Sunday Session: April 18, 2021

Albert "Tootie" Heath

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

* Invention Has A Sound: The story of Mark Twain, a Martin acoustic and the world’s first guitar effect (Guitar)
* The Rhymes And Reasons Behind Re-Recording Your Own Classics (NPR)
* Bob Porter, Eminent Producer, Broadcaster and Writer, and Pillar of WBGO, Has Died at 80 (WBGO)
* Steve Gadd: From Monroe County to Around the World (NYSMusic.com)
* A Guide to the Extensive Musical Legacy of Mills College (Bandcamp.com)
* The Glorious Exclamation Mark: Carla Bley Interviewed (TheQuietus.com)
* Sonny Simmons, Fiercely Independent Alto Saxophonist, Dies at 87 (NPR)
* Interview with Phil Schaap (MaxRaskin.com)
* A philosophy of sound (Aeon.co)
* Inescapable Progression: 10 Jazz Labels You Need To Know In 2021 (Grammy.com)
* 2021 NEA Jazz Masters: A Q&A with Albert "Tootie" Heath (SFJAZZ.org)
* Apple Greenlights Louis Armstrong Documentary From Imagine (Variety)
* Matters of Obsession - Brian Eno’s ambient music for times of thinking and healing (DailyMaverick.com)
* Mental Health Takes Center Stage As Pandemic Devastates Nashville's Live Music Scene (NPR)
* Meet the songwriters who told pop stars: 'Don't steal from us' (BBC)
* Is It Possible For an Opera Singer to Break Glass with Their Voice? (WKYC)
* 2021 NEA Jazz Masters: A Q&A with Henry Threadgill (SFJAZZ.org)
* Painting Music with Artificial Intelligence (Mathworks.com)
* Why It’s Misleading to Say ‘Apple Music Pays Twice as Much Per Stream as Spotify’ (Variety)
* Joe Lovano: Finding New Adventures (AllAboutJazz.com)

Sunday Session: April 15, 2018

Nina Simone

Here's a roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* The British jazz explosion: meet the musicians rewriting the rulebook (The Guardian)
* Monika Herzig’s SHEroes Addresses Gender in Jazz (DownBeat)
* Why Hip-Hop Is Taking Center Stage On Netflix's Original Music Programming (Forbes.com)
* At Tiny Telephone music studio, recording to tape is not a metaphor (KALW)
* MATA at 20 (New Music Box)
* How Drummer Albert "Tootie" Heath Learned to Play Jazz (Westword)
* Philadelphia native James Mtume returns to celebrate 35th anniversary of ‘Juicy Fruit’ (New Pittsburgh Courier)
* Jimmie Vaughan’s B-3 Vibe (Jazz Times)
* The Deceptively Accessible Music of Cecil Taylor (The Atlantic)
* Illuminating Cecil Taylor with Pianist Jason Moran, on The Checkout (WBGO)
* Turning The Tables: The 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women (As Chosen By You) (NPR)
* “All at Full Fullness”: Remembering Cecil Taylor - Steve Coleman, Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, Matthew Shipp and Wadada Leo Smith pay tribute to an avant-jazz icon (Jazz Times)
* All That Jazz: A #JazzAppreciationMonth Podcast Round-up (Arts.gov)
* Music Publishers Win Major Copyright Fight Over Streaming of Legendary Rock Concerts (Hollywood Reporter)
* Composer Tyondai Braxton: 'I'm at war with myself. That's what the piece sounds like' (The Guardian)
* Spotify could kill Jazz, Soul and Classical music. Really. (SoulTracks.com)
* Q&A with Al Di Meola: In a Good Place (DownBeat)
* The New Jazz Torchbearer: Kamasi Washington on His Musical Message (Rolling Stone)
* Cecil Taylor and the Art of Noise (The New Yorker)
* The Revolutionary Genius of Cecil Taylor (The New Yorker)
* The British Guitar Embargo: When Brits Were Banned from Buying American (Reverb.com)
* How Nina Simone Captivated a New Generation (Rolling Stone)
* In Memoriam: Cecil Taylor (DownBeat)
* ‘It’s an insane project’: Toronto resident documenting city’s live-music history through posters (The Globe and Mail)
* Esperanza Spalding: Redefining Production - The bassist, composer and bandleader on her innovative recent "pop-up" album, "Exposure" (Jazz Times)
* How Musicians Are Using Field Recordings to Capture the Politics of Place (Pitchfork.com)
* ‘A Singular Sound, A Singular Force’: Artists Remember Jazz Great Cecil Taylor (BedfordAndBowery.com)
* Saxophonist Kamasi Washington Announces New Album 'Heaven and Earth' With Two Teaser Videos (NextBop.com)
* Hitting Reboot: Manhattan Transfer (DownBeat)
* American orchestras: Revamping the model, or embracing the obvious? (Washington Post)

Jazz St. Louis offers two-for-one deal on tickets for the Heath Brothers

Jazz St. Louis is offering a special discount on tickets to see the Heath Brothers, who are performing at Jazz at the Bistro this Wednesday through Saturday. The deal is that if you purchase one adult ticket for any performance at the regular price, you can get a second ticket free. To take advantage of the offer, order your tickets by calling the Bistro at 314-289-4030 and mentioning promotion code HB0706.

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: Jimmy Heath of the Heath Brothers, heard as player and arranger

This week's videos feature the venerable tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath in his capacities as both player and arranger. Heath and his percussionist sibling Albert, also known as "Tootie," will be in St. Louis under the collective banner of the Heath Brothers to perform at Jazz at the Bistro from Wednesday, March 26 through Saturday, March 29.

The Heath Brothers also will take part in one of Jazz St. Louis' "Jazz Perspectives" discussions on Tuesday, March 25, and based on their long years of experience in the music business, they should have some fascinating stories to tell. The Philadelphia natives have played or recorded with many of the greatest jazz musicians from the 1950s to the present, including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery and Herbie Hancock. They formed the Heath Brothers group in 1975 with eldest brother Percy (who also was the bassist in the famed Modern Jazz Quartet). Though Percy passed away in 2005, his brothers have continued to record and perform together, and both also are heavily involved in music education.

The first clip shows Jimmy Heath performing the Milt Jackson composition "Fungi Mama" at a Jazzmobile concert in NYC. The audio/video quality is a bit rough, as you'd expect from a handheld recorder wielded by an audience member at an outdoor show, but Heath plays a tasty solo and you can definitely see and hear well enough to get the idea.

The second video shows shows Jimmy Heath directing and soloing with the Berklee College of Music Jazz Orchestra. It's from a program of Heath's arrangements done in 2005 at the college, but, alas, the source of the clip did not note the name of this particular composition. It's some nice writing, though, and the student ensemble gives the piece a very serviceable, if not fully professional, rendition.

As a bonus, there's a third clip this week, the trailer for a 2004 documentary about the Heath Brothers called, appropriately enough, Brotherly Jazz. Though a mere trailer is too short to delve into the details of their individual stories, it does give a bit of a feel for the Heath Brothers' place in the jazz pantheon and the esteem in which they are held by their musical colleagues. It also provides a welcome opportunity to hear some of Tootie Heath's playing, as he lays down a nice groove to set up the clip. (For some reason, there's a lack of video footage of Tootie online, although he can be seen here backing up Sonny Rollins in a 1968 version of "On Green Dolphin Street" and here backing up Dexter Gordon in another clip from around the same time.)