Sunday Session: October 16, 2016

Charlie Parker

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

* Music of the Presses: How an L.A. Printer Kept the Art of the Album Cover Alive (Collector's Weekly)
* Dual Identities: A Conversation With Jazz Soulmates Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa (Pitchfork)
* Computer Scientist Publishes Manifesto for Expressive Algorithmic Music (Vice.com)
* Norah Jones: "2016 Is a Weird Place to Be" (Paste)
* Is the Album a Dead Format for Music? (Inc)
* Friday essay: the sound of fear (TheConversation.com)
* Music of the mind: a stunning string quartet created through brainwaves (Aeon.co)
* Surviving Oldchella: Scenes From the Ultimate Classic Rock Rager (Pitchfork)
* The Making of The Last Waltz, the Band’s Concert-Film Masterpiece (Vanity Fair)
* How Rock and Roll Became White (Slate.com)
* Mind-blowing psychedelic 60s posters of Hendrix, Dylan, Pink Floyd, Yoko Ono & The Who (DangerousMinds.net)
* Bob Dylan, the Musician: America’s Great One-Man Songbook (New York Times)
* After Dylan's Nobel, how about Springsteen, Mitchell, Cohen? (CNN)
* How the Most Important Promoter in NY Ensures the Music Never Stops (Observer.com)
* The Night When Charlie Parker Played for Igor Stravinsky (1951) (OpenCulture.com)
* Jazz great Steve Coleman putting down roots in Detroit (Detroit Free Press)
* Is New Orleans A Music City? (Offbeat)
* Avishai Cohen: A Beautiful Melancholy (Jazz Times)
* How improving US-Cuba relations has helped this jazz musician (PRI)

Jazz this week: Moon Hooch, Avishai Cohen's Triveni, Mardra & Reggie Thomas, and more

Memorial Day weekend may be arriving a bit earlier than usual this year, but along with it, St. Louis fans of jazz and creative music can enjoy a couple of touring headliners, the return of some longtime local favorites, a day of performances paying tribute to an influential figure on the local scene, and more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 20
Moon Hooch (pictured, top left) returns to St. Louis for another gig at 2720 Cherokee. The difficult-to-categorize trio got their start busking in the subways and streets of NYC, and over the past couple of years have brought their funky, stripped-down sound to clubs, concerts and festivals.

Also tonight, Sarah Jane & The Blue Notes perform at the Feasting Fox, and guitarist Dave Black plays at Thurman Grill.

Thursday, May 21
Trumpeter Avishai Cohen (pictured, center left) brings his trio Triveni to Jazz at the Bistro for one night only.

Also featuring drummer Nasheet Waits, who's appeared on all three of the group's recordings, and bassist Linda Oh, subbing for Omer Avital, Triveni is featured on three of Cohen's recordings as a leader, the most recent of which is Dark Nights, released last October. 

You can read more about Cohen and Triveni and see some samples of them in performance in this video post from last Saturday, and you can read a review of their show this week in Kansas City here.

Elsewhere around town, pianist Ptah Williams and guitarist Eric Slaughter are continuing with themed shows in their weekly residency at The Dark Room, this week performing music from the songbook of Earth, Wind and Fire.

Friday, May 22
Former St. Louisans Mardra and Reggie Thomas, whose vocals and keyboards were staples of the local music scene for more than a decade, will be back in town to headline two nights of performances at Jazz at the Bistro.

After moving to Michigan several years ago, the Thomasas (pictured, bottom left) now are based in Macomb, IL, where last fall Reggie Thomas succeeded Ronald Carter as head of the jazz studies program at Northern Illinois University.

This weekend, they'll be showcasing some of the music from their most recent album, Matters of the Heart, accompanied by a band including three St. Louis musicians - saxophonist Jason Swagler, bassist Zeb Briskovich, and drummer Montez Coleman - plus backing vocalists Nicole Jonas, Olivia Neal, and Zelina Star, and Detroit native Perry Hughes on guitar.

Elsewhere on Friday, the annual Glendale Jazz Festival will feature free, outdoor performances from the St. Louis Big Band, blues guitarist Pennsylvania Slim, and Miss Jubilee at Glendale City Hall, 424 N Sappington Rd.; singers and brothers Tony Viviano and Frank Viviano will join forces at Talayna's Italian Restaurant in Chesterfiled; and singer Joe Mancuso brings a quartet to Nathalie's.

Saturday, May 23
Saxophonist Tim Cunningham will be back at Troy's Jazz Gallery, while guitarist Eric Slaughter and bassist Glen Smith will team up for some duets at Thurman Grill.

Sunday, May 24
Jazz St. Louis will present the second Richard McDonnell Memorial Concert at Jazz at the Bistro. The concert honoring the memory of the late founder of MAXJAZZ records and former Jazz St. Louis board member will begin mid-afternoon and continue through the evening will music from Peter Martin, the Funky Butt Brass Band, Adam Maness, Bob DeBoo, Eric Slaughter, Montez Coleman, Jesse Gannon, and more. 

