In addition to Green Jr, who is Green's eldest son and also a guitarist, the band billed as "Grant Green's Evolution of Funk" will include saxophonist Donald Harrison, keyboardist Marc Cary and drummer Mike Clark, and will make their debut with performances from June 28 to July 1 at NYC's Jazz Standard.
* On a related note, London Jazz News has reviewed Green's two new Resonance albums, Live at Oil Can Harry's and Funk in France, which will be released officially this Saturday, April 21 for Record Store Day. You can find much more on this year's RSD jazz releases in this article from DownBeat.
With some coaching from Maness and singer Brian Owens, kids from the not-for-profit LIFE Arts, Inc wrote and performed the lyrics for the video, which can be seen on Major League Baseball's site MLB.com.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* Pianist Ramsey Lewis, who's in town to perform tonight at the Sheldon's benefit gala, was interviewed about the show by the Post-Dispatch's Kevin Johnson.
* The reality TV show Autopsy on the REELZ network last week ran an episode about the death of trumpeter Miles Davis(pictured), and RadarOnline.com has a video excerpt.
* On a happier note, if you're willing to give them an email address, BebopBootCamp.com has a free transcription from Davis' album Relaxin' intended for musicians who want to study or play along with a classic from the trumpeter's hard bop period. It's a sample from a series of transcriptions of Davis' mid-1950s sessions for Prestige published by the company; to get a copy, go here.
It's another jam-packed week of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with two esteemed pianists appearing back-to-back at one of the city's best-sounding halls; a retrospective of music from three of the 1960s' most provocative female vocalists, starring a St. Louis native; a couple of events raising scholarship money for local music students; and more. Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, April 11
Drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. presents his show "Songs of Freedom," with featured vocalists Joanna Majoko and St. Louis' own Alicia Olatuja, for the first of four nights at Jazz at the Bistro. Developed by Owens for Jazz at Lincoln Center, the production explores the 1960s through the music of Joni Mitchell, Abbey Lincoln, and Nina Simone.
Also on Wednesday, trumpeter Jim Manley is back at Sasha's Wine Bar, and the weekly "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features saxophonist Andy Ament at The Stage at KDHX, a jam session led by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's band at The Dark Room.
Friday, April 13
Pianist Ramsey Lewis (pictured, top left) is the headline attraction at the Sheldon Concert Hall's annual benefit gala. The concert is billed as Lewis playing the music of the Beatles, but don't be surprised if he slips in a couple of his own hits like "The In Crowd" or "Sun Goddess" along with his interpretations of the Fab Four. As usual with their benefit performances, the Sheldon is offering a limited number of concert-only tickets; contact their box office for availability.
Saturday evening, pianist Abdullah Ibrahim(pictured, bottom left) and his band Ekaya, featuring trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, will present "Jazz Epistles - The Story in Concert" at the Sheldon Concert Hall.
The Jazz Epistles were one of Ibrahim's first bands, bringing a hard bop sound modeled on Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers to his native South Africa in the late '50s, and he's been touring this tribute show since last year with various trumpeters standing in for the late Hugh Masekela, who was part of the original Jazz Epistles and had planned to . For more about Ibrahim and this retrospective show, plus a video from this current tour and more, check out this post from last Saturday.
Also on Saturday, pianist Greg Mills will present original improvisations in a free concert at St. Louis University's Xavier Hall; the Midwest Jazz-tette plays West Coast jazz at the Webster Groves Concert Hall; and Acoustik Element will be joined by percussionists Baba Mike and Matt Henry for a show at Joe's Cafe & Art Gallery. Sunday, April 15
There's more matinee action on Sunday , as singer Joe Mancuso brings his organ trio to the house concert venue The Judson House, and drummer Chuck Kennedy, pianist Curt Landes, bassist Glen Smith, and singers Valerie Tichacek, Trish Richardson and Tom Kozlowski will present their take on Liverpool's most famous hitmakers, "The Beatles Go Jazz," at the Webster Groves Concert Hall.
Tuesday, April 17
Improvisational keyboardist Thollem, violinist Alex Cunningham, and singer/pianist Ellen the Felon will perform on a triple bill at Foam; and drummer Montez Coleman and guitarist Eric Slaughter will host "The Tuesday Night Hit" jam session at The Dark Room.
