Sunday Session: November 29, 2020

Maria Schneider

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest:

* 'The Last Shall Be First': A Lost Chapter Of Gospel, Saved From Extinction (NPR)
* Ntozake Shange on Sun Ra and How She Came to Have Her Name (LitHub.com)
* Jazz Composer Maria Schneider Takes on the "Data Lords" in Song (PopMatters.com)
* Nile Rodgers on ‘A Love Supreme’: ‘It Felt Like I Was Getting a Look Into Coltrane’s Soul’ (Rolling Stone)
* Excluded, Penalized, Indebted, Harassed: A Study of Systemic Discrimination Against Women in Opera (MiddleClassArtist.com)
* JT Video Premiere: Sonny Rollins in Holland Mini-Documentary (Jazz Times)
* Calming monkeys with piano music is harder than you think (CNN)
* Veronica Swift’s Unconventional Turns (DownBeat)
* A Tense New Classical Work Bottles The Feeling Of A Police Stop (NPR)
* Chops: Drummers Go Off the Grid (Jazz Times)
* 'I thought ours was better': Keith Richards on recording a Beatles song, solo work and new Rolling Stones (USA Today)
* I'm a sound technician. Losing my hearing was devastating (CBC)
* Jeff Gold – ‘Sittin’ In – Jazz Clubs of the 1940s and 1950s’ (London Jazz News)
* 'Frank didn't adhere to any movements': behind the Zappa documentary (The Guardian)
* Buddy Bolden, Known As ‘The Father Of Jazz’ Honored In New Opera (WABE)
* Chick Corea: Accomplishing the goal of art (BBC)
* Warner is signing double the number of artists via AI-driven A&R tool Sodatone than it did last year. Now, it’s hired a global head of Data Science. (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* The legend of Yahya Abdul-Majid (CapitalBop.com)
* The Checkout: Meet Laura Perrudin, A French Harpist with a Jagged Edge (WBGO)
* All doom and boom: what’s the heaviest music ever made? (The Guardian)
* Zev Feldman of Resonance Records (‘Bill Evans Live at Ronnie Scott’s’) (London Jazz News)
* 'People in their 40s were crying': the sad final days of New York's coolest record store (The Guardian)
* How old, ambient Japanese music became a smash hit on YouTube (ArsTechnica.com)
* Charles McPherson Turns to Ballet (Jazz Times)
* Branford and Wynton Marsalis Are Keeping New York's Jazz Scene Alive (Town and Country)
* 'I will remember this for the rest of my life': John Fogerty on rerecording classic songs with his kids (USA Today)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The further adventures of Clark Terry

This week, we're continuing our tribute to the late trumpeter and St. Louis native Clark Terry to celebrate the centennial of his birth, which is coming up on Monday, December 14. (Previous installments have included a collection of videos of Terry playing the music of Duke Ellington, a two-part look at his Big Bad Band, and a compilation of Terry performing with some of his famous friends.)

Today's post features a handful of later-career performances from Terry, plus what appears to be a genuinely little-seen rarity. That would be the first video up top, which has nearly half an hour of film of Terry in 1967, fronting a big band for a local telethon performance on WHAS, then the CBS affiliate in Louisville, KY.

This clip seems significant for several reasons - not only is it an extended performance, documented with reasonably good sound quality, but the film is in color, which would have been somewhat unusual for a local broadcast at the time. (The national networks had just gone all-color the previous year.) Moreover, at a time when rock music was dominating radio, TV, and popular culture, a local TV station in the US giving this much time to jazz would have been unusual in itself.

Given that this video currently has fewer than 100 views on YouTube, it would seem that it hasn't yet been discovered by Terry's fans around the world, but perhaps this post will help call a bit more attention to it.

After the jump, you can see the first of several later performances by Terry, a concert staged in December 1990 at the University of New Hampshire (which eventually named its annual jazz festival after him) to celebrate his 70th birthday.

That's followed by a quartet performance from August 1994 at the New Morning Jazz Blues Festival in Geneva, Switzerland, for which Terry was backed by pianist Dado Moroni, bassist Pierre Boussaguet and drummer Alvin Queen.

