl: paradox at the piano (Rochester City Newspaper)
* Jazz Guitarist Joe Morris: Enhance the Risk (Premier Guitar)
* Jazz Duo Explores the Intersection of Math and Music (Flagpole)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Branford Marsalis Quartet

Today, let's take a look at some videos featuring the Branford Marsalis Quartet, who will be coming to St. Louis to perform starting this coming Tuesday, April 2 through Thursday, April 4 at Jazz St. Louis.

Last seen here in 2017 with singer Kurt Elling, Marsalis and company are on tour in support of a new album, The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul, released a month ago.

While the long-running quartet - Marsalis on tenor and soprano saxes, Eric Revis on bass, Joey Calderazzo on piano, and Justin Faulkner on drums - can interpret a wide range of jazz styles and has a deep catalog of tunes from which to draw, chances are they'll be featuring at least some of the music from that new album during their three nights here. 

So, by way of a preview, you can see a performance of one of the tunes from the album up above, in a clip of "Snake Hip Waltz," composed and first recorded back in 1975 by pianist Andrew Hill.

After the jump, there's a video of "Cianna," a composition by Calderazzo that's also included on The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul, and then a "making of" promotional video for the album that includes some short musical excerpts plus comments from Marsalis.

Next, you can see some samples of other recent live performances by the quartet, starting with a version of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" from a concert a couple of weeks ago at the Tivoli in Utrecht, Netherlands.

That's followed by two videos of performances recorded last year - "The Mighty Sword," another Calderazzo tune from the group's 2012 release Four MFs Playin' Tunes that was recorded at a show in April at the Barclay Theatre in Irvine, CA; and a version of Duke Ellington's classic "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," exact date and location unlisted.

For more about the Branford Marsalis Quintet and their new album, check out Marsalis' recent interviews with PopMatters.com and Richmond, VA alt-weekly Style Weekly, and his interview from January on the Burning Ambulance podcast.


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

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Thanks to a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Jazz St. Louis will be offering more live video streams of performances from the Bistro, starting with tonight's 7:30 p.m. set by the Mark Guiliana Quartet.

JSL experimented last season with live-streaming a handful of performances, but with the upgraded gear purchased with funds from the grant, they'll be streaming from three to six more performances this spring, and more than 20 performances during the 2019-20 season. The video streams will be accessible from JSL's Facebook and YouTube pages, as well as on a new live-streaming page on their website.

* Singer Michael Buble's performance last week at the Enterprise Center was reviewed for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Dan Durchholz. The Post also published online a gallery of photos from the show.

* The Bosman Twins (pictured) were interviewed on a recent episode of the web series SMilesTV.

* Organizers of the concert series promoting the release of the book St. Louis Sound have posted to Facebook a gallery of photos from last Friday's "Experience Jazz" show at the Grandel Theatre.

* The St. Louis Low Brass Collective was the subject of an HEC-TV feature by reporter Paul Schankman.

* Trumpeter Terence Blanchard's recent local appearances to promote the upcoming premiere of his opera Fire Shut Up In My Bones this season at Opera Theatre of St. Louis were covered by the St. Louis American's Kenya Vaughn and the Post-Dispatch's Sarah Bryan Miller.

Jazz this week: Mark Guiliana Quartet, Mwata Bowden, Ahmad Jamal, Grand Marquis, Branford Marsalis Quartet, and more

It's another busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with a calendar featuring noteworthy performances by several visiting headliners, plus an assortment of gigs in various styles from hometown players. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, 
March 27
Drummer Mark Guiliana and his quartet will perform for the first of five nights at Jazz St. Louis

The NYC-based Guiliana is known for mixing acoustic drums and electronic beats in his own projects and while working with musicians including Brad Mehldau, Avishai Cohen, David Bowie, Meshell Ndegeocello, Lionel Loueke, and more.

However, for his St. Louis debut as a bandleader, he'll be bringing in a more straight-ahead, acoustic group, featuring bassist Chris Morrissey, saxophonist Jason Rigby, and pianist Shai Maestro.

Also on Wednesday, the weekly "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features singer Wendy Gordon and Friends at The Stage at KDHX, along with the jam session led by bassist Bob DeBoo at the Kranzberg Arts Center and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet at The Dark Room.

Thursday, March 28
Multi-instrumentalist Mwata Bowden (pictured, top left) will perform in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University. Bowden, a longtime member of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the head of the jazz program at the University of Chicago, will be joined by Wash U faculty members William Lenihan on guitar and piano and Paul Steinbeck on bass, plus drummer Steve Davis.

