Sunday Session: February 2. 2020

Kris Davis

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

* Underground Railroad: A Conductor And Passengers Documented In Music (NPR)
* Kandace Springs Honors History and Personal Growth on ‘The Women Who Raised Me’ (DownBeat)
* The Flute of Shame: Discover the Instrument/Device Used to Publicly Humiliate Bad Musicians During the Medieval Period (OpenCulture.com)
* Pete Brown: White Rooms & Imaginary Westerns, Part 2 (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Best Music Arrangers: 20 Artists You’ve Heard But Not Seen (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Chick Corea, Brad Mehldau, Esperanza Spalding Among the Winners at 62nd Grammy Awards (WBGO)
* Bob Porter's Portraits In Soul Jazz (IndianaPublicMedia.org)
* UK industry reacts to venues business rates cut (IQ-Mag.net)
* Don’t leave jazz to the jazz guys (TheOutline.com)
* The Unsung Black Musician Who Changed Country Music (Narratively.com)
* Nightmares on wax: the environmental impact of the vinyl revival (The Guardian)
* In conversation: When Elvis Costello met Tom Waits (FarOutMagazine.co.uk)
* Violinist Regina Carter in full swing for the Charleston Jazz Festival (Charleston Post and Courier)
* Jeff Parker’s Shifting Mentality (DownBeat)
* Singing Songs to Fix the World: A Q&A with Mavis Staples (SFJAZZ.org)
* Eight Artists Fusing Traditional Arabic Music With Jazz (Bandcamp.com)
* Gordon Goodwin’s Total Devotion (DownBeat)
* From Skepta’s dystopia to Travis Scott’s fairground: are immersive shows the future of live music? (The Guardian)
* BMG responds to artist streaming revolt in Germany: ‘It is time for record companies to change.’ (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* ‘Always finding nice things in a tragic situation’ - Robert Wyatt at 75 (MorningStarOnline.co.uk)
* Innovation is Kris Davis’ Motivation (DownBeat)
* Watch the Residents Perform ‘God in Three Persons’ Live for the First Time (Rolling Stone)
* Rachmaninov is the most innovative composer in 200 years, researchers reveal (ClassicFM.com)
* ‘Are you sure it’s Sun Ra?’: Rare recording by the Philly jazz giant at Haverford College finally sees the light of day (Philadelphia Inquirer)
* How a lost recording became a Philadelphia soul classic (PBS)
* Swinging Modern Sounds #101: A Really Big Band (TheRumpus.net)
* An update to a 37-year-old digital protocol could profoundly change the way music sounds (QZ.com)
* Kris Davis: Ribbons in Rhythm (Jazz Times)
* The electronic genius of Karlheinz Stockhausen (HappyMag.tv)
* Bedroom Music Wars (UndergroundPress.co.za)

Jazz this week: Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, The Sunset Stomp, "Bach and Jazz," and more

It's a big week for big bands in St. Louis, as the calendar of upcoming jazz and creative music events in St. Louis features a couple of famed large ensembles as headliners of the annual Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival.

There's also a retrospective of the Harlem Renaissance and a look at how Johann Sebastian Bach influenced jazz, plus plenty of other performances in jazz styles ranging from vintage to modern. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, April 18
Jazz St. Louis' "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series continues at Jazz at the Bistro with Washington University professor Gerald Early talking about "Harlem's Renaissance,"  followed by a performance of music associated with the period.

Meanwhile, this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" will help kick off the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival by featuring small ensembles from UMSL's jazz program at The Stage at KDHX and as opening acts for the jam session led by bassist Bob DeBoo at the Kranzberg Arts Center and for trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's band at The Dark Room.

Also on Wednesday, the Ambassadors of Swing return for the monthly "Shake n Shout" event at Tin Roof St. Louis.

Thursday, April 19
Singer Erin Bode performs at Cyrano's, and the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival continues with trumpeter Hermon Mehari (pictured, top left), who's originally from Kansas City and now splits his time between there and Paris, leading a quartet at The Dark Room.

(You can find out more and see some videos of performances by Mehari and the headlining bands of the GSLJF's weekend shows in this post from last Saturday.)

Friday, April 20
The SLGJF presents the University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band at the Touhill Performing Arts Center, while drummer Kevin Bowers reunites the band from his Nova project for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro.

