So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* A newly restored version of Say Amen Somebody, the award-winning 1982 documentary about gospel music that features St. Louisans including Willie Mae Ford Smith, Zella Jackson Price, and the O'Neal Twins, is being re-released in theaters this fall. The film will play locally from Friday, September 13 through Thursday, September 19 at the Chase Park Plaza Cinemas.

* A performance by Miss Jubilee earned a favorable mention in The Syncopated Times' review of the 2019 Bix Biederbecke Memorial Jazz Festival in Davenport, IA.

* St. Louis saxophonist Kwanae Johnson and his family recently lost their home to a fire, and friends are stepping up to help. A concert to raise funds for the Johnsons, with details still TBA, will be presented from noon to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 29 at .ZACK. For those who can't attend that day or prefer to give directly, there's a donation page on Facebook.

* Also in need of a hand right now is guitarist Dave Black (pictured), a mainstay of the St. Louis music scene for more than 30 years. Black last week was involved in a serious cycling accident, suffering injuries that will keep him from performing or teaching for several months.

A benefit concert is in the works, but in the meantime, friends have set up a GoFundMe page to help Black with medical and living expenses during his recovery. Black's situation also was the subject of a story by KMOX radio's Maria Keena.

* As reported by St. Louis Public Radio's Jeremy D. Goodwin, a new $30 million development will bring single family homes (and some new apartments) to the Grand Center arts district.

* Jazz St. Louis has announced the selections for this year's edition of their book club, which once again will be led by Washington University professor Gerald Early. You can see the complete list of books and meeting dates here.

* The second annual St. Louis Drum Show will be held from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 19 at the Koken Art Factory.

* Neuka Bowie Mitchell, an executive with Bayer and the daughter of trumpeter Lester Bowie and singer Fontella Bass, has been named to the board of directors of the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis.

* Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, the new documentary about the famed trumpeter, was the subject of a feature story in DownBeat. The film also was reviewed by Glenn Kenny for the New York Times  and by the Los Angeles Times' Glenn Whipp.

* The music made by Davis in 1959, including Kind of Blue and the Gil Evans-arranged Porgy and Bess, will be revisited at a tribute concert by Richard Pite’s Jazz Repertory Company on Saturday, September 21 at Cadogan Hall in London.

St. Louis Jazz Hall of Fame honoring five new inductees at gala on Sunday, October 23

Clockwise from top left: Bass, Bluiett, Lake and Washington

The St. Louis Jazz Hall of Fame will induct five musicians in a ceremony to be held at 5:00 p.m. Sunday, October 23 at the Emerson Performance Center on the campus of Harris Stowe State University.

The hall, which is part of the Don and Heide Wolff Jazz Institute at Harris Stowe, will welcome three new living members - saxophonists Hamiet Bluiett, Oliver Lake, and Freddie Washington - and two posthumous inductees, singer Fontella Bass and trumpeter David Hines.

As most readers of this site will already know, Bluiett and Lake both were members of the Black Artists Group in the late 1960s and went on to co-found the World Saxophone Quartet with David Murray and former St. Louisan Julius Hemphill. Both Bluiett and Lake continue to enjoy busy careers, recording and touring both nationally and internationally.

Washington has been a mainstay of the St. Louis scene for more than 50 years, teaching and performing regularly in local clubs and concert venues since the 1960s.

Bass, who died in 2012, was best known for her 1965 pop and soul mega-hit "Rescue Me," but also recorded jazz with the Art Ensemble of Chicago (which included her then-husband, St. Louis trumpeter Lester Bowie) and earned a Grammy nomination in 1995 for her gospel album No Ways Tired.

Hines was a highly regarded trumpeter, teacher and mentor who toured with Albert King, T-Bone Walker, Little Milton, Woody Herman, and Ray Charles, and worked frequently in St. Louis until his untimely death at age 49 in a 1991 motorcycle accident.

The induction ceremony is held in conjunction with the university's 18th annual "Homecoming Gold Gala" for alumni and supporters. Ronn Nichols, who serves as curator of the Wolff Jazz Institute, also will be honored with a "Lifetime Achievement Award."

Remembering Lester Bowie

Today, we remember the great St. Louis trumpeter Lester Bowie, who was born October 11, 1941.

