Sunday Session: February 3, 2019

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:

* The most sampled drum loop in history (Boing Boing)
* New Sounds (London Review of Books)
* Spotify Is Hosting a High-Priced Executive Retreat In Cancun (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Antonio Sanchez's 'Lines In The Sand' Is Inspired By Migrants' Stories (NPR)
* Underrated Blue Note Musicians: 12 Artists Worth Rediscovering (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Not just a 'glass ceiling' but 'cement': Female film composers struggle to be heard (CBC)
* Think David Crosby Is Too Gruff? “Tough Shit” (Vanity Fair)* Photos: Roy Hargrove Musical Celebration (Jazz Times)
* For Betty Carter, 'The Music Never Stops' — Even 27 Years Later (NPR)
* Dave Liebman: Archives and Improvisations - The Past and the Now of a Life in Jazz (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The mystery tracks being 'forced' on Spotify users (BBC)
* David Gilmour on Why He’s Selling 120 Guitars: ‘Everything Has Got to Go’ (Rolling Stone)
* These might be the 5 most powerful people in the music business – despite none of them working in the music business (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Gonzalo Rubalcaba Discusses Chucho Valdés, creativity, and the SFJAZZ Lifetime Achievement Award (SFJAZZ.org)
* Peter Jackson to Direct New Beatles Documentary Film (Pitchfork.com)
* Brian Eno: ‘I’ve spent longer in Ireland than I have almost anywhere else’ (Irish Times)
* Big Ears Festival Will Pay Tribute to 50 Years of ECM Records (Jazz Times)
* Vintage piano turned into analog hybrid of 20 instruments controlled by piano keys (DesignBoom.com)
* New Collection Spans Gary Burton’s Boundless Career (DownBeat)
* Bob James Looks Back (Jazz Times)
* Young people are turning to classical music to escape ‘noise of modern life’ (The Guardian)
* John Coltrane 1958 Vinyl Box Set Announced (Pitchfork.com)
* 2019 Grammys: Breaking Down the Jazz Category Nominees (Billboard)
* Stewart Copeland on his Police career: "We fought like cat and dog over the f**king hi-hat" (MusicRadar.com)
* How gospel music gave birth to rock and soul (UPenn.edu)
* Lionel Loueke’s Journey of Empathy (DownBeat)
* Aretha’s Grace (New York Review of Books)

Sunday Session: June 11, 2017

Roscoe Mitchell

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

* Jazz Pioneer Roscoe Mitchell Marked for Dismissal at Mills College (KQED)
* Aretha Franklin Says Detroit Music Weekend May Mark Last Concert (Patch.com)
* Rodney Bingenheimer says farewell to 'Rodney on the ROQ' after 40 years — but he certainly isn't retiring (Los Angeles Times)
* In $43 Million Settlement, Spotify Forced To Confront A Persistent Problem (NPR)
* The Beatles 'A Day In The Life' Is A Landmark In Sound Engineering 50 Years After It Was Recorded (Forbes)
* How Gregg Allman and Cher stunned Canisius High 'assembly' in 1976 (Buffalo News)
* Edison vs. Scott (LaphamsQuarterly.org)
* How to Destroy YouTube & Save the Music Industry (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Jimmy Webb on Auto-Tune, lying to keep John Lennon from being deported and how cocaine changed music (Los Angeles Times)
* The Bird in my hand: my journey to Charlie Parker (The Guardian)
* Sony Merges RED Into The Orchard: What the Music Giant's Latest Consolidation Means for Indie Labels (Billboard)
* Chops: The Art of the Slap - Poncho Sanchez and Adam Rudolph on transitioning from the drum kit to the conga (Jazz Times)
* Ambrose Akinmusire: Upholding Tradition & Breaking Decorum (Jazz Times)
* NYPL’s Schomburg Center Acquires Sonny Rollins Archive (Jazz Times)
* The Beatles’ iconic Sgt Pepper album returns to the top on its 50th birthday (OfficialCharts.com)
* New Album Narrates Charlie Parker’s Life in Song - Peyroux, Porter, Elling and others create vocal versions of Bird classics to tell his story (Jazz Times)
* The Earth Harp turns an L.A. skyscraper into world's longest stringed instrument (Los Angeles Times)
* Hear Bob Dylan Recite His Nobel Prize in Literature Lecture (Rolling Stone)
* ‘The value of creative assets is systematically being taken away from artists and music companies’ (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Ken Vandermark’s Indefatigable Drive and Avant-Garde Vision (Bandcamp.com)
* FMP Records’ Free Jazz Legacy is Alive and Well at Destination: OUT (Bandcamp.com)
* Why Are Frenchmen Street Musicians Undervalued? (Offbeat)
* “In Search of the Lost Chord”: Danny Goldberg’s new book on 1967 and the “Hippie Idea” (NightFlight.com)
* Vision Festival Promotes Message of Freedom through Creative Music (DownBeat)
* Woodstock Festival Location Becomes Official Historic Site (Rolling Stone)
* Gary Burton: Retiring The Mallets (NPR)
* This Is What Extinction Sounds Like (Vice.com)
* Inside the Making of 'Sgt. Pepper' (Rolling Stone)