Next, there's another performance at the University of New Hampsire, marking Terry's 75th birthday in December 1995 with a special for local public television and featuring a lineup of musicians including Hal Crook (trombone), Fred Haas (tenor sax), Bill Humphrey (alto sax), Doc Cheatham (trumpet), Ryan Kisor (trumpet), Herb Pomeroy (trumpet), Gray Sargent (guitar), James Williams (piano), Milt Hinton (bass), and Louis Bellson (drums).

The last two videos document more small group performances from jazz festivals overseas. The penultimate clip shows Terry with drummer Sylvia Cuenca, pianist Don Friedman, bassist Marcus McLaurine, and alto saxophonist David Glasser, performing in 2000 at the Internationale Jazzwoche Burghausen in Germany.

The final performance was recorded in 2001 during the Saint Lucia Jazz Festival on the Carribbean island of the same name, and features Terry leading a quintet with Donald Harrison on alto sax, Anthony Wonsey on piano, Curtis Lundy on bass, and Victor Lewis on drums.

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

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Jean Baylor & Marcus Baylor

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

* Miles Davis is one of five musicians to be featured in "Space Is The Place," a radio series on the UK's JazzFM presenting "specially commissioned dramas...based on five pivotal moments in the lives of some of Jazz FM’s legendary artists." The other featured artists will include Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong and Sun Ra; the Davis episode will air on Monday, December 7.

* Nominees for the 2021 Grammy Awards were announced this week, and the list includes St. Louis' own Marcus Baylor, whose group The Baylor Project (co-led with his wife, singer Jean Baylor) was nominated for "Best Traditional R&B Performance" for their song "Sit on Down."

In addition, three more St. Louisans - bassist Jahmal Nichols, drummer Emanuel Harrold, and trumpeter Keyon Harrold - performed on singer Gregory Porter's All Rise, which was nominated in the "Best R&B Album" category.

* Saxophonist David Sanborn has released another short video as part of his "Sanborn Sessions" web series, in which he teams up with various musical friends for some performances recorded in his home studio. The latest episode features Sanborn with his longtime collaborator, organist Joey DeFrancesco.

* Ahead of his gig this Sunday night at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups, keyboardist Mark Harris II is the subject of a feature story from the Post-Dispatch's Kevin Johnson.

* The late trumpeter Lester Bowie, who grew up in St. Louis and went on to fame as a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, is being honored with an outdoor mural in Frederick, Maryland, the city where he actually was born.

Sunday Session: November 22, 2020

George Lewis

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest:

* The Enduring Relevance of College Radio (Spin)
* Making a Masterpiece: An Interview with Legendary Composer Valerie Simpson (PopMatters.com)
* What Were the First Mass-Produced Electronic Instruments? (Reverb.com)
* Fantasia & The Birth of Stereo Recording (Reverb.com)
* Mark Ruffin: The Storied Intersection of Jazz, Baseball, and Race (Jazz Times)
* Pioneering Drummer Viola Smith Was ‘An Advocate For The Rights Of All Women Musicians’ (DownBeat)
* Joe Schaffner, Tour Manager For Aretha, Marvin Gaye & The Jacksons, Talks Back In The Day (Pollstar.com)
* Nels Cline Revives The Singers For A Stunning New Album, ‘Share The Wealth’ (American Songwriter)
* Thurston Moore on his new album, the old New York, and always resisting the mainstream (DocumentJournal.com)
* Discover "the power of sound" with music wizard, Kenichi Kanazawa (AV Club)
* New Series “Live From Rudy Van Gelder’s Studio” (first session 14 November) (London Jazz News)
* Creative Urban Momentum: Witnessing the Black Unity Trio (ChimurengaChronic.co.za)
* Andrew White 1942–2020 (Jazz Times)
* 'He'll make your head explode': sax stars on the genius and tragedy of Charlie Parker (The Guardian)
* The chaotic story of cult prog legends Van der Graaf Generator (LouderSound.com)
* A Dive Into George Lewis’s Pioneering Experiment With Artificial Intelligence (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* Camille Thurman Eager To Give Back To The Jazz Community (DownBeat)
* Ellis at the Crossroads (Oxford American)
* How Elektra Records ushered in the alternative music revolution—and then helped kill it (AV Club)
* A Guide to Rob Mazurek’s Imaginative, Experimental Sound (Bandcamp.com)
* Watch the Liberation Music Orchestra Perform a Timely New Medley, Arranged by Carla Bley (WBGO)
* Artemis: A Band For the Times (AllAboutJazz.com)
* 9 Engineers on the Hardest Song They Ever Mixed (Vulture.com)
* "They Did Not Die in Vain": On "Alabama," John Coltrane Carefully Wrought Anguish Into Grace (WBGO)
* Guitar Center Is Officially Filing for Bankruptcy (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Terence Blanchard on Netflix's 'Da 5 Bloods', Writing Process & Working with Spike Lee (SpitfireAudio.com)
* The story of Emerson Lake & Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery (LouderSound.com)
* 'A gamechanger for musicians': app offers library of interactive sheet music (The Guardian)
* Gearhead: Harry Partch and the Quadrangularis Reversum (Jazz Times)
* Elvis Presley Meets the Nashville Cats on a New Box Set, With Glorious Results (Rolling Stone)
* Randy Brecker: Fusion Pioneer Still Blazing The Trails (AllAboutJazz.com)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Clark Terry and his famous friends