Though Bowie (pictured) actually was born in Maryland, he grew up in St. Louis as part of a family that included two brothers who also became professional musicians: Joseph Bowie, a trombonist and leader of the funk-jazz band Defunkt; and Byron Bowie, a saxophonist and arranger/composer.

After developing his trumpet chops playing blues gigs around St. Louis with singers including Albert King and Little Milton and jazz wherever and whenever he could, Lester Bowie moved to Chicago in 1965, where he became a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the group with whom he is most closely associated.

In addition to the AEC, Bowie was involved in many different musical projects, recording in duo and trio settings with many of the musicians from BAG and Chicago's AACM, and leading a number of his own groups, notably Brass Fantasy and the Lester Bowie Organ Ensemble. His work incorporated many types of music, from free improv and knotty post-bop to gospel and doo-wop, and he stood out among trumpet players of his generation for his combination of deep concepts, a sense of humor, and use of extended techniques. Sadly, Lester Bowie died young, passing away from liver cancer on November 9, 1999 when he was just 58.

In the first video window below, you can see him in 1983 performing with From The Root To The Source, a multi-stylistic group reflecting Bowie's love of popular and church music as well as jazz that also was something of a family band, since it featured his ex-wife Fontella Bass and former in-laws Martha Bass and David Peaston.

In the window below that, you can see him performing "Summertime" in an undated clip with Brass Fantasy, and below that, in two parts, a complete Art Ensemble concert recorded in 1991 in Budapest.

Fontella Bass 1940 - 2012

Singer Fontella Bass, the St. Louisan who had a huge soul and pop hit in 1965 with "Rescue Me" but also sang jazz while married to trumpeter Lester Bowie, died Wednesday night in St. Louis of complications from heart failure. She was 72.

"Rescue Me," which Bass co-wrote as well as sang, sold more than a million copies. The song was the No. 1 R&B hit for four weeks, also reached the pop Top 10, and stayed on the charts for a total of nineteen months. In the decades since, it's been used in dozens of TV shows, movies and commercials and inspired numerous cover version, but in all too typical fashion for the music business, it took years for Bass to see any royalties from those uses.

Though "Rescue Me" will remain her best known work, Bass (pictured) was in fact a multi-talented singer and pianist who was raised singing gospel and got her professional start playing the blues with Oliver Sain and Little Milton. Just before hitting with "Rescue Me," Bass teamed with singer Bobby McClure to record Sain's composition "Don't Mess Up a Good Thing," which became a Top 10 R&B hit early in 1965.

She also had a number of credits as a jazz vocalist. Bass made three recordings with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, including the critically acclaimed 1970 album Les Stances A Sophie, while married to Bowie, and also did sessions with David Murray, the World Saxophone Quartet, and others.

After taking time off in the 1970s and 80s to raise a family, Bass eventually began singing in public again and in 1995, her gospel album No Ways Tired was nominated for a Grammy. She continued to tour occasionally, mostly overseas, into the 21st century, and even had another hit, providing guest vocals for the British dance music group Cinematic Orchestra on their 2002 track "All That You Give."

In 2003, Bass performed at the Sheldon Concert Hall in a benefit for the St. Louis Blues Society's Blues Mission Fund, and before that show I interviewed her for a story published in the Riverfront Times, archived online here. In that interview, she alluded to her fight to get her rightful royalties for "Rescue Me," a battle that took more than 25 years, and talked about her musical activities at the time.

It also should be noted that even before her marriage to Bowie, Bass already was part of a distinguished musical family. She was the daughter of gospel singer Martha Bass of the Clara Ward Singers, and her brother David Peaston, who died in Feburary this year, also was a successful professional vocalist who recorded R&B and gospel. Among those carrying on the family's legacy are Bass' youngest son Bonhamous Bowie, a keyboard player, and her son-in-law Tracy Mitchell, a guitarist. Bass has made few public appearances since 2005; sources close to the family have said she was in poor health and had been residing at a local extended-care nursing facility for some time now.

Local Fox affiliate KTVI has coverage of Bass' death here, while CBS Radio affiliate KMOX has a story here. We'll add other relevant links from local and national media to this post as they appear online.

Update, 12/31/12, 7:30 a.m.: A memorial service and tribute for Fontella Bass will be held at 7:00 p.m. this Friday, January 4, Shalom Church (City of Peace), 5491 North Highway 67, Florissant, MO 63034.

