Sunday Session: May 10, 2020

Stevie Wonder

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

* Shut In Due to Pandemic, Cuba Opens a Window to the World With Music (Billboard)
* Richie Cole, Esteemed Alto Saxophonist and a Keeper of the Bebop Flame, Has Died at 72 (WBGO)
* Levon Helm’s spirit remains in barn that bears his name (PBS)
* INTERVIEW: Dr. Michael White, the musician who ventures deep into NOLA jazz history (HollywoodSoapbox.com)
* Battered by coronavirus, L.A.'s legendary recording studios prep for a post-shutdown ‘resurgence’ (Los Angeles Times)
* Richie Cole 1948 – 2020 (Jazz Times)
* Bass Magazine Lockdown Check-In With Trevor Dunn (BassMagazine.com)
* The Making of Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, and Mingus - The Steve Katz Interview (JoniMitchell.com)
* Nelson George on Stevie Wonder's "Innervisions" (1973) (Simplecast.com)
* Afrobeat: An Alternative Top Ten (AllAboutJazz.com)
* New Orleans Mourns the Loss of Ellis Marsalis: ‘We Were All His Children’ (The Daily Beast)
* Kurt Elling & Danilo Pérez Share the Secrets of Collaboration (Jazz Times)
* ‘Black Coffee’: Peggy Lee’s “Darker Exploration Of Love” (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* What Will The Future Of Concerts Look Like After The Pandemic? (WBUR)
* ‘It’s a Clusterf-ck’: Musicians Struggle to Get Pandemic Assistance (Rolling Stone)
* Dave Liebman Manifests The Elements (DownBeat)
* New Orleans Music Documentary Set for Home Release Via Local Theaters (Variety)
* Kraftwerk Co-Founder Florian Schneider Dies at Age 73 (Billboard)
* Chicago jazz club owners ponder when to reopen, and how (Chicago Tribune)
* Laurie Anderson: where to start in her back catalogue (The Guardian)
* Hillard 'Sweet Pea' Atkinson, Legendary Vocalist With Was (Not Was), Dies at 74 (Billboard)
* Stevie Wonder turns 70: 7 memorable moments in the music icon’s life (New York Post)
* Without Federal Aid, More than 1,000 U.S. Music Venues Are in Danger of Closing (Rolling Stone)
* How Florian Schneider and Kraftwerk influenced five decades of music (BBC)
* The Vintage Vibe of Robert Cray (DownBeat)
* What is the value of exposure when exposure is all there is? (Music Industry Blog)
* Little Richard, Founding Father of Rock Who Broke Musical Barriers, Dead at 87 (Rolling Stone)
* 'He hit us like a bolt of lightning': stars pay tribute to Little Richard (The Guardian)

Sunday Session: December 15, 2019

Coleman Hawkins

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

* Shush... and enjoy the music: how listening bars have hit the right note (The Guardian)
* The Jewish Music of Woody Guthrie - The Klezmatics Interview (SFJAZZ.org)
* We Jazz Festival Depicts the Evolving World of Finnish Jazz (DownBeat)
* Inside the Rebirth of Capricorn Sound Studios, Ground Zero for Southern Rock (Rolling Stone)
* 'Death metal rarely works': how restaurateurs choose the perfect dinner playlist (The Guardian)
* The Whitefish Review Interview: Huey Lewis (WhitefishReview.org)
* ECM: Birth Of A Label (IndianaPublicMedia.org)
* How Moondog Captured the Sounds of New York (The New Yorker)
* Interview: Brian Eno On Music, Art and Astronauts (HotPress.com)
* Music collectors seek out rare albums not available on streaming (TheConversation.com)
* Why Davina & The Vagabonds Finally Recorded at a World-Class Studio (DownBeat)
* Jazz Wars in the ’70s (VillageVoice.com)
* Quincy’s Danilo Perez leads a celebration of jazz (Quincy Patriot Ledger)
* These Musicians Were 'Canceled,' But People Kept Listening (Jezebel.com)
* Coleman Hawkins: Fifty Years Gone, A Saxophone Across Time (AllAboutJazz.com)
* TV and Film Composers Say Netflix, Other Streaming Services Insist on Buying Out Their Music Rights (Hollywood Reporter)
* T.K. Blue Explores the Legacy of Randy Weston (DownBeat)
* The Deceptive Ease Of Cole Porter: In-Depth With Harry Connick, Jr. (NPR)
* The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde Goes For Jazz Karaoke On 'Valve Bone Woe' Covers (NPR)
* Discovery Networks Corners Composers in Music Royalties Battle (Variety)
* No Matter the Coast, Bill Frisell’s Guitar Sings (DownBeat)
* 'He was a musical warlock': reflecting on Frank Zappa's greatest album at 50 (The Guardian)
* 15 sounds people under 40 won’t recognize — but will trigger instant memories if you’re 50+ (Considerable.com)
* Van Morrison: “I’m current – I’m always current” (Uncut)
* Jacob Collier: Live from His Room (Jazz Times)

