Sunday Session: May 9, 2021

Gary Bartz

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

* Why stars should think twice before calling out their critics (The Guardian)
* Vin Diesel, Arthur Russell and Me (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Earliest Jazz Fest tapes discovered after 20-year quest: Historic performances are heard again (NOLA.com)
* Freda Payne: Coming Back to Jazz (Jazz Times)
* T.S. Monk Talks Activism, Jazz, 80s Funk And Keeping His Father’s Legacy Alive (Black Enterprise)
* In the Groove with Joshua Redman: A Conversation With the Acclaimed Jazz Artist (BMI.com)
* Is CD-quality music streaming about to go mainstream? (TechHive.com)
* The Brilliant Stupidity of Robert Palmer’s 1986 No. 1 Hit, ‘Addicted to Love’ (Variety)
* The Song That Sold America to a Generation of Asian Immigrants (The Atlantic)
* How the Internet Archive Has Digitized More than 250,000 78 R.P.M. Records: See the Painstaking Process Up-Close (OpenCulture.com)
* Gary Bartz At 80: On Jazz Is Dead, Miles Davis And Why Improvisation Is A Dirty Word (AllAboutJazz.com)
* How Norman Granz Revolutionized Jazz for Social Justice (Smithsonian)
* Listening In: Leni Stern, High-Flying Bird (BrooklynRail.org)
* Los Lobos Detail New Covers Album ‘Native Sons’ & Share Singles (Jambase.com)
* The Case Against the Eagles (TheRinger.com)
* Gregory Porter Gets Cooking Beyond the Bandstand with a New Show, The PorterHouse (WBGO)
* Skerik Talks About the New Album From Garage A Trois, and the Hope of Post-Pandemic Touring (WBGO)
* Camille Thurman: Before & After (Jazz Times)
* Herbie Hancock reveals details of new album (PlanetRadio.co.uk)
* Aaron Neville announces official retirement (Offbeat)
* Live Nation Weathers Rough Quarter as Concert Business Slowly Rumbles Back to Life (Variety)
* Tower of Power Celebrates 50 Years Together (Jazz Times)
* Inside look: How the freewheeling Alex Chilton, Hi Rhythm collaboration happened (Memphis Commercial Appeal)
* How Billy Gibbons Wrote ZZ Top's “La Grange“ (Guitar Player)
* Mary Halvorson: Melt the Frame (Stereophile)
* Lloyd Price, R&B Pioneer Known as ‘Mr. Personality,’ Dies at 88 (Variety)
* The Lost Recordings Of Hasaan Ibn Ali Reveal A Legend Just Getting Started (NPR)

Sunday Session: February 21, 2021

Phatoah Sanders

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

* Can Caroline Shaw Make Classical Cool? (The Atlantic)
* Remembering Rupert Neve, Console Creator, 1926-2021 (SonicScoop.com)
* 'He was the Steve Jobs of audio': how Rupert Neve changed the sound of music (The Guardian)
* Memories of Chick Corea – by Tim Garland (London Jazz News)
* Herbie Hancock on Chick Corea: ‘He Always Wanted to Share Whatever He Had’ (Rolling Stone)
* Pharoah Sanders Announces First Album in a Decade With Floating Points (Rolling Stone)
* Milford Graves, Visionary Drummer Who Mapped The Music Of The Heart, Dead At 79 (NPR)
* Rock-Star Journalist Lisa Robinson Has Lived in Her Apartment for 45 Years Even her sofa has an interesting backstory. (Curbed.com)
* The Best Books About Billie Holiday (Rolling Stone)
* Joe Chambers Heads Back To Blue Note (DownBeat)
* Don't Make Her Over: Dionne Warwick Is Still Crushing It at 80 (Billboard)
* New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult Steps (Van-Outernational.com)
* SoundCloud Fan-Artist Payment System: Too Little, Too Late? (Variety)
* Raymond Hill: Remembering Clarksdale’s Unsung Reed Man (Memphis Flyer)
* Six East Coast Jazz Clubs Band Together for One-Day Virtual Festival (Jazz Times)
* Beach Boys Sell Rights to Intellectual Property, Including Name, Likeness, Masters (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Sonny Rollins interview: “I love music of course, but I don’t listen any more... It’s too frustrating to listen to music when I can’t participate” (Jazzwise)
* Gary Bartz Bridges Generations (DownBeat)
* I Pay $9.99 a Month for Spotify Premium. So Why Am I Listening to Podcast Ads? (DigitalMusicnews.com)
* Her saxophonist neighbour wouldn’t stop playing ‘Pink Panther’, so she chronicled her nightmare (ClassicFM.com)
* Irma Thomas, Soul Queen of New Orleans, at 80: 'I'm living fine, as far as I'm concerned' (NOLA.com)
* Milford Graves (1941–2021) (Art Forum)
* Roy McCurdy: From Cannonball to the Rochester Music Hall of Fame (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Livestream Community Survey: What We Learned from the Field (New Music Box)
* The Jazzy Score of "Judas and the Black Messiah" (WBGO)
* Faced with the cold, SMU professor slept with his 331-year-old violin to protect it (Dallas Morning News)