Also on Friday, pianist Dave Venn begins a new weekly. early-evening gig at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel's Sidecar Lounge, and singer Danita Mumphard will perform at the Webster Groves Concert Hall

Saturday, April 21
The Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival concludes with a performance by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band (pictured, bottom left); and Carolbeth True and Two Times True will be joined by singer Joe Mancuso at the Webster Groves Concert Hall.

Sunday, April 22
This week's Sunday jazz brunch options include The Bonbon Plot playing bossa nova and more at The Dark Room, and Miss Jubilee singing vintage jazz and blues at Evangeline's.

Also on Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis Jazz Club presents traditional jazz band The Sunset Stomp from Indianpolis, IN at the  Doubletree Hotel St. Louis at Westport.

Monday, April 23
The Webster University Jazz Singers will show off what they've learned this year in a performance at  Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus.

Also on Monday, Dizzy Atmosphere returns to The Shaved Duck, and trumpeter Jim Manley will be back at his weekly residency at Momo's Greek Restaurant.

Tuesday, April 24
As part of St. Louis Bach Festival 2018, the Bach Society of St. Louis will present "Bach & Jazz" with singer Erin Bode, guitarist Steve Schenkel and pianist Kim Portnoy at Jazz at the Bistro.

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: Previewing the 2018 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival

This week, let's take a look at some videos of the musicians who will be performing at the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, which takes place next week and culminates with concerts on Friday, April 20 and Saturday, April 21 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

While the first part of the festival involves student bands from around the area working with and performing for visiting clinicians, the GSLJF also usually has several public events. This year, those performances include a show by trumpeter Hermon Mehari on Thursday at The Dark Room, and the weekend concerts at the Touhill, which will feature the One O'Clock Lab Band from the University of North Texas on Friday and Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band on Saturday, with the UMSL Jazz Band directed by Jim Widner as opening act on both nights. Small ensembles from UMSL also will be performing as part of next week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" on Wednesday night.

Based in Los Angeles and stocked with first-call West Coast musicians, the Big Phat Band occupies a place in the jazz world not unlike that once held by Stan Kenton and later Maynard Ferguson. They're favorites of band directors and members of high school and college student big bands across the country, thanks to their energetic live show and slickly executed arrangements, and no doubt aided by their willingness to travel and perform at high schools and small colleges as well as at more prestigious venues.

The first video of the Big Phat Band up above, "Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes," was recorded in 2016 at one of those off-the-beaten-path gigs at New Trier High School in Winnetka, IL, near Chicago. So were "Count Bubba's Revenge" and "Horn Of Puente," the two numbers that follow it after the jump. While the videos are low-res, the audio quality is good, and the three numbers depicted give a good taste of the Big Phat Band's sound and stylistic range.

The One O'Clock Lab Band is the top student band at the University of North Texas, home to one of the most storied and longest-running collegiate jazz programs in the USA. Although like any college band, they have ongoing turnover in membership, the One O'Clock band over the years has maintained a consistent high standard of musicianship rivaling many professional ensembles, as you can hear in the next three videos.

"Hey, It’s Me You’re Talking To" is an arrangement of a tune by drummer Victor Lewis, recorded on March 1 of this year at Winspear Hall on the North Texas campus, as was the Robert Washut arrangement "Beneath the Mask" just eight days later. The third of clip of the group, a new arrangement of the venerable "Harlem Nocturne," was recorded last November, also at Winspear Hall.

Today's last two videos feature Hermon Mehari. who grew up in Kansas City and now splits his time between there and Paris, France. "Minority" is, as Mehari mentions in his introduction, a staple of his live shows, seen here in a version recorded last October at Belleville Brûlerie in Paris, while "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" showcases Mehari alongside the acclaimed young pianist Aaron Parks in a live-in-the-studio promotional clip for the trumpeter's 2017 debut album Bleu.

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

Jazz this week: Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, John Pizzarelli, King Sunny Ade, Ronald Carter & Russell Gunn, Lea DeLaria, and more

It's an extremely busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with everything from big bands and straight-ahead small group swing to organ-driven soul-jazz, cabaret, free improv, and two or three different flavors of ethnic music fused with jazz.

Let's go to straight to the highlights, described here in more-or-less chronological order:

On Wednesday, singer and guitarist John Pizzarelli, who's always a good draw here in the Gateway City, begin a four-night run at Jazz at the Bistro. This time around, expect to hear at least a few selections from his latest CD, the Duke Ellington tribute Rockin' In Rhythm, as well as other classic jazz and popular songs from Pizzarelli's extensive repertoire.

