Sunday Session: December 20, 2020

Stanley Cowell

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

* “Up From the Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music” Documentary Debuts Today (Offbeat)
* A Marvelous Marble Machine for Making Music (Kottke.org)
* Art Tatum on V-Disc (Jazz Times)
* Sir Barry Gibb: 'Christmas songs haven't been appropriate for 50 years' (BBC)
* Watch Legendary Saxophonist Azar Lawrence Share His Favorite LPs (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* 50 Years Later, 'Feliz Navidad' Still Delivers On Its Bilingual Message (NPR)
* "My goal is to reach people on an emotional level" — The Kenny Barron interview (Ottawa Citizen)
* Danny Jonokuchi & The Revisionists Win Inaugural Count Basie Contest (DownBeat)
* An Examination of Black Coffee by Peggy Lee (Jazz Times)
* Brilliant Acting Makes ‘Ma Rainey’ A Transcendent Film (DownBeat)
* Chicago blues harmonica player Sugar Blue: Running one step ahead of the coronavirus around the world (Chicago Tribune)
* How Branford Marsalis recreated the perfectly imperfect style of 1920s blues for ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ (GoldDerby.com)
* In Memoriam: Jazz Night in America Remembers 10 Musicians Who Altered Shape Of Jazz (NPR)
* 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' composer Branford Marsalis says blues legend Rainey commanded attention (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
* The Mutual Musicians Foundation is fighting the gentrification of Jazz in Kansas City (ScalawagMagazine.org)
* Big Data will analyse the mystery of Beethoven's metronome (Phys.org)
* Stanley Cowell, Pianist, Composer and Educator with a Kaleidoscopic View of Jazz, Is Dead at 79 (WBGO)
* Nels Cline Double-Sizes The Singers (DownBeat)
* Jeff Clayton 1955–2020 (Jazz Times)
* Black Mystery School Pianists (New Music Box)
* Jeff Clayton, Versatile Saxophonist and Flutist, and Devoted Jazz Educator, Has Died at 66 (WBGO)
* A Christmas Waltz with Duke Ellington (Jazz Times)
* For midsized music venues, ‘thoughts & prayers’ won’t be enough (Buffalo News)
* Stanley Cowell, Pianist, Composer and Educator with a Kaleidoscopic View of Jazz, Is Dead at 79 (WBGO)

Sunday Session: September 10, 2017

Art Tatum

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have appeared in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Steely Dan Guitarist Walter Becker Dies at 67 (DownBeat)
* EWS: Walter Becker (1950-2017) R.I.P. (London Jazz News)
* Walter Becker Was A Master Of Musical Understatement (NPR)
* Vijay Iyer On Jazz's 'History Of Defiance,' His Influences And Playing In A Sextet (NPR)
* Gunter Hampel at 80: Still Ahead of Time (JazzDaGama.com)
* Every Night Perfect (Popular Mechanics)
* The Rise And Fall Of Tower Records (Flashbak.com)
* Wadada Leo Smith's Defiant And Fearless Elegy For Emmett Till (In 360˚ VR) (WBGO)
* Roscoe Mitchell, Who Helped Invent New Chicago Jazz Sound, Comes Home (Chicago magazine)
* Chicago Jazz Fest Shines Spotlight on Hometown Talent (DownBeat)
* Holger Czukay, sampling pioneer and co-founder of Can, has died at age 79 (FactMag.com)
* Holger Czukay obituary (The Guardian)
* Tower Of Power Singer Rick Stevens Dies (Pollstar.com)
* BassDrumBone and the New Haven Jazz Renaissance (AllAboutJazz.com)
* In Praise of Art Tatum, Stealth Radical in the Jazz Piano Pantheon (WBGO)
* Looking back at 20 years of neglected promise at 18th and Vine — and forward to 2020 (Pitch Weekly)
* Ella Fitzgerald Sings With London Symphony Orchestra On New Album (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Berklee To Turn A Legendary Recording Studio Into Its New York City Home Base (WBUR)
* Jimmy’s Blues (Los Angeles Review of Books)
* A Nation of Tinkerers: How a Canadian University Shaped Electronic Music in North America (Vice.com)
* The World’s Largest Music Publishers Just Declared War on Spotify — In No Uncertain Terms (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* We Talked to People at the Largest Free Jazz Festival on the Planet (Vice.com)
* Iggy Pop: Croon & Destroy - From his Stooges days to a surprising recent collaboration, the punk pioneer discusses his jazz past (Jazz Times)
* World’s oldest jazz band in Shanghai a rare constant amid China’s breakneck modernisation (South China Morning Post)
* Should Spotify Try to Become the 'Netflix Of Music'? Not So Fast (Billboard)
* 'Germans Love Their CDs': Universal Music Exec on How Germany's Music Market Is Transforming 'Differently' (Billboard)
* Two Years Later, Is New Music Friday Doing Its Job? (Forbes)
* What if you used synthesizers to emulate nature and reality? (CDM.link)
* Why Esperanza Spalding Is the Most Audacious Innovator in Jazz (Time)
* How We Can Support the World’s Rich Musical Diversity (Smithsonian)
* Review: Detroit Jazz Festival 2017 - Artist-in-residence Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and others impress at this outstanding free fest in the Motor City (Jazz Times)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Jazz Film Festival Summer 2013, part 2

This week, we continue our summer festival of jazz films with five documentaries looking at the lives of legendary musicians, plus a vintage TV special from the 1970s featuring performances from a stellar lineup of musicians still active then.

First up is Art Tatum: The Art of Jazz Piano, the only documentary portrait of the great pianist.

Down below, you'll find The Long Night of Lady Day, a look at the life of singer Billie Holiday originally aired as part of PBS' American Masters; and More Than You Know, a documentary about tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon.

Below that, it's Music in the Key of Oscar, about pianist Oscar Peterson; and Joe Zawinul: A Musical Portrait, a BBC film about the Weather Report keyboardist.

The final film is an all-star jazz show first broadcast on CBS in 1976 as The Original Rompin' Stompin' Hot And Heavy, Cool And Groove All Star Jazz Show. Hosted by Dionne Warwick, the Emmy winning film was directed by Gary Keys and recorded at the Ed Sullivan Theater in NYC.

Aired as part of the network's "Lively Arts for Young People" series, it traces the history of jazz from spirituals to fusion and jazz-rock, and includes performances from Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Max Roach, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, and Joe Williams.