StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The BAG legacy, part 5

After a week off to commemorate the birthday of Miles Davis, this week we resume our look at music made by former members of St. Louis' Black Artists Group, the multi-disciplinary arts organization that operated here in the late 60s and early 70s and helped launch the careers of a number of successful creative musicians.

You can see part one of this series of posts, which includes some links to background information about BAG, here; part two here; part three here; and part four here.

This week's installment features sounds from two BAG-affiliated musicians who also were classmates at St. Louis' Sumner High School, trumpeter George Sams and drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw.

While a number of the musicians involved with BAG went to Paris and/or New York after the group dissolved, Sams headed to the West Coast, settling in the San Francisco area.

That's where he formed Middle Passage, the group seen in the first video up above, which was recorded in 1984 at a performance in the Bay Area. Along with Sams, the ensemble included violinist India Cooke, cellist Kash Killion, and drummer Anthony Brown, and in this clip, they're playing one of Sams' compositions called "Back Home Again."

After the jump, you can see a performance by United Front, another group that Sams was involved with while living out west. In that clip, recorded in 1985 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, they're doing a piece based on Langston Hughes' poem "Ballet of the Landlord," which is declaimed by saxophonist Lewis Jordan as Sams provides trumpet commentary and pianist Rudi Mwongozi, bassist Mark Izu, and drummer Anthony Brown set the rhythmic pace.

Sams eventually moved back to St. Louis, where he has served as a consultant to the Missouri Arts Council and various other arts groups: presented live music and poetry under the banner of The Nu-Art Series; and, for a time, ran the now-closed Metropolitan Gallery downtown, which served as a venue for many Nu-Art productions.

Recently, he's been co-presenting some concerts with St. Louis University's department of music, and has begun playing more gigs again, mostly improvised music dates like the one shown in today's third video, which was recorded in March 2018 at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. As part of the School of Music's "Outside the Box Festival of New Music," Sams performed a set of free improv with flute player Fred Tompkins, pianist Greg Mills, bassist Claude Montgomery, and clarinetist Eric Mandat.

Sadly, his Sumner classmate Charles "Bobo" Shaw is no longer active, having passed away in January 2017. Shaw (who can be seen drumming with BAG in the very first clips in part one of this series) had his greatest impact in the 70s and 80s. He performed frequently in New York and in Europe, and recorded for a number of different labels as a leader and a sideman with Oliver Lake, Lester Bowie, saxophonist Frank Lowe, violinist Billy Bang, and others. 

Shaw also eventually moved back to St. Louis, and though health and personal issues ultimately limited his live performances, he did play out around town in a number of different contexts in the last years of his life.

You can see excerpts from three of those gigs below, starting with a duo performance by Shaw and pianist David Parker, playing Parker's "Scott Joplin Blues" in 2014 at the late-lamented Tavern of Fine Arts.

Next, there's an excerpt from "Drum Line II," presented by Sams in 2011 at the Metroplitan Gallery, and featuring four St. Louis drummers - Shaw, Jerome "Scrooge' Harris, Gary Sykes, and Johnny Johnson - trading grooves and licks while paying tribute to the city's tradition of drum and bugle corps.

The final video shows Shaw in May 2010 at the old studios of radio station KDHX on Magnolia Ave in south St. Louis, performing with a group called Melodies of the Kabbalah. In contrast to the free-wheeling improvisations in the other clips, "Latin Moderato 75" has Shaw in an accompanying role, supporting the ensemble of keyboardist Michael Loveman, bassist Josh Weinstein (of KDHX's "All Soul, No Borders"), violinist Brien Seyle, and fellow drummer Brian Sullivan

StLJN's look at the legacy of the Black Artists Group will wrap up next week with some interviews and, perhaps, some other BAG-related ephemera. 'Til then, you can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...