Sunday Session: May 24, 2020

Gary Bartz

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

* Bluesman Lucky Peterson Dies at 55 (Billboard)
* Remembering Michael McClure: The Real Lizard King (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Jorge Santana, Guitarist Who Helped Shape the Sound of Latin Rock with Malo, Is Dead at 68 (WBGO)
* Remembering the passion of Alto Madness creator Richie Cole (Chicago Tribune)
* From Chuck Berry to John Lennon: 8 songs that Paul McCartney couldn’t live without (FarOutMagazine.co.uk)
* Pondering The Future of The Arts – If They Have One (ArtAndSeek.org)
* Pandemic Spurs Marc Ribot, Music Workers Alliance To Demand Economic Fairness (DownBeat)
* Brown Sugar: The Story of Lucille Wilson Armstrong (LouisArmstrongHouse.org)
* Alvin Lucier (BurningAmbulance.com)
* Social distancing in UK clubs “financially unviable”, new survey states (DJMag.com)
* The Durability Of Drummer Rashied Ali’s Survival Records (DownBeat)
* Gene Perla’s Brighter Day (Local802AFM.org)
* For Jazz Legend Gary Bartz, “Hearing is Like A Fingerprint” (Bandcamp.com)
* The Dizzy Chronicles: Legendary jazz musician trapped in Spokane by Mount St. Helens eruption (Spokane Spokesman-Review)
* Archie Shepp: Memoirs of a Gunfighter (Jazz Times)
* What if Louis Armstrong had succumbed to the last pandemic? (Chicago Tribune)
* Exclusive First Look at New Photograph of Blues Legend Robert Johnson (Vanity Fair)
* Ivan Neville on battling back from coronavirus and pneumonia: 'Don't let this take me' (NOLA.com)
* Music Revenue to Drop 25% in 2020, but Long-Term Outlook Is Good: Goldman-Sachs (Variety)
* Jazz Coalition Announces the First Wave of Awardees From Its Commission Fund (WBGO)
* The records that changed my life, from A (Joan Armatrading) to Z (Frank Zappa), and 58 more (San Diego Union Tribune)
* Jazz history lost: How a string of deaths from Covid-19 has left the jazz community in a state of shock (The-TLS.co.uk)
* Grégoire Maret Under The Influence Of ‘Americana’ (DownBeat)
* A Conversation With ...Danny Weis (FYIMusicNews.ca)
* Eric Clapton, B.B. King’s ‘Riding with the King’ to Be Reissued With Two Unreleased Tracks (Rolling Stone)
* How the Coronavirus Is Affecting America’s Vinyl Record Industry (Pitchfork.com)
* An Overdue Ovation for Ernie Watts (Jazz Times)
* Covid Conversations, Volume 2: Deborah Gordon (LarryBlumenfeld.com)
* Stranded musicians surrounded by wolves outside ‘haunted’ castle after bus breaks down (New York Daily News)