Friday, March 29
Singer Feyza Eren returns to Evangeline's; percussionist Herman Semidey and Son Montuno will play Latin jazz, salsa and more at The Dark Room; and the Sentimental Journey Dance Band performs at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, March 30
Pianist Ahmad Jamal (pictured, center left) performs for the annual benefit gala at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Now 88 years old, Jamal plays just a few selected dates a year, so his performance here should be a special occasion, both for diehard fans who have followed him over the course of his seven-decade career and for younger listeners seeking to experience his distinctive style in person.

For more about Jamal and some video samples of recent performances (plus a couple of throwback sets), check out this post from last Saturday. 

Elsewhere around town, Kansas City-based jump blues and swing band Grand Marquis returns to BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups; trumpeter Keith Moyer leads a quartet at Evangeline's; and Dizzy Atmosphere will play vintage swing and Gypsy jazz at Urban Chestnut Midtown Brewery and Biergarten.

Sunday, March 31
The University City Symphony Orchestra  presents a program titled "Jazzy Classical" at the 560 Music Center. The free concert will feature works by George Gershwin, Aaron Copland and William Grant Still performed by the orchestra with guest musicians including pianist Ptah Williams, Bach to the Future, guitarist Dave Black, and violinist Tracy Silverman.

Monday, April 1
Webster University's Student Jazz Combos will show off what they've learned this year with a performance at Webster's Community Music School.

Tuesday, April 2
Saxophonist Branford Marsalis (pictured, bottom left) and his quartet will perform for the first of three nights at Jazz St. Louis.

Appearing in St. Louis for the first time since their January, 2017 gig with singer Kurt Elling at the Bistro, Marsalis and his longtime band - pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Justin Faulkner  - are touring in support of a new album, The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul, which was released last month to favorable reviews.

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 Session: March 24, 2019

Kahil El'Zabar

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:

* What Happens if Google Buys the World’s Biggest Music Company? (Rolling Stone)
* Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes (Jazz Journal)
* Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes review – pristine doc of tonal clarity (The Guardian)
* Dick Dale, godfather of surf guitar, dies aged 81 (The Guardian)
* Nat King Cole Still Remains 'One Of The Great Gifts Of Nature' 100 Years Later (NPR)
* Myspace lost all the music its users uploaded between 2003 and 2015 (Boing Boing)
* Verve Celebrates Norman Granz’s Vision (DownBeat)
* ‘It Was A Social Revolution’: The Turkish Embassy’s Surprising Role In Desegregating D.C. Jazz (WAMU)
* Lionel Loueke’s Winding Musical Journey (Jazz Times)
* On the Road With Jacob Collier (Mother Jones)
* Avant garde jazz and black rights activism in 1960s Cleveland, Ohio: an interview with Mutawaf A Shaheed (The Wire)
* Andre Williams: farewell to R&B's raunchiest raconteur (The Guardian)
* Bacon fat, corn liquor, and tail feathers: remembering R&B legend Andre Williams (Chicago Reader)
* Dick Dale, the Inventor of Surf Rock, Was a Lebanese-American Kid from Boston (The New Yorker)
* Class Struggle at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Jacobin)
* “Music Is A Portal”: Sophie Huber On Blue Note Documentary ‘Beyond The Notes’ (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Brian Auger: Bridging the gap (Jazz Journal)
* Here are some of the weirdest musical instrument ideas from NAMM (Create Digital Music)
* E.J. Strickland – A warrior for peace (Jazz in Europe)
* ‘Contours’: How Sam Rivers Hit New Heights Of Creativity (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Boz Scaggs Premieres 'Little Miss Night and Day' Video, Talks Next Moves (Billboard)
* History Disappeared When Myspace Lost 12 Years of Music, and It Will Happen Again (Pitchfork.com)
* Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies Acquires Chico O'Farrill Music & Archives (Billboard)
* Kahil El’Zabar on the Expansiveness of Music History (DownBeat)
* Bright Moments with William Parker (Jazz Times)
* "It identifies what I believe from here": Sam Moore reflects on his hit "Soul Man" (CBS News)
* What Does A New Orleans Music Industry Actually Mean? Guest Editorial (Offbeat)
* Interview: Factory Manager Forrest White on the Truth Behind "Fender Fiction" (Reverb.com)
* Rosanne Cash Opens Up About Her #MeToo Experiences -- And How The Industry Can Avoid Further 'Collateral Damage' (Billboard)
* Chet Baker’s Singing: A Cultural Shift (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Adonis Rose: To Swing Toussaint (Jazz Times)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Ahmad Jamal

This week, let's check out some videos featuring pianist Ahmad Jamal, who will be performing Saturday, March 30 at the annual benefit gala for the Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries.

Jamal, who's now 88 years old and plays only a select number of dates per year, is a native of Pittsburgh who began his musical career in the late 1940s, reaching international stardom a decade later with the release of his album Live at the Pershing. Recorded at a Chicago hotel lounge where Jamal had a house-band gig, the album featured a version of what would become his signature song, "Poinciana," and stayed on the charts for more than two years.

