Sunday Session: May 2, 2021

Osibisa

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

* “Make Something Out Of This”: Drumbo On The Making Of Trout Mask Replica (TheQuietus.com)
* JazzTimes 10: Classic New Orleans Recordings (Jazz Times)
* Bodies and Souls, Sophisticated Ladies, and Plucked Strings (TheSmartSet.com)
* Bob Dylan and Charlie Watts will soon turn 80. More music legends are rocking out long past retirement age (San Diego Union Tribune)
* "The Greatest Improviser I've Ever Known": A Mini Oral History of Diana Ross in 'Lady Sings the Blues (Hollywood Reporter)
* Jimmy Giuffre at 100: A Centennial Tribute in Take Five (WBGO)
* New York City's Influence On Latin Music (NPR)
* Pat Metheny Talks Composition with John Pizzarelli (Jazz Times)
* Meet the Experimental Musicians Who Built Their Own Streaming Service (Pitchfork.com)
* Surrounded By Moving Air: 6 Big-Band Composers Pushing The Format Forward (Grammy.com)
* Robert Wyatt – The Saddest Voice in Modern Music (LivingLifeFearless.co)
* George Benson: My Career in Five Songs (Guitar Player)
* Evocation: Jimmy Giuffre @ 100 (Tidal.com)
* Al Schmitt, legendary recording engineer and producer, reported to have died aged 91 (MusicRadar.com)
* Visit The Oldest Steinway Piano Dealer In The World (Boston.CBSLocal.com)
* Guitar Legends: Television’s Tom Verlaine & Richard Lloyd – the punk guitar heroes who weren’t punk at all (Guitar)
* Where to Begin With Important Records’ Genre-Defying Soundscapes (Bandcamp,com)
* ‘Our ethos was happy music and good vibes’: genre-busting Black British band Osibisa (The Guardian)
* The Women’s Vocal Jazz Supergroup That’s Redefining The Rules (Forbes)

Sunday Session: December 22, 2019

Gerald Cleaver

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

* Mars Williams brings his Albert Ayler Xmas across Europe and back home to Chicago (Chicago Reader)
* Gershon Kingsley, Moog Synthesizer Pioneer, Dies at 97 (Billboard)
* Wayne Shorter Continues to Forge Ahead (DownBeat)
* 'We loved each other': America’s first racially integrated all-girl swing band (The Guardian)
* A small Wisconsin company stored thousands of people’s CDs, then suddenly vanished (TheVerge.com)
* Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Finally Recognizes Woman Who Practically Invented Rock and Roll (Jezebel.com)
* Dave Brubeck’s Legacy Enters a New Era (DownBeat)
* The Siren Sound of the Clash’s ‘London Calling,’ 40 Years Later (TheRinger.com)
* How Many Spotify Streams Do You Need To Live Above The Poverty Line? (HaulixDaily.com)
* Terence Blanchard, American jazz trumpeter weaving opera history (Prothomalo.com)
* Don Was On The Past, Present, And Future Of Blue Note Records (ClashMusic.com)
* On The Scene: Tony Bennett—The Visual Artist (The Aquarian)
* Why Are There No New Christmas Songs? (NPR)
* George Benson: the album that changed my life (Jazzwise)
* Gerald Cleaver Bridges the Divide Between Structure and Freedom (DownBeat)
* Chamber Music America Grants $180,000 to Female-Led Jazz Ensembles (Jazz Times)
* The South African Songbook: Jazz Musicians Who Stayed During Apartheid (NPR)
* Tony Bennett Brings the Holiday Spirit With His Animated Yule Log (Parade)
* A Major Music Distributor Has Stifled Vinyl Sales for Record Stores and Indie Labels, Sources Say (Pitchfork.com)
* 'It's a Total Nightmare': Problems at Direct Shot Distributing Have Made New Vinyl and CDs Scarce (Billboard)
* No Other Love Is the B-Side of the Chicago Gospel Story (Chicago)
* How headphones are changing the sound of music (QZ.com)
* A Bessie Smith Christmas (Jazz Times)

