Sunday Session: April 1, 2018

Lionel Loueke

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:

* Spring arts 2018: Meet musician Anthony Davis (San Diego Union Tribune)
* At 93, Roy Haynes Remains a Nuanced Drummer (DownBeat)
* Roxy Music: Legendary LA Shows Catch Zappa And The Mothers At Their Most Inventive (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Mud Morganfield Honors the Past and Chases the Future (AmericanBluesScene.com)
* A Tom Waits Listening Primer (Bandcamp.com)
* Can One Company Catalog Every Record Ever Made? (Paste)
* How Wes Anderson Perfected the Music-Nerd Soundtrack (Pitchfork.com)
* Physical music outsold digital downloads in the US last year (FactMag.com)
* SXSW: Music Journalism Panel Illuminates Streaming’s Impact on Editorial Decisions (Variety)
* Sony Music Overhauls Legacy Label to Adapt to Streaming World (EXCLUSIVE) (Variety)
* The MPS Label Celebrates a Resurgence (DownBeat)
* Jazz's Bleeding Edge? You Can Find It, Briefly, In Eastern Tennessee (WBGO)
* Chad Lawson Wants To Revive Piano For The 'Spotify Generation' (NPR)
* Experimental music's reliance on Facebook is counterintuitive – but there are alternatives (The Guardian)
* Q&A with Guitarist Lionel Loueke: Signature Sound (DownBeat)
* 'It's like being a prizefighter': the busker who went viral on his new chance at fame (The Guardian)
* How Steinway's $133,000 Spirio self-playing piano engineered a symphonic turnaround (USA Today)
* Going to concerts helps you live longer, according to new research (The Independent)
* Jazz Legend Sonny Rollins Can No Longer Play His Horn, But He's Still Searching for His Sound (People)
* David Byrne on the Music That Made Him (Pitchfork.com)
* Musicians hit by 'management scam' (BBC)
* 'I'm 100 per cent myself': Fred Hersch's life is an open book (CBCMusic.ca)
* Cal Tjader: San Francisco to Portland with Seattle a Bust (Jazz Profiles)
* Braxton Issues 11-disc Rumination on Charlie Parker (DownBeat)
* iTunes Announces All Music Downloads Will Be Shut Down and It's Not a 'Black Mirror' Episode (BaebleMusic.com)
* Timeless New York Tribute As All-Star Line-Up Gathers In Celebration Of John Abercrombie (Jazzwise)
* The Roots Of Van Morrison's 'Astral Weeks' (WBUR)
* Learning Through Listening: Shabaka Hutchings Favourite LPs (TheQuietus.com)
* The Bad Plus: Goodbye, Hello (Jazz Times)
* Q&A with Matthew Shipp: ‘Out of Nothingness’ (DownBeat)
* Wynton Marsalis Reflects on 30 Years of Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (Billboard)
* Mere Virtuosity - Variations on a Slippery Idea (VQRonline.org)
* Organ Grinding - When the audience revolted at Carnegie Hall (The American Scholar)
* The Defiant Ones’ Jimmy Iovine on the future of streaming and “stepping back” from Apple Music (FactMag.com)
* Treasure unearthed from late Houston jazz legend (Houston Chronicle)

Sunday Session: January 28, 2018

Hugh Masekela

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:

* Never Alone: Reflections on the 2018 Winter Jazzfest (AllAboutJazz.com)
* World Music Influences on John Coltrane’s Music (KCRW)
* Havana’s acclaimed jazz festival sees big American presence (NBC News)
* Hear Lost Music from the Original Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (Garden and Gun)
* Where Are All the Female Music Producers? (Billboard)
* Fred Hersch And The Art Of Introspection (NPR)
* In Monterrey, Life Moves to the Rhythm of Cumbia (Vice.com)
* Geri Allen’s Spirit Fills Winter Jazzfest During All-Star Tribute (DownBeat)
* Questlove On The Benefits Of Silence, Controversy, And Chemistry (Fast Company)
* James Brown-Inspired Roller-Skating Is Alive and Well in Chicago (MelMagazine.com)
* Hugh Masekela obituary: South African jazz pioneer who fought the evil of apartheid (The Guardian)
* 20 Essential Hugh Masekela Songs (OkayAfrica.com)
* Hugh Masekela (04/04/1939 – 23/01/2018) (Jazzwise)
* 30 Fascinating Early Bands of Future Music Legends (Rolling Stone)
* From Sonic Youth to Sia, the surprising history of Starbucks’ record label (DazedDigital.com)
* What do smart speakers and voice assistants REALLY mean for music? (MusicAlly.com)
* 20 of the Most Innovative Musicians Working Today (Paste)
* After The Vinyl Revival, The Vinyl-Playing Jukebox Is Back (NPR)
* The Highlight Of My Career Is Still Being Out Here”: Dr Lonnie Smith On ‘All In My Mind’ (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* NMPA Claims Victory: CRB Raises Payout Rate from Music Subscription Services (Billboard)

Sunday Session: January 7, 2018

Ron Carter

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

* A 2017 JT Reader - Selected highlights from the year in JazzTimes (Jazz Times)
* Legendary Jazz Bassist Ron Carter Talks About Music, Recording, and Hi-Fi (Stereophile)
* Long Players: writers on their most cherished albums (NewStatesman.com)
* Wayne Shorter: Artist In Residence At The Detroit Jazz Festival (NPR)
* Lifetime Achievement in Music: The Poet Laureate of Mardi Gras Indians, Monk Boudreaux (Offbeat)
* Iverson Plays Final Show with Bad Plus (DownBeat)
* How a Hit Happens Now (Vulture.com)
* The 'Despacito' effect: The year Latino music broke the charts (NBC)
* Player Pianos and the Commodification of Music (JStor.org)
* Spotify Hit With $1.6 Billion Copyright Lawsuit Over Tom Petty, Weezer, Neil Young Songs (Hollywood Reporter)
* Rick Hall, Producer And Songwriter Who Put Muscle Shoals On The Map, Dead At 85 (NPR)
* Jazz improvisers score high on creativity (Science News)
* In 2018, I want to find new music without using algorithms (TheVerge.com)
* The rebirth of St. John Coltrane church in the Western Addition (TheWesternEdition.com)
* The lost art of music snobbery (The Globe and Mail)
* Matt Wilson – The Ambassador of Unvention (Modern Drummer)
* New Documentary Examines Milford Graves’ Music and Philosophy (DownBeat)
* The Healing Power of Jazz (The New Yorker)
* Producers say record labels are calling projects “mixtapes” to avoid paying them fairly (TheFader.com)
* Fred Hersch: Life, Music, and the Creative Process (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Recording Studios are not Dying (Pro Sound News)
* Pop tunes are welcome in the movies, directors say, as long as it's in service of the plot (Los Angeles Times)
* How Women Shaped The Legacy Of Nashville’s Oldest And Most Celebrated Venue, The Ryman Auditorium (Uproxx.com)
* theartsdesk Q&A: Vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant (TheArtsDesk.com)
* Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, and the Road to West Side Story (Vanity Fair)
* The Alabama Recording Studios Where Music Was Never Segregated (ZocaloPublicSquare.org)
* US Label Cuneiform stops all new releases for 2018 (London Jazz News)
* YouTube’s Unlikely Peacemaker Has a Plan to Make Musicians Rich (Bloomberg.com)