Jamal's sparing approach, making ample use of long vamps and space within the music, caused some to deride him at the time as a mere "cocktail pianist," but he also made many fans, including Miles Davis, who praised Jamal's "concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement."

And as we now know, history would seem to have proven the naysayers wrong, as Jamal has enjoyed continued influence and popularity to this day and has earned many honors around the world, including being named an NEA Jazz Master in 1994, entering DownBeat's Hall of Fame in 2011, and winning a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.

You can see and hear Jamal perform "Poinciana" in the first video up above, recorded in 2012 at the Olympia in Paris with bassist James Cammack, percussionist Manolo Badrena, and drummer Herlin Riley.

After the jump. you can see how Jamal applies his distinctive approach to the familiar standard "Autumn Leaves," as performed in 2017 in Paris with the same band.

That's followed by a version of "Blue Moon," recorded in 2014 at the Jazz in Marciac festival in France, with Riley, Badrena, and Reginald Veal on bass, and then a performance of Jamal's own "Autumn Rain" with the same musicians at the 2012 Les Nuits D'Istres festival in France.

The last two videos go quite a bit farther back, providing an opportunity to see how Jamal's style has evolved over time. The fifth video documents a full set by Jamal in 1999 at a festival in Germany, while the sixth and final clip is from 1971, when Jamal was the featured performer in an episode of the French TV program Jazz Session.

For more about Ahmad Jamal, read his 2017 interview with DownBeat; writer Ashley Kahn's 2002 feature about Jamal that was republished in 2017 by JazzTimes; and Jamal's 2018 interview with Wax Poetics.

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

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* In their ongoing series of features about the best record stores in every state, VinylMePlease.com has named Vintage Vinyl (pictured) as the "Best Record Store in Missouri."

* As part of a group of "in memoriam" articles in the March issue of Jazz Times, saxophonist Oliver Lake offered a poetic tribute to his late friend and bandmate Hamiet Bluiett. Lake performs tonight at Xavier Hall on the St. Louis University campus.

* Trumpeter Terence Blanchard, in town last weekend for a series of events promoting the premiere of his opera Fire Shut Up In My Bones later this year at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, was interviewed by Don Marsh of St. Louis Public Radio.

* Also on St. Louis Public Radio, singer Beverly Brennan was interviewed about her cabaret show "Love and Marriage," which she'll perform tonight at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

* Pianist Peter Martin's Open Studio has posted to YouTube a full-length video of last week's concert featuring guitarist Romero Lubambo, pianist Helio Alves, drummer Edu Ribeiro, and bassist Bob DeBoo.

* Voting in St. Louis magazine's annual "A-List" poll is now open, and while there are no jazz-specific categories, you can cast a ballot for your favorite music venues, festivals, and more here.

* Two former Miles Davis sidemen are getting attention for new projects paying tribute to their old boss, as saxophonist Dave Liebman was interviewed in DownBeat about his new album re-visiting Davis' music from On The Corner, while multi-instrumentalist/producer Marcus Miller was featured in Parade magazine for two Davis-related concerts this month at Jazz at Lincoln Center..

* Phil Dunlap, who has run education and community outreach programs for Jazz St. Louis for the past 12 years, is leaving the organization to take a new job as director of cultural affairs for Broward County, FL, running that county's equivalent to the Regional Arts Commission. Dunlap will depart JSL at the end of April; there's been no announcement yet about a successor.

Jazz this week: Ralph Towner, MarchFourth, Oliver Lake, Bonerama, Michael Bublé, Oz Noy, Dave Weckl & Jimmy Haslip, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis is jam-packed with so many noteworthy shows that it defies easy summary, so in the interest of getting to the good stuff as soon as possible, let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, 
March 20
Guitarist Ralph Towner returns to play a solo concert at Graham Chapel on the Washington University campus. (For more about Towner and some video samples of his work, see this post from before his last appearance here in 2017.)

Also on Wednesday, the eclectic mutant-marching-band MarchFourth returns for a performance at the Old Rock House; Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Singers Open Mic" at Sophie's Artist Lounge; and pianist Reggie Thomas and the Jazz St. Louis Big Band celebrate the "Nat "King" Cole Centennial" with a free performance as part of the the "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series at Jazz St. Louis.

Thursday, March 21
The 442s play original instrumental music at Joe's Cafe, and guitarist Billy Barnett will perform in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Friday, March 22
The Nu-Art Series and St. Louis University  present saxophonist Oliver Lake (pictured, top left) in concert at Xavier Hall on the SLU campus.

The former St. Louisan and co-founder of the Black Artists Group and the World Saxophone Quartet will be reciting some of his poetry as well as playing music, with some help from pianist Greg Mills, trumpeter and Nu-Art Series impresario George Sams, and dancers Antonio Douthis-Boyd and Kirven Douthis-Boyd.