Sunday Session: September 15, 2019

Mary Lou Williams

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

* The thrilling evolution of British jazz has reached a whole new audience (BigIssue.com)
* Chris Potter: What Influences the Influencer? (AllAboutJazz.com)
 * What do music/tech startups REALLY think about working with major labels? (Medium.com)
* Why is Chicago jazz so successful in Europe? (Chicago Reader)
* Tony Bennett, at 93: ‘I just want to keep learning and expressing the truth’ (San Diego Union Tribune)
* Apple Wanted to Revolutionize the Way Streaming Pays. Here’s Why It Wasn’t Allowed (Rolling Stone)
* Abdullah Ibrahim: A Focus on Spirituality (DownBeat)
* The Beatles, Stones, and… Olivia Newton-John?: These are the 50 most valuable records in the world (NME.com)
* Not All 'Lost' Jazz Albums Are Created Equal (NPR)
* Inside Hemen & Co: the tiny Kolkata sitar shop that supplied the Beatles (The Guardian)
* How Mary Lou Williams Shaped The Sound Of The Big-Band Era (NPR)
* How composer Terence Blanchard wove history into the score for “Harriet” (Fast Company)
* The Bad Plus announce new album; tour dates (GratefulWeb.com)
* 'This tape rewrites everything we knew about the Beatles' (The Guardian)
* What Happens When DJs Don’t “Own” Their Record Collections Anymore? (5Mag.net)
* Gearhead: How Gene Krupa Kicked the Drum Kit into the Jazz Age (Jazz Times)
* ‘Nobody Is Scrutinizing This’: How Labels Pay to Get Songs on the Radio (Rolling Stone)
* Two Chicago institutions bridge jazz and blues (Chicago Reader)
* When the Pianos Went to War (AtlasObscura.com)
* Chops: Streaming Jazz on the Installment Plan (Jazz Times)
* George Benson: “I’ve always been an experimenter. When I was young, I thought I was going to be a scientist” (MusicRadar.com)
* The best classical music works of the 21st century (The Guardian)
* Free jazz research and guerrilla scholarship: an interview with John Gray (The Wire)
* A Blue Note Founder’s View of Jazz Music’s Private Side (The New Yorker)
* Average Music Listening Time Is Down. How Much Does That Matter? (Billboard)
* With New Ensemble Members, SFJAZZ Collective Builds a Bigger Tent (DownBeat)
* New World Prophecy (The American Scholar)
* Soul On Soul: Allison Miller And Derrick Hodge On Honoring Mary Lou Williams (NPR)

Sunday Session: July 21, 2019

Shabaka Hutchings

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

* Nile Rodgers: ‘I’d always talk about strange jazz with David Bowie’ (The Guardian)
* Bromberg violin collection to be broken up after Library of Congress deal falls through (Wilmington News Journal)
* Talking More Music with George Benson (Jazz Times)
* Paul McCartney Brings Ringo Starr to the Stage for End-of-Tour Surprise (Variety)
* Space Is Still the Place for Marshall Allen and the Sun Ra Arkestra (PopMatters.com)
* Capturing The Undersung Blues People Of The Rural South (NPR)
* John Patitucci’s Soulful Bass (Jazz Times)
* Steve Turre joins the stellar Armstrong Summer Camp faculty to celebrate its 25th Anniversary (Louisiana Weekly)
* What every songwriter and publisher needs to know about the Music Modernization Act (TheFader.com)
* Chick Corea Looks Back on His Long History With Latin Jazz (Billboard)
* Damon Locks: In the Style of Mavericks (DownBeat)
* From Concert Halls to the Streets at The Copenhagen Jazz Festival (DownBeat)
* Ornette Coleman and the Emancipation of the Individual (Sound American)
* Jazz, Zen, and Hip-Hop: The 2019 Montreal Jazz Festival (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Billy Lester, an Insightful Jazz Pianist Hiding in Plain Sight, Finally Has His Moment to Shine (WBGO)
* Pianist Bobo Stenson Discusses Solo Work and Freedom in European Jazz (DownBeat)
* For Julian Lage, Love Hurts and Music Heals (Jazz Times)
* Thirty Years Ago, Ronald Langestraat Took Jazz to Outer Space (Bandcamp.com)
* The Murky Ethics of Posthumous Music (The Atlantic)
* As Exclusivity Takes Charge, How Will Music Streaming Change? (Hypebot.com)
* 'An Endless Fiasco': Indie Retailers Describe Worsening Breakdown in Getting CDs, Vinyl Delivered to Record Stores (Billboard)
* David Crosby Celebrates His Ornery Self in the Documentary “Remember My Name” (The New Yorker)
* Get To Know Shabaka Hutchings, The Nipsey Hussle-Inspired British Jazz Maestro (Complex.com)
* Paul McCartney Has Been Secretly Writing an ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ Musical (Variety)
* Faith Winthrop, jazz singer who founded Glide community choir, dies at 87 (San Francisco Chronicle)
* Five Things You Should Know About Mary Halvorson (SFJAZZ.org)
* An Essential Guide to Brian Eno: "Ignorable as It Is Interesting" (Exclaim.ca)
* In First For Berklee, Students Join The Circus (Sort Of) To Make Music Fit For Clowns (WBUR)
* Ron Carter, Beatniks and Corrective History (DownBeat)
* Roger and Brian Eno, and Daniel Lanois Expand ‘Apollo’ Soundtrack for Moon-Landing Anniversary (DownBeat)
* Jazz Generated by a Neural Network Is Absolutely Terrifying (Futurism.com)
* On And On And On: A Guide to Generative Electronic Music (Bandcamp.com)
* Alan Lomax and the Search for the Origins of Music (TabletMag.com)
* Do You Know Randy Weston? (MusicAficionado.com)

Jazz this week: "Celebrating George Benson," Willie Akins Scholarship Concert, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes a tribute to one of the most popular guitarists and singers in jazz; a concert raising money for scholarships in the name of a longtime local favorite saxophonist; a gathering of cabaret singers from around the nation, and more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, July 17
Pianist and St. Louis native Matt Villinger will be back in town for a visit from his current home in Kansas City to promote the release of his new album All Day with a performance at The Dark Room.