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.)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Avishai Cohen's Triveni reimagines standards

This week, our video spotlight shines on trumpeter Avishai Cohen, who will be in St. Louis to perform for one night only this Thursday, May 21 at Jazz at the Bistro. Cohen will be playing with his group Triveni, a trio with bassist Omer Avital and drummer Nasheet Waits that plays stripped-down versions of well-known songs from the modern jazz repertoire, along with original material in a similar style.

Not to be confused with the jazz bassist of the same name, the trumpet-playing Avishai Cohen is a native of Tel Aviv, Israel and the younger brother of clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen and saxophonist Yuval Cohen, with whom he tours and records as The 3 Cohens.

He also has played since 2010 in the SF JAZZ Collective, succeeding Nicholas Payton and Dave Douglas in the group's trumpet chair. Although this will be Cohen's first gig at the Bistro as a bandleader, he did play the club once previously in November 2007 with Waverly Seven, a one-shot project that also included his sister.

Like his siblings, Avishai Cohen first came to the United States to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, and like his sister Anat, he stayed here after graduation and moved to NYC to launch his career. Since then, he's recorded seven albums as a leader, including three with Triveni, the most recent of which, Dark Nights, was released last October.

You can see Triveni perform "Dark Nights, Darker Days," the composition from which the album's title was derived, in the first video up above. After the jump, there's a video of them playing "You In All Directions," which, like the first clip, was recorded "live in studio" at The Bunker in Brooklyn.

The third clip goes back to October 2010, when the trio promoted their first album by performing in the studios of radio station WBGO for the program "The Checkout."

After that, there are three live tracks recorded more recently by variants of the band's principal lineup. "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," which is on the Dark Nights... album, was recorded in February of this year in Rotterdam by Cohen, bassist Yoni Zelnik, and drummer Justin Brown.

Then, it's "One Man's Idea" from the 2014 North Sea Jazz Festival, with Cohen, Zelnik and Waits; and "Safety Land," recorded in February 2014 at Jazzhouse in Copenhagen by Cohen, Waits and bassist Reiner Elizarde.

Last but not least, there's a brief video interview from last fall, with Cohen talking about the concept for the band as Waits and Zelnik look on.

For more about Avishai Cohen and Triveni, see the interview with Cohen published in August 2014 by AllAboutJazz.com and his October 2014 interview with Music and Literature magazine.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spring 2015 jazz preview, bonus edition

With both New Music Circle and Jazz at the Bistro recently announcing some additions to their respective spring schedules, today let's check out some some video samples of those bands and musicians coming here in those just-announced performances.

First up are pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist Michael Bisio, who will be playing a concert presented by NMC on Saturday, March 28 at The Stage at KDHX. The video at the top of this post shows them performing a full set in September 2015 at the Bop Shop in Rochester, NY.

After the jump, it's the Robert Glasper Experiment, who will bring along trumpeter and St. Louis native Keyon Harrold as a special guest for shows on Wednesday, April 22 and Thursday, April 23 at Jazz at the Bistro.

You can see a complete concert by Glasper, the Experiment and the Metropole Orkest, recorded in 2014 at the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Netherlands, followed by a clip from Harrold's YouTube page, showing him jamming with the Experiment and trading licks with saxophonist Casey Benjamin in an excerpt from a show last January at the Troubador in Los Angeles.

The fourth video features Black Host, the group led by drummer Gerald Cleaver who will be playing a New Music Circle concert on Saturday, April 25, also at The Stage at KDHX. It's a full set of theirs recorded in May, 2013 at SEEDS::Brooklyn, a house concert venue in the NYC borough of the same name.

Next up is percussionist Pedrito Martinez and his group, who will play a one-nighter at the Bistro on Thursday, May 7. They're seen here at the 2015 Panama Jazz Festival playing "Buscando Guayabas," which you might know from the late 1970s version by Willie Colon and Ruben Blades.

Last but not least, there's a full set from trumpeter Avishai Cohen's trio Trevini, recorded April 30, 2013 at Duc Des Lombards, Paris for International Jazz Day. Trevini also will be playing a one-nighter at the Bistro, on Thursday, May 21.

Tickets for the New Music Circle concerts are on sale now via Brown Paper Tickets. Tickets for the Jazz at the Bistro shows are available now for purchase by Jazz at the Bistro subscribers, and will go on sale to the general public at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 11 via phone at 314-571-6000 and online.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Jazz at the Bistro adds performances by Robert Glasper with Keyon Harrold, Pedrito Martinez Group, Avishai Cohen's Triveni

Jazz St. Louis today announced three additions to the spring 2015 schedule at Jazz at the Bistro.

Most notably, the Robert Glasper Experiment with special guest, St Louis' own Keyon Harrold, on trumpet, will perform on Wednesday, April 22 and Thursday, April 23 at the Bistro.