Jazz this week: Danilo Pérez, Jay Oliver, Denise Thimes, a big band Sunday, and more

This week's calendar of jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes a visit from a top touring jazz pianist, the return of a favorite local singer to the city's showcase club, and one day that may seem like a time warp back to the big band era.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, February 24
Singer Denise Thimes (pictured, top left) returns to Jazz at the Bistro for the first of three evenings, continuing through Friday.

Also tonight, the Route 66 Jazz Orchestra plays at Riverbend Restaurant & Bar.

Thursday, February 25
Keyboardist and St. Louis native Jay Oliver is back in town for a visit and will team up with guitarist/bassist William Lenihan and drummer Steve Davis to play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Elsewhere on Thursday, singer Joe Mancuso and guitarist Dave Black perform at Thurman Grill; and the Tavern of Fine Arts presents their monthly "Open Improv Night" with live improvised music.

Friday, February 26
Singer Tim Schall does his cabaret show "1961" at The Stage at KDHX; singer Chuck Flowers performs at Tavern of Fine Arts; and The Sidemen play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom

Saturday,
February 27
Pianist Danilo Pérez (pictured, lower left) plays the Sheldon Concert Hall, featuring music from his 2014 recording Panama 500, a sort of world-fusion concept that posits the music of that nation as part of a continuum of styles stretching around the globe. For more about that, and to see and hear Pérez performing some of the music from the album, check out the video showcase post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Also on Saturday, Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes return to Thurman Grill, and singer Eve Seltzer will perform at Evangeline's.

Sunday, February 28
While the "big band era" is supposed to have ended officially more than 60 years ago, you wouldn't necessarily know that by looking at the calendar for Sunday, which features four different big band performances in St. Louis on the same day.

For starters, the students in the McKinley High School Goldbug Jazz Band will be celebrating their first recording as a group with a matinee concert & CD release party at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Meanwhile, just a few blocks to the south, The Big Little Big Band will present a free concert at the Scottish Rite Cathedral Auditorium on Lindell.

Then on Sunday evening, the Dave Dickey Big Band will present their monthly performance at Jazz at the Bistro, with the North County HS Jazz Ensemble playing at intermission, while the Jazz Edge Big Band
returns to the Kirkwood Station Brewing Company (where Dickey's band played until the opening of the expanded Ferring Jazz Bistro in 2014).

Monday, February 29
Saxophonists Christopher Braig and Paul DeMarinis will join forces for a concert at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium; Dizzy Atmosphere plays swing and Gypsy jazz at The Shaved Duck; and pianist Ptah Williams continues his Monday night residency at Thurman Grill.

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.)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The world fusion of Danilo Pérez' Panama 500

Today, our video spotlight shines on pianist Danilo Pérez, who will be in St.. Louis to perform on Saturday, February 27 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Pérez, 50, first came to the US from his native Panama in the mid-1980s to study at Berklee College of Music. He initially gained wide attention in this country for his work with the late trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and since 2000 has been a member of Wayne Shorter's long-running quartet, recording four albums and touring with the sometimes-enigmatic saxophonist.