On Thursday evening, it's the final Jazz at Holmes event of the semester at Washington University, a free concert featuring saxophonist Larry Johnson and Two Times True, led by pianist Carolbeth True and including her son David True on drums.

Also on Thursday, the 2010 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival also gets underway at the Touhill Performing Arts Center, with student combos playing and working with guest clinicians all day. There will be more student bands and clinics during the day on Friday and Saturday, with evening concerts headlined by trombonist Conrad Herwig's Latin-jazz band on Friday and Gordon Goodwin and the Big Phat Band (pictured) on Saturday. (For a complete schedule of events, see this post.)

In addition to the events for the participating student ensembles, Herwig also will present public master classes on Friday and Saturday. Also, word from GSLJF publicist Dawn DeBlaze is that the Big Phat Band will perform Goodwin's new arrangement of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue, " which should be interesting. For some video of the Big Phat Band in action, see this post from last Saturday, and for more about the GSLJF, check out Terry Perkins' preview story now online at the St. Louis Beacon.

On Friday and Saturday, singer/actor/comic and Belleville native Lea DeLaria brings her cabaret show to Nancy's Place, 4510 Manchester (in the Grove neighborhood). DeLaria, who's best known for her out-and-outrageous comedy but also has some serious vocal chops, will be accompanied by pianist Janette Mason, whose CD Alien Left Hand was just nominated in the "Best Jazz CD" category of the UK's 2010 Parliamentary Jazz Awards. (You can see DeLaria and Mason on video here, doing a swinging version of "The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," from the musical Sweeney Todd.) The show's promoter tells StLJN that some tickets remain for both nights, including some VIP packages for Friday, and can be purchased online via brownpapertickets.com.

And speaking of cabaret, Jim Dolan's Presenters Dolan has two shows this weekend at the Kranzberg Arts Center. Jeffrey Wright will reprise his show "The Dance" on Friday, and Shana Farr will make her St. Louis cabaret debut on Saturday with"Pure Imagination," accompanied by musical director Amanda Kirkpatrick and bassist Jay Hungerford.

On Saturday afternoon, the Nu-Art Series wraps up its spring skein of jazz composers concerts with a performance by saxophonist Stan Coleman and the Youth Jazz Band doing the music of Duke Ellington.

Then on Saturday evening, sitarist Imrat Khan and guitarist Todd Mosby will do a benefit concert at the Ethical Society; the Dutch lute player/composer Jozef van Wissem and NYC free improv duo Che Chen and Robbie Lee play at Open Lot; and keyboardist Reggie Thomas performs at Robbie's House of Jazz to celebrate the release of his new CD Four, which features Thomas on Hammond B-3 organ with trumpeter Clay Jenkins, guitarist Rick Haydon and drummer Gary Hobbs.

On Sunday afternoon, saxophonist Ronald Carter and the Northern Illinois University Jazz Ensemble plus special guests Russell Gunn and Reggie Thomas will perform at the Sheldon Concert Hall in the sixth annual "Youth In the Arts" benefit for the Genesis Performing Arts Foundation. For ticket information, go here or call 618-741-0898.

Also on Sunday, singer Erin Bode appears in the final free concert of the spring for the St. Louis Jazz and Blues Vespers series at Second Baptist Church.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Tuesday the godfather of juju music King Sunny Ade and his African Beats will play at the Old Rock House. Although this show seems to have stirred interest well beyond St. Louis, as of this writing it looks like there are still tickets available, though there's no telling how long the remaining supply will last.

UPDATE, 5;30 p.m., 4/15/10: Although Ade has had to cancel the first five shows on his US tour due to visa problems affecting a couple of band members, the Old Rock House's Erica Deiters has confirmed to StLJN that Ade's St. Louis show Tuesday is still on.

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 by becoming a "fan" of 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: Four from Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band

It's been a while since we've highlighted any big band clips for this weekly feature, and so today let's take a look at some videos of pianist, saxophonist and arranger/composer Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, who are coming to town to play next Saturday, April 17 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center as part of the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival.

Formed in 2000 and based in Los Angeles, the 17-piece Big Phat Band also headlined an evening at the Touhill for the GSLJF back in 2007. Reviewing the show then, I enjoyed their performance and was favorably impressed with their overall musicianship, energy and showmanship, but found the material a little slight and unmemorable.