Along with the leader on keyboards, the regular lineup of the Experiment (pictured) also includes another St. Louisan, drummer Marc Colenburg, as well as bassist Derrick Hodge and saxophonist and vocalist Casey Benjamin.

They recently won a 2015 Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Jesus Children," a song from Glasper's 2013 album Black Radio 2 that featured guest vocal performances from Lalah Hathaway (daughter of another former St. Louisan, the late keyboardist, singer and songwriter Donny Hathaway) and Malcolm Jamal Warner.

Glasper's only visit to the old version of the Bistro was back in 2012, and given how much his star has risen since then, plus the additional local interest stemming from the presence of Harrold and Colenburg, tickets for these shows in the newly expanded venue seem likely to be a hot commodity.

Also added to the spring schedule were single evenings featuring the Bistro debuts of percussionist Pedrito Martinez and his group on Thursday, May 7, and trumpeter Avishai Cohen's Triveni on Thursday, May 21.

Martinez, who was born in Cuba but has lived since 1998 in NYC, has played with notable musicians and singers including Paquito D’Rivera, Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Eddie Palmieri, Cassandra Wilson, Arturo O’Farrill, Joe Lovano, and more, and also co-founded the group Yerba Buena. The first album by his eponymous band, The Pedrito Martinez Group, was released in 2013; it made the year-end "best of" lists of a number of jazz critics and also earned a Grammy nomination.

Cohen is the brother of clarinetist/saxophonist Anat Cohen and saxophonist Yuval Cohen, and like his siblings was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel before coming to the US. He has released seven albums as a leader including three with Triveni, which is a trio also featuring bassist Omer Avital and drummer Nasheet Waits. Their St. Louis performances are part of a week of shows that also will include dates in NYC, Boston and Chicago.

As per usual at the Bistro, all three acts will play will two separate sets each night, at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Tickets for the Robert Glasper Experiment with Keyon Harrold are priced at $35 for adults, $15 for students; for Avishai Cohen's Triveni, $30 for adults, $10 for students; and for Pedrito Martinez, $25 for adults and $10 for students.

Tickets for all three shows are available now for purchase by Jazz at the Bistro subscribers, and will go on sale to the general public at 10:30 a.m. next Wednesday, March 11 via phone at 314-571-6000 and online.

More on Waverly Seven and the 3 Cohens

Missed this last week somehow, but the Post-Dispatch's Calvin Wilson had an interview with clarinetist/saxophonist Anat Cohen of Waverly Seven, viewable online here. It's short, but worth a read for more background on the band and Ms. Cohen.

For more Cohen coverage, check out Ben Ratliff's New York Times review of the new CD from from the 3 Cohens - (Anat, trumpet-playing younger brother Avishai (also a member of Waverly Seven), and older brother/saxophonist Yural) here.

Pollstar: Bistro adds Waverly Seven to 2007-08 schedule

The online touring information service Pollstar has just listed Waverly Seven (pictured) as the latest addition to the 2007-08 season schedule at Jazz at the Bistro, showing the group set to perform in St. Louis from Wednesday, November 28 through Saturday, December 1.

So who are Waverly Seven? Well, don't feel too bad if you don't recognize the name, because the band was formed just six months ago and only did its first public performance in March 2007.

However, you may very well be familiar with some of the individual musicians, all young New York-based players, including brother and sister Avishai Cohen (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Anat Cohen (saxophones and clarinets), along with Joel Frahm (saxophones), Manuel Valera (keyboards), Jason Lindner (keyboards), Barak Mori (bass) and Daniel Freedman (drums, percussion). The band's debut recording Yo, Bobby, a reimagining of 24 songs associated with singer Bobby Darin, is set for release on June 26.

I'll reserve judgment on the CD until I actually hear it, but based on the concept, instrumentation and reputations of the individual musicians, this seems like a very interesting booking. Gene Dobbs Bradford, Bob Bennett and the rest of the JSL crew deserve some kudos for taking a chance on something new and, one hopes, musically adventurous.

As longtime readers know, in the past I've criticized JSL and other St. Louis presenters for being too risk-averse and for repeatedly booking too many of the same artists. Thus, when they do try to do something different, it only seems fair to give credit where it's due. Although the half-dozen artists and groups that have leaked out so far via Pollstar only give part of the picture, next season at the Bistro appears to be shaping up to be a strong one.

However, and as always, the information published by Pollstar is subject to change, and should not be considered official until confirmed by the presenter or venue. In this case, that confirmation should be coming fairly soon, since mid-May is usually the time that Jazz St. Louis announces the complete Bistro schedule for the following season. Keep an eye on StLJN for updated information.
In the meantime, you can sample a bit of Waverly Seven on video by clicking on the window below, activating a clip of a performance of "Black Coffee" recorded at the band's sold-out public debut in March at NYC's Jazz Standard.

(Edited 5/18/07 to fix a misspelled tag.)