As a bandleader, Pérez has released 11 albums under his own name, the most recent being Panama 500, which came out in 2014. He'll be featuring music from that recording during his performance at the Sheldon, and the first video up above, produced for promotional purposes by Pérez' label Mack Avenue Records, provides a brief introduction to the album's concept, which involves combining musical influences from a variety of cultures. 

After the jump, you can see some live performances from Pérez' 2014 tour supporting the release of Panama 500 with a band including bassist Ben Street and drummer Adam Cruz, both longtime associates, plus harmonica player Roni Eytan, a nimble melodist who helps give the ensemble a distinctive sound.

From their gig on March 18, 2014 at New Morning in Paris, you can see versions of the album's title composition "Panama 500", "The Canal Suite: Melting Pot", and "Body and Soul", the latter done as a duet between Eytan and Pérez.

After that, there's an excerpt from their gig the following week on March 25, 2014 at Tbilisi Event Hall in Tbilisi, Georgia (the republic that formerly was part of the Soviet Union, not the US state).

The final video is an interview that Pérez did with Detroit jazz broadcaster Brian Pace in 2013, when the pianist premiered some of the music from Panama 500 at the Detroit Jazz Festival.

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

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/spring 2016 jazz preview, part 2

This week, it's part two of StLJN's winter/spring 2016 jazz preview, featuring bands and musicians who will be visiting St. Louis to perform in the new year. (You can see part one, which covers most of the month of January, here.)

Today's installment picks up the chronological thread in late January with Bonerama, who will be back in town to play on Friday, January 22 at Broadway Oyster Bar. In the first video up above, you can see an excerpt from their set at the 2015 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in which they perform the original tune "Mr. Okra" and their interpretation of the NOLA standard "Indian Red."

After the jump, it's pianist Billy Childs, who will perform Saturday, January 30 at the Sheldon Concert Hall. The video clip feature Childs' version of "New York Tendaberry" from his album Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, and was recorded at the 2015 Monterey Jazz Festival.

Next up is singer Cyrille Aimée, who will be making her St. Louis debut with performances starting Wednesday, February 3 through Saturday, February 6 at Jazz at the Bistro. Aimée and her band are seen here performing the standard "Caravan" in a promotional video for the Crested Butte Music Festival held in July in Colorado.

That same week will mark the long-anticipated return of singer Gregory Porter, whose career has taken off like the proverbial rocket since he last visited St. Louis in January 2013 to perform at the Bistro. It's a measure of how much his star has risen over the last three years that this time, instead of doing a four-night run in the relatively intimate confines of the Bistro, Porter will perform in concert on Saturday, February 6 at a much larger venue, the Touhill Performing Arts Center. You can see him in the fourth video doing his song "Liquid Spirit" in a show earlier this year in Ibiza, Spain.

Two nights after Porter's concert, saxophonist Branford Marsalis will return to St. Louis to perform Monday, February 8 through Wednesday, February 10 at Jazz at the Bistro. Marsalis is seen in the fifth video clip with his long-running band - pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Justin Faulkner - playing "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" this past July at the Ravello Festival in Italy.

After that, you can see pianist Marcus Roberts, who will be featured in a week of performances Wednesday, February 17 through Saturday, February 20 at the Bistro. Roberts and his trio, with Jason Marsalis (brother of Branford, Wynton, and Delfeayo) on drums and Rodney Jordan on bass, are seen here performing Thelonious Monk's "Blues Five Spot" at a concert last February in Calgary, Alberta.

The following week, St. Louis jazz fans will have the chance to check out another powerful pianist, as Danilo Perez performs on Saturday, February 27 at the Sheldon. Perez has been part of saxophonist Wayne Shorter's quartet for years now, and earlier this year enlisted the aid of his bandmates in that group, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade, to record a trio album, Children of the Light, which was released in September. In the seventh clip, you can see them performing the title song from that album in a show this past July at the Blue Note Milano in Italy.

Last, but certainly not least today, is saxophonist James Carter, who will be returning to perform with his organ trio starting Wednesday, March 2 through Saturday, March 5 at Jazz at the Bistro. Carter is seen here fronting a big band on a typically effusive performance of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," recorded in June of this year at the Festival Django Reinhardt 2015 in Samois-sur-Seine, France.

