Here's StLJN's weekly wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* Merci, Miles! Live at Vienne, the newly released album of previously unheard recordings from Miles Davis' last concert (pictured), was reviewed in Jazz Times magazine.
* The Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival this week announced that the event will return on Saturday, September 19, featuring a dozen acts on two stages with headliners including blues guitarist/singer Marquise Knox, jazz-fusion band Bach to the Future, and singer Erin Bode.
* St. Louis magazine's annual "A-List" issue is out, and readers' picks for 2021 include the Funky Butt Brass Band as "Favorite Original Band", The Pageant as "Favorite Live Music Venue" and Erin Bode as "Favorite Vocalist." You can see the entire issue (albeit in flip-book format) here.
* The Riverfront Times reports that the Way Out Club, a fixture of south city nightlife and alternative music for 27 years, will close permanently next month.
* Bassist Damon Smith has released another recording, Bass Duos 2000-2007, featuring 3 CDs' worth of duo improvisations with fellow bassists Joëlle Léandre, Bertram Turetzky, and the late Peter Kowald.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* Miles Davis is one of five musicians to be featured in "Space Is The Place," a radio series on the UK's JazzFM presenting "specially commissioned dramas...based on five pivotal moments in the lives of some of Jazz FM’s legendary artists." The other featured artists will include Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong and Sun Ra; the Davis episode will air on Monday, December 7.
* Nominees for the 2021 Grammy Awards were announced this week, and the list includes St. Louis' own Marcus Baylor, whose group The Baylor Project (co-led with his wife, singer Jean Baylor) was nominated for "Best Traditional R&B Performance" for their song "Sit on Down."
In addition, three more St. Louisans - bassist Jahmal Nichols, drummer Emanuel Harrold, and trumpeter Keyon Harrold - performed on singer Gregory Porter's All Rise, which was nominated in the "Best R&B Album" category.
* Saxophonist David Sanborn has released another short video as part of his "Sanborn Sessions" web series, in which he teams up with various musical friends for some performances recorded in his home studio. The latest episode features Sanborn with his longtime collaborator, organist Joey DeFrancesco.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* The Baylor Project, led by drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor and singer Jean Baylor, has released a new single, “Sit On Down,” which is now available for download and for listening on the major streaming services.
* Trombonist and St. Louis native Charlie Halloran, now residing in New Orleans, also has a new album out. Titled Shake the Rum, it offers Halloran's take on calypso music, and is available now for download or in CD format via his Bandcamp page.
* With this year's event postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, National Record Store Day has announced a plan to move forward later in the year, with special releases hitting participating stores on August 29, September 26 & October 24.
* Capitalizing on the St. Louis Blues' run for the NHL's Stanley Cup, singer and multi-instrumentalist Tonina Saputo has recorded a video of her cover version of "Gloria," the 1982 hit by singer Laura Branigan that has become the team's victory anthem. You can see the video here.
* Organizers of the Nevermore Jazz Ball have announced the event's dates for 2018. The annual celebration of swing dancing and music will take place from Thursday, November 1 through Sunday, November 4 at various venues around town, with tickets going on sale on a date this summer TBA.
* North County is getting a new musical instrument store in a familiar location, as Low Key Music will open next Monday, April 9 at 6235 N. Lindbergh, the former site of Dale's Music. The store's Facebook page also has announced an "open house" for musicians and band directors from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. tomorrow (Saturday, April 7).
* Voting is now open for the next group of prospective inductees to Jazz at Lincoln Center's Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, and one of this year's 10 nominees has a local connection. That would be the innovative bassist Jimmy Blanton, who gained fame playing with Duke Ellington's orchestra before his tragic death from tuberculosis at age 23. Blanton's very first professional job was in St. Louis, playing with the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra for a year before joining Ellington.
You can see the whole list of nominated musicians and cast your vote here. Voting ends at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Saturday, April 28, and the three nominees who receive the most votes will be inducted in 2018.
