So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Drummer Marcus Baylor and singer Jean Baylor of the Baylor Project (pictured) were interviewed by AllAboutJazz.com's K. Shackelford

* Capitalizing on the St. Louis Blues' run for the NHL's Stanley Cup, singer and multi-instrumentalist Tonina Saputo has recorded a video of her cover version of "Gloria," the 1982 hit by singer Laura Branigan that has become the team's victory anthem. You can see the video here.

* Pianist Ethan Leinwand was interviewed briefly about Monday's St. Louis Piano Festival by Kevin Johnson of the Post-Dispatch.

* Singer Alicia Olatuja was the featured guest on a recent episode of NPR's "In Black America."

* Trumpeter Russell Gunn was interviewed by Georgia Public Broadcasting about the performance of his Royal Krunk Jazz Orchestra at the Atlanta Jazz Festival. You can see some photos and a video from the show this past Sunday at LibroMusica.com.

* The 93rd anniversary of the birth of trumpeter Miles Davis last week was noted in a brief story on KTVI-Fox 2's newscast featuring an interview with the co-founders of House of Miles East St. Louis, the museum that now occupies Davis' childhood home.

Kranzberg Arts Foundation announces music artists-in-residence for 2019-20

The Kranzberg Arts Foundation has announced their new group of music artists-in-residence for 2019-20.

This year's roster includes (pictured, from left) pianist Andrew Stephen, bassist Ben Wheeler, keyboardist/vocalist Ryan Marquez, bassist and singer Janet Evra, singer and pianist Brianna "Be Be" Brown, drummer Kaleb Kirby, saxophonist Carlos Brown Jr., trumpeter Brady Lewis, pianist and singer Katarra Parson, and keyboardist Mark Harris II.

The artists-in-residence program, launched in March 2018, provides participants with performance opportunities at Kranzberg Arts Foundation venues, such as the Dark Room and the Grandel Theatre, plus co-working spaces at the foundation's .ZACK building, marketing support, networking opportunities, studio time at Clayton Studios and Gaslight Studios, and pro bono accounting and legal services.

Participants in 2018-19 also were featured on The Sound of St. Louis - Jazz Compilation Volume 1, a sampler album including one original track from each.

Jazz this week: JazzU with Antonio Hart, St. Louis Piano Festival, Wendy Gordon & Friends "Honoring Our Own," and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes a showcase for some of the city's top student musicians, a gathering of pianists representing a variety of musical styles, a tribute to three of our town's esteemed veteran performers, and more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 29
The "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" seems to have stopped announcing in advance who's playing at The Stage at KDHX each week, but the event continues to include various duos or trios performing there, as well as the jam session hosted by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor at The Dark Room.

Elsewhere around town, Miss Jubilee performs at Schlafly Bottleworks, and trumpeter Jim Manley plays his weekly duo gig in at Sasha's Wine Bar.

Thursday, May 30
It's a night for jazz guitarists, as Josiah Joyce leads a group at The Dark Room, and Carol Eder and Joe Park play duets at The Pat Connolly Tavern.

Friday, May 31
This year's top students from Jazz St. Louis' JazzU program will perform for the first of two nights at the Bistro, joined by special guest saxophonist Antonio Hart (pictured, top left).

Also on Friday, the Funky Butt Brass Band plays a free show for the "Jungle Boogie" series at St. Louis Zoo's Schnucks Family Plaza; drummer Demarius Hicks' quartet with singer Anita Jackson plays two shows at .ZACK; the Second Generation Swing Band performs at the Casa Loma Ballroom; and drummer Kyle Honeycutt leads a trio for the late night/early morning gig at Mangia Italiano

Saturday, June 1
Saxophonist Matt McKeever leads a quartet in a free matinee performance at Saxquest; percussionist Herman Semidey and Son Montuno play salsa, Latin jazz and more at the Ozark Theatre; and keyboardist Mo Egeston and friends play a late show at The Dark Room.

Sunday, June 2
Pianist Adam Maness performs for brunch at Thurman's in Shaw and the Jazz Troubadours play their monthly first-Sunday gig at Evangeline's.

Monday, June 3
Pianist Ethan Leinwand has gathered eight other pianists from around the country, including St. Louis' own Ptah Williams and former St. Louisan Tom McDermott (pictured, bottom left), for the fourth annual St. Louis Piano Festival at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Tuesday, June 4
Singer Wendy Gordon and a stellar lineup of St. Louis singers and musicians will pay tribute to local performers Jeanne Trevor, Fred Walker and Linda Kennedy with a show called "Honoring Our Own" at the Sheldon Concert Hall

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: May 26, 2019

Aretha Franklin

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest, drawn from StLJN's inboxes, newsfeeds, and assorted other sources:

* "Over the Rainbow" Composer Seeks Pot of Gold from Apple (Forbes.com)
* ‘Fake Artists’ Have Billions of Streams on Spotify. Is Sony Now Playing the Service at Its Own Game? (Rolling Stone)
* Doris Day: Her Jazziest Moment (Jazz Times)
* Aretha in church (TheBlueMoment.com)
* Blue Note boss Don Was: 'Jazz can't become synonymous with pop again' (The Guardian)
* Burnt Sugar Applying Heat for 20 Years (DownBeat)
* Ray Charles - Confessin’ The Blues (FYIMusicNews.ca)
* Scientists create the loudest possible sound (NewAtlas.com)
* Wire Playlist: Free Jazz In Japan, Sounds From The First Decade (The Wire)
* Idagio—the Spotify for Classical Music—Has Changed My Life (Vogue)
* National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2020 NEA Jazz Masters (Arts.gov)
* Kamasi Washington: 'Right now it feels like people are really open to jazz, the freedoms, the abstract side of it' (List.co.uk)
* How Nashville plans to save Music Row, a threatened cultural treasure (Curbed.com)
* The Borderless Music of Antonio Sánchez (DownBeat)
* Pacific Ocean coup: how Ronald Reagan helped bury a Beach Boy at sea (The Guardian)
* How Panic! at the Disco Cornered the Market on Trumpet-Heavy Hits (Variety)
* Flashback: Ornette Coleman Sums Up Solitude on ‘Lonely Woman’ (Rolling Stone)
* Pianist gives concert from vertical piano hanging from construction crane (WPXI)
* 20 Questions for New Artists Sidebar: The Economic Reality of Streaming (MusicTechPolicy.com)
* Repair Of Iconic ’60s Era Synthesizer Turns Into Long, Strange Trip For Engineer (SanFrancisco.CBSLocal.com)
* Resonance Records’ Further Exploration of Wes Montgomery (DownBeat)
* The Shed Attempts to Inject Culture Into Hudson Yards (The New Yorker)
* Flying Lotus and His Grandmother Talk Being in a Family Bound by Music (Pitchfork.com)
* Sofar Sounds house concerts raises $25M, but bands get just $100 (TechCrunch.com)
* ECM At Big Ears: A Boundless Label Meets A Broadminded Festival (NPR)
* Frantic, Distorted, Defiant: When Punk Jazz Upended the Underground (Jazz Times)
* How synthesizer pioneer Bob Moog brought electronic music to the masses (Fast Company)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: A Miles Davis birthday celebration

Tomorrow is the 93rd anniversary of the birth of Miles Davis, and so it's time once again for StLJN's annual tribute to the most famous and influential jazz musician ever to come from this area.

Here are nine videos from throughout Davis' career, selected as personal favorites of yr. editor and first posted here with annotations in 2016.

The first, embedded up above the text, is the by-now-at-least semi-famous live version of "So What," the leadoff track from Kind of Blue, seen here as recorded by Davis and his quintet for the 1959 TV special The Sound of Miles Davis.

After the jump, you can see Davis and the Gil Evans Orchestra performing "The Duke" and "Blues for Pablo" from that same TV special.

The next two clips show Davis' so-called "Second Great Quintet" - with Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone), Herbie Hancock (piano), Tony Williams (drums) and Ron Carter (bass) - in 1967, performing "I Fall In Love Too Easily" in Karlsruhe, Germany, and then doing "Footprints" in Stockholm, Sweden.

Davis was on the precipice of his "electric period" at that point, and in the next clip, a full set recorded in 1969 in Copenhagen, you can see him taking the leap with help from Shorter plus Chick Corea (keyboards), Dave Holland (bass), and Jack DeJohnette (drums).

This relatively short-lived band, which years later was dubbed the "Lost Quintet," led directly to the group seen in the next video, an entire set recorded on August 18, 1970 at the Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood, MA. The band here is Davis, Corea, Holland and DeJohnette along with Gary Bartz (alto and soprano sax), Keith Jarrett on organ, and Airto Moreira on percussion, and at this point, Miles has gone full-on electric.

By the time the seventh clip was recorded, in 1973 at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Davis had changed the entire band again, and the version of "Ife" offers an even more jagged soundscape than the previous clip, courtesy of David Liebman (soprano sax), Pete Cosey (guitar, percussion), Reggie Lucas (guitar), Michael Henderson (bass), Mtume (congas, percussion), and Al Foster (drums).

The final two videos are both from the 1980s, well after Davis' comeback from the period of self-imposed exile in which Don Cheadle's film Miles Ahead is set. "Time After Time," Davis' cover of a hit originally recorded by Cyndi Lauper, was a staple of his live sets for several years, and is heard here in a version recorded in 1985 in Tokyo, Japan.

The last clip is a version of "Tutu," recorded in 1988 in Stuttgart, Germany, which unfortunately does not feature Marcus Miller, the song's composer and producer of the album of the same name. But it does show off one of Davis' more interesting and idiosyncratic late-period bands, with Kenny Garrett on saxophone and flute, Robert Irving III and Adam Holzmann on keyboards, Joseph "Foley" McCreary on six-string "lead bass" plus Benjamin Rietveld on electric bass, percussionist Marilyn Mazur, and the great drummer Ricky Wellman, who Davis plucked from Washington DC go-go godfather Chuck Brown's band, the Soul Searchers.

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:

* The University of Missouri-St. Louis Department of Music and the David and Thelma Steward Institute for Jazz Studies at UMSL have named pianist and educator Adaron "Pops" Jackson as the university's new director of jazz studies. Jackson succeeds the program's founder, bassist Jim Widner, who retired at the end of the 2018-19 academic year.

* Saxophonist David Sanborn was interviewed by John Carney on Monday's episode of "The Carney Show" on KTRS (550 AM).

* Singer and multi-instrumentalist Tonina Saputo (pictured) was interviewed about her new album St. Lost by the Post-Dispatch's Kevin Johnson. Saputo is promoting the release with a performance tonight at Sophie's Artist Lounge and Cocktail Club. St. Lost this week also was the subject of a short promotional feature on BassMagazine.com

* Inventor and audio engineer Bob Heil was profiled in a story by KSDK's Art Holliday.

* WSIE (88.7FM) will celebrate Miles Davis' birthday from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. this Sunday, May 26 with a two-hour special about his life and music. Listeners outside the St. Louis area can catch the program via the station's online stream.

