Sunday Session: August 1, 2021

Billie Holiday

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

* Charles Mingus: An Essential Top Ten Albums (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Laura Nyro: the phenomenal singers’ singer the 60s overlooked (The Guardian)
* Buddy Guy: “When you pick up a guitar, you have something of your own even if you don’t realize it” (Guitar World)
* The United States vs. Billie Holiday vs. the Truth (Jazz Times)
* Fire Music Documentary to See National Release (Jazz Times)
* Ryan Adams, Shunned by the Music Business and ‘Scared,’ Pleads for Labels to Rescue His Career (Variety)
* This Is Your Brain On Vinyl, and Other Tales From Obsessive Collecting in the Pandemic (Jezebel.com)
* BREAKING NEWS: Three major music venues in New Orleans will require vaccination cards or negative Covid tests for entry (Offbeat)
* John Pizzarelli’s Ode to Pat Metheny (DownBeat)
* Dee Dee Bridgewater Returns to Rome (DownBeat)
* Low Fidelity: Vintage Vinyl and The Precarious State of the Indie Record Store (DecibelMagazine.com)
* Jim Keltner: A Before & After Listening Session (Jazz Times)
* Blues guitar legend Buddy Guy looks back on a special career (Associated Press)
* Fred Rzewski’s Classical Call To Arms (Bandcamp.com)
* (Back) In The Club: Jazz United Considers the Return of Live Concerts (WBGO)
* A Beginner’s Guide to Frank Zappa (Guitar Player)
* A Guide to the Late Recordings of Experimental Vocalist Linda Sharrock (Bandcamp.com)
* Do You Hear What I See? (New Music Box)

Sunday Session: March 14, 2021

Roy Haynes

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

* Guelph Jazz Festival offering 'hyper intimate' live music with One-on-One Concert Series (Guelph Today)
* Theo Bleckmann & the Westerlies: This Land Is Their Land (Jazz Times)
* PRS for Music says that more women are registering as professional songwriters, but they’re still underrepresented and earn less than their male counterparts (MusicRadar.com)
* zaynnah conversation....with Sonny Rollins (Zayannah)
* “Judas and the Black Messiah”: Revolutionary Down to the Tunes (TheCorsairOnline.com)
* Best Charles Mingus Pieces: 20 Essentials By Jazz’s Fiery Iconoclast (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Space Oddity: the weird history of the Soviet ANS synthesizer (5Mag.net)
* The Baddest Man in Town (TheAmericanScholar.org)
* 'Swingin’ the Blues' book encapsulates life, legacy of San Marcos jazz legend (UniversityStar.com)
* Family Record (Style Weekly)
* ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ Composer Tom Holkenborg Says They Created a Drum So Big It Wouldn’t Fit Through His Door (Collider.com)
* With Just One Full-Time Jazz Club Left In The District, Local Musicians Contemplate Their Future (DCist.com)
* UConn celebrating 50th anniversary of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ with international conference open to academics and music lovers (Hartford Courant)
* Jazz clarinetist Dr. Michael White takes a break from songwriting marathon for Snug Harbor gig (NOLA.com)
* With yet another Grammy nomination, Pat Metheny talks music, COVID, his KC upbringing (Kansas City Star)
* How Many Movies About Billie Holiday Does it Take… (The Nation)
* Tribune photos of the famous Mister Kelly's (Chicago Tribune)
* On Roy Haynes’ 96th Birthday Today, a Collective Card From More Than 20 Jazz Giants (Mother Jones)
* Inside the ‘Black Market’ Where Artists Can Pay for Millions of Streams (Rolling Stone)
* Audio cassette tape inventor Lou Ottens dies aged 94 (BBC)
* Country Music Is Changing, in Spite of Itself (Pitchfork.com)
* “The Most Beautiful Sound Next to Silence” (City-Journal.org)
* Jane Monheit Talks New Album Come What May And Her Love Of Musical Theatre (IHeartRadioBroadway.com)
* Considering Chick Corea's Grammys Success And The Kitchen Sink Of Genre (NPR)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: A jazz film mini-festival (shutdown edition)

With live music still shut down for the foreseeable future, this week we revisit an idea used in this space occasionally during the slow weeks of summer, and offer up a mini-festival of six feature-length films about jazz. 

The first film, embedded up above, is 1959, The Year That Changed Jazz, a 2009 documentary originally aired on the BBC. It uses archival performances and interviews to look at developments in jazz as reflected in four historically significant albums released that year by Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman.

After the jump, you can see A Great Day In Harlem, an Academy Award-nominated documentary released in 1994 that tells the story of the iconic 1958 photo of dozens of jazz greats taken on a Harlem stoop.

Next up is Mingus: Charlie Mingus 1968, a documentary by filmmaker Thomas Reichman that captures the bassist and composer at a particularly tumultuous time, including some infamous footage of Mingus being evicted from his New York City apartment.

After that, it's keyboardist, bandleader, composer and self-proclaimed extraterrestrial Sun Ra in an extended cut of Space is the Place, a 1972 film that DownBeat described as "a sci-fi trip through the East Bay during the 1970s with Sun Ra in the lead."

The penultimate video is Thelonius Monk: An American Composer, a 1993 documentary that includes archival footage and various jazz greats discussing Monk and his enduring influence on jazz.