Sunday Session: September 11, 2016

Rahsaan Roland Kirk

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

* Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air (Pitchfork)
* The Many Lives of "The House of the Rising Sun" (MusicAficionado.com)
* Does the Music Business Need Musicianship? (TheSmartSet.com)
* The streaming music war is getting ugly (Money/CNN)
* New Rahsaan Roland Kirk Documentary - “The Case of the Three Sided Dream” goes inside the multi-instrumentalist's artistic brilliance (Jazz Times)
* Saxophonist Benny Golson, an “elder statesman of jazz” (WHYY)
* Pat Martino honors Wes Montgomery - The Indy Jazz Fest artist tells the story of his friendship with the Indy great (NUVO.net)
* Pinball machine featuring the Stones, Elton John, The Who, AC/DC, KISS and many more (DangerousMinds.net)
* Tracing the Rock and Roll Race Problem (Pitchfork)
* Q&A with Steve Gadd: Leader Disc Documents Hometown Concert (DownBeat)
* How Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar Reflected Black Lives Matter (Vulture.com)
* An Interview with Trumpeter Randy Brecker (NotesOnJazz.blogspot.de)
* Before & After With Fred Hersch - The pianist-composer on Jarrett, singers, the “Vanguard sound” and more (Jazz Times)
* The Bad Plus Tests Jazz’s Boundaries by Exploding the Art of the Cover Song (Observer.com)
* Black Classical - History of Spiritual Jazz (NTS.live)
* Projecting Trends: Do Streaming Services Now Compete with Labels? (SynchTank.com)
* Willie Bobo: An Appreciation And A New Album (NPR)
* Careless whisker: Universal to release album for cats (The Guardian UK)
* Angela Davis: Nina Simone's music was so much more than the soundtrack to a movement (The Mail and Globe NZ)
* The Beat Don’t Stop - How “The Get Down” and “Atlanta” break down hip-hop’s past and future (The New Republic)
* 15 samplers that shaped modern music – and the musicians who use them (FactMag.com)
* A photographer’s incredible journey in 1960 to capture jazz in America (Washington Post)
* 5 audiophile myths, totally busted (CNET.com)

Sunday Session: August 28, 2016

Wadada Leo Smith

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

* Reimagining Josephine Baker's Music in the Era of Black Lives Matter (New York Times)
* Is Sleep Music a Real Genre? (The Daily Beast)
* How Bad Urban Planning Led To The Birth Of A Billion-Dollar Genre (TheFader.com)
* Harmonica Virtuoso Toots Thielemans Dies at 94 (DownBeat)
* “Champeta is liberation”: The indestructible sound system culture of Afro-Colombia (FactMag.com)
* Zorn & Collaborators Hold Court in Engaging Vanguard Residency (DownBeat)
* Remembering Lou Pearlman: The Ponzi Schemer Who Spawned the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC & More (Billboard)
* A Visual History of Rock and Roll, Room by Empty Room (The New Yorker)
* How Sam Phillips Invented the Sound of Rock and Roll (Popular Mechanics)
* Grandmaster Flash on ‘The Get Down’ and how he used science to pioneer DJ techniques (Washington Post)
* ‘Sunday Night at the Vanguard’ by Fred Hersch Review - Looking at the special bond between a club and a composer (Wall Street Journal)
* Photography Book Documents Young Sinatra in New York (DownBeat)
* Divine disco: the beatific sub-genre that delivered sermons on the dancefloor (The Guardian UK)
* Why Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else in the world (QZ.com)
* Sample Clearance Expert Pat “The Detective” Shannahan is The Avalanches’ Secret Weapon - The behind-the-scenes force for records by the Beastie Boys, Janet Jackson, Beck and more on 20 years of tracking down samples (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* See the Photographs That Captured the Icons of Jazz (TIME)
* Wadada Leo Smith Celebrates National Parks with Double Album (DownBeat)
* Legendary Jazz Recording Engineer Rudy Van Gelder Dies at 91 (DownBeat)
* Postscript: Rudy Van Gelder (1924-2016), Modern Jazz’s Listener of Genius (The New Yorker)
* Herb Alpert Foundation to donate $10.1 million to LACC — making studies for music majors tuition-free (Los Angeles Times)
* Watch Dr. John Praise James Booker's Piano Genius (Rolling Stone)
* Angelo Badalamenti Reveals How He and David Lynch Composed the Twin Peaks‘ “Love Theme” (OpenCulture.com)
* Keeping the Blues Alive (Smithsonian)
* The Ballad of Big Freedia: How the New Orleans Bounce Icon Was Betrayed By Her City’s Housing Crisis (Pitchfork.com)

