Sunday Session: February 4, 2018

Quincy Jones

Here's the 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:

* Jazz-Related Grammy Award Winners Announced (Jazz Times)
* Jazz and Blues Artists Make a Slippery Impression at the 2018 Grammy Awards (WBGO)
* We Asked a Top A&R Executive If Rock Is Really Dead (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Burkina Faso Music Honored at Grammys, but Artists Cry Foul (VOANews.com)
* Finding meaning in music again (The Globe and Mail)
* Junk Shop Classical On Stravinsky: Music Stories Told £1 LP By £1 LP (TheQuietus.com)
* Rhythm and Reaction: how jazz made Britain swing before rock ‘n’roll began (INews.co.uk)
* Quincy Jones Has a Story About That (GQ)
* Chuck Berry-Fats Domino tribute at the Grammys misses the boat (Los Angeles Times)
* Blood, Sweat & Tears’ Groundbreaking Debut @50 (BestClassicBands.com)
* Mingus’ “Tijuana Moods” Reborn (Jazz Times)
* After the Grammys, it may be time's up for the music industry (Los Angeles Times)
* How to Be a Responsible Music Fan in the Age of Streaming (Pitchfork.com)
* Jason Moran: Modernistic, Historical and More (Jazz Times)
* A Q&A with jazz heiress Catherine Russell (Arkansas Times)
* DC-Area Record Label Cuneiform Has Gone on Hiatus, and It May Not Come Back (Washingtonian)
* Keeping the Art of Silent Film Music Alive (AtlasObscura.com)
* Piano Madness: Kris Davis and Craig Taborn in Freewheeling Dialogue (Village Voice)
* David Byrne on Trump, Cultural Appropriation and Why He Won't Reunite Talking Heads (Rolling Stone)
* A Tribute to James Jamerson and His Lost Funk Machine (Reverb.com)
* Link Wray, Inventor of the Power Chord, Snubbed Again (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Drummer Mike Reed Reflects on the Racist Encounter That Sparked 'Flesh & Bone' (WBGO)
* Spotify (Finally) Adds Songwriter and Producer Credits (Variety)
* Wherein three national corporations control nearly all of San Francisco's live music (DNALounge.com)
* Best Buy will cease selling CDs later this year (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Temptations' Dennis Edwards dies at 74: 'Helped define Detroit soul (Detroit Free Press)

The Baylor Project earns two nominations in 60th Annual Grammy Awards

The Baylor Project, featuring singer Jean Baylor and her husband, drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor, has received two nominations in the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.

The Baylors (pictured) were nominated in the "Best Jazz Vocal Album" category for their debut album The Journey, and for "Best R&B Performance" for their song "Laugh and Move On."

Released in February of this year on the Baylors' Be A Light label, The Journey debuted at No 8 on the Billboard Jazz Chart, and got a favorable reception from media outlets including All About Jazz, Hot House, Soul Tracks, Soulbounce, Modern Drummer, The Chicago Defender, Revive Music, and more.

The 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, January 28 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, with portions broadcast live on CBS. You can see the full list of nominees here.

The Baylor Project will perform in St. Louis from Wednesday, March 28 through Saturday, March 31 at Jazz at the Bistro.

St. Louis jazz at the 2017 Grammys

Although the contributions of St. Louis jazz musicians may not have been explicitly acknowledged by name at the 2017 Grammy Awards, the city was represented by players on at least a couple of this year's winning recordings.

Trumpeter Keyon Harrold (pictured, top left) presumably will be getting a Grammy statue for his crucial contributions to the Robert Glasper-produced soundtrack for Don Cheadle's film Miles Ahead, which was the winner in the "Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media" category.

Also, his brother, drummer Emanuel Harrold, and bassist Jahmal Nichols, who's also from St. Louis, are the rhythm section for singer Gregory Porter, who won "Best Jazz Vocal Album" for his 2016 release Take Me To The Alley. Harrold performed on the Grammy-winning recording, and he and Nichols (pictured, center right) continue to tour around the world with Porter.

Finally, although there was no Grammy Award for "Best Stage Outfit Inspired By A 1970s Miles Davis Album Cover," if such an award existed, it surely would have gone to pop diva Beyonce, who (as you can see from the picture below) looked almost as if she stepped right out of the painting by artist Mati Klarwein that was used as the cover art for Davis' 1971 album Live-Evil. (Hat tip to @danieldurchholz for pointing out the resemblance.)

You can see a complete list of this year's Grammy Award winners here.