Also on Wednesday, the Cabaret Project of St. Louis, which this week is hosting attendees for around the country at its annual Cabaret Conference, presents their monthly "Singers Open Mic" night at Sophie's Artist Lounge.

Thursday, July 18
Author, radio host, and photographer Dennis Owsley will promote his new book St. Louis Jazz: A History via "A Conversation and Book Signing with Dennis Owsley" at UMSL at Grand Center. The event, which is free and open to the public with registration, will include brief performances by singer Jeanne Trevor and singer/percussionist Don Cunningham, both veterans of the Gaslight Square era.

Also on Thursday, the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University continues their "Jazz in July" schedule with a free concert featuring guitarist Vincent Varvel's trio; and Cabaret Project of St. Louis will present their "2019 Cabaret Gala" fundraiser at Jazz St. Louis, with music from Marilyn Maye, Faith Prince, Jeff Harnar, Peisha McPhee, Jim Caruso and Christine Pedi.

Friday, July 19
With George Benson having recently released an album that includes five songs by St. Louis' own Chuck Berry, it seems fitting somehow that Jazz St. Louis is "Celebrating George Benson" for two nights this weekend.

Guitarists Eric Slaughter (pictured) and Matt Sewell and singer Brian Owens are fronting the ensemble, with support from Adam Maness and Adaron “Pops” Jackson on keyboards, Bob DeBoo on bass, and Montez Coleman on drums.

(No word as to whether or not they'll be including any Berry-via-Benson arrangements in their sets, but they should be well-equipped otherwise to handle Benson's extensive catalog of popular favorites.)

Saturday, July 20
The "Willie Akins Scholarship Benefit Concert" will feature music from the groups of saxophonists Harvey Lockhart, Matt McKeever, and Kendrick Smith (pictured), plus guest appearances by singers Joe Mancuso and Erika Johnson, Akins' widow Sandra, and more at the Grandel Theatre.

Also on Saturday, the Cabaret Conference will present their "Professional Track Showcase" at The Stage at KDHX.

Sunday, July 21
If you'd like some music with your Sunday brunch, the options this week include The Gaslight Squares at the Angad Arts Hotel; pianist Adam Maness at Thurman's in Shaw; Miss Jubilee at Evangeline's; and guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran at The Dark Room.

Then on Sunday evening, the Cabaret Conference wraps up with a "Closing Night Showcase and Celebration," also at The Stage at KDHX.

Tuesday, July 23
Singer Arvell Keithley reunites with trumpeter Jim Manley and the Wild Cool & Swingin' Horns for a concert at the Gaslight Theater.

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.)

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)

Sunday Session: July 1, 2018

Don Cherry

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:

* Catherine Russell: Queen of the Armstrong Blues (Jazz Times)
* Legendary Experimental Composer Jon Hassell Is Still Dreaming Up New Worlds (Vice.com)
* What happened to the blues? (Chicago Defender)
* DC Jazz Festival Reaches New Peak with Sanders, Carrington (DownBeat)
* Spotify Can Boost an Artist’s Royalties by $163,000 With One Playlist Add, Study Calculates (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* DownBeat Announces Winners of 2018 Critics Poll (DownBeat)
* Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas step up with Sound Prints at the Village Vanguard (Jazzwise)
* The Saxophone’s Unlikely Journey Out of Meme Hell (Vice.com)
* Thelonious Monk Inside Out: A Fresh Perspective On His Music (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The Story of Don Cherry’s Forgotten Classic “Home Boy (Sister Out)” (Bandcamp.com)
* Swedish Jazz, Excavated (DownBeat)
* How Did A Major Label Manage To Lose A John Coltrane Record? (TheQuietus.com)
* Composing Your Thoughts (Nautilus)
* WOULD SUIT MUSIC SCHOOL: How Total Refreshment Centre became the collaborative heart of London (TheVinylFactory.com)
* R+R=NOW’s Robert Glasper On Being Free AF For Juneteenth, ‘Collagically Speaking’ & More [Interview] (OkayPlayer.com)
* Kamasi Washington, the wisest man on Earth (TheFader.com)
* Jazz great Sheila Jordan's 70-year career was launched by a single song (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
* A Year After Geri Allen’s Death, A Tribute From Howard University (DownBeat)
* John Coltrane's 'Lost Album' Is A Window Into His Pursuit Of The Impossible (NPR)
* The Average Working Musician Makes Less Than an Uber Driver, Study Finds (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Antiquated copyright laws threaten aging musicians: Guest opinion (Portland Oregonian)
* A sound supreme: lost John Coltrane treasures rediscovered (Irish Times)
* When Miles Davis and Charlie Parker were in SF, this was the go-to club (San Francisco Chronicle)
* Deep Dive with Lewis Porter: Considering John Coltrane's 'Lost Album,' From All Directions (WBGO)
* This music is designed for extraterrestrials. Listen carefully (BigThink.com)
* Jon Hassell at 81: Visionary Composer-Trumpeter Reflects on a Half Century of Music on His Own Terms (Billboard)
* Angry George Benson fans BOO legendary star and demand refunds when he loses his voice and can't sing during Royal Albert Hall concert (Daily Mail)
* Raymond Scott, the musical genius you probably don't know, is getting his own L.A. festival (Los Angeles Times)
* 50th anniversary editions of The Band's 'Music From Big Pink' due Aug. 31 (Los Angeles Times)
* Ravi Coltrane On the State of Jazz & Why John Coltrane's Lost Album Couldn't Have Been Found at a Better Time (Billboard)