* The Black Rep's production of Nina Simone: Four Women was reviewed by the St. Louis American's Kenya Vaughn. The play with music, which includes singer Denise Thimes in the cast, continues through Sunday, June 2 at Washington University’s Edison Theatre.

* Vaughn also filed a story for the American about the funeral service for Shirley Bradley LeFlore, former St. Louis poet laureate who worked with many jazz and creative musicians.

* Pianist Phillip Graves will play the title role in Next to Normal: The Thelonious Monk Story, a play by Mariah L Richardson that will be performed at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 12 and Thursday, June 13 at Jazz St. Louis.

The production, which is presented by A Call to Conscience, Inc. and directed by Fannie Belle Lebbie, will celebrate Monk's music and career while also examining "issues of mental illness as it relates to disparities in health care, police interaction, education, and social acceptance."

The performance on June 12 will be followed by a talk and Q&A about Monk led by Washington University professor Gerald Early, and a panel discussion on living with and overcoming the challenges posed by mental illness. Admission to both performances is free, but RSVPs are requested via EventBrite.

* Remember the lawsuit filed by seemingly-defunct-music-festival LouFest against their former sound contractors? Well, per new reporting on Thursday by St. Louis Public Radio's Jeremy Goodwin, the suit has been dropped.

Jazz St. Louis announces summer bookings, 2019-20 subscription schedule

Jazz St. Louis today announced their subscription series for the 2019-20 season, featuring many returning favorites as well as some St. Louis debuts.

Perhaps the most intriguing group making their first local appearance next year will be Artemis (pictured, top left), the all-star, all-woman ensemble featuring pianist Renee Rosnes,  trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, saxophonist Melissa Aldana, clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen, bassist Noriko Ueda, drummer Allison Miller, and on select gigs, singer Cécile McLorin Salvant. They'll perform at the Bistro starting Wednesday, October 9 through Sunday, October 13.

Others making their Bistro debuts next season will be drummer Nate Smith and his band Kinfolk (December 18-22), the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio (January 22-26), trumpeter Etienne Charles (March 4-8), and pianist Connie Han (April 29 - May 3).

Another major highlight undoubtedly will be the appearances of the Manhattan Transfer (pictured, center left) the Grammy Award winning vocal group who previously have performed here only in larger venues like the Touhill Performing Arts Center and the Fox Theatre. They'll do a week of shows starting Wednesday, April 1 through Sunday, April 5,

Veteran favorites returning next year will include The Bad Plus, once again as the first touring act of the New Year, appearing from January 8-12; plus saxophonist Joshua Redman, violinist Regina Carter, guitarist Pat Martino, pianist and singer Freddy Cole with saxophonist Houston Person, trumpeters Terence Blanchard and Sean Jones, and percussionist Poncho Sanchez.

In addition, newer talents returning for their second headlining appearances at the Bistro will include singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja (pictured, bottom left), singer Nicole Henry, and pianist Harold López-Nussa.

Tickets for three different subscription series are available now, with single tickets scheduled to go on sale Wednesday, August 7. Other non-subscription shows for 2019-20 presumably will be announced at a later date.

The performers announced for the 2019-20 season, in chronological order of appearance, are:

Wednesday, September 25 - Sunday, September 29: Joshua Redman

Wednesday, October 9 - Sunday, October 13: Artemis
Wednesday, October 23 - Sunday, October 27: Freddy Cole Quintet with Houston Person

Wednesday, November 6 - Sunday, November 10: Regina Carter & Xavier Davis
Wednesday, November 20 - Sunday, November 24: Pat Martino’s 75th Birthday Celebration

Wednesday, December 5 - Sunday, December 8: Alicia Olatuja
Wednesday, December 18 - Sunday, December 22: Nate Smith + KINFOLK

Wednesday, January 8 - Sunday, January 12: The Bad Plus
Wednesday, January 22 - Sunday, January 26: Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio

Wednesday, February 5 - Sunday, February 9: Terence Blanchard and the E-Collective
Wednesday, February 19 - Sunday, February 23: Tim Warfield Organ Band ft. Terell Stafford

Wednesday, March 4 - Sunday, March 8: Etienne Charles "Creole Soul"
Wednesday, March 18 - Sunday, March 22: Sean Jones "Dizzy Spells"

Wednesday, April 1 - Sunday, April 5: The Manhattan Transfer
Wednesday, April 1 - Sunday, April 5: Harold López-Nussa
Wednesday, April 29 - Sunday, May 3: Connie Han

Wednesday, May 13 - Sunday, May 17: Nicole Henry
Wednesday, May 27 - Sunday, May 31: Poncho Sanchez & His Latin Jazz Band

In addition, Jazz St. Louis today also announced their slate of performances for this summer, primarily featuring local and regional acts, with the exception of Florida-based "sacred steel" player Roosevelt Collier. Those shows are:

Friday, May 31 and Saturday, June 1: JazzU with Antonio Hart

Friday, June 14 - Sunday, June 16: The Bosman Twins
Thursday, June 20: Route 66 Jazz Orchestra
Friday, June 21 & Saturday, June 22: Roosevelt Collier
Friday, June 28 & Saturday, June 29: Denise Thimes

Friday, July 12 & Saturday, July 13: Carlos Brown Jr. & Ingenuity
Friday, July 19 & Saturday, July 20: "Celebrating George Benson"
Friday, July 26 & Saturday, July 27: Good 4 The Soul

Friday, August 2 & Saturday, August 3: Brothers Lazaroff
Friday, August 9 & Saturday, August 10: Emily Wallace with Adam Maness Trio
Friday, August 16 & Saturday, August 17: Funky Butt Brass Band

Tickets for the JazzU/Antonio Hart performances are on sale now; the on-sale date for the other shows is TBA.