This year marks the centennnial of the birth of legendary trumpeter and St. Louis native Clark Terry. As we approach what would have been his 100th birthday on December 14, StLJN will be paying tribute by sharing videos of Terry, starting today with just a few of his many collaborations and encounters with other famous musicians and singers.

The first video up above shows Terry with another American musical icon, blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters, sitting in on a version of T-Bone Walker's standard "Stormy Monday." It was recorded in July, 1977 in Nice, France, with Muddy's band, which included Bob Margolin (guitar), Guitar Junior (guitar), Pinetop Perkins (piano), Calvin Jones (bass), and Willy "Big Eyes" Smith (drums).

After the jump, you can see Terry performing his signature song "Mumbles" in 2001 with the "Queen of Soul," Aretha Franklin, backed by a band including Herbie Hancock (keyboards), Russell Malone (guitar), Ron Carter (bass), Roy Haynes (drums), and James Carter (saxophones).

In the third clip, Terry returns to his former place of employment, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, sometime around 1980 to front the show's famous orchestra for a couple of numbers.

That's followed by a choice cameo appearance by Terry on another late night talk show, as he offers single choruses of flugelhorn and vocals on a version of Quincy Jones' "Soul Bossa Nova" recorded in 2001 for Late Night with David Letterman with Jones' orchestra and saxophonist Phil Woods, who takes the solo before Terry's.

After that, you can see a full concert from the long-running "Jazz at the Philharmonic" series, which was started by producer Norman Granz in 1944 and continued through the 1950s in the US and into the 1980s in Europe. This all-star performance was recorded in 1967 in London by the BBC, and along with Terry, the ensemble includes Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), James Moody (alto sax, flute), Zoot Sims (tenor sax), Teddy Wilson (piano), Bob Cranshaw (bass), and Louis Bellson (drums).

The final clip shows another all-star session, billed as "A Trumpet Summit" at the 1999 edition of the Jazz in Marciac festival in France. It features Terry will fellow trumpeters Benny Bailey, Stepka Gut, Jon Faddis, Terell Stafford, Nicholas Payton, Roy Hargrove, and Wynton Marsalis, backed by pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Pierre Moussaguet, and drummer Alvin Queen.

Look for more videos celebrating Clark Terry in the coming weeks. 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:

* Keyboardist Michael Silverman has been nominated for the Smooth Jazz Network's "Best Breakout Artist" award for 2020. Silverman (pictured) is one of 12 musicians contending for the prize. Listener/reader voting for the award continues through Monday, November 30.

* The documentary The Black Artists’ Group: Creation Equals Movement was touted as one of five "must see" films at this year's St. Louis International Film Festival in an article by the Riverfront Times' Evan Suit. SLIFF and the online screenings of the film continue through this Sunday, November 22.

* The Post-Dispatch's Kevin Johnson reports that the Kranzberg Arts Foundation and Jazz St. Louis will extend their "Open Air" concert series into 2021. The Grand Center presenters are expected to announce 40 additional weeks of programming for the series, with January and February's shows to be revealed early next month.