Next week, it's part three of StLJN's winter/spring 2016 jazz preview. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

The Sheldon announces 2015-16 season

The Sheldon Concert Hall has announced their various series lineups for the 2015-16 season, with a jazz series featuring four piano players, plus various other events that may be of interest to jazz and creative music fans.

Brazilian-born pianist Eliane Elias (pictured, top left) will begin the jazz series on Saturday, November 21, followed by Billy Childs presenting his show "Re-Imagining Laura Nyro" on Saturday, January 30.

The Panamanian native Danilo Pérez (pictured, center left) is next, with a program called, appropriately enough, "Panama 500" on Saturday, February 27, and Cyrus Chestnut, who's quite familiar to St. Louis listeners from numerous previous appearances at Jazz at the Bistro and The Sheldon, wraps up the series with "African Reflections" on Saturday, May 7.

Two of the Sheldon's big fundraising events of the year also will feature jazz headliners, with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (pictured, bottom left) booked to perform at the Friends of the Sheldon benefit gala on Saturday, October 3, and pianist Ramsey Lewis celebrating the 50th anniversary of his hit "The In Crowd" at the annual ArtSounds! event on Saturday, November 7.

(While the benefit gala ticket prices start at $150 for JaLCO and Marsalis, and $125 for Lewis, and go up from there, there also will be concert-only tickets sold for both, priced at $45 orchestra, $40 balcony for JaLCO and $65 orchestra, $55 balcony for Lewis.)

Also of potential interest to jazz fans, singer Banu Gibson will pay tribute to "40 Years of Randy Newman" in a special non-subscription matinee concert on Sunday, October 25.

Pianist Peter Martin turns up on three different programs - first, in a concert for his eponymous series, with a special guest TBA, on Saturday, October 10; then with St. Louis Symphony violinist David Halen and friends for a holiday program on Wednesday, December 2; and finally, with Halen and other St. Louis Symphony members playing classical music on Wednesday, April 6.

New music ensemble Alarm Will Sound also will be back for their fourth St. Louis season, with concerts scheduled for Tuesday, October 20; Friday, November 20; Friday, February 12; and Thursday, May 26.

The popular Coffee Concert series of mid-week morning performances will include Alan Ox doing “Songs of Great American Crooners” on Tuesday, October 6 and Wednesday, October 7; actor/singer Ben Nordstrom on Tuesday, February 16 and Wednesday, February 17; Wack-A-Doo on Tuesday, April 5 and Wednesday, April 6; and cabaret singer Tim Schall in a tribute to music of the Gaslight Square era, “The Gaslight Generation,” on Tuesday May 10 and Wednesday, May 11. Last (from a jazz perspective) but not least, trumpeter and singer Dawn Weber will play a Saturday matinee on Saturday, April 2.

So what's the "hot take" on this lineup? Longtime readers may recall that in the past, yr. humble StLJN editor has taken the Sheldon's management to task for being too risk-averse when booking the jazz series, and the phrase "talented, but safe" once again could be used to describe pretty much all this year's choices. Consider also that, although some of the individual programs presented might have been different, the entire jazz series  could have been booked with these exact same artists 10 years ago, and the dimensions of the challenge become more apparent.

Of course, there's always potential for additional individual concerts to be added as the fall approaches, and if past years are any guide, there likely will be at least a couple more shows of interest to jazz fans. But given that this year's lineup contained some arguably riskier choices, such as the Spokfrevo Orquestra and Cécile McLorin Salvant, the 2015-16 slate seems like a bit of an artistic retrenchment.

Subscriptions for the four-concert jazz series are $150 for orchestra seating, $135 balcony, with prices for other shows varying according the specific event. New subscriptions go on sale at 10:00 a.m. Monday, May 11, with sales will continuing through the first concert in each series, via phone at 314-533-9900 and online at http://www.thesheldon.org/. Single tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. August 8 at 10 a.m. via MetroTix or the Sheldon website.