* Keyboardist and Metro East native David Garfield, best known for his work with guitarist and singer George Benson, has a new tune on, of all places, the country charts. According to a press release, “I Lied,” a "power pop" ballad written by Garfield with Motown's Smokey Robinson and sung by vocalist J. Paris, has reached No. 60 on the Music Row singles chart this week and gained New & Active status on the Billboard Indicator chart. The song will appear on Garfield’s upcoming album Vox Outside the Box, release date TBA.
This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features the local debut of a Grammy-nominated act featuring one of the city's own; a rare local appearance from a founder of one of the most uncompromising free jazz/noise bands of all time; several student ensembles showing off what they've learned this year, and more. Let's go to the highlights...
Led by singer Jean Baylor and her husband, drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor (pictured), they were nominated this year for Grammy awards in both jazz and R&B categories. You can find out more about them and see some videos of live performances in this post from last week.
Also on Wednesday, singer Joe Mancuso performs for the last night of his winter residency at Taha'a Twisted Tiki, and the "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features the St. Louis Steady Grinders at The Stage at KDHX, the weekly jam session hosted by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center; and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet at The Dark Room.
Friday, March 30
The closing concert of the annual "Essentially Ellington" festival at SIU Edwardsville's Dunham Hall will feature the participating student bands, plus the SIUE Concert Jazz Band and jazz faculty and visiting clinicians including trumpeter Terell Stafford, pianist Reggie Thomas, bassists Rodney Whitaker and Jeff Campbell, and drummer Dennis Mackrel.
Sunday, April 1
Saxophonist Don Dietrich, best known as one of the founding members of the apocalyptic free-jazz group Borbetomagus, teams with composer/sculptor Ben Hall for a performance at The Sinkhole; Tim Cunningham headlines a bill featuring fellow saxophonists Antoine Washington, Terry Grohman and Kendrick Smith at Troy's Jazz Gallery; and the The Jazz Troubadours return to Evangeline's.
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.)
This week, StLJN's video spotlight shines on The Baylor Project, who will be making their St. Louis debut starting next Wednesday, March 28 through Saturday, March 31 at Jazz at the Bistro.
Fronted by singer Jean Baylor and drummer Marcus Baylor, her husband and a native of the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, they released their first album The Baylor Project (The Journey) in 2017 and were nominated for Grammy Awards this year in the categories of Best Jazz Vocal Album and Best Traditional R&B Performance.
Previously, Marcus had been known for his work as a member of the jazz-fusion band Yellowjackets from 2000 to 2010, while Jean, using her maiden name Jean Norris, sang with Zhané, the hip-hop/soul duo known for 1990s hits such as "Hey, Mr. DJ" and "Groove Thang" and later had released a couple of solo albums.
The music they make as The Baylor Project draws on those varied influences, blending contemporary jazz with R&B/soul and adding a bit of gospel flavor, which seems fitting for a couple of preachers' kids. But rather than read further description, you can see and hear for yourself in the first clip up above, a performance of their Grammy-nominated song "Laugh and Move On" recorded in November 2017 at the studios of radio station WERS in Boston.
After the jump, you can see them play Herbie Hancock's "Tell Me a Bedtime Story," with original lyrics by Jean Baylor, and Mongo Santamaría's "Afro Blue," as recorded in January of this year in the studios of WBGO in Newark, NJ.
The last three videos were recorded in the music room at South Restaurant in Philadelphia, circa February 2017, and feature the Baylors performing their interpretations of the well-known hymn "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" and the standards "Tenderly" and "Our Love Is Here To Stay."
* Message to Our Folks, the book about the Art Ensemble of Chicago written by bassist and Washington University professor Paul Steinbeck and released last year by the University of Chicago Press, has been translated into Italian as Grande Musica Nera. Published by Quodlibet, the Italian edition (pictured) is being celebrated this week with a book release event at the Bergamo Jazz Festival.
* Jazz Times is offering readers a chance to win a free copy of the soon-to-be-released CD box set Miles Davis & John Coltrane: The Final Tour. You can enter the drawing for the giveaway here.
On a related note, NYC radio station WBGO last week previewed a live version of Davis' "So What" from the set as part of their weekly online feature "Take Five."