Jazz this week: Catherine Russell & John Pizzarelli, Natural Information Society, Glendale Jazz Festival, two tributes to Miles Davis, and more

The calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis for this week leading up to Memorial Day features two shows celebrating the birthday of the most influential jazz musician ever to come from this area, plus a tribute to two of the most enduring vocalists in American music; the end of an important anniversary season for a local presenter; and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 22
Singer Catherine Russell teams up with guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli (pictured, top left) and his trio to present their show "Billie & Blue Eyes" for the first of five nights at Jazz St. Louis.

The show spotlights Russell and Pizzarelli's contemporary interpretations of songs associated with Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra. You can find out more and see some video from previous performances, plus songs from both of their latest recordings, in this post from last Saturday.

Thursday, May 23
Saxophonist Ben Reece's Unity Quartet returns to The Dark Room, and pianist Adam Maness' trio plays at Thurman's in Shaw.

Friday, May 24
The Glendale Jazzfest celebrates its 20th year with Miss Jubilee, the Funky Butt Brass Band, and Dean Christopher providing the music for the free, public outdoor event at Glendale City Hall.

Saturday, May 25
New Music Circle wraps up their 60th season with a concert featuring Natural Information Society, augmented by keyboardist Cooper Crain of Bitchin' Bajas, at Off Broadway.

Also on Saturday, trumpeter Jim Manley brings his band to Evangeline's, and pianist Carolbeth True and Two Times True with saxophonist Larry Johnson return to Parkside Grille.

Sunday, May 26
Sunday marks 93 years since the birth of the late, legendary trumpeter Miles Davis, and two current St. Louis trumpeters are presenting tributes to him, as Randy Holmes headlines a "Double Tribute to Miles Davis & Kind of Blue" at the Ozark Theatre while Kasimu Taylor leads a "Tribute to Miles Davis" at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Tuesday May 28
Guitarist Steve Schenkel's trio plus guest vocalist Kim Fuller will perform at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

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: May 19, 2019

Kenny Burrell

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest, drawn from StLJN's inboxes, newsfeeds, and assorted other sources:

* Rhiannon Giddens and What Folk Music Means (The New Yorker)
* The Japanese reissue phenomenon: a view from the inside (ResidentAdvisor.com)
* Payola 2.0: The native ad model for streaming music? (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Why Aldi Doesn’t Play Music (Southern Living)
* Playlist Malfeasance Will Create a Streaming Crisis (Music Industry Blog)
* Preserving The House Of A Pioneering Musician — Who We Will Never Hear (NPR)
* Brian May: Queen haven’t earned a penny from Bohemian Rhapsody (LouderSound.com)
* As A Crowdfunding Platform Implodes, A Legendary Composer Rebounds (NPR)
* Whose Is Bigger? ASCAP and BMI Are Holding Their Film & TV Awards Dinners on the Exact Same Night (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* New Orleans Jazz Fest at 50: Keep on Rolling (Without the Stones) (Jazz Times)
* Facing Homelessness And Crushing Medical Debt, A Renowned Jazz Guitarist Reaches Out (NPR)
* Matthew Shipp and Simplicity Itself (Jazz Times)
* Mulligan memories (Jazz Journal)
* Feature Doc to Chronicle Legendary London Jazz Club Ronnie Scott’s (Variety)
* New film seeks funds to realise Marshall Allen's dream (The Wire)
* Cleveland's Joe Lovano Comes Home (NPR)
* JazzTimes 10: Landmark ECM Albums (Jazz Times)
* Google I/O showcases a cross-platform future for music-makers (MusicTech.net)
* A Beginner’s Guide to the interstellar music of Sun Ra (TrebleZine.com)
* Brecker Bonds with Big Bands Over Fusion (DownBeat)
* The Apostle of Now-ness (New York Review of Books)
* Horror buffs, meet music nerds (TheOutline.com)
* Patitucci Juggles ‘All the Elements of Music’ (DownBeat)
* End to End: An Interview with Barre Phillips (NoTreble.com)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Catherine Russell & John Pizzarelli pay tribute to "Billie & Blue Eyes"

Today, StLJN's video spotlight shines on singer Catherine Russell and singer and guitarist John Pizzarelli, who are coming to St. Louis to present their show "Billie & Blue Eyes" starting Wednesday, May 22 through Sunday, May 26 at Jazz St. Louis.

Both Russell and Pizzarelli are well-known as headliners in their own right, with Pizzarelli being a particular local favorite thanks to multiple St. Louis appearances over the last couple of decades. They first joined forces last year to create the "Billie & Blue Eyes" show, with the idea of offering their own contemporary interpretations of classic material associated with Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra.

Pizzarelli has included songs associated with Sinatra in his repertoire throughout his career, and even has devoted two albums specifically to paying tribute to him. The first, in 2006, was Dear Mr. Sinatra, for which he was accompanied by The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, followed in 2017 by Sinatra & Jobim @ 50, which contained Pizzarelli's interpretations of songs from the famed 1967 collaboration between Sinatra and Brazilian singer-songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Meanwhile, since starting her solo career Russell has earned a reputation as a top interpreter of vintage jazz material from the 1920s, 30s and 40s, making her something of an expert in the songs and styles Holiday likely would have heard during her formative years. Though many singers have attempted to pay tribute to Holiday over the years, some more successfully than others, few have had the musical roots and specific experience that Russell brings to this project.