For more about Lake and his artistic pursuits in music, poetry, and painting, see this post from last Saturday. 

Also on Friday, Bonerama (pictured, center left) presents their Led Zeppelin tribute show at The Bootleg at Atomic Cowboy; pop-jazz crooner Michael Bublé will perform at the Enterprise Center; and the Funky Butt Brass Band plays for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis.

Saturday, March 23
NYC-based band The Bailsmen will play vintage swing and Gypsy jazz at Focal Point, and a series of shows celebrating the release of the new book St. Louis Sound kicks off with "St. Louis Sound: Experience Jazz," featuring sets from Tonina, the Adam Maness Trio, and trumpeter Danny Campbell with guest vocalist Anita Jackson, at the Grandel Theatre.

Also on Saturday, pianist Carolbeth True and Two Times True return to the Parkside Grille, and trumpeter Jim Manley leads a quartet at Evangeline's.

Sunday, March 24
Israeli-born jazz-fusion guitarist Oz Noy wraps up his current tour with drummer and St. Charles native Dave Weckl (pictured, bottom left) and bassist Jimmy Haslip with two shows at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

Monday, March 25
Singer and impressionist Dean Christopher returns with his "Rat Pack and More" show to One 19 North Tapas & Wine Bar; and Webster University's Student Jazz Combos perform at Webster's Community Music School.

Tuesday, March 26
Nashville-based ensemble The Cosmic Collective plays at Evangeline's.

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.)

Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue to perform Friday, June 7 at The Pageant

New Orleans multi-instrumentalist and singer Trombone Shorty and his band Orleans Avenue are returning to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m. Friday, June 7 at The Pageant.

Shorty (pictured) last played here in August 2015 at Ballpark Village. His most recent album Parking Lot Symphony was released in 2017 on the Blue Note label.

Tickets for Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue are $40 for reserved seats, $30/$35 for general admission (advance/day of show), with a $2 surcharge for minors, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. this Friday, March 22 via Ticketmaster.

Sunday Session: March 17, 2019

Tomeka Reid

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:

* Lennie Tristano at 100 — Scenario for a Jazz Legend (Town Topics)
* First Listen: The Comet Is Coming, 'Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery' (NPR)
* Separated by 50 Years, Israels, Diehl Find Common Ground (DownBeat)
* More evidence of sound waves carrying mass (Phys.org)
* In Focus: Joe McPhee (NTS.live)
* Deep Dive: Odds 'n' Ends About Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Lester Young and "Jazz" Itself (WBGO)
* Makaya McCraven: The Brain Behind The Mind-Bending Beats (NPR)
* Hal Blaine, Drummer Behind the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” Dead at 90 (Pitchfork.com)
* Delfeayo Marsalis bringing everything from New Orleans but the cuisine to Lied Center (Lincoln Journal Star)
* How we made Booker T and the MGs' Green Onions (The Guardian)
* Fort Apache: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful (Jazz Times)
* On the Road with Cellist Tomeka Reid (DownBeat)
* Blue Note Launches Vinyl Reissue Series (Keyboard)
* Joe Lovano: The intimate moment of now (SFJAZZ.org)
* Lambert, Hendricks & Ross: Four Classic Albums (Jazz Journal)
* Sidewinder: The Murder of Lee Morgan (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Rebuilding the ARC: America’s Largest Music Collection Needs Your Help (Rolling Stone)
* No Man's Band: All-Female Jazz Orchestras Then and Now (NPR)
* A Short History of… The Legend of Buddy Bolden (Jazziz)
* Wearing headphones at a concert isn’t as weird as I thought it would be (Engadget.com)
* Welcome to Birdpunk: A Subculture of a Subculture (Audubon)
* A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music (RootsMusic.ca)
* How the 45 RPM Single Changed Music Forever (Rolling Stone)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The eclectic artistry of Oliver Lake

This week, StLJN's video spotlight shines on musician, painter, poet, and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake, who's coming to town to perform in a concert sponsored by the Nu-Art Series and St. Louis University next Friday, March 22 at Xavier Hall on the SLU campus.

Lake will joined for the performance by pianist Greg Mills, trumpeter and Nu-Art Series impresario George Sams, and dancers Antonio Douthis-Boyd and Kirven Douthis-Boyd, and, in keeping with the "Jazz 'N Tongues" theme of Nu-Art's current slate of shows, he'll read some of his poetry as well as playing saxophone.

Though born in Arkansas, Lake grew up and spent his formative musical years here in St. Louis, helping co-found the famed Black Artists Group in the late 1960s before moving away to pursue his career. With fellow former BAG members Hamiet Bluiett and Julius Hemphill (plus tenor saxophonist David Murray), he then went on to found the critically acclaimed and influential World Saxophone Quartet, which brought new ideas about arrangements and rhythm sections (or the lack of same) from the avant-garde towards - if not fully into - the mainstream.

