So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's StLJN's weekly wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:

* Funky Butt Brass Band sousaphonist Cody Henry was the featured guest on a recent episode of the Rock Paper Podcast.

* Bassist Darin Gray (pictured) this week released Soundtrack 1, an album of previously unheard recordings made in 2006 by On Fillmore, Gray's duo project with drummer Glenn Kotche.

* Singer and Webster University adjunct professor Debby Lennon will star in Max and Louie Productions' upcoming revival of "Songs for Nobodies," a one-woman play with music by Joanna Murray-Smith in which Lennon will perform songs associated with "legendary divas" Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, and Maria Callas. The show will run Thursday, December 2 through Sunday, December 12 at the Grandel Theatre.

* Bob Koester, a former St. Louis University student who went on to found Chicago’s famed Jazz Record Mart and the Delmark record label, died Wednesday at age 88. Koester got his start in the music business selling records from his SLU dorm room, then dropped out in 1952 to open the Blue Note record shop here, which he ran until moving to Chicago in 1958.

* Saxophonist and educator Harvey Lockhart was a guest on Thursday's episode of the webcast talk program "The Own Your Now Show."

* Guitarist and former St. Louisan Carl Weingarten has a new release, Ember Days, out this month on his label Multiphase Records

* Saxophonist Julius Hemphill and The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony, the new seven-CD box set of his previously unreleased Hemphill's music, are the subject of an essay by Adam Schatz in the most recent New York Review of Books.
* Keyboardist Michael Silverman was interviewed by SmoothJazz.com.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:

* A new documentary film about Miles Davis is in production and scheduled for release early next year.

The film, which has the working title Miles Davis: Birth Of The Cool, is a joint venture of Eagle Rock Entertainment and PBS' American Masters and will be produced and directed by Stanley Nelson, who helmed the Emmy Award-winning documentary Freedom Riders.

The producers' plan is for the film to be submitted to film festivals and get a theatrical release before it is broadcast on PBS and BBC2. Nelson is working with the Davis estate to get access to rare photos and never-before-seen footage, including outtakes from the trumpeter's recording sessions. He also has interviewed musicians and music industry figures who knew and/or worked with Davis (pictured), including Quincy Jones, Carlos Santana, Clive Davis, Wayne Shorter and Ron Carter.

* On a related note, Davis finished fifth in a poll by the Springfield, IL State Journal-Register asking readers to name their favorite musicians and bands born in Illinois.

* The STL Sanders Band, a politically conscious brass band organized by Cody Henry of the Funky Butt Brass Band, was the subject of a short feature written by Thomas Crone for the Riverfront Times.

* Singer Chuck Flowers and pianist Charles Creath performed Thursday on KTVI-Fox 2's morning newscast.

* Ichida, the new album from bassist Darin Gray and multi-instrumentalist Eiko Ishibashi, has been released.