Sunday Session: April 21, 2019

Branford Marsalis

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:

* Arturo O’Farrill’s ‘Fandango at the Wall’ Transcends Borders (LatinoUSA.org)
* 'People who sing it want the world to know they exist': 50 years of My Way (The Guardian)
* New Orleans trumpeter celebrates personal rebirth at French Quarter Festival (New Orleans Advocate)
* Best Jazz Albums: 50 Essentials You Need To Hear (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Louis Armstrong: ‘more important than Picasso’ (Jazz Journal)
* Gerald Clayton Talks About Jazz and the Creative Process (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the Music Industry Waged War on the Cassette Tape in the 1980s, and Punk Bands Fought Back (OpenCulture.com)
* The Shape-Shifting Music of Tyshawn Sorey (The New Yorker)
* Icons: Michael Beinhorn is Preventing Bad Music by Promoting Pre-Production (SonicScoop.com)
* A Visit to John Cage’s 639-Year Organ Composition (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* Chris Potter Has His ‘Circuits’ Rewired (DownBeat)
* Concord Jazz Festival Returns for 50th Anniversary (Jazz Times)
* The Crimson King Seeks a New Court (Rolling Stone)
* Stanley Crouch, Bob Dorough, Abdullah Ibrahim, Maria Schneider Honored at NEA Jazz Masters Tribute (DownBeat)
* How a world-renowned cellist used Bach to blast Trump (RawStory.com)
* Branford Marsalis Discusses the Genre, Teaching Music and Getting Up Early (DownBeat)
* Why is jazz unpopular? The musicians 'suck', says Branford Marsalis (Sydney Morning Herald)
* Unplugged: Is the Guitar Solo Finished? (Rolling Stone)
* Impulse For Change: The Story Of Impulse! Records (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Integral to Over a Century of Piano Culture, Steinway & Sons Looks to the Future (Billboard)
* 12 Women Influencing the Future of Jazz (Paste)
* Iyer, Taborn Build Something Majestic on New ECM Album (DownBeat)
* Space is the Place: an introduction to the music of jazz visionary Sun Ra (List.co.uk)
* the musical genre is dead, gen z killed it (Vice.com)
* The All-Female Big Bands That Made History During World War II (NPR)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The Clayton Brothers Quintet

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring members of the Clayton Brothers Quintet, who will be performing in St. Louis starting next Monday, March 1 through Saturday, March 4 at Jazz at the Bistro.

With a crisp, hard-bop sound evoking memories of saxophonist Cannonball Adderley's classic quintet and any number of vintage Blue Note recordings, the group is led by bassist John Clayton and saxophonist Jeff Clayton, and also includes John's son Gerald Clayton on piano, drummer Obed Calvaire, and trumpeter Terell Stafford.

The brothers also co-lead the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra with drummer Jeff Hamilton, a bifurcation of musical efforts that began years ago when the brothers mutually agreed to support each others' preferred musical format. As recounted in their Wikipedia entry, "Jeff's love of small groups lead to formation of the Clayton Brothers Quintet," while John's preference for big bands led to formation of the CHJO.

After more than three decades, the orchestra may have a higher public profile, thanks in no small part to having recorded and performed with popular guests such as John Pizzarelli and Diana Krall, but the quintet has put out eight albums since 1980 - the most recent of which, Soul Brothers, came out last spring - and earned generally good notices for them.

Still, for a group that's been around that long, and that even has earned Grammy nominations for a couple of their recordings, there seems to be relatively little video of them available online, while clips of the big band proliferate.. Nevertheless, StLJN has managed to unearth a few videos of the quintet in action previously unseen here, starting with the first clip up above, an excerpt from their show at the 2012 Pittsburgh JazzLive International Festival.

After the jump, you can see excerpts from two more performances from around that time, recorded in October 2012 at the BMW Jazz Festival in São Paulo, Brazil and at Dizzy's Club in Jazz at Lincoln Center in NYC.

Below that, you can check out solo improvisations from the two Clayton brothers, as John Clayton plays a solo version "If I Were a Rich Man" in April, 2015 at the University of New Hampshire, and Jeff plays a free-form solo while guesting with the Stanford University jazz orchestra in 2011.