Sunday Session: March 26, 2017

Lee Morgan

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

* How Spotify is finally gaining leverage over record labels (TechCrunch.com)
* Chuck Berry's Family Move Forward With Planned 'Chuck' LP (Rolling Stone)
* That Time Chuck Berry Punched Keith Richards in the Face (Guitar World)
* Chuck Berry's Guitarist Billy Peek Looks Back on 50 Years of Music and Friendship (Billboard)
* How Chuck Berry's Hometown St. Louis Inspired -- and Embittered -- Him (Billboard)
* Business-Savvy Chuck Berry Left Behind An Estimated $50 Million Estate (Billboard)
* Q&A with Dan Brubeck: Exploring Dad’s Songbook (DownBeat)
* Splitting Adams: John Adams' Chamber Symphonies (WQXR)
* Vision Festival 22 Lineup Announced (Jazz Times)
* Detroit Jazz Fest Names Wayne Shorter Artist-in-Residence (DownBeat)
* Rob Mazurek: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview (AquariumDrunkard.com)
* Back when pop music was literary (The-TLS.co.uk)
* Is Texas, not Mississippi, the true home of the blues? (ABC.net.au)
* Cracking the Columbia Records Code (AnalogPlanet.com)
* Q&A with Gary Burton: A Fond Farewell (DownBeat)
* Inside Kamasi Washington's New Ode to Unity (Rolling Stone)
* Bob Dylan Talks Amy Winehouse, Leonard Cohen, Much More in Rare, Extensive Interview (Pitchfork)
* The Most Expensive Record Never Sold (NPR)
* From 'Hamilton' to Jazz at Lincoln Center: 10 Music Projects You Have the NEA to Thank For (Billboard)
* How Weather Report Rewrote the Rules of Jazz on ‘Heavy Weather’ (Observer.com)
* Muldrow Meets Mingus (NPR)
* Perspectives on music-making in a hyper-connected world (Ableton.com)
* Duke Ellington’s Faith (FirstThings.com)
* Q&A: Making sense of music through math (CBC)
* 'I Called Him Morgan' Is A Tale Of Marriage, Murder And Jazz, Told From Two Sides (WBGO)
* Stop Everything and Behold this Mini Art Deco Telephone Jukebox circa 1935 (MessyNessyChic.com)
* The Unofficial History of Home Recording: Big Hits from Bedroom Studios (SonicScoop.com)

Sunday Session: March 5, 2017

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

* We Are The Robots: Is the future of music artificial? (FactMag.com)
* Sun Records Studio: 18 Musical Milestones (Rolling Stone)
* Dot Time Records Discovers Previously Unreleased Armstrong Recordings (DownBeat)
* The fight to preserve King Records’ legacy (Cincinnati Enquirer)
* It’s a Synthesizer. It’s a Violin. It’s a Modulin (HackADay.com)
* Grammy-winning jazz superstar Gary Burton to play final concerts in March, then retire (Miami Herald)
* KCSM jazz station cuts programming (SFGate.com)
* Veteran jazzmen played with the greats (NorthJersey.com)
* Philly jazz greats celebrate publication of new book (Philadelphia Inquirer)
* Is vinyl Detroit's latest growth industry? (Detroit Metro Times)
* The Keith Jarrett Phenomenon (The Nation)
* How Raphael Saadiq is quietly keeping R&B on film, TV and the radio (KPCC)
* Lou Reed's Archives Acquired By New York Public Library For The Performing Arts (Billboard)
* Inside Lou Reed's Revelatory New Public Archive (Rolling Stone)
* UMG Alone Earns $4.5 Million a Day from Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Saving Nina Simone’s Birthplace as an Act of Art and Politics (New York Times)
* Sending Off Nat Hentoff, With Memories and Jazz (Village Voice)
* Linda Oh Pursues New Direction on Forthcoming Album (DownBeat)
* Soundcloud Tells Guy It Needs To Kill His Account Of 8 Years Because Someone Else Trademarked His Name (TechDirt.com)
* The Internet Is Silencing Artists, According To An Artist On The Internet (TechDirt.com)
* Ride the Feedback: A Brief History of Guitar Distortion (Vice.com)
* John Hammond: The Lost Interview (Part 1: Signing Aretha and Dylan) (BestClassicBands.com)
* 9 Artists Carrying the Torch for Cosmic Jazz (Pitchfork.com)
* How A Contract Clause Led To A Fight Between Musicians And Austin's Biggest Event (NPR)
* Misha Mengelberg, Influential Dutch Pianist-Composer Behind the ICP Orchestra, Dies at 81 (WBGO)