* Pianist Peter Martin's company Open Studio, which produces jazz instructional videos and educational materials, recently reached 50,000 subscribers to their YouTube channel, and to commemorate the occasion, they've compiled a video featuring the "Top 7 Highlights from 2020 with Peter Martin and Adam Maness."

* Also from the Post's Kevin Johnson, the Old Rock House, which had reopened on a limited basis this summer, will close temporarily again until some time in 2021, due to the recent resurgence in COVID-19 cases in the metropolitan area and the state.

* Singer Steve Brammeier's recent performance at Blue Strawberry was reviewed by KDHX's Chuck Lavazzi.

Sunday Session: November 15, 2020

Herbie Hancock

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest:

* Lakecia Benjamin: The future of jazz is now (Bay State Banner)
* What’s in a Name? (Jazz Times)
* Forgotten protest icon Odetta Holmes lives on in modern Black Americana (ScalawagMagazine.org)
* Live Nation expects that “shows at scale” will return next summer (NME.com)
* Review of Jazzfest Berlin 2020 (London Jazz News)
* Sun Ra's Cosmic Keys (Reverb.com)
* Tomeka Reid Looks For Challenging Situations (DownBeat)
* Sleeping Giants: The Brief Reign and Brilliant Legacy of Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi Band (WBGO)
* Alone Together: A Q&A with Tabla Master Zakir Hussain (SFJAZZ.org)
* Mayfield and Markham Plead Guilty in a Plea Deal (Offbeat)
* 50 Years Later: The Surprising Memphis Roots of “Led Zeppelin III.” (MemphisMagazine.com)
* Israeli researchers create AI capable of writing personalized jazz solos (Jerusalem Post)
* Alfredo Rodríguez Deploys Abundant Technique (DownBeat)
* 'It's the screams of the damned!' The eerie AI world of deepfake music (The Guardian)
* Shabaka Hutchings - The Future of Afrofuturism (SFJAZZ.org)
* For The Rolling Stones’ 60th Anniversary, Keith Richards Says “The Plans Are to Still Actually All Be Alive” (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Guitarist Steve Hunter on His Journey From ‘Berlin’ to ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ (Rolling Stone)
* Emerging Opera Singers Now Pay for Online Auditions. Are Companies Watching Them? (MiddleClassArtist.com)
* Joel Ross Doesn’t ‘Do The Obvious Thing’ (DownBeat)
* Meet the guardians of the world’s earliest musical recordings (Los Angeles Times)
* Volcanic drummer and MacArthur ‘genius grant’ winner Tyshawn Sorey premieres new work with Seattle Symphony (Seattle Times)
* Sonny Rollins on Jazz as a Music of Freedom (LitHub.com)
* A Brief Guide to the Shape of “Jazz Rap” Today (Bandcamp.com)
* Bassist Eric Revis Revels In Curiosity, Versatility (DownBeat)
* The Experimental Edge of the “New Weird South” (Bandcamp.com)
* Christian Sands Relies On Adaptability (DownBeat)
* State of Play: the rise of in-game concerts (DJMag.com)
* Ronnie Scott understood that for some people music is the only outlet – so he opened a club (New Statesman)
* Seated gigs, no moshing and 'brutally exhausting' sets: the strange new world of live music (The Guardian)
* How Ticketmaster Plans to Check Your Vaccine Status for Concerts: Exclusive (Billboard)
* Inside Sun Ra’s 1971 trip to Egypt (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Big Breaks - What’s Behind Orpheus Classical? (Atavist.com)
* Andrew White, Prolific Multi-Instrumentalist, Scholar and Washington, D.C. Legend, Dies at 78 (WBGO)
* Electrophone: the Victorian-era gadget that was a precursor to live-streaming (TheConversation.com)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The "lost" ensembles of Miles Davis

This week, let's take a look at some history related to the most important jazz musician to come from the St. Louis area, Miles Davis.

As a bandleader, Davis had many celebrated groups over the years, such as the "Birth of the Cool" nonet; the six-piece ensemble that recorded Kind of Blue; the first "great quartet" of the 1950s featuring John Coltrane; and its successor in the 1960s with Tony Williams, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter.