* Trumpeter Freddie Hendrix will play the part originally conceived for the late Hugh Masekela when pianist Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya present “Jazz Epistles - The Story in Concert” on Saturday, April 14 at The Sheldon. Hendrix's resume ranges from work with jazz artists including saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake, the Count Basie Orchestra and the Christian McBride Big Band, to backing up singers such as Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys.
* St. Louis has what might be called a cameo role in the promotional campaign for Standing Room Only, a forthcoming collection of previously unreleased performances by singer Frank Sinatra that will come out in May as a 3-CD set and in digital formats from Capitol/Universal Music Enterprises.
To promote the release, the label has posted online a clip of Sinatra singing “Fly Me To The Moon” with the Count Basie Orchestra recorded in 1965 at Kiel Opera House in St. Louis. Although the performance is not included in Standing Room Only, which collects shows from 1966 at the Sands in Las Vegas, 1974 at The Spectrum in Philadephia, and 1987 at Reunion Area in Dallas, you can watch the video here.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* The Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis is now accepting applications for 2018 Artist Support Grants.
The grants range in amount from $500 to $3000, and are available to individual artists of all disciplines for a variety of purposes, including equipment and materials, rental space, arts-related travel, conference fees, project completion, salaries, professional and artistic development, training, and other resources.
* KTVI - FOX2 News is looking for "bands of all genres" to perform live on their 9:00 a.m. weekday newscast. According to a post on Facebook from the station's Kim Hudson, they "need to see videos with clean lyrics and content appropriate for morning television. It always helps if you brag on yourself, too. So, let us know what concerts you have coming up and what big things you have done in the past. Send those videos and all that info to kim.hudson@tvstl.com."
* The 60th anniversary of the release of the movie Elevator to the Gallows, directed by Louis Malle and featuring a soundtrack by Miles Davis (pictured, with the film's star Jeanne Moreau), was noted in articles on LittleWhiteLies.com, DVDTalk.com, and Film School Rejects.
* Jazz St. Louis is looking to hire an executive assistant to work with the executive director/CEO and the director of development. You can find details on the job and how to apply here.
The Baylors, who were nominated for Grammys in two different categories, unfortunately did not take home any trophies on Sunday night, but they will be coming to St. Louis to make their local debut at Jazz at the Bistro from Wednesday, March 28 through Saturday, March 31.
* Family and friends of Nathan Jatcko are setting up a scholarship in the late pianist's name at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Donations may be made online at http://www.siue.edu/give or by mail to Kyle Moore, Director of Development, College of Arts & Sciences, SIUE Foundation, Box 5048, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL 62026. The memo line on a check should read "Nathan Jatcko." Anyone with questions about online giving can contact Moore via email at kymoore (at) siue.edu or by phone at 618-650‑5048.
Those plans were put on hold this week as the St. Louis Preservation Board upheld a decision to deny a demolition permit for the building - for now, anyway. Stay tuned for further news...
* UDiscoverMusic.com's just-published list of "The 50 Best Jazz Trumpeters Of All Time" has some St. Louis flavor, with Miles Davis ranked at #3 (behind Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie) and Clark Terry at #28 (just behind King Oliver and ahead of Cat Anderson). Let the clickbait-article-driven arguments begin!
* The Baylor Project, led by drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor and his wife, singer Jean Baylor, performed Wednesday at the studios of WBGO in NYC, and the radio station has posted to YouTube videos of two songs from the session, "Tell Me A Bedtime Story" and "Afro Blue."
* While The Bad Plus were in town last week to play at Jazz at the Bistro, Jazz St. Louis had them sit down for a video interview moderated by pianist Peter Martin.
* Gene Dobbs Bradford of Jazz St. Louis this week received a St. Louis Arts Award from the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis, accompanied by a brief video about Bradford that's now posted to the A&E Council's Facebook page.
* Pianist and St. Louis native Lawrence Fields appears in a new music video from the group Sound Prints, co-led by saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas. Fields gets a nice solo spot on "The Corner Tavern," a tune from the band's upcoming album Scandal, which will be released on Friday, April 6.
