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: October 11, 2020

Cécile McLorin Salvant

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

* Javon Jackson: Finding Uplift in the Guiding Tradition of Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The Etymology of "Jazz": A Cautionary Word About Digital Sources (HNN.us)
* Lost In The Vaults: The Joys Of Collecting Jazz Records (TheLondonEconomic.com)
* Jazz Musician Lettering (ReaganRay.com)
* Azar Lawrence Has Paid His Dues...Two Times (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Hank Mobley's 'Soul Station' At 60: How The Tenor Saxophonist's Mellow Masterpiece Inspires Jazz Musicians In 2020 (Grammy.com)
* 19 things I’d tell people contemplating starting a record label (after running one for 19 years) (TheCreativeIndependent.com)
* Ambrose Akinmusire: Blues for 2020 (Jazz Times)
* Pay-for-Play Was Banned From Radio - But Texts Reveal It May Still Be Thriving (Rolling Stone)
* Cecile McLorin Salvant Earns a Prestigious New Accolade: the 2020 MacArthur "Genius Grant" (WBGO)
* ‘How Does It Feel To Be Free?’ (DownBeat)
* Chaos, cash and Caligulan excess: How Emerson, Lake & Palmer made Brain Salad Surgery (LouderSound.com)
* The Keystone Connections Of Fabian Almazan (DownBeat)
* Cindy Blackman Santana, a drum dynamo in jazz and rock, riffs on music, her all-star new album and famous husband (Columbus Dispatch)
* 'You're left to rot if you speak up': the abuse faced by female roadies (The Guardian)
* Melissa Aldana’s Expansive Playing Leads Trio Through Central Park Gig (DownBeat)
* A Guide to Sun Ra on Film (Pitchfork.com)
* Joe Satriani Talks How Guitar Teacher Treated Him When He Was a Kid: 'He Was Completely Blind & He Wore Only Leotards' (Ultimate Guitar)
* Lakecia Benjamin’s Boundless Sensibility On Display (DownBeat)
* Willie Nelson, Interpreter of the Great American Songbook (Texas Monthly)
* 100 Reasons We Love Yusef Lateef for His 100th Birthday (Discogs.com)
* From Bandstand to Social Justice: How Jazz Remains 'America's Classical Music' (KCET)
* A Multicultural Tribute to Yusef Lateef on His Centennial (VIDEO) (Jazz Times)
* Ella Fitzgerald, Come Harvest Time: Jazz United Fondly Reappraises the First Lady of Song (WBGO)
* Denver’s Ron Miles debuts on Blue Note label with “Rainbow Sign” (Denver Post)
* Sun Ra Arkestra's Knoel Scott On New Album 'Swirling,' Sun Ra's Legacy & Music As A Healing Force (Grammy.com)

Sunday Session: December 1, 2019

Azar Lawrence

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

* 63 years after jazz great Louis Armstrong played at Muhlenberg, long lost concert set for release (The Morning Call)
* Sun Ra and Me | “It’s After the End of the World, Don’t You Know That Yet?” (The Metropolitan)
* Meet the man who restores old music to its original glory (Popular Science)
* Samara McLendon Wins the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition (WBGO)
* Paper Trail: Where You Can Find the Historical Documents of Jazz (Jazz Times)
* Cyrille Aimée Is Moving On (Jazz Times)
* Spotify Faces $1 Billion Lawsuit Over Intentional Copyright Infringement, Deceptive Trade Practices (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Are your favorite Instagram guitarists faking their incredible technique? (Guitar World)
* Dave Holland: “You can improvise in open-form style for as long as you like, but you’ll never improvise ‘Giant Steps’” (Jazzwise)
* The Pristine Empire of ECM Records (The New Yorker)
* The Loneliness of a Highbrow Teenage Songwriting Robot (Bloomberg.com)
* Sun Ra Arkestra’s June Tyson Was the Queen of Afrofuturism (Bandcamp.com)
* The Who by Fire (Rolling Stone)
* A Half-Century Not Out: Art Ensemble Of Chicago Live (TheQuietus.com)
* Jazz Legend Charlie Parker Honored With Global Bird 100 Centennial Celebration (BroadwayWorld.com)
* 12 Erroll Garner Albums Reissued in Octave Remastered Series (DownBeat)
* Hank Mobley, The Master of Contrasts (DownBeat)
* Sheila Jordan, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Veronica Swift: Three Generations of Vocal Jazz (Jazz Times)
* Why New Orleans jazz legend Buddy Bolden's house should be saved (New Orleans Advocate)
* The unlikely tale of 'Do They Know It's Christmas?': An 'OK song that became something much better than it actually was' (Yahoo News)
* “Music Affects Us In A Healing Way”: Azar Lawrence Is On A Mission (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Anne Midgette - Classical Chronicler Supreme (Perfect Sound Forever)