The sixth and final video is an interview with the Clayton brothers recorded in 2011 for the web series The Pace Report.

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

Jazz this week: Dan Hicks, John Clayton & Gerald Clayton, Lotte Anker Trio, Danny Fox, and more

With a bit of spring in the air this week in St. Louis, there's also plenty of live jazz and creative music happening around town to get out and enjoy over the next few days. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, singer-guitarist Dan Hicks returns to the St. Louis area for a performance at the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville.  Hicks' mix of Gyspy jazz, swing, country, blues and folk has been entertaining audiences for nearly fifty years now, and continue to draw appreciative crowds even when he doesn't have a new recording to promote. For more on his colorful career and some video samples of him and the the current edition of his band, the Hot Licks, in action, see this post from last Saturday.

Also tonight, the father-son team of bassist John Clayton and pianist Gerald Clayton (pictured, with drummer Jeff Hamilton) returns to open a four-night stand of duo gigs at Jazz at the Bistro. The two last appeared here in October 2011 as part of Clayton Brothers Quintet, which also includes John's sax-playing sibling Jeff Clayton. Since then, Gerald Clayton's star has continued to rise. He's now signed to Concord Records, and the label will release his debut for them, Life Forum, next month. The younger Clayton also can be heard on Cover Art, Concord's recently released album by the Next Collective, which is an eclectic group of 20-something musicians assembled by label exec Chris Dunn.

Tomorrow night, New Music Circle presents Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker in a concert at 560 Music Center. Teamed for this show with keyboardist Craig Taborn and drummer Gerald Cleaver, Anker is known here in the USA mostly as an improvisor, but also has a compositional sensibility that helps provide a sense of structure to many of her improvised flights. For more about Anker, and some video samples of her performing, check out this post from a couple of weeks ago.

Also tomorrow night, singer Erin Bode and band return to Crave coffeehouse on the south side.

On Friday, saxophonist Tim Cunningham will settle in for what's projected as a recurring weekly gig at Troy's Jazz Gallery,  saxophonist Jay Hutson is at Robbie's House of Jazz; singer Joe Mancuso performs for the first of two nights at Chaser's Lounge in the Chase Park Plaza Hotel; and saxophonist Austin Cebulski's quartet is at the Cigar Inn.

Then on Saturday, the trio of NYC-based pianist Danny Fox will be in town for a performance at Robbie's. Fox, a Harvard grad, has toured with drummer Max Weinberg's big band and the Tommy Dorsey "ghost band," among others. The trio's debut album The One Constant was released in 2011, and you can hear samples on Fox' website.

Also on Saturday, Two Times True with pianist Carolbeth True will perform at the south side house-concert venue Kinda Blue, 6101 1/2 Idaho; and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes bring their swing and jump blues sound back to Venice Cafe.

On Sunday, a group billed as the SIUE Jazz Faculty Ensemble, led by guitarist Rick Haydon and saxophonist Jason Swagler, will play a free concert presented by St. Louis Jazz and Blues Vespers series at Second Baptist Church.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday pianist Kim Portnoy's ensemble will perform at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium; and on Tuesday, the weekly swing dance presented by Lindy Hop St. Louis at the Grandel Theatre in Grand Center will feature live music from The Sidemen.

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: Winter/spring 2013 jazz preview, part 3

Today, it's part 3 of our video preview offering samples of some of the touring jazz and creative musicians who will be coming to St. Louis during the first part of 2013. (Part 1 of the preview is here and part 2 is here.)

Most of the musicians spotlighted in this week's installment may need little introduction to St. Louis jazz fans, as they've all played here at some point in the recent past, some multiple times.

For example, the bassist John Clayton and his son, pianist Gerald Clayton played here as part of the Clayton Brothers Quintet (co-fronted by John's saxophone-playing brother Jeff Clayton) in April 2010 at  Jazz at the Bistro and again in October 2011 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

They're coming back to play as a duo from Wednesday, March 13 through Saturday, March 16 at the Bistro, and though online footage of just the two of them is scarce, we did manage to find the undated clip embedded up above, which features them together playing a medium-slow blues at the 2009 Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy.