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Jazz St. Louis is looking to hire a full-time Education Associate to help launch a new program for at-risk middle school students called Jazz Academy. For more information about the job and how to apply, go here.

* In advance of his gig tonight for The Sheldon's annual fundraising gala, guitarist and singer George Benson did a brief Q&A with St. Louis magazine's Erin Williams.

* Singer Joe Mancuso has organized an event to raise money for music scholarships in the name of the late saxophonist Willie Akins. Set up as a structured jam involving a couple of dozen St. Louis musicians, the "Willie Akins Jazz Festival" is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 28 at the Grandel Theatre, with an informal jam session at The Dark Room to follow. Mancuso also has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for the scholarship fund.

* The Bosman Twins (pictured) were interviewed last week on the WSIE (88.7 FM) program "Voices," and their chat with host Hank Thompson has been archived online as an MP3 file here.

* The STL Free Jazz Collective has posted on Facebook a photo album from their recent show at the 14th St Artists Community.

* The website Sound of STL has photo coverage of the recent gig by Thomas Fujiwara's The Hookup presented by New Music Circle at The Stage at KDHX.

* Speaking of KDHX, singer Ken Haller's latest reprise of his cabaret entertainment "The Medicine Show" was reviewed for the station by Chuck Lavazzi.

* In the latest chapter in the saga of the Goldenrod Showboat, St. Louis Public Radio reports that the remains of the venerable venue - once home to performances of ragtime and vintage jazz on the St. Louis riverfront - are sinking in the flooded Illinois River. The flooding threatens the plans of preservationists who hoped to salvage artifacts and materials from the boat for display in a museum.

* The British music magazine The Wire has published an excerpt from Message To Our Folks, bassist and Washington University faculty member Paul Steinbeck's new book about the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

* "The Music Seen - Beyond the Stage," an exhibit featuring music-related images from seven different photographers, will open with receptions from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Friday, June 9 and from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Saturday, June 10 at Bullivant Gallery, 3321 Washington Blvd in Grand Center. The exhibit, which features work from Michael Eastman, David Godlis, Jason Lee, Charles Peterson, David Rocco, Dr. Ernest Withers, and Baron Wolman, continues through Friday, July 14.

* Just in time for Mothers Day, the St. Louis American's Kenya Vaughn interviews Shirley Harrold, a St. Louis mom whose flock of 16 children includes two young jazz stars, trumpeter Keyon Harrold and drummer Emanuel Harrold.

Jazz this week: Joey DeFrancesco, George Benson, Denise Thimes, and more

As the not-for-profit presenting season and the spring academic semester both approach their ends, this week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis nevertheless features performances from two major touring headliners, plus a number of other noteworthy shows.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 10
Organist Joey DeFrancesco returns to Jazz at the Bistro
for the first of four nights, continuing through Saturday.

DeFrancesco (pictured, top left) recently expanded his band from a trio to a quartet, and has just released an album, Project Freedom, featuring the new lineup. For more about that, and some recent videos of him in performance, see this post from Saturday before last.

Also on Wednesday, new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound closes out their St. Louis season with a performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall; and NOiSETTE 2017: Spring Edition! will present a slew of experimental, improvisational and/or noise performers, including Alex Cunningham, Bitchfit, Brain Transplant, Chelsea Gray, Corrigan Brothers, Dave Stone Ensemble, Eric Donte, Grain and NNN Cook, in a free show at Blank Space.

Thursday, May 11
Singer Jenna Bauer and guitarist Dave Black return to The Pat Connolly Tavern; percussionist David A. N. Jackson will be sitting in with the Ptah Williams/Eric Slaughter Quartet at The Dark Room; and pianist Adam Maness and his trio will be back at Thurman's in Shaw.

Friday, May 12
Guitarist and singer George Benson will headline the annual benefit gala raising funds for the Sheldon Concert Hall. 

