Sunday Session: June 18, 2017

Ornette Coleman

Here are some interesting music-related items that have landed in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Trombone Shorty: Living for the Crescent City (Jazz Times)
* 10 Musicians Look Back on the Albums They Don’t Remember Recording (SPIN)
* Web Exclusive: Hal Blaine (Modern Drummer)
* Tom Oberheim On The Art Of Synthesizer Design (Synthtopia.com)
* After 7 Decades, Sonny Rollins Can't Get Music Off His Mind (NPR)
* Charlie Parker's Yardbird review – beauty, anger and poetry, but the jazz great's genius eludes us (The Guardian)
* Do Androids Dream of Electric Guitars? Exploring the Future of Musical A.I. (Pitchfork.com)
* Interview: Airto Moreira (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2018 Class of NEA Jazz Masters (Arts.gov)
* Gregg Allman: The Wild Times, Lost Years and Rebirth of a Southern-Rock Legend (Rolling Stone)
* Transcending genre labels, Vijay Iyer leads the Ojai Music Festival toward bold new territory (Los Angeles Times)
* Go-Go Forever - The rise, fall, and afterlife of Washington, D.C.’s ultimate rhythm (MTV.com)
* Steve Earle: 'My wife left me for a younger, skinnier, less talented singer' (The Guardian)
* This interracial couple endured discrimination and bullying — but loved each other until the end (Washington Post)
* All That Jazz: The Business Of Over 35 Years At The Blue Note Jazz Club (Forbes)
* Guest Editorial: Why Musicians Don’t Get Paid—A New Orleans Musician’s View (Offbeat)
* A new generation of jazz comes to the fore at Tokyo Lab (Japan Times)
* Who killed the contemporary Christian music industry? (The Week)
* 2 guitars returned to Muddy Waters' heirs in ongoing estate battle (Chicago Tribune)
* Gibson Brands transforms guitar-making into diverse 'music lifestyle' firm (Los Angeles Times)
* Celebrate Ornette Coleman: Artists pay homage to the legendary avant-garde saxophonist (TheVinylFactory.com)

Music Education Monday: A master class with percussionist Airto Moreira

This week for Music Education Monday, you can sit in on a master class with Airto Moreira, the Brazilian-born percussionist who helped define early 1970s jazz-fusion through his work with Miles Davis and the original lineups of Weather Report and Return to Forever.

Moriera (pictured), who will be 75 years old this year, is married to jazz singer Flora Purim, and their work together recording, performing and co-leading a band has been the main focus of both their careers since the late 1970s.

Apart from Flora, Airto also has worked with many other well-known musicians over the years, including Carlos Santana, Cannonball Adderley, Lee Morgan, Paul Desmond, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, John McLaughlin, Keith Jarrett, Al Di Meola, Zakir Hussain, and George Duke.

He also has been a contributor to many of Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart's world music percussion albums, played with symphony orchestras and as a solo percussionist, and worked on a number of film and TV soundtracks.

In 1993, Moreira recorded "Rhythms and Colors," an instructional video in which he demonstrates and discusses various Afro-Brazilian and world beat rhythms for drumset and percussion, with some help from his wife on vocals, José Neto on guitar, and Gary Meek on keyboards, saxophone, and flute. Thanks to a pseudonymous user who has uploaded it to YouTube, you can see that video in the embedded window below.