Sunday Session: July 24, 2016

Irma Thomas

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

* A Visit to the Pops Home (Stereophile)
* Chas Chandler: The man who discovered Jimi Hendrix (BBC)
* …But I Hate Modern Music (New Music Box)
* Solving the Mystery of 'Heartbreak Hotel' (Rolling Stone)
* How a little mathematics can help create some beautiful music (TheConversation.com)
* How Do Music Preferences Differ Place To Place? Pandora Shares State By State Data (HypeBot.com)
* Just Three Albums Have Sold Over 1 Million Units This Year (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* The Surprising Musical Preferences of an Amazon Tribe (The Atlantic)
* How Composer Howard Shore Brought the Sounds of Tangier to William S. Burroughs' ‘Naked Lunch’ (Vice.com)
* Hersch, Sanchez, Porter Delve Deep at Portugal’s Funchal Jazz Festival (DownBeat)
* Pokemon Go Invades Pro Audio (Pro Sound News)
* Interview: Fred Hersch (Stereophile)
* Billboard's First Hitmakers Roundtable: 7 of Music's Top Creatives and Influencers on the State of Pop, 10-Second Attention Spans and the Song of the Summer (Billboard)
* One of the nation’s most successful musicians dies (Antigua Observer)
* New Orleans 'Soul Queen' Irma Thomas: ' I can't choose a song that doesn't make sense to me' (KPCC)
* Where have the great composers gone? (The Guardian UK)
* Jazz Museum in New Orleans gains a new director (New Orleans Advocate)
* The Mad Scientists Of Vinyl Record Design (Fast Company)
* More Bird With Strings (Jazzwax.com)
* Composing in the Entrepreneurial Era (Van magazine)
* Richard Corsello, Sonny Rollins' Go-To Engineer - How he transformed subpar source recordings into Rollins' triumphant "Road Shows" series (Jazz Times)
* Q&A with Guillermo Klein: The Sound of Symmetry (DownBeat)
* Composers seek new definition of greatness in a digital age (The Guardian UK)
* New Orleans jazz drummer Jason Marsalis and his family move to France (New Orleans Advocate)
* Coming to Grips with Dead & Bro: John Mayer and the Improbable Live Rebirth of the Grateful Dead (Pitchfork)
* An Exhibition of Japanese Portable Record Players (Spoon & Tamogo)
* North Beach History: When Bebop Filled The Night (Hoodline.com)
* Enter Brian Wilson’s Creative Process While Making The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds 50 Years Ago: A Fly-on-the Wall View (OpenCulture.com)
* Looking for the great composers? They’re all around us (San Francisco Chronicle)

Sunday Session: February 21, 2016

James P. Johnson

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

* Music Can’t Last Forever, Not Even on the Internet (Wired)
* Genya Ravan, 'Rock And Roll Refugee,' Has Stories To Fill Two Lifetimes (NPR)
* Bob Dylan Recording New Album at Capitol Records Studios in Hollywood (Billboard)
* New Box Set Shows Off The Twisted Rhythms Of Jazz Pianist James P. Johnson (NPR)
* All Grammy Record of the Year Winners, Ranked: Critics' Picks (Billboard)
* Hammer in Her Hand (Oxford American)
* Grammy Jazz Winners Announced - McBride, Schneider, Scofield and more (Jazz Times)
* Jazz Record Mart closes (Chicago Tribune)
* YouTube content is powering an army of $38 Spotify clones (FactMag.com)
* The Reality of Touring Revenue From Someone Who Has Done It For 32 Years (TheTrichordist.com)
* This Composer Made Music Out of Gravitational Waves (Vice.com)
* Inside the world’s biggest record collection: An interview with Zero Freitas (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Little Hope for Saving Coltrane Church, Last Vestige of SF Jazz District (KQED)
* Famed jazz musician duped out of $500G tells contractor to 'die' (New York Daily News)
* Classic albums given new life at Abbey Road Studios with 'half-speed' vinyl treatment (The Independent UK)
* SoundCloud has lost over $70M in 2 years, board cites “material uncertainties” (ArsTechnica.com)
* How Mozart Unlocked a Galactic Secret (The Daily Beast)
* Detroit Photographer Leni Sinclair Honored - Work includes classic photos of Coltrane, Mingus, many others (Jazz Times)
* Artist's Choice: Fred Hersch on Great Piano Sounds - United by tone and touch (Jazz Times)
* Thundercat, one of Kendrick Lamar's secret weapons on 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' emerges in time for Grammys (Los Angeles Times)
* Drum great Leon Parker reverses vanishing act (San Diego Union-Tribune)
* Toshiko Akiyoshi's Jazz Orchestra Brought The Club To Concert Halls (NPR)
* What The Music Industry Could Learn From 1920’s RCA (The Daily Beast)