In the 1990s, Lake co-founded another significant ensemble, Trio 3, with bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Andrew Cyrille, and they've continued to reunite periodically for new projects to this day. But it is as a solo artist that Lake has been most prolific, releasing more than 40 albums as a leader with various ensembles, many on his own Passin' Thru label.

For many years a resident of Montclair, NJ, Lake also spends a good deal of time these days on his visual art, as described in the first video up above, a feature story about him produced last year for a local PBS affiliate.

After the jump, you can see a couple of videos from 2018 featuring Lake and his big band, recorded during the Vision Festival at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY and at the DC Jazz Festival in Washington.

Next are recently posted clips of Lake with two different trios - the Crash Band Trio, with drummers Bill McClellan and Reggie Nicholson, recorded during the Bang on a Can Marathon in May, 2017 at the Brooklyn Museum; and a set of music from October, 2014 with guitarist Vernon Reid and drummer Marlon Browden, recorded at John Zorn's venue The Stone in NYC.

Those are followed by two samples of Lake reading his poetry, a work called "Do you remember the time?" recorded in 2010 in Pittsburgh, and "Poem for Amiri Baraka" from the 2014 Vision Festival.

Finally, you can see a short video that Lake made last year for Jazz at Lincoln Center's education department, in which he discusses his process for composing and gives some advice to students.

For more about Oliver Lake, read his 2017 interview with Bandcamp Daily, and the interviews published in 2015 on Revive Music and on pianist Ethan Iverson's blog Do The Math.

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

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Today is the release date for The Sound of St. Louis - Jazz Compilation Volume 1, an album featuring original music from the nine participants in the Kranzberg Arts Foundation's music artists-in-residence program.

The album (pictured) 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 KAF-affiliated venues such as Sophie’s Artist Lounge and The Dark Room.

* In more album-release news, singer Erin Bode is reissuing her 2016 album Here and Now as a vinyl LP, and will perform on Thursday, April 11 at The Sheldon to commemorate the event. 

* One of singer Marilyn Maye's performances last week with the Jazz St. Louis Big Band was reviewed by KDHX's Chuck Lavazzi.

* Singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja was interviewed about her new album Intuition by the St. Louis American's Kenya Vaughn.

* Also as reported in the American, four branches of St. Louis County Library now offer musical instruments, including guitars, keyboards and hand drums, that can be checked out by library patrons for free.

* Multi-instrumentalist and singer Tonina was profiled for a new local website, TheSTL.com, by writer Daniel Durchholz.

* NPR once again this year is holding a contest for unsigned musical acts that would like to perform in a Tiny Desk Concert, filmed at the network's HQ in Washington DC. Local affiliate St. Louis Public Radio has details on the contest and how to enter here.

Jazz this week: Kurt Elling, Nicole Mitchell, Lubambo, Alves & Ribeiro, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis brings sounds from all over, including two prominent performers who each got their start in Chicago, one who made his name on Broadway, and three coming from Brazil via NYC. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, March 13
Singer Kurt Elling - one of the aforementioned Chicagoans, though he now lives in New York - performs for the first of five nights, continuing through Sunday at Jazz St. Louis.

Elling (pictured, top left) returns here for the first time since the release in 2018 of his most recent album The Questions, so it seems likely that a good portion of material from that recording will be part of his sets here. You can see videos of live performances of several of those tunes, and find out more about what Elling has been up to more recently, in this post from last Saturday.

Elsewhere around town, clarinetist and former St. Louisan Chloe Feoranzo, now residing in New Orleans, will be back in town for a concert with her quartet at Focal Point, and guitarist Brian Vaccaro leads a trio at Evangeline's.

Thursday, March 14
Pianist Jim Hegarty returns with his quintet to the The Dark Room; guitarist Dave Black and singer Erika Johnson perform at The Pat Connolly Tavern; and pianist Adam Maness' trio is back at Thurman's in Shaw.

Friday, March 15
Pianist, singer and Tony Award-winning musical theater composer Jason Robert Brown performs in concert at the Grandel Theatre; and the Original Knights of Swing play for dancers at Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, March 16
Flute player and composer Nicole Mitchell’s Liberation Narratives, featuring poet Haki Madhubuti, performs in a concert presented by New Music Circle at Xavier Hall on the St. Louis University campus.

A composer and conceptualist with wide-ranging interests, Mitchell (pictured, bottom left) is a past president of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and recently was appointed head of the jazz program at the University of Pittsburgh, succeeding the late Geri Allen.