Though there's been no album (yet) documenting the collaboration, there are a few videos online from when they toured the presentation in 2018, starting with a promotional clip that explains the concept along with some very brief musical excerpts, which you can see up above.

After the jump, there's a clip from one of their 2018 dates showing Russell and Pizzarelli performing "I Thought About You."

That's followed by a video from 2017 of Pizzarelli performing "Baubles, Bangles and Beads," as recorded for the Sinatra & Jobim @50 album.

That's followed by a version of "All of Me," also from last year's "Bilie & Blue Eyes" tour.

Next up is a song recorded by Pizzarelli for his latest album For Centennial Reasons: 100 Year Salute to Nat King Cole, a version of "Straighten Up And Fly Right" in which he's accompanied by the members of his current working trio, Mike Karn on bass and Konrad Paszkudzki on piano.

After that, you can see Russell in the studios last month at radio station KNKX in Tacoma, WA, singing "You Can’t Pull the Wool Over My Eyes," a song included on her latest album Alone Together, which came out in March.

The final video showcases Pizzarelli doing another number from his Nat Cole tribute album, the venerable standard "Route 66."

For more about the "Billie & Blue Eyes" project, read the interview that Russell did last year with the Santa Fe New Mexican, and this brief review of a concert performance last year in Brooklyn.

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

Rebirth Brass Band, The New Mastersounds returning this fall to Atomic Cowboy

Atomic Cowboy today announced two bookings of interest of StLJN readers.

New Orleans' Rebirth Brass Band (pictured) will return to St. Louis to perform at 7:00 p.m. Friday, September 6 at the venue's outdoor pavilion.

Their most recent recording, which was boosted considerably by the group's appearances in the HBO series Treme, is 2014's Move Your Body. They last played here in September 2017, also at the Atomic Cowboy.

Tickets for Rebirth Brass Band at the Atomic Cowboy are $20 in advance, $23 day of show, and are on sale now.

The following month, the British instrumental funk/jazz quartet The New Mastersounds will be back in town to play at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, October 19, also at the outdoor pavilion.

The group will be touring in celebration of their 20th year as a band, with singer Lamar Williams Jr., -  son of late Allman Brothers Band bassist Lamar Williams and featured vocalist on their 2018 single "Trouble" - along as a guest performer.

The New Mastersounds put out two albums last year, Renewable Energy and The Nashville Session 2, the latter being a followup to 2016's The Nashville Session using the same live-in-the-studio format. Their last St. Louis appearance was in May 2016 at Atomic Cowboy.

Tickets for The New Mastersounds at Atomic Cowboy are $20 in advance, $25 day of show, and also are on sale now.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Shirley Bradley LeFlore, St. Louis poet laureate and member of the Black Artists Group who performed throughout her career with the city's jazz and creative musicians, died this past Sunday, May 12. She was 79 years old.

Formerly married to the late trumpeter Floyd LeFlore, she performed and/or recorded at various times with musicians including her ex-husband, saxophonists Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett, J.D. Parran and Don Byron, pianist Ptah Williams, trumpeter George Sams, and more. Ms. Bradley LeFlore's funeral will take place today (Friday, May 17), with a visitation at 11:00 a.m. followed by services at noon at Christ Church Cathedral, 1210 Locust St. downtown.

* Drummer Dave Weckl (pictured) was interviewed by AllAboutJazz.com's Jim Worsley.

* Singer and multi-instrumentalist Tonina Saputo is releasing a new album, St. Lost, that comes out today, and was interviewed Monday about the recording and her career by KSDK's Art Holliday.

* The new documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool was the subject of a review/reminiscence by FYIMusicNews' Bill King.

* Speaking of Miles Davis, a 1979 interview with pianist Bill Evans unheard for 40 years has re-surfaced online, in which Evans discusses his work with Davis and the recording sessions for the trumpeter's landmark album Kind of Blue.

* And speaking of Birth of the Cool, an article in DownBeat has more details on the new LP box set Complete Birth of the Cool Sessions, which will be released on Friday, June 7.

* Multi-instrumentalist Lamar Harris' shows this weekend at Jazz St. Louis are previewed in an article by Kevin Johnson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and in an interview with Harris published on the Jazz St. Louis website.

Jazz this week: Shoshana Bean, Snarky Puppy, James Carter, Lamar Harris, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features some cabaret vocals from a Broadway star; a couple of stand-out saxophonists; a genre-straddling, Grammy Award winning fusion band; and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 15
Jazz St. Louis closes out their cabaret series co-produced this season with Cabaret Project of St. Louis, presenting the first of two nights of performances by singer Shoshana Bean.

In addition to her work in cabaret, Bean is well-known as the star of several Broadway musicals, including the current hit Waitress, from which she's taking a brief break for her cabaret shows here.

Also on Wednesday, the aforementioned Cabaret Project of St. Louis presents their monthly "Singers Open Mic" at Sophie's Artist Lounge & Cocktail Club;  guitarist Brian Vaccaro plays at Evangeline's; and Miss Jubilee performs at Schlafly Bottleworks.

Thursday, May 16
NYC-based saxophonist Brian Krock, who went to music school up the road at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana, performs in an early show at The Dark Room with his band Liddle, a subset of his big band Big Heart Machine.

Also on Thursday, singer Cheri Evans and CEEJazzSoul return to the Chase Club and Jon Thomas & Friends play at the The Pat Connolly Tavern.