Last but not least, it's Herbie Hancock - Possibilities a 2006 "making of" documentary about Hancock's album of the same name, featuring guest performers drawn from rock, pop, hip-hop, and more.

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

Sunday Session: October 27, 2019

Billy Cobham

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

* The strange revival of vinyl records (The Economist)
* A stroke of genius: Guitarist and Brookline native wins MacArthur fellowship (WickedLocal.com)
* Q&A: Herb Alpert (TheaterJones.com)
* Mingus’s Lost String Quartet (London Review of Books)
* In Reversal, WNYC Says New Sounds Will Stay On The Airwaves (Gothamist.com)
* Kinks 1969 epic chimes with Britain’s mood today, says singer Ray Davies (The Guardian)
* The Renaissance of Marilyn Crispell (DownBeat)
* The 2010s: Classical Music's Decade Of Reckoning (NPR)
* Adam Rudolph: The Matrix Reloaded (Jazz Times)
* When the Beatles Walked Offstage: Fifty Years of “Abbey Road” (The New Yorker)
* 'Fresh Air' Marks The Centenary Of The Birth Of Jazz Singer Anita O'Day (NPR)
* Shorter, Salvant and Benson Among DownBeat Readers Poll Winners (DownBeat)
* Come blow your horn: the glory days of Ronnie Scott's jazz club – in pictures (The Guardian)
* How Untitled Goose Game adapted Debussy for its dynamic soundtrack (TheVerge.com)
* The dorky recorder you had in school just got a futuristic remake (CDM.link)
* Billy Cobham: Blowin’ in the Crosswinds (Jazz Times)
* How ‘Moonlight Serenade’ Defined a Generation (Smithsonian)
* Uri Caine Pays Tribute to Octavius Catto (DownBeat)
* Summoning the ghosts of Record Row (Chicago Reader)
* Joe Lovano’s New Septet Echoes the Past, Looks to the Future (DownBeat)
* Jazz Foundation of America Honors Roy Haynes, Raises $475K at Annual Loft Party (DownBeat)
* The Long Journey of Charlie Parker’s Saxophone (Smithsonian)
* The Hissing of Vintage Tapes (Tedium.co)
* What Makes Music Enjoyable? It’s Complex, But Measurable (Forbes.com)
* Nubya Garcia in Full ‘Blume’ (DownBeat)
* How the Internet Archive is Digitizing LPs to Preserve Generations of Audio (Archive.org)
* The “cost of living” in Spotify streams (Alex.Leonard.ie)
* The Necessity of Musical Hallucinations (Nautil.us)
* The Rise and Fall of Hip-Hop's First Godmother: Sugar Hill Records' Sylvia Robinson (Billboard)

Sunday Session: July 14, 2019

Abdullah Ibrahim

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

* All hail young blues aristocrat Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram (Guitar)
* An evening with João Gilberto, the bright wallflower of bossa nova (The Guardian)
* Burning Its Way Toward A Musical Sweet Spot - Interview With Burnt Sugar Founder Greg Tate (SFJAZZ.org)
* How Richmond jazz legend Lonnie Liston Smith is bridging generations (WTVR)
* Herbie Hancock still experimenting after six musical decades (Vancouver Sun)
* When Mingus met Mitchell (Jazz Journal)
* The Black Swan: A History of Race Records (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Snapshot NY: Tiny Harlem Apartment Home To Popular Jazz Parlor (NewYork.CBSLocal.com)
* Artist Spotlight: Vijay Iyer (Jazz Times)
* An Eight-Second Film of 1915 New Orleans and the Mystery of Louis Armstrong’s Happiness (The New Yorker)
* Kamasi Washington Says Security Guard Assaulted His Father at Austria Show, Cuts Set Short (Pitchfork.com)
* ‘Getz At The Gate’: A Scintillating Performance By A Dynamic Stan Getz (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Sun Ra: The Philadelphia Years (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* Sisters of Swing (Vanity Fair)
* 'We need to put inclusion at the start of the process': the disabled musicians making their own instruments (The Guardian)
* Ernest Dawkins on AACM, Conduction and Dictators (DownBeat)
* Seamus Blake Is Playing Between Many Worlds (Jazz Times)
* Steps Taken That Could Determine The Fate Of The Former Home Of Jazz Musician Cab Calloway (Baltimore.CBSLocal.com)
* Finding 'The Balance': Jazz Legend Abdullah Ibrahim Looks To Past, Present And Future (NPR)
* Ban Brass Bands On Frenchmen? (Offbeat)
* Mini model of Stonehenge created by scientists could reveal how the ancient monument SOUNDED during the mysterious rituals held at the site more than 2,000 years ago (Daily Mail)
* A jazz legend said he was in desperate need of money. His friends had questions (Washington Post)
* An Alternate Canon of Afrofuturist Classics (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* Jimmie Vaughan Digs into Covers (DownBeat)
* Flutes you: Lizzo and the woodwind renaissance (The Guardian)
* The Legacy of Live Aid, 30 Years Later (The Atlantic)
* The Science of Sound: An Interview with Alvin Lucier (SecondInversion.com)
* In Conversation: The Fast-Paced Life of Bill Frisell (Jazz in Europe)
* Janis Siegel: Answering the Calling of Vocal Jazz (Jazz Times)