Mitchell has been involved in a constantly evolving variety of musical projects over the years, with her latest collaboration with poet Haki Madhubuti offering "an unabashed take on the state of the nation" via her compositions and the poet's spoken word performances.  For a bit more about that, plus some videos of Mitchell performing in various contexts, see this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Elsewhere around town, pianist Peter Martin's Open Studio will present a concert of Brazilian jazz featuring guitarist Romero Lubambo, pianist Helio Alves, and drummer Edu Ribeiro, along with St. Louis' own Bob DeBoo on bass.

Also on Saturday, the Coleman Hughes Project celebrates six years as a band with a gig at Lowes Entertainment; and trumpeter Jim Manley and keyboardist Chris Swan will play at One 19 North Tapas & Wine Bar.

Sunday, March 17
Friends have organized a benefit for saxophonist Fred Walker, who no longer can perform due to recent health issues, for late Sunday afternoon at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups, with announced performers including Walker's former band Mystic Voyage, saxophonist Kendrick Smith, blues singers Kim Massie, Eugene Johnson, and Lady J Huston, and more.

Monday, March 18
Pianist Carol Schmidt and saxophonist Paul DeMarinis will team up for a concert of duets at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University 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 Session: March 10, 2019

Dave Burrell

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:

* Kenny Garrett Interview (Jazz in Europe)
* This North Philly bar near Temple hosted legends like Coltrane and Patti LaBelle, but its owner refuses to sell (Philly.com)
* The Complex Sounds of Caspar Brötzmann (DownBeat)
* Buddy Guy Is Keeping the Blues Alive (The New Yorker)
* Song You Need to Know: Joey DeFrancesco and Pharoah Sanders, ‘The Creator Has a Master Plan’ (Rolling Stone)
* Celebrating Pianist and Composer Dave Burrell at the Vision Festival — and on The Checkout (WBGO)
* Rebirth of the Cool (TheLAndMag.com)
* Smithsonian Folkways Details Massive New Orleans Jazz Fest Box Set (Rolling Stone)
* Is the album format irrelevant in the digital age? Let's investigate (Beat.com)
* World’s Largest Music Publishers Offer ‘Full Support of Warner/Chappell’ Against Spotify — Here’s Their Statement (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* When Jerry Lee Lewis Was Accused of Planning to Shoot Elvis Presley (UltimateClassicRock.com)
* Wadada Leo Smith Pays Tribute to Rosa Parks in New Album (Qwest.tv)
* City to Honor ‘Lady Day’ with Statue at Queens Borough Hall (Queens Daily Eagle)
* The Sound of Evil (The American Scholar)
* Producer of ‘Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings’ Discusses Project in New Video (DownBeat)
* Eliane Elias: The Soul of Brazil (SFJAZZ.org)
* Revisit 50 years of Jazz Fest with comprehensive box set of live performances (Offbeat)
* A two-dimensional matrix: Carl Stone speaks to Emily Bick (The Wire)
* International Women’s Day: Meet the women shaping the future of music (Pro Sound News Europe)
* Spotify and Amazon ‘sue songwriters’ with appeal against 44% royalty rise in the United States (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Got $100k? Steinway’s iPad-capable piano turns you into a classical mixmaster (Syfy.com)
* Janis Joplin’s producer John Simon, a Norwalk native, has musical tastes that might surprise fan (Connecticut Post)
* Sandy Jordan: Keeping the Legacies Alive (Jazz Times)
* Laurie Anderson Interview: The Nature of the Mind (Atavist.com)
* Biamp PDX Jazz Festival Tastefully Pays Tribute to the Past (DownBeat)
* Take note – why do women composers still take up less musical space? (The Guardian)
* An interview with Bill Folwell (Point of Departure)
* In Memoriam: Ira Gitler (1928–2019) (DownBeat)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Catching up with Kurt Elling

Today, let's take a look at some videos featuring singer Kurt Elling, who's coming to town to perform starting next Wednesday, March 13 through Sunday, March 17 at Jazz St. Louis.

Widely acclaimed as one of the top male vocalists in jazz, Elling by now should be no stranger to St. Louis audiences, having performed here a number of times in recent years, most recently in 2017 with saxophonist Branford Marsalis' quartet at the Bistro. For this visit, he arrives just after the world premiere of The Big Blind, a live radio drama/musical staged for the first time last week at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater.

Inspired by Elling's own experiences performing at Chicago’s famed Green Mill, the real-life story of comedian Joe E. Lewis, and elements of the 1957 Frank Sinatra film The Joker Is Wild, The Big Blind was devised by Elling, writer Phil Galdston and director Terry Kinney, and tells the story of a 1950s nightclub singer confronting career and romantic conundrums.

In addition to Elling in the starring role, the production features a 23-piece big band led by drummer Ulysses Owens Jr., with a Foley artist performing sound effects on stage, and additional speaking/singing roles for Dee Dee Bridgewater, Broadway veteran Ben Vereen, and UK singer/actor Ian Shaw.