Sunday Session: June 16, 2019

George Benson

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

* Anthony Davis Builds Operas From Headlines (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* Sweet Charity: Herb Alpert Foundation Celebrates 25th Anniversary (Jazz Times)
* 30th Century Music Now: Mick Houghton Remembers Sun Ra (The Quietus)
* Wonderland Lost (TheRinger.com)
* Music Is YouTube's Most Profitable Category, 'Crucial' to Bottom Line: Study (Billboard)
* Final Bow For The Night Tripper – A Tribute to Dr John (Jazzwise)
* Esperanza Spalding Knows Music Can Heal. Now She Wants to Prove It With Science (The Daily Beast)
* Bright Moments with Gary Bartz (Jazz Times)
* State Department ‘extreme vetting’ says no to traveling musicians (San Francisco Chronicle)
* They Introduced the World to Songs of Slavery. It Almost Broke Them (Topic.com)
* Jeremy Pelt: Sound Sculptor, Museumgoer (DownBeat)
* The Hippies Were Right: It's All about Vibrations, Man! (Scientific American)
* Bret Primack on Jazz Video and the Ira Gitler Documentary (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Cuba: While The Politicians Argued, The Musicians Jammed (NPR)
* Dr. John Knew the End Was Near. He Recorded One Final Album (Rolling Stone)
* Recordings by Nirvana, Janet Jackson, Eminem, Nine Inch Nails, Chuck Berry, and More Destroyed in 2008 Fire (SPIN)
* Big Mood Machine (TheBaffler.com)
* A Long Tail: Don Cherry's Brown Rice Reviewed (The Quietus)
* Melissa Aldana’s Indisputable Command (DownBeat)
* Music of a Sustainable Future: A Conversation with Linda May Han Oh and Fabian Almazan (SFJAZZ.org)
* Mac’s Wild Years (PonderosaStomp.com)
* Our brains appear uniquely tuned for musical pitch (EurekAlert.org)
* New Documentary 'Blue Note: Beyond The Notes' Surpasses Its Purpose (NPR)
* Jazz Drum Great Andrew Cyrille Revels in Collaboration at Lifetime Achievement Show (Rolling Stone)
* Why It’s Finally Time to Get Rid of Music Charts (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Herbie Hancock plays jazz for a more peaceful world (SydneyOperaHouse.com)
* An oral history of the Fender Stratocaster (Guitar.com)
* George Benson Salutes Rock Pioneers Chuck Berry, Fats Domino (DownBeat)
* Everything You Know Is Wrong: Rock & Roll Was Invented In Wildwood, New Jersey! (PleaseKillMe.com)
* What Was The First Rock & Roll Record? Deke Dickerson Says It’s ‘Rock Around The Clock’ (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Terence Blanchard Named First Kenny Burrell Chair at UCLA (Jazz Times)
* The Chaotic Magic of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue (The New Yorker)

Miles on Monday: Wayne Shorter speaks out, Amandla turns 26, and more

This week for "Miles on Monday," some recent news items related to the legendary trumpeter:

* In a new interview with Billboard magazine, saxophonist Wayne Shorter (pictured) discusses topics including his relationship with Davis as a member of the trumpeter's "second great quintet."

* With the 89th anniversary of Davis' birth coming up next Tuesday, saxophonist Gary Bartz and drummer Al Foster - both ex-sidemen of Davis' - will join trumpeter Eddie Henderson for a series of tribute gigs this weekend at the NYC club Smoke.

* Visual artists opening a new exhibit in London, citing the influence of Davis' album of the same name, have titled their show "In a Silent Way."

* Today is the 26th anniversary of the release of Davis' album Amandla, his third and final recording with bassist/composer Marcus Miller serving as producer. (The others were Tutu in 1986 and the soundtrack to the film Siesta, issued in 1987.) Amandla also features some keyboard work from the late George Duke and a very young Joey DeFrancesco, who had just turned 18 years old when the record came out.