It's been nearly six years since Benson (pictured, center left) last played here (in October 2011 at the Touhill), and judging from the more recent performances caught on video in this post from last Saturday, he's still delivering the goods both vocally and instrumentally. While the long gap since his last show here should spur the demand for seats, there may be some concert-only tickets still available; contact the Sheldon box office for the latest information.

Also on Friday, the City of Clayton's "Music in the City" event will feature free happy-hour performances at various restaurants and bars in the area, including Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes at Morton's and Tommy Halloran at Remy's Kitchen & Wine Bar.

Saturday, May 13
New Music Circle closes out their 2016-17 season with a bill of solo electronic-music performers from the Midwest, including Louisville's Robert Beatty, Matchess (aka Chicago's Whitney Johnson), Hylidae (St. Louis' Jon Burkhart), and Nadir Smith, aka Biggie Stardust (Thomas Olanrewaju Osunsami, also of St. Louis) at the William A Kerr Foundation on Laclede's Landing.

Sunday, May 14
Singer Denise Thimes (pictured, bottom left) presents her annual Mother's Day show raising money to fight pancreatic cancer at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

Thimes' guest performers this year will include St. Louis singer and pianist Theo Peoples, who formerly toured with latter-day versions of both the Temptations and the Four Tops, and New Jersey-born teenage phenom Matthew Whitaker, a blind multi-instrumentalist who's drawn comparisons to a young Stevie Wonder.

Also on Sunday, Israeli composer and improviser Ofir Klemperer will perform at Kismet Creative Center, with opening sets from Chelsea Gray and Alex Cunningham.

Monday, May 15
Trumpeter Jim Manley continues his weekly residency at Momo's Greek Restaurant.

Tuesday, May 16
Singer Wendy Gordon presents her latest production, "Remembering the Legends," at the Sheldon Concert Hall, with guest performers including Linda Kennedy, Jeanne Trevor, Rosemary Watts-Dreyer, Joe Mancuso, Jerome Davis and Marty Abdullah.

Also on Tuesday, the twice-monthly St. Louis Gypsy Jazz Jam, hosted by guitarist Paul Davis of Wack-A-Doo, has a new night of the week and a new home at Stone Spiral Coffee House & Gallery.

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: George Benson's guitar and grooves

This week, let's check out some videos featuring guitarist and singer George Benson, who will be back in St. Louis next week to perform for the Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries' annual fundraising gala on Friday, May 12 at the Sheldon.

Named a "Jazz Master" by the National Endowment for the Arts and the winner of ten Grammy awards, Benson is undeniably one of the most successful crossover musicians of the past half-century. After establishing himself as a first-rate jazz guitarist in the 1960s and early '70s, Benson broke through to fans of R&B and pop with with the album Breezin', which brought his vocals to the front and proved to be just the first of an impressive series of hit albums and singles.

Given all those hits, any further introduction here seems superfluous, so let's go straight to the videos, a mix of old and newer clips starting up above with "This Masquerade," Benson's first million-selling single back in 1976, seen here as performed in 2011 during a show in Belfast, Ireland.

After the jump, you can see Benson doing his distinctive version of "On Broadway" at the 2011 Jazz à Vienne festival, followed by "Give Me The Night" from the same event in 2013.

The fourth clip goes all the way back to 1976, and features the guitarist playing the title track from Breezin' at the 1976 DownBeat magazine poll-winners' show, accompanied by Chick Corea on keyboards, Billy Cobham on drums, and Phil Upchurch on bass.

That's followed by an entire set recorded in 1978 for the German television program Musikladen Extra, featuring Benson's crack touring band of that era, with keyboardists Jorge Dalto and Ronnie Foster, drummer Dennis Davis, and bassist Stanley Banks.

Finally, the last video jumps forward again 30 years, back into the 21st century for another full set recorded in 2008 at the Tokyo Jazz Festival.

For more about Benson's present-day performances, read the review in London Jazz News of his show last summer at Royal Albert Hall, with his current band featuring St. Louis native David Garfield as keyboardist and musical director.

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

George Benson to perform for Sheldon gala on Friday, May 12

Guitarist and singer George Benson (pictured) will be the featured performer for the Sheldon Concert Hall's annual fundraising gala to be held at 8:30 p.m. Friday, May 12 at The Sheldon.

Benson's most recent recording, Love Songs in Concert, was released in November and is his first album since 2013's Inspiration: A Tribute to Nat King Cole. He last played St. Louis in October, 2011 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

Patron tickets for the event, which include pre-concert cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, dinner, preferred concert seating, complimentary valet parking and a tax deduction, are $500 each and are available for purchase now by calling The Sheldon at 314-533-9900.

Concert-only tickets will be priced at $65 orchestra, $55 balcony 1, $45 balcony 2, and will go on sale go on sale at 10:00 a.m. Friday, April 7 via MetroTix outlets and The Sheldon's website.