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.)
This week, let's check out some videos featuring pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, who will be appearing with his band Ekaya in a concert next Saturday, April 14 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.
Born in 1934 in Cape Town, South Africa, Ibrahim grew up under his country's apartheid system of segregation, which was in place from 1948 to 1993. After briefly studying music at the University of Cape Town, in 1959 he formed the Jazz Epistles, a septet that featured the young Hugh Masekela on trumpet and recorded the first-ever jazz album by black South African musicians. Although the group was relatively short-lived, the influence of their music - a variant on the hard bop of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, garnished with a bit of local flavor - was significant in their home country.
Moving to Europe in 1962, Ibrahim would be mentored by Duke Ellington, who helped him sign his first record deal in the USA with Reprise Records, and would go on to a major career as a pianist, composer and bandleader, touring the world and recording more than 70 albums over the next six decades.
Now 84, Ibrahim for the last couple of years has been revisiting his early years with a touring show paying tribute to the music of the Jazz Epistles. While Hugh Masekela originally was intended to be part of the proceedings, his failing health and eventual death in January of this year have led to Ibrahim employing several substitute trumpeters in his place, including Wadada Leo Smith, Terence Blanchard, and Freddie Hendrix, who will perform with Ibrahim in St. Louis.
You can see one of the Jazz Epistles tribute shows featuring Blanchard in its entirety, recorded at last summer's Jazzaldia festival in Spain, in the first video embed up above.
After the jump, there's a collection of various other clips featuring Ibrahim. The first two videos, both from the 2011 Jazzaldia festival, featuring the pianist and Ekaya performing "Water from an Ancient World" and "John."
Next is a video of another full show, featuring Ibrahim leading a trio in December 2016 at the Library of Congress, where he was a designated "Jazz Scholar" that year.
That's followed by two solo piano performances, "Triste - My Love" and "Blues For A Hip King," both recorded in June 2016 in the studios of KNKX Public Radio in Tacoma, WA.
Last but not least, as a lagniappe you can see some of the earliest existing footage featuring Ibrahim. The video of the song "Jabolani" ("Joy") was recorded in 1968 for German television, and features the pianist with saxophonists John Tchicai and Gato Barbieri, bassist Barre Phillips, and drummer Makaya Ntshoko.
* Message to Our Folks, the book about the Art Ensemble of Chicago written by bassist and Washington University professor Paul Steinbeck and released last year by the University of Chicago Press, has been translated into Italian as Grande Musica Nera. Published by Quodlibet, the Italian edition (pictured) is being celebrated this week with a book release event at the Bergamo Jazz Festival.
* Jazz Times is offering readers a chance to win a free copy of the soon-to-be-released CD box set Miles Davis & John Coltrane: The Final Tour. You can enter the drawing for the giveaway here.
On a related note, NYC radio station WBGO last week previewed a live version of Davis' "So What" from the set as part of their weekly online feature "Take Five."
* Trumpeter Freddie Hendrix will play the part originally conceived for the late Hugh Masekela when pianist Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya present “Jazz Epistles - The Story in Concert” on Saturday, April 14 at The Sheldon. Hendrix's resume ranges from work with jazz artists including saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake, the Count Basie Orchestra and the Christian McBride Big Band, to backing up singers such as Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys.
* St. Louis has what might be called a cameo role in the promotional campaign for Standing Room Only, a forthcoming collection of previously unreleased performances by singer Frank Sinatra that will come out in May as a 3-CD set and in digital formats from Capitol/Universal Music Enterprises.
To promote the release, the label has posted online a clip of Sinatra singing “Fly Me To The Moon” with the Count Basie Orchestra recorded in 1965 at Kiel Opera House in St. Louis. Although the performance is not included in Standing Room Only, which collects shows from 1966 at the Sands in Las Vegas, 1974 at The Spectrum in Philadephia, and 1987 at Reunion Area in Dallas, you can watch the video here.
This week, StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview continues with part five in a series of posts featuring videos of jazz and creative music performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the first few months of the new year. (If you missed the previous installments, you can see part one here, part two here, part three here, and part four here.)