Sunday Session: April 10, 2016

Pharoah Sanders

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

* Local Jazz Musicians Turn to D.C. Council to Support the Scene (Washington City Paper)
* US Is One Of Just 4 Countries Not Paying Performers For Radio Play, And The Others Are... (Hypebot.com)
* Big Ears Festival diary – three days at Knoxville's genre-spanning event (The Guardian UK)
* Media's Digital Upheaval in 6 Charts (Bloomberg.com)
* Jeff Beck To Release New Album on July 15 (DownBeat)
* Abdullah Ibrahim: A Life in Song (SFJAZZ.org)
* Steven Bernstein Premiers Guitar-Centric Quartet in New York (DownBeat)
* 'The Dude': Remembering Quincy Jones’ Most Important Album Ever (Ebony)
* New owners to take over Heritage Guitar in old Gibson Guitar factory (MLive.com)
* ‘Jazz Masters’ honor genre’s greats, but keep them watching from the audience (Washington Post)
* Photos: NEA Jazz Masters Concert - Gary Burton, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and Wendy Oxenhorn honored (Jazz Times)
* So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star: Photos of the 1960’s Garage Band Explosion (DangerousMinds.net)
* Carol Kaye, 81-Year-Old Pioneer of Rock, Gives Kiss’ Gene Simmons a Bass Lesson (OpenCulture.com)
* Man Who Stole Jazz Pianist Cecil Taylor’s Prize Money Is Sentenced (New York Times)
* Singer Bill Henderson Dies at 90 - Recorded with Oscar Peterson, Horace Silver; was also successful actor (Jazz Times)
* Merle Haggard’s America (DaveHoekstra.com)
* Why the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame should be put out of its misery (The Guardian UK)
* Long Live WWOZ (Offbeat)
* Rare Sun Ra singles to be issued on space-age 7″ vinyl (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Sony Sues Rdio Executives for Fraud, A Cautionary Tale for Entrepreneurs (MusicTech.Solutions)
* Branford Marsalis To Release New Album with Kurt Elling on June 10 (DownBeat)
* Silver Swing - 10 must-watch jazz movies (Jazz Times)
* Jazz great Sonny Rollins still not finished at 85 (The Telegraph UK)
* Paul Simon Announces New Album ‘Stranger to Stranger’ (Wall Street Journal)
* The Man Who Recorded, Tamed and Then Sold Nature Sounds to America (Atlas Obscura)
* A Record Shopkeeper Writes: Why Record Store Day Must End (The Quietus)
* These Rarely Seen Images Show Jazz Greats Pouring Out Their Hearts (Smithsonian)

Music Education Monday: A master class in improvisation with Gary Burton

Regarded as one of the most significant and versatile jazz musicians ever to play his chosen instrument, vibraphonist Gary Burton has been an important figure in improvised music since the early 1960s.

Now 73 years old, Burton (pictured, left) is a multiple Grammy award winner known for his innovative four-mallet technique, his pioneering albums fusing jazz with rock and other popular musics, and for hiring as sidemen a series of guitarists who have gone on to greater fame, including Larry Coryell, Mick Goodrick, Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and most recently Julian Lage, who currently works in Burton's group Next Generation.