Sunday Session: November 18, 2018

Marshall Allen

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:

* I Thought CDs Were Supposed To Be Dying, But Maybe I Got It All Wrong (Forbes)
* Entangled in Berlin (TheBlueMoment.com)
* How a Lost Charles Mingus Recording Finally Saw the Light of Day (Bandcamp.com)
* The Accidental Perfection of the Beatles’ White Album (The New Yorker)
* The Album Is in Deep Trouble – and the Music Business Probably Can’t Save it (Rolling Stone)
* Nate Smith: Taking Jazz Ahead (Jazz Times)
* ‘Black Fire’: The Andrew Hill Classic That Still Burns Bright (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* How Legendary Composer W.C. Handy Became The 'Father Of The Blues' (WBUR)
* Baku Jazz Festival 2018 (AllAboutJazz.com)
* A Legendary Van Morrison Recording Just Hit the Internet and Quickly Disappeared Again (SPIN)
* TONTO: The 50-Year Saga of the Synth Heard on Stevie Wonder Classics (Rolling Stone)
* Bob Dylan’s Masterpiece Is Still Hard to Find (The New Yorker)
* ‘Green Book’ Renders Don Shirley in Film (DownBeat)
* Aretha Franklin Touches The Infinite In The Long-Delayed Film 'Amazing Grace' (NPR)
* JazzFest Berlin Challenges Attendees with Audacious Programming (DownBeat)
* Stars Celebrate Joni Mitchell at 75 (DownBeat)
* Roy Clark, country guitar virtuoso, ‘Hee Haw’ star, has died (Associated Press)
* James Booker’s “The Lost Paramount Tapes” to be released on vinyl (Offbeat)
* ’63 Monk Tapes Released (DownBeat)
* Latin Music Is Reaching More Listeners Than Ever — But Who Is Represented? (Rolling Stone)
* Working to Preserve Traditional Gospel Music (LongReads.com)
* Marshall Allen Sticks To The Music (AntiGravityMagazine.com)
* Louis Armstrong’s Life in Letters, Music and Art (New York Times)
* Jazz After College (Jazz Times)
* Hitting the Right Notes: Five Actors Who Played Real-Life Jazz Artists (Jazziz)
* Q&A: Ann Hampton Callaway: Creating Landscapes of Human Emotion (Jazziz)
* Strength & Power: In Praise of Roswell Rudd (Jazz Times)
* Crosley Is Now Releasing Retro Cassette Players Starting at $60 (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Setting the Record Straight: Bob Dylan’s ‘Blood On The Tracks’ (Guitarist Kevin Odegard Revisits the Sessions) (RockCellarMagazine.com)
* Iconic Guitar Builder Loses His Home and Workshop to Flames in Paradise (Popular Mechanics)
* Tony Allen: Jack of All Parades (Jazz Times)

Sunday Session: November 11, 2018

Charles Mingus

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:

* Edgefest 2018: The Chicago Connection (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Release of Live Mingus Recordings to be Celebrated at Jazz Standard (DownBeat)
* A Great Day in Harlem, Revisited (Wall Street Journal)
* In Memoriam: Roy Hargrove (DownBeat)
* Blown away: will we miss the sweet sound of school recorders? (The Guardian)
* Myra Melford: Taking Flight Where Life Leads Her (NationalSawdust.org)
* Roy Hargrove 1969 – 2018 (Jazz Times)
* Everything Adds Up for Lorraine Feather (DownBeat)
* Novelist Jeff Jackson on the 4 Best Rock Chronicles You’ve Never Heard of (Vulture.com)
* Aretha Franklin doc ‘Amazing Grace’ to finally see the light (Associated Press)
* Engineer Al Schmitt on Winning 23 Grammys and Working With Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney & Steely Dan (Billboard)
* Has stadium rock been unplugged? (BBC)
* Inside the booming business of background music (The Guardian)
* Sound decision: Why studios still matter in the age of smart phones (Toledo Blade)
* Aaron Parks Crafts a New Context (DownBeat)
* Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz to be Renamed in 2019 (DownBeat)
* The Free Music Archive is closing this month (TheVerge.com)
* 26 Abandoned Discos (Flashbak.com)
* At Tampere Jazz Happening, History and Revolution (DownBeat)
* Guitar Center Unveils Remodeled Hollywood Store and How It Plans to Come Back From the Brink (Billboard)
* Spotify debuts an analytics service for music publishers (TechCrunch.com)
* L.A.’s air raid sirens are blaring this week. Why composer Lawrence English says you should listen (Los Angeles Times)
* Blanchard Premieres New, Poignant Commission in Cleveland (DownBeat)
* Eliot Zigmund: A Sideman Moves to the Front (Jazz Times)
* Cécile McLorin Salvant: Wide Open Window (Jazz Times)
* Dianne Reeves: Christmas Time Is Here (FYIMusicNews.ca)
* There Was No Song of the Summer This Year — and There Won't Be Ever Again (Rolling Stone)
* 'Mingus: Jazz In Detroit' Catches A Giant At A Moment Full Of Possibility (NPR)
* Monsters of Rock Criticism: Greil Marcus Interviews Robert Christgau (Rolling Stone)
* Bar Four: A Vibraphone Summit (Jazz Times)
* A Jazz Legend Out of the Shadows (IberiaNet.com)
* Tyshawn Sorey Unveils a 3-Disc Extravaganza (Jazz Times)