Proceeds from the gala benefit the concerts, gallery exhibitions and educational programs at the Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Last Friday's performance by Wynton Marsalis (pictured) and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at the Sheldon Concert Hall was reviewed here by Calvin Wilson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

* Also, George Benson's concert on Sunday night at the Touhill was reviewed by Kevin Johnson of the P-D.

* Jazz St. Louis has added more photos of Take 6's recent performance at Ladue High School to a Facebook album here.

* Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center is seeking a grant from Monsanto to support their "Orchestrating Diversity" program, which provides music lessons and the chance to play in an ensemble for local kids who otherwise might not have the opportunity. The "Grow St. Louis" grants will be awarded to local organizations based in part on an online ballot. For more information or to cast your vote for LNAC, go here. (Voting continues until Sunday, October 16.)

Jazz this week: Wynton Marsalis & the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, George Benson, Garage A Trois, and more

With nice weather forecast for St. Louis for the next few days and a diverse menu of music that includes both fine local players and big-name touring acts, it should be a good weekend to get out and hear some live jazz. Let's go to the highlights:

Tonight, singer Erin Bode and her group will do a free outdoor concert at Kirkwood Plaza Station in downtown Kirkwood.

Also tonight, the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University presents a free concert from a group billed as "St. Louis Swing." Though announcements from the JAH series typically list the musicians who are playing, the description for this week doesn't mention anyone specifically: "Featuring a 7-piece band consisting of clarinet, trumpet, trombone, banjo, piano, bass, and drums, this performance will run the gamut of swing music from Count Basie and Lester Young to Benny Goodman." I really have no idea why they're being so darned cryptic about the lineup of players, but if you enjoy that era of jazz, it's a free show, so why not check it out, right?

On Friday, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra return to St. Louis to perform once again at the Sheldon Concert Hall as part of a benefit for the Sheldon's educational programs. At last word, this show was very close to a sell-out, but if you really want to go, it may be worth it to call the Sheldon directly to see if there have been any last-minute cancellations or returns.

Also on Friday, the funk/fusion/rock/jam band Garage A Trois will be back in town for a show at 2720 Cherokee. For more about them, plus a sampling of their performances on video, see this post that ran here on StLJN before their last St. Louis gig in August 2010.

And if that's not enough, there's still more fusion on Friday, thanks to the debut of the new local group Rare Departure, who that evening will open a two-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro. The band features Rick Haydon (guitar), Miles Vandiver (drums), Zeb Briskovich (bass), Jason Swagler (alto sax) and Adaron "Pops" Jackson (keyboards) playing electrified fusion jazz in the style of Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Yellowjackets, and Return to Forever.

In addition to all of the above on Friday, bassist Bob DeBoo will lead a quartet with Ptah Williams on piano and Willie Akins on tenor sax at Robbie's House of Jazz; and guitarist Tom Byrne will bring his trio with bassist Chris Watrous and drummer Ron Carr to the Cigar Inn in Belleville.

On Saturday, singers Jeanne Trevor and Wendy Gordon will be at Robbie's to perform "Billie Holiday & Nina Simone Meet," a cabaret show devised by Gordon. There's a package deal that includes dinner before the show; see the website or call Robbie's for details.

On Sunday, guitarist and singer George Benson (pictured) will be back in town for the first time in more than five years to perform at the Touhill Performing Arts Center under the auspices of Jazz St. Louis. As one of the most famous jazz musicians of the last 40 years, Benson likely needs no further introduction to readers of this site, but if you'd like to sample some of his guitar prowess on video, check out this post from last Saturday. Also, Benson recently spoke with Calvin Wilson of the Post-Dispatch for an article that's now online here.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday Benson's keyboard player David Garfield is staying in town to join forces with saxophonist Jim Stevens for an early set at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups; and on Tuesday, the St. Louis Jazz Orchestra, directed by bassist Jim Widner, will play at the Touhill.

For more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, 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: George Benson, guitar player

For this week's video showcase, we train our gaze on guitarist and singer George Benson, who will be back in St. Louis to play next Sunday, October 2 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center as part of Jazz St. Louis' "Legends of Jazz" concert series.

Before Benson became a pop and R&B star via his renditions of vocal tunes such as "This Masquerade" and "On Broadway," he already had established a reputation as a top-notch jazz instrumentalist. His new album Guitar Man, which will be released next week on the Concord label, is being touted as something of a return to those roots, and in a nod to that release, today we look at some clips that emphasize Benson's considerable skills as a guitar player.

First up is a clip from 2008, featuring Benson performing the Jose Feliciano composition "Affirmation" at the North Sea Jazz Festival 2008 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Next up, we go back to 1992, to a show in Seville, Spain at which Benson fronted an all-star band led by George Duke in versions of two songs that happen to have a St. Louis connection: "Valdez In The Country," written by St. Louis native Donny Hathaway, and Miles Davis' "All Blues."

