Sunday Session: December 22, 2019

Gerald Cleaver

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

* Mars Williams brings his Albert Ayler Xmas across Europe and back home to Chicago (Chicago Reader)
* Gershon Kingsley, Moog Synthesizer Pioneer, Dies at 97 (Billboard)
* Wayne Shorter Continues to Forge Ahead (DownBeat)
* 'We loved each other': America’s first racially integrated all-girl swing band (The Guardian)
* A small Wisconsin company stored thousands of people’s CDs, then suddenly vanished (TheVerge.com)
* Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Finally Recognizes Woman Who Practically Invented Rock and Roll (Jezebel.com)
* Dave Brubeck’s Legacy Enters a New Era (DownBeat)
* The Siren Sound of the Clash’s ‘London Calling,’ 40 Years Later (TheRinger.com)
* How Many Spotify Streams Do You Need To Live Above The Poverty Line? (HaulixDaily.com)
* Terence Blanchard, American jazz trumpeter weaving opera history (Prothomalo.com)
* Don Was On The Past, Present, And Future Of Blue Note Records (ClashMusic.com)
* On The Scene: Tony Bennett—The Visual Artist (The Aquarian)
* Why Are There No New Christmas Songs? (NPR)
* George Benson: the album that changed my life (Jazzwise)
* Gerald Cleaver Bridges the Divide Between Structure and Freedom (DownBeat)
* Chamber Music America Grants $180,000 to Female-Led Jazz Ensembles (Jazz Times)
* The South African Songbook: Jazz Musicians Who Stayed During Apartheid (NPR)
* Tony Bennett Brings the Holiday Spirit With His Animated Yule Log (Parade)
* A Major Music Distributor Has Stifled Vinyl Sales for Record Stores and Indie Labels, Sources Say (Pitchfork.com)
* 'It's a Total Nightmare': Problems at Direct Shot Distributing Have Made New Vinyl and CDs Scarce (Billboard)
* No Other Love Is the B-Side of the Chicago Gospel Story (Chicago)
* How headphones are changing the sound of music (QZ.com)
* A Bessie Smith Christmas (Jazz Times)

Sunday Session: November 13, 2016

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

* When Bob Dylan Practiced Downstairs (Village Voice)
* Searching for Albert Ayler (Jazz Times)
* What Sun Ra's Poetry Can Teach Us About Afrofuturism (Vice.com)
* Marshall Allen: Son of Ra (Jazz Times)
* The Story of ‘Ella and Louis,’ 60 Years Later A century-defining album’s improbable genesis. (LongReads.com)
* Adobe’s “Photoshop for audio” mimics human voices to add words someone never said (FactMag.com)
* Saint John Coltrane Church Finds A New Groove In NoPa (Hoodline.com)
* Vijay Iyer on Musical and Ethnic Identity (SPIN)
* How Abbey Road got game: the invasion of the video-game soundtrack (The Guardian UK)
* A new injection-moulded vinyl technology promises to slash costs and improve sound quality (FactMag.com)
* Injection Moulded Records – Vinyl Of The Future? (Discogs.com)
* The Man Who'll Make a Gorgeous Guitar Out of Anything (Popular Mechanics)
* My Job At A Record Label Makes Me Cry — But I Won't Quit (Refinery29.com)
* Music technology needs internationalism, safe expression (CDM.link)
* Why The Rebirth Of Liner Notes Matters For Music (HypeBot.com)
* Musical Cannibalism With Cyro Baptista (NPR)
* The Future 50: The Rising Stars To Look Out For (The Guardian UK)
* Bassist Victor Bailey Dies at 56 (Jazz Times)
* How Newark became one of the greatest jazz cities in the world (The Guardian UK)