Sunday Session: October 21, 2018

Maria Schneider

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:

* Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell and John Scofield, guitar greats all, discuss their mutual admiration society (San Diego Union-Tribune)
* Review: Dave Holland and Chris Potter (Jazz Journal)
* Paul Simon: Fathers, Sons, Troubled Water (New York Review of Books)
* Jaimie Branch on “Brass Chillers” (Jazz Times)
* Zorn to Secrecy (ArtAndMusicMagazine.com)
* Experts aim to finally solve plane war mystery of famed big band leader Glenn Miller (South China Morning Post)
* Maria Schneider: The star of the show (Irish Examiner)
* Alan Broadbent: Intimate Reflections on a Passion for Jazz (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Jazznojazz Fest Celebrates 20 Years (DownBeat)
* A Mingus discovery (TheBlueMoment.com)
* New Music by Five Composers Behind the Drums, From Tyshawn Sorey to Allison Miller (WBGO)
* Four Electronic Artists Reflect on the Influence of Composer Laurie Spiegel (Bandcamp.com)
* Ben Wendel Takes ‘The Seasons’ from Video Project to Album (DownBeat)
* Loss of small music venues is handing control of culture to robots, MPs told (ArtsProfessional.co.uk)
* Big Bands Reign Supreme at Angrajazz (DownBeat)
* Esperanza Spalding announces ’12 Little Spells’ tour, shares 10th track (Brooklyn Vegan)
* Copyright and the Jazz Musician (Jazz Times)
* New Stax Box Set Details a Fraught 1968 (DownBeat)
* To Hat and To Hold (ArtForum.com)
* The Horace Silver Quintet drummer Roger Humphries reflects on his storied life in jazz (WaxPoetics.com)
* Rubén Blades Swings Big Band Jazz And Rumba On New Album (NPR)
* Naxos Joins eMusic Exodus Over Non-Payment (Hypebot.com)
* Joshua Abrams Discusses Solo Bass and the Spirit of Music (DownBeat)
* What Small, Diverse Music Venues Mean to New York City (CityLab.com)
* Ambassadors for Motown sound seek more of it in hometown (Associated Press)
* Tiny Desk Concert: Alfredo Rodríguez (NPR)
* Is the Cover Making a Recovery? (Slate.com)
* The New American Songbook (Slate.com)
* Lou Reed's Archive Holds Six Hundred Hours Of Mostly Unreleased Audio, And Other Revelations From His Archivist (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Q&A with Ingrid Jensen: Leading from Within (Jazziz)

Sunday Session: September 23, 2018

John Scofield

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:

* Sons of Kemet frontman Shabaka Hutchings: 'I trust in my ability to write really dope s***' (The Standard)
* R.I.P. Big Jay McNeely, April 29, 1927-Sept. 16, 2018 (LA Weekly)
* A conversation with DJ Amir Abdullah about newly unearthed Charles Mingus recordings (TrebleZine.com)
* Congressional Black Caucus Honors Jazz Players During Annual Washington Concert (DownBeat)
* Jazz From Monterey: 1958, The Birth Of A Festival (WFIU)
* Music from many if not all points of the compass: Rhys Chatham interviewed (Freq.org.uk)
* New Orleans Jazz Makes Room for All the Grooves (64Parishes.org)
* Fired or retired? What happens to the aging orchestral musician (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
* The Guide to Getting into John Coltrane's Quasi-Religious Ecstasy (Vice.com)
* The Women of Detroit Music, Living and Gone, Take Spotlight at Detroit Jazz Festival (Billboard)
* Tiny Desk Concert: GoGo Penguin (NPR)
* Vinyl Is Bigger Than We Thought. Much Bigger (Forbes)
* Tracing The Genetic Code Of New Orleans Funk Music (LiveForLiveMusic.com)
* The Poetic Inspiration of Pianist Lynne Arriale (DownBeat)
* 5 Vibraphonists You Should Know About (Revive-Music.com)
* Music Modernization Act Passes, Despite Music Industry Infighting (Rolling Stone)
* India's singing village, where everyone has their melody (France24.com)
* Americans Listen to 151 Minutes of Music Each Day (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Spotify to Allow Indie Artists to Upload Music Directly to Service, Bypassing Distributors (Billboard)
* Comprehensive history of KC Women’s Jazz Festival (JazzJournalists.org)
* How David Crosby Found a New Harmony (Rolling Stone)
* The Fat Lady Is Singing - Is American opera in terminal condition? (Commentary)
* Roy Babbington on the 50-Year Evolution of Soft Machine (DownBeat)
* Imagine: Previously Unseen Footage Of John Lennon And George Harrison (NPR)
* Ticketmaster stung by undercover journalists, who reveal that the company deliberately enables scalpers and rips off artists (BoingBoing.net)
* John Scofield's Outside-In Approach To Jazz (SFJAZZ.org)
* Founding Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickey Betts in critical condition after 'freak accident' (NBC)
* Live Review: 2018 Chicago Jazz Festival (Jazz Times)
* "Three Is One": Thelonious Monk's Influence On Joanne Brackeen, Kris Davis & Helen Sung (SFJAZZ.org)
* The San Francisco Tape Music Center Was an Early Home to the Avant-Garde (Bandcamp.com)
* Tracing Ska Music’s Great Migration (AtlasObscura.com)
* How Auto-Tune Revolutionized the Sound of Popular Music (Pitchfork.com)