Continuing in chronological order from where last week's post left off, the first video up above features singer and St. Louis native Ken Page, the St. Louis native and star of Broadway and film who will bringing his cabaret act to Jazz at the Bistro on Wednesday, April 4 and Thursday, April 5. Page, who's known for his roles in the original casts of musical theater megahits such as Ain't Misbehavin' and Cats, as well as for his voice characterization of Oogie Boogie in Tim Burton's animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas, is seen here in a demo reel compiled to showcase his talents for potential bookings.
Page will be followed on the Bistro stage by drummer Allison Miller, trumpeter Riley Mulherkar and saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, who will be in town that week to do an educational residency for Jazz St. Louis and will cap it with performances on Friday, April 6 and Saturday, April 7 at the Bistro.
As with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Group that's here this week at the Bistro, Miller, Mulherkar and Lefkowitz-Brown (and presumably a local support musician or two) will be joining forces specifically for this gig, so the only available footage to show you is of them performing individually.
Miller can be seen in the first video after the jump with her band Boom Tic Boom, performing "Fuster," the opening track from their album Otis Was a Polar Bear, at a gig in May 2016 in Philadelphia. (Along with the leader on drums, Boom Tic Boom includes pianist Myra Melford, violinist Jenny Scheinman, cornetist Kirk Knuffke, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and bassist Todd Sickafoose.)
After that, you can see Mulherkar playing Duke Ellington's "Echoes of Harlem" in a jam session last April at the Kranzberg Arts Center right here in St. Louis, accompanied by bassist Bob DeBoo and drummer Montez Coleman, followed by a clip of Lefkowitz-Brown playing Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite" with his quartet, which includes Takeshi Ohbayashi on piano, Tamir Shmerling on bass, and Bryan Carter on drums.
Next up at the Bistro will be "Songs of Freedom," a show developed by drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr that will be performed by a group led by him and featuring vocalists Alicia Olatuja and Joanna Majoko starting Wednesday, April 11 and continuing through Saturday, April 14 at the Bistro.
First presented at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, "Songs of Freedom" is based on the music of what the promotional copy calls "three iconic voices of the 1960s--Joni Mitchell, Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone--and the complex ways in which they call out to each other."
Unfortunately, none of the previous performances seem to have been recorded on video and put online, so instead in today's fourth clip you can see a full set of Owens leading a band with bassist Reuben Rogers, vibraphonist Joel Ross, and singer Vuyo Sotashe last August as Dizzy's Club in NYC.
That's followed by a clip of Majoko singing "Bye Bye Blackbird" recorded a couple of years ago at UMFM studios in Winnipeg, MB, Canada, accompanied by Jocelyn Gould (guitar), Carter Graham (keyboard), Karl Kohut (bass), and Curtis Nowosad (drums). (St. Louis native Olatuja can be seen in last week's post, which previewed, among others, her solo shows in February at the Bistro.)
The same night that Owens and company wrap up at the Bistro, pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and his band Ekaya will be in town to perform on Saturday, April 14 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.
Ibrahim originally was scheduled to be joined by trumpeter Hugh Masekela for a program recounting the history of the Jazz Epistles, South Africa's first bebop band, of which both men were members.
However, Masekela's health issues have caused him to cancel all his live shows for the first part of 2018, so as of this writing, the concert is still set to go on, but no replacement trumpeter has been announced yet.
It was announced this past week that the estimable Wadada Leo Smith will be performing with Ibrahim for dates next month at SFJAZZ in San Francisco, which ought to make for a very interesting collaboration. And Ibrahim has worked with some other very capable trumpeters, too, as in the next clip, which shows him and Ekaya plus special guest Terence Blanchard in a full set recorded last July at the Jazzaldia festival in Donosti, Spain.
The One O'Clock Lab Band, which is UNT's top student ensemble, can be seen in the penultimate clip performing "Harlem Nocturne" in a show last November on campus. That's followed by a video of a full show from the Big Phat Band, recorded in November 2015 at the Los Angeles College of Music.
Look for part six of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview next week in this space. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