Burton also is known for his longtime involvement with jazz education. A 1961 graduate of Berklee College of Music, Burton served his alma mater in various capacities for more than 30 years before retiring in 2004, and also has presented many master classes, lectures and workshops at other universities and colleges around the world.

Today for Music Education Monday, you can get a look at a video of one of those master classes, a session focused on jazz improvisation that Burton led in 2011 for students at Loyola University in New Orleans. And if that whets your appetite, it looks like Burton once again is teaching a free six-week online course in improvisation via Coursera, as featured in this space last year. 

You can see the video of Burton's master class at Loyola University after the jump...

Sunday Session: September 20, 2015

Dave Douglas

For your Sunday reading, here are some interesting music-related items that have hit StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Sun Ra Plays a Music Therapy Gig at a Mental Hospital; Inspires Patient to Talk for the First Time in Years (OpenCulture.com)
* Breathing While Saxophone Playing Should Be An Olympic Sport (Atlas Obscura)
* Concert programmes cheat the public (The Independent UK)
* Important Win for Fair Use in ‘Dancing Baby’ Lawsuit - Appeals Court Affirms That Copyright Owners Must Consider Fair Use in Online Takedowns (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
* Dave Douglas’ Tireless Pursuit of Variety & Change (DownBeat)
* The 26 best jazz films (The Telegraph UK)
* Physicists Achieve Perfect Acoustic Absorption (Vice.com)
* Zappa and Jazz: Did it Really Smell Funny, Frank? (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Hit Charade - Meet the bald Norwegians and other unknowns who actually create the songs that top the charts. (The Atlantic)
* The LA Philharmonic Is Trying to Perfectly Recreate Concerts in Virtual Reality (Vice.com)
* Whitney Houston, Billie Holiday and the hologram craze – but is it worth a tour? (The Guardian UK)
* Flipping the playola debate for streaming music playlists (MusicAlly.com)
* Photo Gallery: The Royal Bopsters and Very Special Guests at Birdland - Annie Ross, Jon Hendricks, Sheila Jordan, Bob Dorough & Andy Bey share a stage (Jazz Times)
* Gary Burton: On ECM & Playing With Pat Metheny (AllAboutJazz.com)
* theartsdesk at The Chicago Jazz Festival - Enthusiastic audiences celebrate a programme spanning be-bop to free extremity (TheArtsDesk.com)

Music Education Monday: Free play-along recordings, and a free class from Gary Burton

It's time for another "Music Education Monday," the feature in which each week, we point to resources on the web that may be of particular interest to musicians, music students, and/or anyone who wants to understand the process of playing jazz.

This week, we spotlight a couple of links related to improvisation, starting with a page from the National Jazz Workshop offering a set of free play-along recordings in MP3 format.

The NJW is a summer camp held on the campus of Shenandoah University in Winchester, VA, taught primarily by jazz educators and performers from Washington, DC. The play-along recordings offered to their students (and anyone else who wants to download them) follow a familiar template, offering several minutes of a rhythm section playing the changes to, say, "I've Got Rhythm," or a 12-bar blues, so that improvisors can practice soloing over the top.

Are these free play-alongs as slickly made as the commercial varieties produced by Aebersold, Music Minus One, and others? Well, not quite. But they're definitely good enough to be potentially useful as part of a practice routine for some musicians, and since they're free, what's not to like? And in addition to the play-along recordings, the page also includes links to other free educational materials and handouts used in the program.

Musicians interested in developing their improvising skills also may be interested in an upcoming free online course in jazz improvisation taught by the famed vibraphonist Gary Burton (pictured), a multiple Grammy winner who's played with many jazz greats and also is a longtime faculty member at Berklee College of Music.

Presented free of charge by Coursera, which offers free online courses in a variety of subject areas, the five- week program begins on Feburary 5, and will let participants "learn the basic concepts of improvisation from Gary Burton, one of the most renowned improvisers in the jazz world, including the mental, melodic, and harmonic processes that contribute to the instinctive skills that an improviser puts to use when taking a solo."

Burton's improvisation course includes video demonstrations, quizzes intended to reinforce knowledge of the material, and assignments that ask for recorded examples of students'  playing for peer review. Participants "should have at least an intermediate level of playing ability on your instrument, basic note reading experience, a knowledge of chord symbols, and should, at a minimum, have tried improvising on some basic songs such as 12-bar blues or some familiar standard tunes."

You can get more details, or sign up for the course, here.