Notes from the Net: Miles' box set reviewed; Lake, Osby and Cheek perform; Krall and Botti interviewed; and much more

It's been nearly two weeks since the last installment of "Notes From the Net," and so there's a heapin' helpin' of news items concerning St. Louis musicians, recent visitors, old favorites and coming attractions just waiting to be read and enjoyed. Let's go:

* Blogcritics reviewed the new Miles Davis box set, The Complete On The Corner Sessions.

* Saxophonist Oliver Lake will be performing at the Lake George Jazz Festival in upstate New York.

* Another former St. Louisan, saxophonist Greg Osby, will be playing at Chicago's Green Mill this weekend. Osby also will be among the performers at an upcoming tribute concert for the late pianist Andrew Hill.

* Rudder, a cooperative electric jazz band that includes saxophonist and Webster University graduate Chris Cheek (pictured), is heading out on tour this fall. (No St. Louis date, though.)

* From AllAboutJazz.com, a review of guitarist and St. Louis native Joe Friedman's debut CD Cup O' Joe.

* Turning to the "recent visitors and old favorites" file: While in St. Louis last month to play the Fox Theatre, singer and pianist Diana Krall gave an interview to a newspaper in Greece. Meanwhile, Krall's erstwhile tourmate, trumpeter Chris Botti, recently was interviewed by the Ashland (OR) Herald-Dispatch.

* Blogcritics also had a review of guitarist John Scofield's new CD This Meets That.

* SoCal-based DJ and blogger Leroy "The Jazzcat" Downs recently got to go in the studio to observe a session with singer Dianne Reeves (who performed earlier this year at Wasington University's Edison Theater) and chat with some of the participants, including Reeves, George Duke, Russell Malone, Geoff Keezer and Reuben Rogers. You can listen to an .mp3 file of the conversation here.

* Seguing to the "coming attractions" file, the New York Times had a review of a Fred Hersch/Ethan Iverson piano duet at NYC's Jazz Standard. Hersch, who played at the Sheldon earlier this year, did a week-long series of duets with various pianists including Brad Mehldau and Kenny Barron. Iverson will be in St. Louis in January with The Bad Plus for a return engagement at Jazz at the Bistro, where both Mehldau and Barron performed earlier this year.

* Pianist Michael Wolff, the former bandleader for TV host Arsenio Hall who's playing the Sheldon Concert Hall in February, has a new trio recording, Jazz Jazz Jazz.

* The Greenville (SC) News had a feature story on saxophonist Victor Goines and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Goines, Wynton Marsalis, and the rest of the LCJO also will play the Sheldon in February.

* Village Voice jazz critic Francis Davis gave a mixed review to Waverly Seven's Bobby Darin tribute CD, Yo, Bobby. The group will be in St. Louis in November to play Jazz at the Bistro.

* From the "miscellaneous items of interest" file: Another issue of veteran jazz critic Bill Shoemaker's fine e-zine Point of Departure is now online.

* And finally, the Wall Street Journal had a nice profile of jazz discographer Tom Lord, whose research has yielded a lot of interesting info, including what must be the definitive list of the most-recorded jazz songs:

"Mr. Lord's database shows 1,675 versions of "Body and Soul," making it the most recorded melody in jazz history. New Zealand disc jockey John Joyce used Mr. Lord's latest CD-ROM to break out a list of songs logging more than 500 recordings.

He found 70 in all, 12 of which surpassed 1,000 versions. Following "Body and Soul" are "St. Louis Blues" (1,628), "Summertime" (1,358), "Sweet Georgia Brown" (1,302), "Take the A Train" (1,201) and "Round Midnight" (1,184)."