Now, thanks to the magic of YouTube, you can check out four staples from the BPB's songbook and draw your own conclusions. First up is "Hunting Wabbits," inspired in part by the classic Carl Stalling soundtracks to Warner Brothers cartoons (and the Raymond Scott compositions frequently incorporated therein). It's probably my favorite piece of Goodwin's, and from what I can tell, pops up at the majority of BPB shows.

Down below are clips of "Count Bubba's Revenge," an uptempo blues, and the Latin-flavored "El Macho Muchacho," which, though quite well-executed, strike me as emblematic of the band's somewhat awkward resemblance to the Doc Severinsen-era Tonight Show band and certain other 1970s big bands. Both pieces are entertaining enough, and offer blowing space for some talented soloists, but feel a bit generic.

And speaking of the 1970s, batting cleanup today is a clip of the Big Phat Band's version of "Play That Funky Music (White Boy)," which sold a bajillion records for one-hit wonders Wild Cherry back then, and to this day remains on the playlist for cover bands and wedding DJs throughout the land. As a showcase for the alto sax soloist - here it's Eric Marienthal - it's an opportunity to whip up a little David Sanborn/Maceo Parker pastiche, which Marienthal does quite handily.

As a concept/arrangement, it recalls the sort of thing Maynard Ferguson did back in the 1970s, in the process achieving the same sort of adoration among students and aspiring big-band musicians that Goodwin seems to enjoy today. However, there's a big difference: Ferguson was tackling pop tunes of the time, not reaching back more than 30 years for his source material.

While "Play That Funky Music" is fun in an empty-calories sort of way, there's not much underlying musical substance there. If they're going to play big band versions of goofy pop songs, it'd be more interesting to hear Goodwin and the Big Phat Band do something with more contemporary material. If The Bad Plus can re-do Nirvana and Vijay Iyer can remake M.I.A., why couldn't Gordon Goodwin re-imagine the music of, say, Lady Gaga or Kanye West?

Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival announces schedule of events

The Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival has announced the complete schedule of events for this year's fest, which will be held Thursday. April 15 through Saturday, April 17 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center on the campus of the University of Missouri - St. Louis (UMSL).

The 2010 GSLJF will feature concerts by trombonist Conrad Herwig's Latin Side All-Stars at 8:00 p.m., Friday, April 16 and Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band at 8:00 p.m., Saturday, April 17.

Herwig (pictured) has played with Joe Henderson, Tom Harrell, Joe Lovano, Eddie Palmieri, the Mingus Big Band and many others, and has recorded 19 albums as a leader. In addition to his concert, Herwig will present two free jazz clinics at the TouPAC that will be open to the public, at 1:30 p.m. on Friday and noon on Saturday.

The Big Phat Band returns to the GSLJF for an encore after performing at the 2007 fest. Formed in 2000, the 18-member group includes many top studio musicians from Los Angeles, and has released four albums on Silverline Records.

While the weekend concerts are the public face of the GSLJF, the event also includes three days of performances, clinics and critiques for student musicians from around the St. Louis metro area. Six high school combos and UMSL's small ensemble will play on Thursday, with more than 30 big bands representing area middle schools, high schools and colleges scheduled for Friday and Saturday.

The student ensembles will work with a roster of clinicians including bassist Jim Widner, who directs UMSL's jazz program and the GSLJF; saxophonists Jamey Aebersold, Rick Condit and David Seiler; bassist Lou Fischer; trumpeters Ron Modell and Allen Beeson; and trombonist/euphonium player Peter Madsen.

For more information about the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, visit the GSLJF website. To purchase tickets for the concerts by Conrad Herwig and Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, go to the TouPAC's site.

Review: Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band at the Touhill Perfoming Arts Center

To many of the high school and college student musicians who came to his concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center last Saturday, April 21, Gordon Goodwin is a bonafide star. The students have played Goodwin’s charts in their school bands, bought his CDs and maybe even a t-shirt or two, and look up to him the way earlier generations of student jazz players regarded the bands of Maynard Ferguson, Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, Don Ellis and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis.

Given that level of esteem, Goodwin and his Big Phat Band (pictured) were a logical choice to perform on the final night of the education-oriented Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival. And given that Goodwin and many of his band members initially learned their craft in the same sort of educational setting – a fact the pianist, composer and arranger alluded to several times during the night – they seemed to feel right at home with the crowd and the venue.