Friday, May 17
Multi-instrumentalist Lamar Harris performs for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis.

Also on Friday, the Original Knights of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom, trumpeter Jim Manley returns to One 19 North Tapas & Wine Bar, and drummer Kyle Honeycutt leads a trio for the late-night (actually early morning) gig at Mangia Italiano.

Saturday, May 18
The Funky Butt Brass Band plays their monthly show at the Broadway Oyster Bar, and keyboardist Mo Egeston delivers the late night grooves at The Dark Room.

Sunday, May 19
The St. Louis Jazz Club presents Cornet Chop Suey playing traditional jazz and vintage swing at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel St. Louis - Westport.

Also on Sunday afternoon, saxophonist James Carter (pictured, bottom left) will perform with some help from pianist Peter Martin's at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Then on Sunday night, the jazz/funk/world fusion band
Snarky Puppy (pictured, top left) will play an outdoor show at the Atomic Cowboy Pavilion.

They're touring in support of their latest album Immigrance, which came out in March. For more about that, and some video footage of recent performances including material from the new album, see this post from last Saturday.

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: May 12, 2019

Pharoah Sanders

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest, drawn from StLJN's inboxes, newsfeeds, and assorted other sources:

* The Resurrection of Buddy Bolden (DownBeat)
* Music Sermon: The Quiet Storm Is Still Brewing (Vibe.com)
* Frank Zappa: making a jazz noise (Jazz Journal)
* Bill Frisell is on the hunt for the next musical epiphany (Guitar.com)
* Preserving The House Of A Pioneering Musician — Who We Will Never Hear (NPR)
* The Blues Trail Is A Soulful Sojourn Into Mississippi’s Past (Uproxx.com)
* Wynton Marsalis Chooses His Top 50 Essential Jazz Recordings (Jazz.org)
* ‘New Bottle Old Wine’: The Gil Evans Classic That Gets Better With Age (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* There’s a Musician’s Union. Many Musicians Are Unaware — or Unable to Join (Rolling Stone)
* Herbie Hancock Aims Jazz Day All-Star Concert Towards A World In 'Turmoil' (NPR)
* David Crosby Doubles Down (Shepherd Express)
* Sly and The Family Stone’s ‘Stand!’ Turns 50 | Anniversary Retrospective (Albumism.com)
* Tucked away in Southwest Baltimore: The low-key cool jazz club of your dreams (BaltimoreBrew.com)
* Drummer Terri Lyne Carrington Talks Berklee Institute of Jazz, Gender Justice: 'Gender Equity Is Everybody's Work' (Billboard)
* Barkan, Wiedmaier Team for Keystone Korner Baltimore (DownBeat)
* Joey DeFrancesco and Pharoah Sanders: Meeting of the Spirits (Jazz Times)
* After 50 Years, Inclusive, Locally Focused Spirit of NOLA Festival Persists (DownBeat)
* New Study Finds 73% of Independent Musicians Suffer From Symptoms of Mental Illness (Billboard)
* Before & After: Lewis Porter (Jazz Times)
* Hearing the “Bo Diddley Beat” in Everything (Soundfly.com)
* 50 Years of Jazz Fest: Mickey Hart’s Ghosts of Congo Square (Relix)
* My father recorded young Bob Dylan: How the historic "Minneapolis Party Tape" was made (Salon.com)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Snarky Puppy's eclectic collective

This week, it's time to check out some videos of jazz/funk/world/fusion band Snarky Puppy, who will be returning to St. Louis to perform Sunday, May 19 at Atomic Cowboy's outdoor pavilion.

Sometimes described as "a loose collective" under the leadership of bassist and founder Michael League, with a lineup that can range in size from seven or eight musicians up to 25, Snarky Puppy draws on an eclectic mix of influences - most notably jazz and funk, but also a variety of other musics from around the world.

Thanks in part to relentless touring and in part to winning Grammy Awards in 2014, 2016 and 2017, their fortunes have risen rapidly in recent years. They've gone from playing small-to-medium-sized clubs to headlining major venues and festivals around the world, and in 2017 even started their own annual event, the GroundUP Music Festival in Miami Beach, FL.

Snarky Puppy currently are touring in support of their most recent album Immigrance, which came out in March. You can hear some of the music from the album starting up above with the "official" video for "Bad Kids to the Back," which was done to promote the song's release as a single.

After the jump, you can see the first live performance ever of "Xavi," another tune from Immigrance, as recorded in February at the band's GroundUp Music Festival. That's followed by another performance from this year's GroundUP event, "Thing of Gold," which was originally recorded for their 2012 album GroundUP.

Next, it's "Grown Folks," as recorded in July 2018 at the Festival Django Reinhardt in France, and then "Go," as captured in November 2018 at Sol de Sants Studios in Barcelona, Spain for the web series "The Furious Sessions."

Last but not least, you can see a full set from a show in June 2018 at The Fillmore in Philadelphia.

For more about Snarky Puppy and Immigrance, check out the interview and performances featured on this week's episode of NPR's "World Cafe", and Michael League's interviews from March of this year with Rolling Stone and Qwest.tv.

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:

* The U City Jazz Fest, which last week was cancelled due to a financial dispute between its companion event Fair U City and the municipal government of University City, is back on for the originally scheduled date, but at a new location.

Temporarily renamed the Old Orchard Jazz Festival, the free event will take place with all the previously announced acts from 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 8 at Gazebo Park in the Old Orchard business district of Webster Groves.

(Prospective festival-goers should know that Gazebo Park is considerably smaller than Heman Park, the fest's original location, and Old Orchard is a busy commercial district, so if you're planning on attending, you may want to arrive early so you'll have enough time to find parking and seating.)