* "Jazz: A Language of Faith and Model for Ministry," a two-day conference exploring "the many possibilities of jazz as a contemporary faith language and creative vehicle for the Church’s ministry," will take place on Friday, March 2 and Saturday, March 3 at Eden Theological Seminary in Webster Groves.
The event will include presentations, talks, workshops, and a jazz concert featuring the Oikos Ensemble, led by Rev. Cliff Aerie and featuring guest saxophonist Rev. Ozzie Smith, pastor of Covenant UCC in South Holland, IL.
* Also at Webster U. the student chapter of the Audio Engineering Society will be sponsoring the Central Region Audio Student Summit February 23-25 on the Webster campus. The event is open to students, teachers and "anyone interested in the subject of audio," and will include educational panels, a student mix competition, and more.
This week, StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview continues with part four of a series of posts featuring videos of the jazz and creative music performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the first few months of the new year. (If you missed the previous installments, you can see part one here, part two here, and part three here.)
Continuing in chronological order from where part three left off, today's first video features singer Marilyn Maye, the grande dame of cabaret who will perform Wednesday, March 7 and Thursday, March 8 at Jazz at the Bistro. She's seen here singing a medley of "Secret of Life" and "Here’s to Life," recorded June 5, 2017 at the fifth anniversary celebration of Feinstein's/54 Below in New York City.
After the jump, you can see a clip of Melissa Aldana, who will lead her quartet in shows starting Wednesday, March 14 continuing through Saturday, March 17 at the Bistro. The video shows the Chilean-born, Berklee-educated saxophonist with pianist Sam Harris, bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Craig Weinrib playing "Turning & Over There" in November 2017 at the venue musig im pflegidach in Muri, Switzerland.
That week also features two more concerts of interest to StLJN readers on Thursday, March 15, when New Orleans jazz/funk band Galactic will be playing at Delmar Hall while saxophonist Ben Wendel performs at The Ready Room.
Galactic can be seen in the second video after the jump, playing a full set recorded in February 2017 at the Music Box in San Diego, CA, followed by Wendel, a founding member of Kneebody, playing "Song Song" from his album What We Bring in a undated video with Gerald Clayton, Joe Sanders, and Henry Cole.
Next up, it's The Thing, the avant-jazz trio of saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, and drummer Paal Nilssen Love. They'll be in St. Louis on Thursday, March 22 for a concert presented by New Music Circle at Off Broadway, and can be seen here playing a full set recorded November 27, 2017 at Blue Tomato in Vienna, Austria.
the penultimate clip features bassist Victor Wooten's trio with drummer Dennis Chambers and saxophonist Bob Franceschini. They're set to perform on Tuesday, March 27 at the Old Rock House, and are seen here playing "Love is My Favourite Word" in February 2016 at the Blue Note in Milano, Italy.
Last, but certainly not least, it's The Baylor Project, fronted by the husband-and-wife team of drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor and singer Jean Baylor, who are performing Wednesday, March 28 through Saturday, March 31 at the Bistro.
The Baylors, who are nominated in for 2018 Grammy Awards in both the "Best Traditional R&B Performance" and "Best Jazz Vocal Album" categories, can be seen in today's final video performing their Grammy-nominated song "Laugh and Move On," in a version recorded live last year at the studios of radio station WERS in Boston.
Look for part five of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview next week in this space. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
The Baylor Project, featuring singer Jean Baylor and her husband, drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor, has received two nominations in the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.
The Baylors (pictured) were nominated in the "Best Jazz Vocal Album" category for their debut album The Journey, and for "Best R&B Performance" for their song "Laugh and Move On."
Released in February of this year on the Baylors' Be A Light label, The Journey debuted at No 8 on the Billboard Jazz Chart, and got a favorable reception from media outlets including All About Jazz, Hot House, Soul Tracks, Soulbounce, Modern Drummer, The Chicago Defender, Revive Music, and more.
The 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, January 28 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, with portions broadcast live on CBS. You can see the full list of nominees here.
The Baylor Project will perform in St. Louis from Wednesday, March 28 through Saturday, March 31 at Jazz at the Bistro.