Sunday Session: May 8, 2016

Alice Coltrane

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

* Despite recognition, jazz sax player Steve Coleman finds respite in Allentown (Allentown Morning Call)
* Founding Fathers, A Documentary Narrated By Public Enemy’s Chuck D, Presents the True History of Hip Hop (OpenCulture.com)
* Architecture and explosion: Cecil Taylor, the composer (Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches)
* A conversation with Wayne Shorter, jazz’s patron bodhisattva (CapitalBop.com)
* How to Sound Check the World’s Most Powerful Rocket (Vice.com)
* 2016 Ertegun Hall of Fame Voting Ballot (Jazz at Lincoln Center)
* Jazz Fest Day 7: Dancing Across the Water (Offbeat)
* New York Is Killing Me: Albert Ayler’s Life and Death in the Jazz Capital (Pitchfork.com)
* Why Jazz Musicians Can Be The Biggest Jerks (LearnJazzStandards.com)
* Field Notes: Jazz at the White House - The Obamas host jazz greats to celebrate International Jazz Day (Jazz Times)
* Prince versus the internet: The love-hate relationship that predicted the future (FactMag.com)
* Kamasi Washington on the Pressures of Being Called Jazz's Savior (Esquire)
* The 30 best jazz films (The Telegraph UK)
* Why the Death of Greatest Hits Albums and Reissues Is Worth Mourning (Pitchfork.com)
* Radiohead erases internet presence – is it a cryptic message? (The Guardian UK)
* At 83, Bob Koester opens his newest record store (and how it compares to Jazz Record Mart) (Chicago Tribune)
* More Photos from the 2016 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest (DownBeat)
* Little Richard Denies Near-Death Rumors: 'I'm Still Singing' (Rolling Stone)
* Soul Survivor - The revival and hidden treasure of Aretha Franklin (The New Yorker)
* We should celebrate greats like Sly Stone while they're still with us (The Guardian UK)
* Spirits Loom Large at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest (DownBeat)
* Gorillas make up ‘little food songs’ while they eat: Listen to them here (DangerousMinds.net)
* Universal Consciousness: The Spiritual Awakening of Alice Coltrane (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* Red’s Bells (Do The Math)
* Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously. (VellumAtlanta.com)
* Cuneiform Records – Thirty-plus Years of Essential Listening (Goldmine)
* Why Jazz Will Always Be Relevant (TheFader.com)
* Memes, MP3s and the explosion of album art (The Guardian UK)
* Wadada Leo Smith and Don Cheadle to Receive Honorary Degrees From CalArts - Awards to be given out May 13 (Jazz Times)
* Anthony Braxton: Ghost Trance Music - Mapping the Systems of the Jazz Musician’s Sound (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* How to Pick Music for People on LSD, From a Scientist Whose Job That Is (Vice.com)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Jazz Film Festival Summer 2013

It's summer vacation time, and today we take a respite from the usual routine of previewing upcoming jazz shows in St. Louis to present our own little online jazz film festival.

Up above, A Great Day in Harlem is a 1994 documentary film that tells the story behind one of the most famous photos in the history of jazz: the 1958 B&W group portrait of 57 notable jazz musicians photographed by Art Kane, a freelancer for Esquire magazine, in front of a brownstone at 17 E. 126 Street in Harlem. The photo has remained an important object in the study of the history of jazz, and the film was nominated in 1995 for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

Down below is The Swing Thing, a 2008 BBC documentary on swing music and dancing that spotlights some of the most popular groups and singers of the big band era.

Below that is another BBC film, 1959: The Year that Changed Jazz which uses four classic albums - Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, Dave Brubeck's Time Out, Charles Mingus' Mingus Ah Um and Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come - as a lens through which to examine "the seismic year jazz broke away from complex bebop music to new forms, allowing soloists unprecedented freedom to explore and express."

We close out with three films profiling famous jazz musicians: Buddy Rich - Jazz Legend '17 - '70, a biographical documentary on the great drummer; A Night in Havana: Dizzy Gillespie in Cuba, which looks at the legendary trumpeter's trip to the island nation for a mid-1980s music festival; and My Name Is Albert Ayler, a 2007 biography of the free jazz saxophonist.

Luther Thomas releases Ayler tribute

In part because he's lived in Europe for much of the last two decades, saxophonist Luther Thomas (pictured) isn't quite as well known ro American jazz fans as his former Black Artists Group colleagues Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill and Hamiet Bluiett.

However, Thomas' recordings from back in the day with the Human Arts Ensemble, particularly Funky Donkey, are seen as prime examples of the particular mixture of free jazz and funk developed in St. Louis during the BAG years, and Thomas has continued to perform and record, though much of his recent output has been for small European labels without much US distribution.

Distribution should be no problem for Thomas' latest effort, though, since it's a download-only release, available to anyone with a suitable fast Net connection and 8.70 Euros (that's a little more than $12 US, in case you were wondering.)

Meditations on Albert Ayler was recorded on March 8, 2007 at the Glenn Miller Café in Stockholm, Sweden, and features Thomas (alto sax), Jair-Rohm Parker Wells (bass) and Tony Bianco (drums). According to the Ayler Records label, which is releasing the recording, "it is not an "Ayler cover band". The music presented is improvised music inspired by the life, music and words of a musician who extended the vocabulary and the scope of the music formerly known as "Jazz"."

You can read more about the album here, or download it directly from this page.