While Elling hopes to tour with The Big Blind in the near future, next week in St. Louis, audiences likely will hear a good portion of material from his most recent studio recording, 2018's The Questions.

This week's videos shows him performing songs from that album, starting up above with his version of Carla Bley's "Lawns," given a lyric and recast by Elling as "Endless Lawns." The clip was shot in October of last year at a venue called De Doelen in Rotterdam, Netherlands, with a band include Adonis Rose (drums), Clark Sommers (bass), Jim Watson (piano), and John McLean (guitar).

After the jump, you can see four segments of Elling's performance in April 2018 at La Seine Musicale in Paris, just as The Questions was released, with a band including McLean on guitar, Stuart Mindeman on keyboards, Clark Sommers on bass, and Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums.

The first clip shows Elling opening the show with his version of Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." Next, it's "A Happy Thought," penned by Mindeman with a text from poet Franz Wright, paired with a version of "I Have Dreamed," written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein for the Broadway musical The King and I.

That's followed by "Washing of the Water," a Peter Gabriel composition, and then Elling's reworking of Jaco Pastorius' "Three Views of A Secret" as "A Secret in Three Views." The final video is a promotional clip of Elling singing Paul Simon’s “American Tune,” which several critics have cited as one of the album's highlights.

For more about Kurt Elling and The Questions, see his 2018 interview with Jazz Times magazine,  his interview with the Australian magazine Limelight from last year's tour "down under," and this December 2018 feature from Elling's hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune.

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

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Saxophonist Fred Walker, a longtime veteran of the local music scene, is facing some serious health issues, having spent time earlier this year in the hospital for a collapsed lung.

Since doctors have told Walker that he no longer can perform on the saxophone, friends have set up a page on GoFundMe to help raise money for his medical and living expenses. There also will be a benefit concert for Walker featuring local blues and jazz performers from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 17 at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups.

* Steve Pick of KDHX and Euclid Records has teamed up with fellow St. Louis writer Amanda Doyle to author St. Louis Sound, a newly released "illustrated timeline" of local music history.

Publishers Reedy Press are promoting the book (pictured) with a series of five shows this month featuring local musicians grouped by genre at different venues. It gets underway Saturday, March 23 with a jazz concert at the Grandel Theatre featuring the Adam Maness Trio, trumpeter Danny Campbell, singer Anita Jackson, and singer/multi-instrumentalist Tonina, with subsequent evenings focused on rock, blues, hip-hop, and Americana.

* Speaking of Tonina, she recently was the subject of a feature story in Alive! magazine.

* Clarinetist and former St. Louisan Chloe Feoranzo was the subject of a Riverfront Times feature by Thomas Crone. Feoranzo, who's now based in New Orleans, will be back in St. Louis for a concert next Wednesday, March 13 at Focal Point.

* Saxophonist and educator Harvey Lockhart got a nice mention in the South Florida Times for bringing the Point of View Ensemble, made up of his students from Riverview Gardens High School, to the 22nd annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival in Miami, FL.

* Jazz St. Louis is now accepting applications from middle- and high school student musicians for the 2019-20 year of their JazzU program. The deadline to apply is Saturday, April 26.

* 50/Fifty Kitchen, the south side restaurant that also served up live jazz weekly from singer Joe Mancuso and others, has closed.

* In a week marking 60 years since Miles Davis started recording his most famous album, an article in The Independent takes a look at "Kind of Blue: The jazz album by Miles Davis that transformed music," while author and critic Ted Gioia has recorded a video asking, "How Important Really Is Miles Davis’s "Kind Of Blue"?"

* Also on the Miles Davis beat: A remastered 180-gram vinyl LP reisssue of his 1957 album 'Round About Midnight is included among the just-announced list of special releases for this year's Record Store Day on Saturday, April 20; the trumpeter's mid-1950s recordings for the Blue Note label are the subject of an article just published on UDiscoverMusic.com; and representatives of the Davis estate will be at the SXSW conference in Austin, TX later this month, promoting various projects via the Miles Davis House.

Jazz this week: Marilyn Maye, "Kind of Blue" at 60, St. Louis Record Show, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features a celebration of one of the most influential and best-selling jazz albums in history, a singer known mostly for her intimate cabaret performances stepping out in front of a brassy big band, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, March 6
Singer and grande dame of cabaret Marilyn Maye (pictured), who most frequently works with a trio or solo pianist, will change things up by performing with a 17-piece big band for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis.

At this writing, only a handful of tickets remain for Maye's performances, but as usual, the sets will be live-streamed on video and can be viewed for free in the first-floor lounge adjacent to the Bistro at JSL HQ. 