All of these groups established their enduring appeal in part by recording notable albums that have become part of jazz history. But there also were a couple of relatively short-lived lineups led by Davis that, while packed with talent, have come to be known as "lost" because they toured but didn't make any studio recordings. Fortunately, some live recordings of these groups have surfaced in recent years, and thanks to YouTube, now we can see what they looked like as well as how they sounded.

The best known of these groups probably is the "Lost Quintet," which toured in 1969 and included Dave Holland on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Chick Corea on electric piano, and Wayne Shorter on tenor and soprano saxes.

This band also is sometimes called Davis' "last quintet," because it was the final group he led with the traditional trumpet-saxophone-rhythm section instrumentation. With Corea playing a Rhodes piano and Holland sometimes using an electric bass, this lineup provided a bridge from Davis' all-acoustic quintets from earlier in the 60s to the larger, fully electric bands he would deploy in the 1970s.

Not coincidentally, 1969 also was the year Davis recorded his landmark album Bitches Brew, and you can get some hints of what's to come in these videos of his working band from that year. They were recorded both before and after the August sessions for Bitches Brew, with a set from July 25 in Antibes, France up above, followed after the jump by shows from October 20 in Rome and November 3 in Paris.

The other four videos feature Davis' "Lost Septet," which toured in 1971 and included Gary Bartz on alto and soprano sax, Keith Jarrett on electric piano and organ, Michael Henderson on bass, and Ndugu Leon Chancler on drums, plus percussionists James "Mtume" Foreman and Don Alias.

Davis was well along the fusion trail at that point, and while some of the material this group is playing would be familiar to audiences from his then-recent recordings, the prominence of the three drummers (and the absence of the guitars that played a major role in subsequent lineups of the 70s) definitely gives the music some different flavors from the rest of the trumpeter's electric period.

The "Lost Septet" is represented here in the four final videos, which document concerts from November 6, 1971 in Berlin; November 9 at the Jazzforum in Oslo, Norway; and November 16 at the Palazzo dello Sport, in Turin, Italy; plus a partial and somewhat blemished recording of their appearance on November 20 at the Cascais Jazz Festival in Portugal. (There are several versions of this last recording on YouTube; this one seemed best in terms of quality and completeness.)

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:

* Guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran was interviewed last week on an episode of "The Dale Wiley Show" podcast.

* In an effort to keep customers safe during the ongoing pandemic, musical instrumental retailer and repair shop Saxquest this year has reconfigured the fifth edition of their annual Musical Instrument Expo, which starts this Saturday, November 14 and continues through Thursday, December 24.

Instead of presenting a day-long event in meeting rooms at a local hotel, this year Saxquest is offering registered participants "isolated individual appointments" to try out instruments at their shop on Cherokee Street, with the added incentives of 5% to 20% discounts on "nearly all new instruments" and 0% financing options available for many instruments.

Appointments are free, and all participants are registered automatically for a door prize of $500 and other prizes. For more information, visit the Expo's Facebook page, or sign up online here.

* Multi-instrumentalist T.J. Müller (pictured) of traditional jazz band The Gaslight Squares is the host of a new program added to the schedule at community radio station KDHX. Müller's "The Riverboat Shuffle" features vintage jazz, blues, swing, and ragtime, and airs from 10:00 a.m. to noon on Tuesdays.

* Red Flag, a new music venue from the owners of rock club Fubar that will hold up to 1,000 concertgoers, has had a soft opening on Locust St. in Midtown, as reported by the Post-Dispatch's Kevin Johnson. The Post also produced a short video showing the inside of the club.

* Citing lost revenue from shows canceled due to the pandemic, the Touhill Performing Arts Center at the University of Missouri - St. Louis, the main venue for the annual Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, has let go 14 full-time employees, including director John Cattanach. According to a story from St. Louis Public Radio's Chad Davis, the Touhill will keep three full-time staff members but now will be run by the university’s event services department.

* Saxophonist and East St. Louis native Amos Brewer has died. Brewer, who was 53 years old, passed away last Saturday, November 7; no cause of death has been disclosed. A bluesy stylist in the R&B-flavored tradition of Hank Crawford, Oliver Sain, and David Sanborn, he freelanced with various groups and musicians around town, and also was a member of the band at Friendly Temple Church, which has released a video in tribute to him.