Sunday Session: September 9, 2018

Randy Weston

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:

* Curious questions: Do dogs like listening to music? (CountryLife.co.uk)
* Billy Childs’ Storied Past (NUVO)
* Little Feat – Sky, Heaven and California Up Ahead! (FYIMusicNews.ca)
* East Meets East - Nathan + Noah (Yumpu.com)
* 'My Spike Lee Joints': 'BlacKkKlansman' Composer Terence Blanchard on Working With the Director for Nearly 30 Years (Billboard)
* Washboards: The laundry tool that is music to the ears (CBS News)
* The Lost Mingus Tapes (Qwest.tv)
* “Lost” 1973 Live Charles Mingus Recording Set for Release (Jazz Times)
* Anthony Braxton’s Big Ideas: Why ‘Forces in Motion’ Is an Essential American Music Book (Rolling Stone)
* 'Art shouldn’t be weaponised': the atonal concert championing Berlin's homeless (The Guardian)
* Introducing Humbolt, The World’s First ‘Ethical’ Streaming Music Service (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* The Top Uses of John Coltrane Songs in Movies or TV (TVOvermind.com)
* Randy Weston Dies at 92 (Jazz Times)
* Pianist Randy Weston, An Eloquent Spokesman For Jazz's Bond with African Culture, Dies at 92 (WBGO)
* Amid Stormy Skies, Detroit Jazz Fest Honors Geri Allen (DownBeat)
* Let Them Play: Ethan Iverson Speaks (JazzSpeaks.org)
* A hard Brexit will smash the British music industry, experts warn (Gigwise.com)
* Alan Braufman: A Valley Worth Searching (Jazz Times)
* City’s Cultural Capital on Full Display at Chicago Jazz Festival (DownBeat)
* William Parker: Other Dimensions (Bass Player)
* Wayne Kramer On World Cafe (NPR)
* Paul Simon Says 'I'm Finished' Writing Music (NPR)
* Rod Argent -The Zombies' Co-Founder on The Beatles, Chick Corea, and His Love for the Piano (Keyboard)
* 'Quincy' Trailer Highlights Life and Career of Quincy Jones: Watch (Billboard)
* This artificial intelligence app wants to make beautiful music with you (Fast Company)
* Apple Music to Publish Its Own Top Music Charts (Rolling Stone)
* His Sh*t’s F***ed Up: The Complicated Legacy of Warren Zevon (TheRinger.com)
* Nolatet: Raising a Bigger Dust Cloud (Jazz Times)

Sunday Session: February 4, 2018

Quincy Jones

Here's the 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:

* Jazz-Related Grammy Award Winners Announced (Jazz Times)
* Jazz and Blues Artists Make a Slippery Impression at the 2018 Grammy Awards (WBGO)
* We Asked a Top A&R Executive If Rock Is Really Dead (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Burkina Faso Music Honored at Grammys, but Artists Cry Foul (VOANews.com)
* Finding meaning in music again (The Globe and Mail)
* Junk Shop Classical On Stravinsky: Music Stories Told £1 LP By £1 LP (TheQuietus.com)
* Rhythm and Reaction: how jazz made Britain swing before rock ‘n’roll began (INews.co.uk)
* Quincy Jones Has a Story About That (GQ)
* Chuck Berry-Fats Domino tribute at the Grammys misses the boat (Los Angeles Times)
* Blood, Sweat & Tears’ Groundbreaking Debut @50 (BestClassicBands.com)
* Mingus’ “Tijuana Moods” Reborn (Jazz Times)
* After the Grammys, it may be time's up for the music industry (Los Angeles Times)
* How to Be a Responsible Music Fan in the Age of Streaming (Pitchfork.com)
* Jason Moran: Modernistic, Historical and More (Jazz Times)
* A Q&A with jazz heiress Catherine Russell (Arkansas Times)
* DC-Area Record Label Cuneiform Has Gone on Hiatus, and It May Not Come Back (Washingtonian)
* Keeping the Art of Silent Film Music Alive (AtlasObscura.com)
* Piano Madness: Kris Davis and Craig Taborn in Freewheeling Dialogue (Village Voice)
* David Byrne on Trump, Cultural Appropriation and Why He Won't Reunite Talking Heads (Rolling Stone)
* A Tribute to James Jamerson and His Lost Funk Machine (Reverb.com)
* Link Wray, Inventor of the Power Chord, Snubbed Again (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Drummer Mike Reed Reflects on the Racist Encounter That Sparked 'Flesh & Bone' (WBGO)
* Spotify (Finally) Adds Songwriter and Producer Credits (Variety)
* Wherein three national corporations control nearly all of San Francisco's live music (DNALounge.com)
* Best Buy will cease selling CDs later this year (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Temptations' Dennis Edwards dies at 74: 'Helped define Detroit soul (Detroit Free Press)

Sunday Session: January 21, 2018

Charles Mingus

Here's the 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:

* Interview: Paul McCartney On His Life as a Bassist | Bacon's Archive (Reverb.com)
* 25 Essential Jazz Soundtracks You Should Own (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* At Umbria, Multi-Media and Perfect Pitch (DownBeat)
* Johnny Cash's 'At Folsom Prison': Rosanne Cash Recalls Iconic Live Album (Rolling Stone)
* Too Much Music: A Failed Experiment In Dedicated Listening (NPR)
* Jimi Hendrix Collaborators on Assembling Guitarist's Long-Awaited New LP (Rolling Stone)
* Two Views From the Winter Jazzfest Marathon, Where Clamor and Conviction Abound (WBGO)
* Anchorage author chronicles 8-year friendship with Dizzy Gillespie (AlaskaPublic.org)
* For Wynton Marsalis, forgetting the roots of jazz is forgetting the history of race in America (The Undefeated.com)
* How Benny Goodman Orchestrated 'The Most Important Concert In Jazz History' (NPR)
* Notations: John Cage Publishes a Book of Graphic Musical Scores, Featuring Visualizations of Works by Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky, The Beatles & More (OpenCulture.com)
* Winter Jazzfest Gilded With Guitarists and Vocalists (DownBeat)
* Get The Lawyers In! Experts On The Del Rey vs Radiohead vs Hollies Case (TheQuietus.com)
* Interview: Vijay Iyer on Bay Area ties and how he’s not really that famous (San Jose Mercury News)
* 2018 Winter Jazzfest NYC - An overview of the marathon of jazz concerts and events during the 2018 Winter Jazzfest NYC (Jazz Times)
* Marching The Tradition Forward: Celebration of Preservation Hall Jazz Band (SFJAZZ.org)
* Swinging Along the Border: Charles Mingus' Album 'Tijuana Moods' Finds New Resonance (WBGO)
* Interview: Milford Graves (BombMagazine.org)
* Where To Start: The Cosmic Genius Of Sun Ra (ClashMusic.com)
* London’s young jazz heroes are crafting their own sound (HuckMagazine.com)

Sunday Session: December 17, 2017

Pharoah Sanders

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

* Hearing Otis Redding’s 'Try a Little Tenderness' as a Song of Resistance (The Atlantic)
* Review: Chasing Trane (Jazz Journal)
* My Name Is Dave, I Collect Vinyl Records, and I Have a Problem (The Stranger)
* The Loneliness of the Long Distance Rocker (The Baffler)
* The Cosmos Is Still Catching Up to Pharaoh Sanders' Earliest Records (Vice.com)
* Matt Wilson Talks About Making Spirits Bright, On the Eve of a Tour with His Christmas Tree-O (WBGO)
* Frankie Newton: The Forgotten Trumpeter (Jazz History Online)
* NRBQ, Steve Ferguson, and the pursuit of the impossible guitar lick (Oxford American)
* Stream 74 Sun Ra Albums Free Online: Decades of “Space Jazz” and Other Forms of Intergalactic, Afrofuturistic Musical Creativity (OpenCulture.com)
* How to Fix the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Variety)
* MAJOR CHORDS | Can We Really Take Pleasure From Music Born From Suffering? (Ludwig-Van.com
* Stanley Clarke Is the Reason You Love Music (Vice.com)
* Mingus & Joni Mitchell: The Black Saint & the Singer Lady (Jazz Times)
* Irvin Mayfield indicted by federal grand jury on fraud, money laundering charges (NOLA.com)
* The FCC Just Shrunk the Music Industry (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Ben Allison and Think Free Bring 'Layers of the City' into Our Studio, on The Checkout (WBGO)
* Junk Shop Classical On Joyce Hatto: Music Stories Told £1 LP By £1 LP (TheQuietus.com)
* Marc Ribot: “It's good to understand not only how to play guitar, but also why to play guitar” (MusicRadar.com)
* Ikue Mori: Sustenance and Renewal in Downtown Music (NationalSawdust.org)
* Minneapolis jazz band the Bad Plus prepares for final shows with original lineup (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
* Institutions raced to dump James Levine. They should look hard at themselves (Washington Post)
* The neuroscience of jazz (PRI.org)