Also on Wednesday, this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features multi-instrumentalist T.J. Muller and Friends 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, March 7 
Vincent Varvel and William Lenihan will play guitar duets in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; pianist Adam Maness leads a trio at Thurman's in Shaw; and pianist Ptah Williams, bassist Darrell Mixon and drummer Gary Sykes will revisit their jazz fusion days as Tracer at The Dark Room.

Friday, March 8
In celebration of 60 years since the recording of Kind of Blue, saxophonist Kendrick Smith leads a sextet performing music from Miles Davis' landmark album (pictured) for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis.

Elsewhere around town, the Ambassadors of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom, and the Funky Butt Brass Band plays for the first time at a new spot downtown, the Rhone Rum Bar.

Also on Friday, Jazz St. Louis will hold their $500-per-person annual benefit gala, with music from drummer Herlin Riley's band, and for which some tickets still remain, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel.

Saturday, March 9
The St. Louis Jazz Club presents their monthly jam session matinee at J P's Corner, hosted by keyboardist Bob Row and drummer John Gillick, with trumpeter Brian Casserly as special guest.

Then on Saturday evening, pianist Carolbeth True and Two Times True with saxophonist Larry Johnson will play at the house concert venue KindaBlue Club; and keyboardist Mo Egeston performs at The Dark Room.

Sunday, March 10
Miss Jubilee is back for brunch at Evangeline's, while trumpeter Jim Manley will be making his debut at The Dark Room with a quartet at their brunch. 

Also on Sunday, the St. Louis Record Show presents their spring event at the American Czech Center, and Sunday evening, the local students in Jazz St. Louis educational programs who make up the Jazz U Big Band will perform for the public at the Bistro.

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 Session: March 3, 2019

Kurt Elling

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:

* Ennio Morricone settles old scores with ‘simplistic’ directors (The Guardian)
* High Point Plans To Preserve John Coltrane's Childhood Home (WFDD)
* Cosmic jazz for modern times: an interview with Sun Ra Arkestra (Beat.com.au)
* Ira Gitler, Influential and Impassioned Jazz Critic, Historian and Advocate, Dies at 90 (WBGO)
* Worcester native Jaki Byard inspires as jazz artist, educator (Worcester Telegram & Gazette)
* Kurt Elling Talks About 'The Big Blind,' His New Jazz Melodrama, Coming to JALC (WBGO)
* Kurt Elling Readies The Big Blind for NYC Premiere (Jazz Times)
* Jamie Saft Delves into Rich Conversations on new RareNoise Disc (DownBeat)
* Tea at The St. Regis (GreenleafMusic.com)
* EXCLUSIVE TRAILER: Wynton Marsalis Brings Jazz Pioneer Buddy Bolden’s music to life in ‘Bolden’ (TheGrio.com)
* The So-Called 'Local Radio Freedom Act' Is Actually an Anti-Creator, Anti-Property-Rights Bill (Guest Column) (Billboard)
* Oscar Peterson Festival Highlights Canadian Talent (DownBeat)
* Cooper-Moore: Catharsis and Creation in Community Spirit (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The many faces of Bill Frisell in Berkeley residency (San Francisco Chronicle)
* Rhiannon Giddens’ 21st-Century Sound Has a Long History (Smithsonian)
* Neneh Cherry: ‘All that awkward stuff became a force’ (Yorkshire Post)
* The web is killing newspaper arts critics like me. Why that matters (Fast Company)
* WATCH: See Soul Singer Al Green Preach at His Church in Memphis (Southern Living)
* A Guide to Harry Nilsson, Who You've Loved Forever Without Knowing It (Vice.com)
* Gaffer Tape Inventor Ross Lowell Dead at 92 (UltimateClassicRock.com)
* Allison Miller’s Life of Juxtapositions (DownBeat)
* U.S. Music Industry Generated $9.8 Billion in 2018, Third Straight Year of Double-Digit Growth: RIAA (Billboard)
* André Previn, Musical Polymath, Has Died At Age 89 (NPR)
* Do the Rite thing: how Stravinsky's Rite of Spring changed music for ever (The Guardian)
* RIP, Ed Bickert (Ottawa Citizen)
* Yusuke Ogawa: The man in Japan giving jazz fans their rare record fix (Japan Times)
* Delving deep into the Kanto jazz bar scene (Japan Times)
* Joe Lovano Moves on to the Next Chapter (DownBeat)
* Sun Ra: “There’s a lot of strange stuff that goes on around the pyramids – why don’t you bring a tape?” (Uncut)
* New Orleans Music: From Mardi Gras To The Meters… And All That Jazz (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Has Spotify’s Warner bust-up spooked Wall Street? (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Ears Embiggened – 50 Years of Great Black Music: Ancient to the Future (ImmuneToBoredom.com)