The final three videos come from a 1989 performance that teamed Benson with the trio of the great pianist McCoy Tyner, with Avery Sharpe on bass and Aaron Scott on drums. Benson cuts loose on three familiar jazz tunes - "Round Midnight," "Stella By Starlight," and "Alligator Boogaloo," demonstrating once again that he's got plenty to say with his guitar as well as his voice.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Fall 2011 jazz preview, part one

For today's video showcase, we've got clips featuring some of the touring jazz bands and musicians who will be visiting St. Louis this fall. While I probably will be writing and/or posting more videos later about many of these acts, this is a chance for you, dear reader, to get a quick overview of some of the season's highlights.

Up top, you can see a video of multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee and his band Survival Unit, which also includes Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello and Michael Zerang on drums, performing in October 2010 at the Vortex jazz club in London. They'll be in St. Louis on Saturday, September 17 to perform at the Kranzberg Arts Center under the auspices of New Music Circle.

Down below, you'll find a video of vocal group Take 6, singing a medley of some of their best-known songs at the Avo Session festival in Basel, Switzerland. Take 6 will be making their St. Louis club debut with two performances nightly starting Wednesday, September 21 and continuing through Saturday, September 24 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Below that, there's a clip of pianist David Torkanowsky playing Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island" at the House of Blues in New Orleans. Torkanowsky will be heading upriver to St. Louis for a duo concert with Peter Martin on Friday, September 23 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Next, it's a video of Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, shot earlier this month from the audience at a festival in San Javier, Spain. Wynton and the JaLCO will return to St. Louis on Friday, September 30 to perform at the Sheldon.

Clip number five features Garage A Trois, who will be in St. Louis the same night, Friday, September 30, for a gig at 2720 Cherokee. This performance of "Fragile" was recorded in the studios of St. Louis' own KDHX (88.1 FM) during their last visit here in September, 2010.

Wrapping part one of our fall 2011 jazz preview is some vintage footage of guitarist and singer George Benson, who will be back here in the Gateway City to play on Sunday, October 2 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center in a concert presented by Jazz St. Louis.

While Benson no doubt will perform many of his familiar hits in his concert here, this particular clip offers something different with a bit of St. Louis twist, as it features him playing an uptempo version of Miles Davis' "So What" with a band that includes St. Louis native Clark Terry on trumpet. Recorded in 1988 at a jazz festival in Pori, Finland, the group also included saxophone legend James Moody, who gets the first solo, and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts, who skillfully negotiates the song's many changes in time feel.

Look for part two of the Fall 2011 Jazz Preview next week...

George Benson to perform Sunday, October 2 at the Touhill

This just in: Guitarist and singer George Benson (pictured) is returning to St. Louis to play at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, October 2 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. The show is being presented by Jazz St. Louis as part of their "Legends of Jazz" series at the TouPAC.

Benson last played St. Louis in 2007 as part of the now-defunct St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival held in Shaw Park in Clayton.

Tickets for George Benson's concert at the Touhill are priced at $40 and $60, with VIP packages available for $150. Tickets will go on sale at 10:00 a.m., next Monday, August 15 via the Touhill box office.

(Edited after posting to add ticket prices.)

Jazz and Heritage Festival reviewed in Post-Dispatch

The ever-busy Terry Perkins has written a review for the Post-Dispatch of Saturday's St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival, and you can read it online here.

A video preview of this year's St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival

As promised, here are some videos featuring some of the musicians who will be performing at this year's St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival, which takes place from noon to 10 p.m. on Saturday at Shaw Park in Clayton.

Up top, you'll find a clip of George Benson doing his version of what has become one of his signature songs, "On Broadway". This performance is from a 1998 appearance on the UK television program Later.

Down below is a "vintage" clip of Ramsey Lewis performing one of his first big hits, a very brief version of the McCoys' pop tune "Hang On Sloopy," from some time in the mid-1960s on the TV show Hullabaloo. If you can ignore (or be amused by) the goofy antics of the go-go dancers, this is a pretty good example of the hard-driving, blues- and gospel-influenced style that launched Lewis' career.

Below that is a clip featuring percussionst Poncho Sanchez, in some sort of all-star session that also involved the late vocalist Celia Cruz and the great Tito Puente on timbales, performing "Quimbara". Sanchez is actually third-billed on this clip, but given that Puente and Cruz are two of the all-time greats of salsa music, one can surmise that he probably didn't mind too much.

As for the local musicians performing at the Festival, thanks to the producers of Jazz @ Cookie's, there are complete half-hour programs online featuring both singer Jeanne Trevor and Latin-jazz group SL Son.

Each program is divided into three parts, so embedding all those windows might prove overly cumbersome. Instead, you can see the three parts of Jeanne Trevor's Jazz @ Cookie's episode here, here and here, and you'll find the three parts of SL Son's episode here, here and here.

Jazz this week: George Benson, Ramsey Lewis & Poncho Sanchez at the St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival, Dave Brubeck at the Sheldon, BAG II and more

Although this year's edition of the St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival has been cut back to a single day, it's still one of the major jazz events of the year. And there's still enough other music happening in town to provide a full and varied weekend of jazz if that's your pleasure.