The second clip, embedded just below the text, features another duo, pianist Chick Corea and banjo player Béla Fleck. Corea was here most recently with Return to Forever in August 2011 at the Fox Theatre, while Fleck appeared with the reunited original Flecktones lineup in March of this year at the Sheldon.

They'll be playing together in a concert presented by Jazz St. Louis on Saturday, March 23 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. Here you can see them in a clip from 2008, performing "Sunset Road" from their 2007 collaborative album The Enchantment. (It was shot by an audience member, so the video quality is a bit shaky, but the audio is good enough.)

Next, it's pianist Joe Sample, who will lead a trio starting Wednesday March 27 through Saturday, March 30 at Jazz at the Bistro. Sample and singer Randy Crawford performed in 2008 at the now-defunct St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival, and Sample also was here with the reunited Jazz Crusaders in June 2011 at the Touhill. This clip shows him playing "Old Places, Old Faces" with Jay Anderson on bass and Lenny Castro on drums

Trumpet fans and players should relish the combination of Jon Faddis, Terell Stafford and Sean Jones, who will join forces to play on Friday, April 5 and Saturday, April 6 at Jazz at the Bistro. It'll be a rare chance to see these three top trumpeters together on one stage, and all three have headlined their own gigs here in the past few years.

Faddis played St. Louis in 2009 at the Touhill for the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival and again with pianist Cyrus Chestnut in 2011 at the Bistro; Jones headlined at the Bistro in April 2009 and again May 2011, and also did a one-nighter there with Stefon Harris this April as part of the 2012 GSLJF. (You can check out StLJN's previous video features on Jones here and here.)

For his part, Stafford led his own quartet in a week of dates at the Bistro in October (and was the subject then of his own video showcase post). He also played the club in March of this year with drummer Matt Wilson's band Arts and Crafts.

Stafford is shown with Wilson below in today's final clip, but before we get to that, there's Faddis playing "Autumn Leaves" from a 2011 concert paying tribute to Miles Davis at the Prague Castle in the Czech Republic. Below that, you can see Jones working out on "I'll Remember April" in an undated video recorded at Gregory's Jazz in Rome, Italy.

Singer Marlena Shaw is next on the calendar, as she'll be in town the following week to perform Wednesday, April 10 through Saturday, April 13 at Jazz at the Bistro. Shaw last played the club in May 2010, and had been scheduled to return in the spring of 2012, but postponed and was rescheduled for 2013. Here, you can see her performing "Feel Like Making Love" in March 2010 at New Morning in Paris, France. 

We close out today's video preview with clips featuring clarinetist Anat Cohen and drummer Matt Wilson, who will be paired for a gig to open the 2013 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival on Thursday, April 18 at Jazz at the Bistro. Cohen made her St. Louis debut as a leader in February of this year at the Bistro, and also played the club in 2007 with Waverly Seven; Wilson was here most recently in March for a week-long educational residency with Jazz St. Louis that culminated in a two-night stand with his band Arts and Crafts at the Bistro.

The video of Cohen shows her and her quartet - Jason Lindner on piano, Joe Martin on bass, and Daniel Freedman on drums - playing "As Rosas Nao Falam" from her most recent album Claroscuro. It was filmed in June 2012 at at the Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington D.C..

Today's final clip was recorded during Wilson's last visit to St. Louis, when he and Arts and Crafts (with Stafford on trumpet) also did an in-store performance and clinic at Saxquest. Here, you can see them at Saxquest playing "Beija-Flor" by Brazilian samba singer Nelson Cavaquinho, from their 2001 debut album. Then Wilson talks for a bit before they play his original composition "In Touch With Dewey", first recorded on the 2007 album The Scenic Route.

Next week in this space, the plan is to have more about singer Gregory Porter, who will open 2013 at Jazz at the Bistro, with the fourth and final part of StLJN's winter/spring 2013 jazz preview set for two weeks from today. Stay tuned...















(Edited 12/26/12 to fix a typo and a formatting problem.)