* The New York Times noted Fontella Bass' death here.
* The Post-Dispatch's story on Bass, written by Kevin Johnson, is here, and the obituary from the Associated Press is here.
* The Post's Johnson also has a story here with reactions from people involved in the St. Louis music scene.
* KDHX has re-posted Fontella Bass' version of Chuck Berry's "Brown-Eyed Hamdsome Man," recorded for one of the station's promotional compilations.

Post article recounts contributions of St. Louis' black musicians

In acknowledgment of Black History Month, over the weekend the Post-Dispatch ran an article by pop critic Kevin Johnson presenting an overview of some of the most famous African-American musicians from St. Louis.

In addition to the expected Chuck Berry and Tina Turner references, the piece contained capsule biographies and audio samples of Miles Davis, Josephine Baker, Fontella Bass and others, while also namechecking trumpet legend Clark Terry and younger jazz players Russell Gunn, Andre Delano, Eric Person and Greg Osby. Read the whole thing here.

Notes from the Net: Miles Davis, Oliver Lake, and others reviewed; Greg Osby in residence; Eric Person on the road; and more

It's been way too long since our last installment of this supposedly regular feature compiling news from around the Internet, and so there's quite a backlog of material related to current and former St. Louisans, starting with more reviews of Miles Davis' Complete On The Corner Sessions box set from the Village Voice, BBC and Guardian, plus an extended analysis from AllAboutJazz.com.

* Also via AllAboutJazz.com, here's another review of Miles Davis Live at the 1963 Monterey Jazz Festival.

* From Bagatellen, here's a review of saxophonist Oliver Lake's recently reissued trio session Zaki.

* And here's one more review of the Cinematic Orchestra's recent CD Ma Fleur, which features guest vocals from Fontella Bass.

* The Boston Globe had a feature story on saxophonist Marty Ehrlich and pianist Myra Melford. They're doing some live shows based on the material from their recent duo CD Spark.

* Saxophonist Greg Osby will be doing a residency at Middle Tenneessee University later this month.

* Multi-reed man J.D. Parran is part of panel discussion of the influence of non-Western musics on jazz, found in the latest edition of the fine online magazine Point of Departure.

* Still touring in support of his most recent CD, saxophonist Eric Person got some press from the Rocky Mountain News while in Denver to play at a club called Dazzle.

* And there's a new recording reuniting former St. Louis Symphony Orchestra music director and conductor Leonard Slatkin, now heading up the Detroit Symphony, and onetime SLSO composer-in-residence Joan Tower.

* Catching up with some items relating to recent visitors to St. Louis, here's a review of Tony Bennett's new CD, The Great American Songbook, Vol 1 by Blogcritics' Holly Hughes.

* Perpetually touring avant-garde pianist Thollem McDonas will be in Philadelphia to play a show as part of the Bowerbird series.

* Bassist Esperanza Spalding makes a cameo appearance on the new CD from fellow bassman Stanley Clarke.

* The jazz indie label Dreyfus Records has released A Life in Time, a Roy Haynes career retrospective box set containing 3 CDs and a DVD, briefly reviewed by the New York Times here. The review also covers several other recent releases, including the latest CD from trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, issued by the St. Louis based label MAXJAZZ. And speaking of reviews pf MAXJAZZ releases, AllAboutJazz.com has one of guitarist Russell Malone's latest, Live at the Jazz Standard, Vol. 2, here.

* Turning to the "coming attractions" file, the jazz-fusion band The Yellowjackets and guitarist Mike Stern are both scheduled to perform seperate gigs at Jazz at the Bistro in 2008, but first, it looks like they may be teaming up for a joint recording and tour.

* Trumpeter Chris Botti returns to St. Louis in January to play the Touhill Performing Arts Center; here's a recent interview with Botti, and a review of his new CD Italia, both from AllAboutJazz.com.

* Last but not least, from the "worth reading" file, here's an recent essay from the always provocative journalist Greg Tate entitled "Black Jazz in the Digital Age."

Notes from the Net: Reviews of Miles Davis, Grant Green and Oliver Lake; Frahm and McBride interviewed; and more

It's another week, another month, and StLJN has been slaving over a hot Internet, gathering, sifting and preparing these info-snacks for your edification and entertainment:

* Let's start, as we so often do, with Miles Davis and, via the always interesting be.jazz, a complete track listing for the upcoming The Complete On The Corner Sessions box set.