You can get started on Thursday night, when trombonist Brett Stamps and his quartet take the stage for two sets at Finale Music and Dining. Then on Friday night, the Black Arts Guild aka BAG II concludes its spring season at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site with a free concert highlighting original music from the organization's "house band," The Group, which features bassist Zimbabwe Nkenya, percussionist Glenn "Papa" Wright and saxophonist Jerome "Jay-Dubz" Williams.

On Saturday, the headliners for the 2007 Jazz and Heritage Festival will be guitarist/vocalist George Benson (pictured), pianist Ramsey Lewis and percussionist Poncho Sanchez; local acts will include Latin jazz band SL Son, vocalists Kim Massie and Jeanne Trevor, trombonist Lamar Harris, and the SIU-Edwardsville Big Band.

The grounds in Clayton's Shaw Park will open at 11:30 a.m., and the music gets underway at noon. For those who are primarily interested in the national acts, you're in luck - this year they're scheduled sequentially on the same stage, with Sanchez will take the main stage at 4:30 p.m., followed by Benson at 6:30 p.m. and Lewis at 8:30 p.m.. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at Borders locations in the St. Louis area, all MetroTix outlets, or at the festival gate on the day of the event.

(Since this year's festival is just one day, StLJN's coverage won't be quite as extensive as it has been the last two years. However, I'll have some video previews of some of the musicians in an upcoming post and, barring inclement weather, plan to take in and review as much of the event as I can.)

Benson and Lewis would be the biggest jazz names in town most weeks of the year - but not this particular week, because on Sunday night, legendary pianist and composer Dave Brubeck will appear at the Sheldon Concert Hall in a benefit performance for the Friends of the Sheldon.

Brubeck's current quartet includes Randy Jones on drums, Michael Moore on bass and Bobby Militello on saxophone and flute, and it's safe to assume that they'll be offering up such favorites as "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo A La Turk" as part of a musical menu that might also include a rendition of "St. Louis Blues," a longtime Brubeck favorite. This review of a Brubeck show last month in San Francisco may provide more of an idea of what to expect.

Though the patron seats are all sold, Metrotix still has regular tickets on sale at $45 for orchestra seats (the floor) and $40 for balcony seats. If you have any interest in seeing Brubeck, who's 87, in concert, you're probably not going to get a better chance than this.

If that's not enough music for you, on Monday evening the SIU-E jazz faculty will be giving a free concert at Durham Hall on campus, and the Sessions Big Band returns to the recently expanded stage at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups downtown.

As always, these highlights represent just a portion of the what's going on in St. Louis this weekend. For a more complete listing of local jazz events, please check the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

UPDATE - 10:20 p.m., 5/31/07: I've got a Critic's Pick on the Dave Brubeck show in this week's Riverfront Times, now online here, while my RFT colleague Christian Schaefer has written one on George Benson, available here. Also, Terry Perkins did a story for the Post-Dispatch/STLtoday that previews the Jazz and Heritage Festival and examines the reasons why this year's event is one day instead of two. Read it online here.
(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. No attachments, please.)

George Benson featured in Post article

Guitarist George Benson, who will be one of the headliners next Saturday for the truncated 2007 edition of the St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival, recently did a Q&A with Post-Dispatch pop critic Kevin Johnson that appears in today's paper. Read it online here.

It's kind of a peculiar interview, as Benson doesn't even discuss his upcoming St. Louis gig, instead offering up some fairly boring answers to tangential questions about his memories of his previous appearance at the festival, his thoughts on the public perception of St. Louis as a jazz town, and his recent CD project with Al Jarreau. It's not quite as inane as those mock interviews of rock stars that Chris Farley used to do on Saturday Night Live ("So, remember when you were in the Beatles? And you wrote songs with John Lennon?") but it's still pretty silly.

And then there's the lede, which make reference to the oft-repeated anecdote about Miles Davis once trying to hire Benson for his band, then uses the story to make a spurious comparison between the two: "Who is bigger might be relative. But Benson outshines St. Louis area native Davis in gold and platinum albums, Grammy Awards and the sheer number of big hits, including "The Greatest Love of All," "Love Ballad" and "This Masquerade.""

This is annoying, both because of the assumption that sales are the only relevant measure of success, and because it ignores the salient fact that Kind of Blue is, by most accounts, the best-selling jazz album of all time. Moreover, Benson, while a fine guitarist and singer, didn't even write any of the hits mentioned in the piece.

It's sort of like trying to make the argument that Norman Rockwell is a more significant artist that Pablo Picasso by citing the sales figures of the magazines for which Rockwell painted the covers. While Benson may lack Davis' stature as one of the all-time giants of the music, his track record as a musician is good enough to stand its own, without such dopey comparisons. He, Davis and the paper's readers all deserve a more thoughtful treatment.