Sunday Session: September 3, 2017

Thelonious Monk

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

* Elvis Presley’s Archivist on the Heartbreak of Tapes Trashed by RCA, Scouring the South for Lost Recordings (Variety)
* Esperanza Spalding’s Pop Culture Loves (Smithsonian)
* Tin Men and the Telephone: the jazz band you control with a smartphone (The Guardian)
* Review: The Mingus Prom (Jazz Journal)
* The Devo De-Evolution Of Golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez (WBUR)
* Close Encounters of the 4th Kind with the Sun Ra Arkestra in San Francisco (PopMatters.com)
* Pharaoh’s Den, the Sun Ra-themed grocery store in Philadelphia (DangerousMinds.net)
* Kurt Rosenwinkel: A Whole New Vista (Jazz Times)
* Hancock-Washington Double Bill Rocks the Hollywood Bowl (DownBeat)
* INTERVIEW: Marilyn Mazur (London Jazz News)
* Review: Oslo Jazz Festival 2017 (Jazz Times)
* Q&A with Sean Jones: The Spirit Calling (DownBeat)
* Woody Shaw Takes on “’Round Midnight,” the Trumpeter’s Supreme Challenge (The New Yorker)
* The Omnivorous Mind of Pamela Z (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* Where's the Best Seat in the Concert Hall? (WQXR)
* The South Side’s Last Remaining Jazz Landmarks (Chicago magazine)
* Rock ’N’ Roll: America’s Midlife Crisis (Talkhouse.com)
* Pop music is rejecting the piano. Why? (The Economist)
* ‘The Simpsons’ Composer Alf Clausen Fired (EXCLUSIVE) (Variety)
* Review: Jazz re:freshed Live at Nublu in NYC (Jazz Times)
* Traditional Radio Faces a Grim Future, New Study Says (Variety)
* How we made Roy Ayers' "Everybody Loves the Sunshine" (The Guardian)
* Stevie Wonder Reflects On Motown, God And Prince (NPR)
* Off Minor Prophet: Thelonious Monk at 100 (Think Christian)
* Son of Jazz Great Thelonious Monk Sues California Brewery (USNews.com)
* Hudson: Upstate New York’s Supergroup (Jazz Times)
* From Jazz Clubs to Classrooms (The Nation)
* Revitalization project honors jazz great, Toledo native Art Tatum (Toledo Blade)
* Kirk Knuffke’s Time: The Story of Some of the Year’s Best Jazz (Village Voice)
* Avant-garde elder Roscoe Mitchell celebrates 50 years of Nessa Records (Chicago Reader)
* Quincy Jones Looks Back on the Making of Michael Jackson's 'Bad' (Rolling Stone)
* A Brand You Can Trust? Record Nerds’ 20 Favorite Labels From the 20th Century (Variety)
* Jazz trumpeter Hino attacks schoolboy drummer (The Asahi Shimbun)
* First Listen: Arturo O'Farrill & Chucho Valdés, 'Familia: Tribute To Bebo & Chico' (NPR)
* Meet the Ace of Cups, the Haight’s (Almost) Forgotten All-Girl Band (KQED)

Sunday Session: March 26, 2017

Lee Morgan

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

* How Spotify is finally gaining leverage over record labels (TechCrunch.com)
* Chuck Berry's Family Move Forward With Planned 'Chuck' LP (Rolling Stone)
* That Time Chuck Berry Punched Keith Richards in the Face (Guitar World)
* Chuck Berry's Guitarist Billy Peek Looks Back on 50 Years of Music and Friendship (Billboard)
* How Chuck Berry's Hometown St. Louis Inspired -- and Embittered -- Him (Billboard)
* Business-Savvy Chuck Berry Left Behind An Estimated $50 Million Estate (Billboard)
* Q&A with Dan Brubeck: Exploring Dad’s Songbook (DownBeat)
* Splitting Adams: John Adams' Chamber Symphonies (WQXR)
* Vision Festival 22 Lineup Announced (Jazz Times)
* Detroit Jazz Fest Names Wayne Shorter Artist-in-Residence (DownBeat)
* Rob Mazurek: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview (AquariumDrunkard.com)
* Back when pop music was literary (The-TLS.co.uk)
* Is Texas, not Mississippi, the true home of the blues? (ABC.net.au)
* Cracking the Columbia Records Code (AnalogPlanet.com)
* Q&A with Gary Burton: A Fond Farewell (DownBeat)
* Inside Kamasi Washington's New Ode to Unity (Rolling Stone)
* Bob Dylan Talks Amy Winehouse, Leonard Cohen, Much More in Rare, Extensive Interview (Pitchfork)
* The Most Expensive Record Never Sold (NPR)
* From 'Hamilton' to Jazz at Lincoln Center: 10 Music Projects You Have the NEA to Thank For (Billboard)
* How Weather Report Rewrote the Rules of Jazz on ‘Heavy Weather’ (Observer.com)
* Muldrow Meets Mingus (NPR)
* Perspectives on music-making in a hyper-connected world (Ableton.com)
* Duke Ellington’s Faith (FirstThings.com)
* Q&A: Making sense of music through math (CBC)
* 'I Called Him Morgan' Is A Tale Of Marriage, Murder And Jazz, Told From Two Sides (WBGO)
* Stop Everything and Behold this Mini Art Deco Telephone Jukebox circa 1935 (MessyNessyChic.com)
* The Unofficial History of Home Recording: Big Hits from Bedroom Studios (SonicScoop.com)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: More favorite jazz documentaries

With a temporary shortage of upcoming local shows to preview over the next couple of weeks, today's post once again is dedicated to showcasing some favorite jazz documentary films that can be seen online for free.

First up is Miles Ahead: The Music of Miles Davis, which was produced in 1986 and and aired by PBS as part of their series Great Performances. Not to be confused with the similarly named film by Don Cheadle released earlier this year, this movie is a documentary with concert footage from the 1986 New Orleans Jazz Festival and interviews with Davis, Keith Jarrett, Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, George Benson, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams and others.

After the jump, you can see Mingus: Charlie Mingus 1968, director Thomas Reichman's film about the famed bassist, bandleader, and composer.

Below that, it's On the Road with Duke Ellington, originally made for television in 1967, and updated after Ellington's death in 1974.