* The latest sounds from saxophonist Oliver Lake can be heard on Bamako, the debut recording by the OGJB Quartet (pictured), a band that also includes cornetist Graham Haynes, bassist Joe Fonda, and drummer Barry Altschul. The album includes original compositions from all four members, plus two collective improvisations, and will by released next Friday, May 17 by TUM Records.

* The Black Rep's upcoming production of Nina Simone: Four Women is previewed in stories from Kenya Vaughn of the St. Louis American and Calvin Wilson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The play-with-music, with a cast than includes singer Denise Thimes, opens Wednesday, May 15 and continues through Sunday, June 2 at the Edison Theatre on the Washington University campus.

David Sanborn, Bob James and Marcus Miller to perform Tuesday, August 13 at The Sheldon

Saxophonist and former St. Louisan David Sanborn, keyboardist Bob James and bassist/multi-instrumentalist Marcus Miller (pictured) are joining forces for a summer tour that will include a stop on Tuesday, August 13 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

The "Double Vision Revisited" tour is named after Sanborn and James' 1986 album Double Vision, which also featured Miller on bass. The album sold more than a million copies and won the 1987 Grammy Award for "Best Jazz Fusion Performance, Vocal or Instrumental," with the performance of "Since I Fell for You" also earning a nomination for guest vocalist Al Jarreau in the category "Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male."

On the "Revisited" tour, Sanborn, James and Miller will perform the Double Vision album in its entirety, with former Tower of Power singer Larry Braggs on hand to do the vocals and drummer Billy Kilson completing the ensemble.

Tickets for "Double Vision Revisited" at The Sheldon will be priced from $44 to $80 and will go on sale this Friday, May 17 via Metrotix and the Sheldon box office.

Edited 5/9/19 to correct the ticket on-sale date.

Jazz this week: Jazzmeia Horn, a master class with Nate Smith, "A Retrospective on Langston Hughes," Denise Thimes, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes the local debut of one the top young vocalists in jazz, a master class from a first-call drummer, a musical look at the works of a world-famous poet and playwright with Missouri roots, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 8
Singer Jazzmeia Horn (pictured, top left) performs for the first of five nights at Jazz St. Louis.

One of the most talked-about and critically acclaimed jazz vocalists to emerge in recent years, Horn will be making her St. Louis debut with these shows. You can find out more about her and see some videos of recent performances in this post from last Saturday.

Also on Wednesday, drummer Nate Smith, who's worked with bassist Dave Holland and saxophonist Chris Potter, will present a master class and solo performance at Gaslight Studios.

Thursday, May 9
Guitarist Vincent Varvel's trio will perform at The Dark Room; saxophonist Tim Cunningham plays at Jazzy 159 Lounge & Bar in Fairview Heights; and percussionist Joe Pastor will lead his St. Louis Legacy Ensemble in hosting a jam session at Evangeline's.

Friday, May 10
The Nu-Art Series wraps up its Spring 2019 poetry-and-jazz series with "A Retrospective on Langston Hughes," featuring poets Roscoe Crenshaw, Cheeraz Gormon, Shirley LeFlore, Eugene Redmond, Abdul Waahid Jones, and Claude Montgomery along with trumpeter George Sams and saxophonist Kendrick Smith at Xavier Hall on the St. Louis University campus.

Also on Friday, new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound plays their final concert of the season at the Sheldon Concert Hall, and singer Anita Jackson performs for the late show at The Dark Room.

Saturday, May 11
The St. Louis Jazz Club presents their monthly jam session, hosted by keyboardist Bob Row and drummer John Gillick at J P's Corner.

Also on Saturday afternoon, the electronic jazz-fusion ensemble Koplant No will play a free show at Saxquest, and the annual Art Fair at Laumeier Sculpture Park will feature sets from musicians including guitarist Dave Black and the Funky Butt Brass Band.

Saturday evening, Chicago-based jazz-rock band Marbin returns to BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

Sunday, May 12
If you're headed out for brunch, musical options to accompany your meal include Miss Jubilee at Evangeline's and singer and bassist Janet Evra at The Dark Room.
 
Later on Sunday afternoon, Denise Thimes will present her annual Mother's Day concert raising money to fight pancreatic cancer at the Touhill Performing Arts Center, with some help from friends including vocalist Jermaine Smith and keyboardist Matthew Whitaker.

Monday, May 13
Dizzy Atmosphere plays vintage swing and Gypsy jazz at The Shaved Duck.

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: May 5, 2019

Regina Carter

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest, drawn from StLJN's inboxes, newsfeeds, and assorted other sources:

* Wynton Marsalis on Bringing the Story of Jazz Originator Buddy Bolden to the Big Screen (Billboard)
* More Than 'Kind Of Blue': In 1959, A Few Albums Changed Jazz Forever (NPR)
* An Open Letter to Bill Frisell (ImmuneToBoredom.com)
* Violinist Regina Carter Searches For Roots, in an Excerpt of Mark Stryker's 'Jazz From Detroit' (WBGO)
* Ralph Alessi Reconvenes Ensemble for ‘Imaginary Friends’ (DownBeat)
* We untangle the many strings of North Philly poet, actor and activist Moor Mother (Philadelphia Weekly)
* Black Utopia: The Funkadelic Art of Pedro Bell (Afropunk.com)
* 13 Young Jazz Musicians Shaping The Future Of Jazz (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Music Streaming Services Are Gaslighting Us (UseJournal.com)
* Playing Changes: Music And Conversation With Jazz Writer Nate Chinen (WFIU)
* Wynton Marsalis on 12 Essential Jazz Recordings (Rolling Stone)
* Herbie Hancock: 'I felt like I stood on the shoulders of giants and now it's my turn' (The Guardian)
* Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram Carries the Blues Forward (Nashville Scene)
* Interview: Dan Tepfer, the Musician Coding the Future of Concerts (CoolHunting.com)
* Field Notes From the Rock Critic Wars (Rolling Stone)
* In Melbourne and Sydney, International Jazz Day Explores Cultural Exchange (DownBeat)
* Machines Can Create Art, but Can They Jam? (Scientific American)
* How does music affect our emotions? Neuroscience may hold the key (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
* Louis Armstrong: nobody’s fool (Jazz Journal)
* Wayne Shorter, Linda May Han Oh Among 2019 JJA Jazz Awards Winners (Jazz Times)
* Good vibrations: I purified myself in a sound bath (TheOutline.com)
* The Birthplace Of Country Music's First Hit Is Being Threatened By Modern Construction (NPR)
* The Scott Joplin Memorial Concerts at St. Michael’s Cemetery (The Syncopated Times)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Introducing Jazzmeia Horn

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring singer Jazzmeia Horn, who will make her St. Louis debut with performances starting this coming Wednesday, May 8 though Sunday, May 12 at Jazz St. Louis.

Originally from Dallas, TX, Horn, 28, began singing in church as a young girl and went on to graduate from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in her hometown.

After moving to NYC to attend the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, she first gained wide attention from her participation in the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, in which she was named a "rising star" in 2012 before winning the competition outright in 2013.

Following that up in 2015 by winning the Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition, Horn became one of the most talked-about new vocalists of the decade even before putting out her first album, drawing comparisons to Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter, and Dinah Washington.

Eventually signing with Prestige Records, Horn released her debut recording A Social Call in 2017, and earned a nomination for a 2018 Grammy Award in the "Best Jazz Vocal Album" category. Over the past couple of years, she's become a full-fledged headliner, performing at major jazz venues and festivals in the US, Europe and Asia.

And speaking of those Grammys, you can see Horn's performance at the 2018 Grammy Awards ceremony in the first video up above, which shows her singing the bluesy Bobby Timmons/Jon Hendricks composition “Moanin.”

After the jump, you can see Horn doing the title song from A Social Call in a rehearsal recording from November 2018, backed by the WDR Big Band playing a new arrangement of the tune from saxophonist Bob Mintzer.

That's followed by two songs from a session in October 2018 at KNKX radio in Tacoma, WA, as Horn offers her takes on "Tight," made famous by Betty Carter, and Marvin's Gaye's "What's Going On."

Next is an set of music from Horn's appearance in July 2018 at the Jazz Port Townsend festival in Washington, for which she was accompanied by saxophonist Tim Warfield, pianist Taylor Eigsti, bassist Harish Rhavan, and drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor.

The final clip shows Horn's interpretations of "Please Do Something" and "Willow Weep for Me," as recorded last year at the Blue Note Milano in Italy.

For more about Jazzmeia Horn, check out the episode of NPR's Jazz Night in America that featured her last year; and her interviews with Jazz Times and Rochester City Paper.

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:

* Jazz at Lincoln Center has announced four new inductees into its Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, including a former St. Louisan.

That would be saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer (pictured) who, while born in Carbondale, IL, grew up in St. Louis and did his first professional work as a musician here. He's joined in the class of 2019 by saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, singer Dinah Washington, and drummer Chick Webb.

* The 2019 edition of Fair U City, the community carnival held during the first weekend in June in Heman Park alongside the U City Jazz Festival, has been cancelled due to a dispute over financial and other matters between city government and the University City Community Foundation, the not-for-profit group that organizes the fair.

Responding to the cancellation announcement in a Facebook post, U City Jazz Fest organizer Michael Silverman said he's now looking for an alternate location to stage the event on Saturday, June 8. Watch this space for more as this story develops...

* Jazz St. Louis will team up this fall with three other local arts organizations for a production of "Such Sweet Thunder," an "avant-garde ballet" created by French choreographer Maurice Béjart in 1960 using the music from Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's 1957 suite of the same name.

JSL will supply the sounds, Big Muddy Dance Company will create the choreography, and Shakespeare Festival St. Louis will "weave the pieces together with Shakespearean scenes and sonnets." The fourth partner, Nine Network, will host three free performances of the work on October 3, 4 and 5 at its Public Media Commons.

* Singer Alicia Olatuja was interviewed about her new album Intiution on the podcast Doing Jazz with Lorens Chuno.

* St. Louis writer (and Jazz Journalists Association 2019 "Jazz Hero") Terry Perkins got a byline in the May issue of DownBeat with a feature story about singer Cyrille Aimée.

* House of Miles East St. Louis, the organization that has restored Miles Davis' childhood home as a museum and educational facility, was profiled for the website TheSTL.com by writer Daniel Durchholz.

* The final performance of the 2019 Vision Festival, set for June 9-16 at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY, will be a tribute to the late saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett, led by his friend and collaborator, pianist D.D. Jackson, and featuring U City native and drummer Ronnie Burrage, saxophonists James Carter and Darius Jones, bassist William Parker, and percussionist Juma Sultan.

* The story of the legal battle between seemingly-defunct music festival LouFest and their former sound and lighting contractors Logic Systems has been updated by St. Louis writer and musician Kevin Mitchell in a post on Medium.com.