The Big Phat Band’s music has some similarities to the bands cited above, as well as to the "Tonight Show" orchestra under Doc Severinsen and the work of composer-arrangers such as Oliver Nelson, Henry Mancini and Neal Hefti who moved, as Goodwin does, in the worlds of both jazz and film scoring. On Saturday night, they emphasized extroverted, uptempo pieces – there wasn’t a ballad played all night – and showed off some very crisp and precise ensemble work, their exemplary execution providing a fine example for the school band directors also in attendance to share with their students.

Comprised mostly of little-known but highly capable West Coast studio musicians – ex-Chuck Mangione guitarist Grant Geissman was the most recognizable name – the Big Phat Band delivered Goodwin’s charts with unflagging energy and an appropriately professional polish. Trombonist Andy Martin and tenor saxophonist Brian Scanlon stood out among the soloists; trumpeter Rick Sorenson skillfully supplied the high note work; and drummer Bernie Dresel proved adept at powering the 18-member ensemble through a variety of grooves.

As for Goodwin, his piano playing was mostly setup and punctuation, though he did show off some nice chops during one brief solo on “Swinging For The Fences” (an extended reimagining of “Sweet Georgia Brown”), and even picked up a tenor sax for a swinging chorus on “Count Bubba’s Revenge”. As a composer/arranger, he seems still in the process of assimilating his various influences, but nevertheless is capable of some inventive and colorful writing - one standout example being the sax section feature that opened “Hunting Wabbits,” a tribute to the Warner Brothers cartoon scores that featured the music of composer Carl Stalling. "High Maintenance" was an effective concert opener, the sort of chart that used to be called a "flag waver," and "El Macho Muchacho" was a piquant cross-border blend of salsa, samba and country guitar licks from Geissman.

Goodwin also did a nice job expanding his slight theme for the film Attack of The Killer Tomatoes into a full-length big band piece, morphing it into an evocative minor-key blues. Less successful was a superfluous cover version of “Play That Funky Music,” which seemed to exist mostly to give alto saxophonist Sal Lozano a chance to show off a frantic pastiche of Dave Sanborn and Maceo Parker licks.

Overall, the Big Phat Band is a slick outfit that puts on an entertaining show, and other jazz groups might even learn a bit from their presentational style. Goodwin is an engaging MC, informal without getting smarmy, and the band’s entrance in particular was a lot of fun: the rhythm section set up a vamp, over which Goodwin introduced the rest of musicians as they ran on stage one by one, almost like announcing the starting lineup at a sporting event.

This little bit of business, along with others throughout the concert, showed that Goodwin has a good sense of what will appeal to his young audience. However, the Big Phat Band “trivia contest,” while providing a chance for Goodwin to tout some of his musicians’ accomplishments and give away some merch to a few fans, was a real momentum killer during the second half of the show.

Occasional lapses into show biz silliness and/or musical superficiality notwithstanding, Goodwin’s got the style down, and he’s clearly got a fine craftsman’s enthusiasm for his work. He's only been making big band records since 2002; with the opportunity to continue practicing his craft, even greater musical substance ought to follow.

Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival will feature Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, Bobby Watson, Mike Metheny and Steve Wiest

The Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, which will take place this year from Wednesday, April 18 through Saturday, April 21, has announced its 2007 lineup of guest artists, including Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, saxophonist Bobby Watson (pictured), trumpeter Mike Metheny and trombonist Steve Wiest.

The festival is presented by the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Jazz St. Louis, and will include clinics and workshops for student musicians, as well as a night of guest artist performances at Jazz at the Bistro and two concerts at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

It all starts on Wednesday, April 18, when members of the UMSL jazz faculty will appear with Watson, Metheny and Wiest for two shows at Jazz at the Bistro. Then the action shifts to the TouPAC, where on Friday, April 20, Watson, Metheny, and Wiest will perform in concert with the UMSL Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Jim Widner. The festival then wraps up on Saturday, April 21 with a concert by Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band.

For more information about Wednesday’s performance, visit the Jazz St. Louis Web site. For more about Friday and Saturday's concerts, see the TouPAC web site.

Below, you'll find a couple of embedded videos featuring Goodwin and the Big Phat Band. The first shows them backing singer Dianne Reeves on Goodwin's arrangement of "Too Close For Comfort," and the second is a promotional video for the band's recent CD/DVD "The Phat Pack".