*Blogcritics.com has a review of the new Miles remix CD, Evolution of the Groove : "A solid imagining of what Miles might sound like in 2007. More importantly, it’s a reminder of his continued influence. The only complaint I have with this little EP is it’s far too short."

* Catching up with some other St. Louis natives, we find that the New York Times reviewed Oliver Lake's Trio 3 gig last weekend at NYC's Iridium: "The collaboration pushed all parties toward new solutions, and for artists like these, that’s a clear sign of success."

* CD Reviews.com has a review of the recently issued Grant Green CD Live at Club Mozambique: "Jazz guitar fans are going to love this document of Green's guitar excellence... This gig captured Green at the top of his game and his playing here is, like always, a revelation. You have to get this."

* The San Francisco Chronicle has a brief review of the latest Cinematic Orchestra release, which features guest vocals from Fontella Bass.

* St. Louis music publisher Mel Bay's 60th anniversary was featured in an AP story that got picked up in many newspapers over the weekend; read the International Herald Tribune's version here.

* Turning to the 'coming attractions" file, Joel Frahm, tenor saxophonist with Waverly Seven, recently did a podcast interview with a site called The Jazz Session, while Blogcritics.com has a new interview with bassist Christian McBride (pictured). Waverly Seven will be at Jazz at the Bistro in November, while McBride will be part of the Ray Brown Tribute Band gig at the Bistro in April.

* From the "making beautiful music together" file: Renee Rosnes, who plays piano with the SFJAZZ Collective and was in St. Louis with them last spring to perform at the Bistro, just married fellow jazz pianist Bill Charlap. Best wishes to the happy couple, but what I really want to know is: Do they have two pianos at home, or, if not, who gets first dibs on the keyboard if both want to practice at the same time?

* Finally, NYC composer and blogger Darcy James Argue has what I thought was an interesting post on the lack of what he calls "rhythmic authority" displayed by many classical musicians, and one orchestra that nevertheless seems to have plenty of it:

"That's the Simón Bolívar National Youth Orchestra, who are basically ambassadors for Venezuela's El Sistema, a national music program that for 30 years has been providing free instruments and music education to kids we've taken to euphemistically calling "at risk."

...American orchestras, feeling the crunch of reduced ticket sales and an aging audience, have been wracking their brains trying to figure out how to turn things around, but many of the proposed changes are of the "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" variety.

It seems to me that when you are getting your asses handed to you by a bunch of Venezuelan street kids, it's time for everyone involved to take a long hard look in the mirror. And then maybe reach for that tambor mina and start shedding."

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: Fontella Bass and the Cinematic Orchestra, plus Bobby Watson in "Cowtown Riff"

While this week's videos both have a St. Louis connection, both are something a little different than the usual live performance clips featured here. First up is the music video for "All That You Give," the 2002 collaboration between the Cinematic Orchestra and St. Louis singer Fontella Bass. The song was a fair-sized hit in the UK and Europe, and five years later, the group is releasing a new CD, once again featuring Bass' vocals.

The second video clip is called "Cowtown Riff," and it's from an experimental student documentary featuring saxophonist Bobby Watson, the former Jazz Messenger who teaches at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Watson will be in St. Louis in April for the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, and in this clip, he talks about jazz in Kansas City.

Fontella Bass featured on upcoming Cinematic Orchestra release

Legendary St. Louis singer Fontella Bass (pictured), known around the world for her jazz work with the Art Ensemble of Chicago as well as the huge soul hit "Rescue Me," will be one of the featured vocalists on Ma Fleur, the upcoming CD from English electronica act Cinematic Orchestra.

Bass previously collaborated with the group as a guest vocalist on their 2002 CD Everyday. Led by keyboardist/producer Jason Swinscoe, Cinematic Orchestra's previous releases have combined sampled elements of 60s and '70s jazz, orchestral soundtracks, rhythm loops and live instrumentation into a sound that has proved quite popular in the UK and Europe. Ma Fleur, which is scheduled for a June release on Domino Recordings in North America and Ninja Tune in Europe., is described as "the soundtrack to a specially commissioned screenplay for an imagined film (which may or may not yet be made)." Read more about the project here.