Arrangements are through Layne Mortuary, and the funeral will take place Sunday, November 22 at Friendly Temple, with viewing at 3:00 p.m. and services at 4:00 p.m.

Sunday Session: November 8, 2020

Marshall Allen

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest:

* Rahsaan Roland Kirk: An Alternative Top Ten Albums Guaranteed To Bend Your Head (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Peter Jones (‘This is Bop: Jon Hendricks and the Art of Vocal Jazz’ to be published November 2020) (London Jazz News)
* Nica's Tempo: More Hipsters, Flipsters, And On-The-Scenesters (WFIU)
* Houston’s Ku-umba Frank Lacy still a messenger for jazz (Houston Chronicle)
* On 'Swirling,' Marshall Allen Keeps The The Sun Ra Arkestra Soaring Through Space (NPR)
* Cindy Blackman Santana: This Drummer Got Some (Jazz Times)
* The film exploring the avant-garde female pioneers of electronic music (DazedDigital.com)
* Benson, McBride and Metheny Among Readers Poll Winners (DownBeat)
* John Hollenbeck: Time to Rearrange (Jazz Times)
* Live from Rudy Van Gelder’s Studio Premieres Nov. 14 (Jazz Times)
* Lakecia Benjamin on a Heavy Year, the Healing Power of Music, and Breaking In Jazzfest Berlin (WBGO)
* Brian Blade: A 1970 Artist’s Choice (Jazz Times)
* Adam O’Farrill Is Only Scratching The Surface (DownBeat)
* Irvin Mayfield and Business Partner Ronald Markhamn set to be rearraigned next week (Offbeat)
* Marshall Allen Steers The Sun Ra Arkestra Into The Future (DownBeat)
* Singer, activist, sex machine, addict: the troubled brilliance of Billie Holiday (The Guardian)
* Studio whiz Don Hahn captured magic on the Band’s debut record (Toronto Globe and Mail)
* Elegy for A Side Man: Remembering Cornetist Peter Ecklund (Jazziz)
* Make ‘Y.M.C.A.’ Great Again (Rolling Stone)
* Cándido Camero, A Father Of Latin Jazz, Dies At 99 (NPR)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: More from Clark Terry's Big Bad Band

This week, let's continue our trip into the history of one of the most famous jazz musicians from our area with more videos featuring trumpeter and St. Louis native Clark Terry's Big Bad Band. (You can see part one, featuring video of performances from 1974 and 1978, here.)

Today's first group of videos were recorded in July 1979 at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Hague, Netherlands. In addition to Terry, this version of the band included Dale Carley, John Melito, Bob Montgomery, and Oscar Gamby (trumpets), Hal Crook, Buster Cooper, Chuck Conners, and Richard Boone (trombones), Chris Woods, Bill Saxton, Charles Williams, Herman Bell, and Charles Davis (saxophones), plus Charles Fox (piano), Victor Sproles (bass), and Dave Adams (drums).

They begin with a nod to Duke Ellington in the form of Terry's arrangemnet of "Take The A Train" up above, followed after the jump by "Carney," featuring baritone saxophonist Charles Davis in a tribute to longtime Ellington sideman Harry Carney.

That's followed by six more selections from the North Sea festival, starting with "Tee Pee Time," "On The Trail" (from the "Grand Canyon Suite"), and "Etoile," and then "Randy," "Una Mas (One More Time), and "Blues In My Shoes."

The final video contains three songs recorded in 1991 in Paris for broadcast on the French TV program Le Grand Echiquier, including a reprise of "Take the A Train" plus performances of "Over The Rainbow" and "Sheba."

This version of the band included a couple of musicians who would go on to have prominent careers of their own, with a young Branford Marsalis in the saxophone section, and an equally young Byron Stripling among the trumpets. The rest of the band includes saxophonists Chris Woods, Danny House, Randy Russell, Ned Otter, and Diane DeRosa; trumpeters Steve Rentschler, Tony Lujan, and Gary Blackman; trombonists Conrad Herwig, Kenny Crane, Ron Wilkins, and Matt Finders; plus pianist John Campbell, bassist Peter Dowdall, and drummer Mike Baker.

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:

* Drummer and St. Charles native Dave Weckl announced this week on social media that he will present a free live online drum lesson at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time tomorrow, Saturday, November 7.