That's followed by The World According To John Coltrane, a 1990 film about the influential saxophonist; and Different Drummer: Elvin Jones, a 1979 documentary about the drummer who played on many of Coltrane's greatest recordings.

The final video is Jackie McLean On Mars, a quirky, short film from 1979 about the saxophonist that features him addressing the camera directly for much of its running time.

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

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Giants of jazz in concert

Since this feature is still employing a non-topical, summer-vacation protocol, today's post is simply a sort of video jazz festival, for which yr. editor has selected full sets from six of the all-time giants of jazz, recorded at various locations around the world in the middle of the last century.

In order, the videos are:

* Louis Armstrong in 1959 in Antwerp, Belgium
* Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1965 in Montreal
* Count Basie Orchestra in 1972 in Copenhagen, Denmark
* Thelonious Monk Quartet in 1963 in Japan
* Charles Mingus Sextet in 1964 in Oslo, Norway
* Miles Davis Quintet in 1964 in Milan, Italy

The Armstrong video is at the top of this post; the others can be seen after the jump. Enjoy!

Sunday Session: February 28, 2016

Kahil El'Zabar

For your Sunday reading, some interesting music-related items that have turned up recently in StLJN's inbox:

* Inside Pete Townshend's Studio Barge (Pro Sound News)
* Blues Is The Cool, 'New' Genre In Music....Again (Forbes)
* Kahil El’Zabar: Jazz as spiritual experience (Washington Post)
* Unseen Interview with ARP 2600 Co-inventor, Dennis P Colin (Keyboard)
* "There Are No Flaws in Art": Esperanza Spalding Shares Her D+Evolution (Vice.com)
* What I Learned Working At A Record Label That Failed (Hypebot.com)
* A memory of a lifetime: Shopping with August Wilson at Jazz Record Mart (Chicago Tribune)
* A History of Police Boycotting Musicians in America (Pitchfork)
* Jazz Saxophonist Branford Marsalis: Jay-Z Doesn't Know What He's Talking About (San Antonio Current)
* Recording Icon Al Schmitt Mentors Students at Grammy Camp (DownBeat)
* SFJAZZ Collective Interprets Michael Jackson Songs (DownBeat)
* The school bus driver with a Grammy (Nashville Tennessean)
* Are old-school entertainers a dying breed? (Las Vegas Review Journal)
* The Eloquent Firing of Charles Mingus by Duke Ellington (Medium.com)
* How the Moog Synthesizer Changed the Sound of Music (OpenCulture.com)
* Laurie Anderson: An artist like no other (Washington Post)
* Can Steinway Lure a New Generation of Piano Lovers and 'Cultured Achievers'? Inside the legacy brand's unprecedented campaign (Adweek)
* Verve Reissues Classic Jazz Albums for 60th Anniversary (DownBeat)
* Inside Rock Legend Fats Domino's World: Crawfish, Cards, Boogie-Woogie (Rolling Stone)
* Photos: One Last Sad Glimpse Of Midtown's Now-Defunct Music Row (Gothamist)
* Wild gorillas compose happy songs that they hum during meals (New Scientist)

Miles on Monday: An open letter from Mingus to Miles, and more

This week in Miles Davis news:

* An ensemble led by pianist Bill Charlap revisited the arrangements from Davis' landmark album Birth Of The Cool for a concert on November 14 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, and DownBeat magazine has a review.

* Speaking of DownBeat, it was 60 years ago today that bassist and composer Charles Mingus (pictured, with Davis) took to the pages of that same magazine to pen "An Open Letter to Miles Davis."

Apparently prompted by concern about Davis' then-imminent return to the jazz scene after kicking his addiction to heroin, Mingus wrote:

"How is Miles going to act when he gets back and gets going again? Will it be like a gig in Brooklyn not too long ago with Max, Monk, and me when he kept telling Monk to “lay out” because his chords were all wrong? Or even at a more recent record date when he cursed, laid out, argued, and threatened Monk and asked Bob Weinstock why he hired such a nonmusician and would Monk lay out on his trumpet solos?"

The bassist did strike a more conciliatory note toward the end of his letter, writing, "Truly, Miles, I love you and want you to know you’re needed here, but you’re too important a person in jazz to be less than extra careful about what you say about other musicians who are also trying to create."

Given that Mingus was famously irascible to the point of physical violence with his own collaborators and sidemen - he once punched trombonist Jimmy Knepper, causing him to lose a tooth and suffer lasting damage to his embouchure - there's more than a little irony in him admonishing Miles about mistreating other musicians. Yet the mere fact that he would write such a thing, and that DownBeat would print it, suggests how important Davis was to jazz, even after having been out of action for an extended period.

* This week also marks 57 years since the release of Davis' album Milestones, which was issued originally on December 1, 1958, as Columbia CL 1193. Collecting material from sessions held in February and March of that year, the album featured Davis with a band including John Coltrane on tenor sax, Cannonball Adderly on alto sax, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and "Philly" Joe Jones on drums.

The tracks included "Dr. Jekyll," "Sid's Ahead," "Two Bass Hit," "Miles," "Billy Boy," and, interestingly, given the strained relationship between Miles and Monk mentioned in the Mingus letter, a version of Monk's "Straight, No Chaser," which you can hear via the YouTube embed below.