Sunday Session: October 7, 2018

Jerry González

Here's a roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* This Record Label Is What The Future Of Music Business Looks Like (Forbes)
* Wynton Marsalis on his animal ballet, teen funk band days, kazoos and Jazz at Lincoln Center's 31 years (San Diego Union Tribune)
* Q&A: Betty Davis looks back at her fiery funk legacy (Now Toronto)
* It’s Still Not Betty Davis Time, But We’re Getting There (Jazz Times)
* Guggenheim Says Spotify’s Major Label Renegotiations Will Significantly Lower Royalty Obligations (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Tony Bennett & Diana Krall: Streetwise, Yet Sophisticated (DownBeat)
* Jerry González Dies After Fire in His Madrid Home: Report (Billboard)
* Jerry González, Latin Jazz Visionary, Dies After House Fire (NPR)
* Jerry González Dies at 69 (Jazz Times)
* New Doc ‘Fire Music’ Sets the Record Straight on Free Jazz (Rolling Stone)
* Quincy Jones: Celebrating Seven Decades of Music (Billboard)
* Dizzy Gillespie Documentary in the Works (Jazz Times)
* Review: One Note At A Time (Jazz Journal)
* Monterey Jazz Festival Features Highly Charged Performances (DownBeat)
* Tom Petty’s Biographer on the Story He Didn’t Tell (Rolling Stone)
* Jazz Needs A "LeBron James Mentality": A Conversation With The West Coast Get Down's Cameron Graves (SFJAZZ.org)
* How the Music Modernization Act will help artists get paid more from streaming (TheVerge.com)
* How Geoff Emerick Helped the Beatles Reinvent Music (Rolling Stone)
* Geoff Emerick threw himself into the Beatles' experiments (The Guardian)
* Joey Baron’s Deep Listening Manifesto (DownBeat)
* New York Hot Jazz Festival Celebrates Music of New Orleans and Paris (DownBeat)
* Jaimie Branch on International Anthem Fostering Community (DownBeat)
* Hear the Earliest Surviving Radio Broadcast by Duke Ellington, A Historic Find, in Deep Dive (WBGO)
* The 40 Greatest Movie Soundtracks of All Time (Vulture.com)
* Guest Blog: Musicians Deserve More (Offbeat)
* Do Not Seek For Things Outside Yourself: The Compositional Journey of Tyshawn Sorey (BrooklynRail.org)
* Ethan Iverson: At the Crossroads of Jazz and Classical Music (DownBeat)
* The Art Ensemble of Chicago Celebrates 50 Years Of Channeling And Challenging History (NPR)
* Kamasi Washington on Igor Stravinsky, Art Blakey, and a Certain Vintage Arcade Game (WBGO)
* A Look Back At How Virtuoso Jimmy Blanton Changed The Bass Forever (NPR)

Miles on Monday: Big Fun getting vinyl reissue, plus reviews and more

This week in Miles Davis news:

* In an essay about the re-release of Louis Malle’s 1959 film Elevator to the Gallows, the New Yorker's film critic Richard Brody calls Davis' score for the film "worth hearing entirely on its own" and "better than the film itself, by far, and there are better ways to hear it than in the movie—namely, by listening to a CD that features the entire studio sessions from which the score was edited." The movie's revival continues at the Film Forum in NYC through Thursday.

* Davis' 1974 double album Big Fun, which collected previously unreleased material from the bands that recorded Bitches Brew, On The Corner, and Jack Johnson, will be reissued on vinyl in September.

* Saxophonist Jim Snidero's upcoming album MD66 will pay tribute to Davis' "second great quintet," the group that from 1966 to 1968 included pianist Herbie Hancock, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams.

* Keyboardist Robert Glasper talked about his work on Don Cheadle's film Miles Ahead and his Davis-remix album Everything's Beautiful in an interview with the website Nerdtorious.com, and the film was reviewed by Heed magazine.

* The recently released album, The Columbia Sessions, produced by Davis in 1969 for his wife at the time, singer Betty Davis, was reviewed by the website Headstuff.org.

* The website Jazz Music Archives offers brief reviews looking back at the 1956 album Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet and the 1959 landmark Kind of Blue.

Miles on Monday: Elevator to the Gallows reconsidered, Miles' style, and more

This week in Miles Davis news:

* Davis' score for Louis Malle's 1958 film Elevator to the Gallows was the subject of a feature story in Popmatters.

A newly restored version of the film, which starred Jeanne Moreau (pictured with Davis), will be screened starting this Wednesday, August 3 through Thursday, August 11 at The Film Forum in New York City.

* The trumpeter's sartorial style was the subject of an essay on the men's fashion website Mnswr.com.

* More than 40 years after Davis compared his earning potential as a musician unfavorably to that of the mercurial rock star Sly Stone, a blog post at the Bay Area public radio station KCRW suggests that "Miles Davis Wouldn’t Have Envied Sly Stone Later On."

* The recently released "lost album" produced by Davis in 1969 for his wife at the time, funk singer Betty Davis, was the subject of a feature story in The Guardian. The album also was reviewed by the website BlackGrooves.org.

Miles on Monday: Betty Davis' lost sessions released, reissue news, and more

With no post here last Monday due to the Independence Day holiday, here's an extra-large serving of Miles Davis news from the last two weeks:

* Perhaps the biggest story of the fortnight involving the trumpeter was the news that a set of previously unreleased recording sessions he produced for his ex-wife, singer Betty Davis, has been issued as Betty Davis: The Columbia Years 1968-1969 by the label Light In The Attic Records.

Co-produced by Davis and his longtime collaborator Teo Macero, the album (pictured) features much of the band that would appear a couple of years later on Davis' album Bitches Brew, including guitarist John McLaughlin, keyboardist Herbie Hancock, bassist Harvey Brooks, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and organist Larry Young, plus two of Jimi Hendrix' musical associates, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Billy Cox.

Press coverage of the release has been extensive, with stories and reviews appearing everywhere from NPR to the alt-rock magazine Pitchfork to AllAboutJazz.com.

* Meanwhile, a box set of Davis' own music, Miles Davis At Newport 1955–1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4, was named the winner in the Historical Album category of the 2016 DownBeat Critics Poll.

* The recent reissue of Davis' album Agharta on LP by the label Music on Vinyl was reviewed by London Jazz News.

* Also in London, theater artist Robert Lepage's performance piece Needles and Opium, a surreal meditation from 1991 about Miles Davis, Jean Cocteau and various types of addiction, was revived for a production at the Barbican that featured actor Wellesley Robertson III as Davis.

* Also revived is Elevator to the Gallows, the 1958 Louis Malle film that features a soundtrack by Davis, as a newly restored version will be shown next month at Film Forum in New York City in advance of a potential wider release.

* In other Davis-on-film news, Elmore magazine reviewed Everything's Beautiful, keyboardist Robert Glasper's tribute to Davis that serves as a companion piece to his work on the score for Don Cheadle's movie Miles Ahead; and the Massillon, OH Independent ran a feature story about the experiences of an local Davis fan who worked as an extra on the film, which was shot in Cincinnati. Miles Ahead comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray on Tuesday, July 19.

* Last but not least, "Miles in May," an episode of All Music Television's program The Jazz Creative recorded earlier this year in Los Angeles and featuring Glasper and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin, has been posted online, and can been seen in the embedded video window below.