Weckl (pictured) will "review hand technique, take your questions, and do some giveaways" via a livestream on his YouTube channel and Facebook page.

* Trumpeter Jim Manley was the guest on last Friday's episode of KTRS radio's "In The Know with Ray Hartmann."

* Bryan Dematteis, director of the documentary The Black Artists Group of St. Louis: Creation Equals Movement that is screening online this month as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival was interviewed by St. Louis Public Radio's Jeremy Goodwin.

* In related news, Dematteis also recorded a brief video interview about his film with the Post-Dispatch's Ben Simon.

* Singer (and physician) Ken Haller's return performance last week at Blue Strawberry was reviewed by KDHX's Chuck Lavazzi.

Recently on Heliocentric Worlds

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

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

United Jazz + Rock Ensemble - "Ausgeschlafen"
Leo Kottke - Live at the Woodstock Opera House
Chicago - Live in Tokyo
Emerson, Lake and Palmer - "Knife Edge"
Los Lobos - "Short Side Of Nothing"

Other recent posts have featured performances on video by Joan Osborne, Isaac Hayes, David Sanborn & Friends, McCoy Tyner Trio, John Zorn's The Dreamers, Ginger Baker Trio, Cymande, Renaissance, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, The Move, Mott The Hoople, Weather Report, Tower Of Power, Camel, Fairport Convention, Moon Hooch, Jean-Luc Ponty, Patto, Brinsley Schwarz, Robert Glasper Experiment, Procol Harum, Miles Davis, Boz Scaggs, The Ventures, Lightnin' Hopkins, Four Tops, Ella Fitzgerald, and Artemis.

If you've somehow missed on this until now, no worries - you still can see all of these videos, plus thousands more from the archives, by going to https://heliocentricworlds.blogspot.com/.

Sunday Session: November 1, 2020

Sun Ra Arkestra

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest:

* Artist Feature: Hasan Shahid and the Return of Al-Fatihah (JazzRightNow.com)
* Happy 80th Eddie Henderson! (London Jazz News)
* How the Shure SM57 became an industry standard microphone – from presidential duties to pop (MusicRadar.com)
* Joni Mitchell: 'I'm a fool for love. I make the same mistake over and over' (The Guardian)
* EXCLUSIVE: John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain and Shankar Mahadevan Discuss Music, Legacy and Beyond (RollingStoneIndia.com)
* On Performing Fluxus in 2020 (New Music Box)
* Jeff Hamilton, Drummer’s Drummer (Jazz Times)
* This Year’s Model Elvis Costello is back with his 31st (or so) studio album. But don’t look for any consolation from him. (Vulture.com)
* Sun Ra Arkestra :: Swirling (AquariumDrunkard.com)
* A No. 1 Song Written by a Solitary Songwriter Is Becoming a Thing of the Past (Billboard)
* Lost interviews hold new Bob Dylan insights (Chicago Sun-Times)
* “We’re Just a House Band on the Titanic”: A Conversation With Devo’s Gerald Casale (Tidal.com)
* Shabaka Hutchings Lets The Tape Roll (DownBeat)
* Angel Bat Dawid, Musician and Myth Scientist, Shares Her Story and Takes a Righteous Stand (WBGO)
* The Sun Ra Arkestra Is Swirling Through Space (Jazz Times)
* A Conversation with Peter Guralnick About His Latest Book, ‘Looking To Get Lost’ (American Songwriter)
* B.B. King Estate Announces Official Biopic, Clears Up Wendell Pierce Confusion (EXCLUSIVE) (Variety)
* The 30 greatest synth players of all time: keyboard wizards, programming gurus and sound design legends (MusicRadar.com)
* Makaya McCraven Refracts The World Around Him (DownBeat)
* What’s in a Name? (Jazz Times)
* New Charlie Parker Vinyl Box Set, ‘The Mercury & Clef 10-Inch LP Collection’ Set For Release (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* How do the best horror scores scare the crap out of us with just a few notes? (AV Club)
* 80 years ago today: the Benny Goodman-Count Basie Octet (Jazz on the Record)
* Historic Labels: An Enlightening Sonic Window to the Past (WQXR)