You can listen to all the tracks from the album by clicking on the embedded YouTube playlist below.

Music Education Monday: Saxophonists speak out, and a musician's guide to copyright

This week for Music Education Monday, an overview of the laws protecting musicians' intellectual property, and two famous saxophonists raise questions about the current state of music education...

* Composers, arrangers and musicians should always protect themselves by copyrighting original works, but first, you have to understand how the law functions; what's protected and what's not; and what paperwork needs to be completed to register your authorship.

You can get an handy overview of all that and more via this tutorial about copyright written especially for musicians and composers and published by PublicKnowledge.org.

* Meanwhile, in the spirit of "questioning our premises," here's a brief video featuring Gary Bartz wondering about how young jazz musicians are being educated these days, and a slightly older, more infamous clip from the documentary Before the Music Dies, in which Branford Marsalis has some rather harsh words for students who have an excessive sense of entitlement.

Notes from the Net: Gary Bartz on Miles Davis; more on Kind of Blue's 50th anniversary; plus news, reviews, and more.

It's time for this week's compilation of news and links related to jazz in St. Louis, including musicians from the Gateway City, recent visitors and coming attractions - plus assorted other items of interest:

* Here's another review of the deluxe 50th Anniversary edition of Miles Davis' landmark album Kind of Blue, from AllAboutJazz.com's Jeff Stockton, and, from Blogcritics, a review of the two-CD "Legacy" edition of KoB, which includes two discs of music but omits the 12" box and the fancy book.

* Ben Ratliff of the New York Times reviews a Jazz at Lincoln Center concert paying tribute to KoB and John Coltrane's Giant Steps, another jazz milestone that's also 50 years old in 2009: "The albums don’t need respectful glosses, performances that harden them into the status of luxury goods; they need challenging and taking apart. And Thursday night’s concert at Rose Theater, built around the albums (and repeated on Friday), did that rather elegantly."

* On another Davis-related note, the Jazz Video Guy (a.k.a. Bret Primack) recently posted an interview with Gary Bartz in which the veteran saxophonist talks about his time as a member of Miles' ground-breaking electric ensemble. You can see it in the embedded video window at the bottom of this post.

* Pianist and St. Louisan-turned-New Yorker Linda Presgrave (pictured) has a new CD, Inspiration, which features interpretations of songs from female jazz composers. Read a review here.

* St. Louis native, singer, dancer and actress Josephine Baker figures prominently in "The Jazz Century," a major exhibition opening next month in Paris that examines the influence of jazz on artists ranging from Baker to the Dutch modernist painter Piet Mondriaan.

* Saxophonist, composer and one-time Webster University student John Zorn is heading west in March for a run of shows at Yoshi's in San Francisco.

* The Bad Plus, who opened 2009 here at Jazz at the Bistro, recently were featured on the National Public Radio program "Jazz Set with Dee Dee Bridgewater." Also, from the Jazz and Blues Reviews blog, here's another review of their new CD For All I Care.

* With the St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival officially "on hiatus" for 2009, yr. humble editor's thoughts occasionally are wandering to the notion of how a resurrected St. Louis fest might be improved. Perhaps we could learn something from the Detroit jazz festival, a free event held every year over Labor Day weekend that will celebrate its 30th anniversary by commissioning a major new work about the city and its jazz legacy from its 2009 artist-in-residence, bassist and composer John Clayton. The Detroit fest is also making an effort to hire more local musicians and to involve other arts groups in town, two things I've repeatedly encouraged St. Louis' festival organizers to do. Read all about it here.

* Despite the efforts of Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) to bar any funding for the arts from the economic stimulus bill currently before the U.S. Congress, we learn via Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise that the final version of the legislation will indeed include $50 million in additional money to preserve jobs and programs at arts institutions that may be hurt by the economic downturn. As composer, bandleader and blogger Darcy James Argue notes here, score one for the good guys.