Sunday Session: July 11, 2021

Susie Ibarra

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

* Gatemouth Brown memorialized on the road he traveled, in the town where he lived (Nola.com)
* The Urge to Destroy a Violin (The New Yorker)
* Little Walter’s Song That Changed Everything for the Blues (TheDailyBeast.com)
* The Story of Louis Armstrong’s Final Tape (LouisArmstrongHouse.org)
* More really is more with new Lee Morgan jazz release (Denver Post)
* PAMA calls for “outdated” audio terms such as ‘master/slave’ and ‘male/female’ to be replaced (MusicRadar.com)
* Grand Funk Railroad Feed Off Crowd's Energy At First Concert Back (UltimateClassicRock.com)
* In Memoriam: Rick Laird (NoTreble.com)
* John McLaughlin Discusses Mahavishnu Orchestra, Liberation Time, and More (Jazz Times)
* Norwegian Company Creating Doomsday Vault to Preserve Music Recordings (Consequence.net)
* The Sound of Early Sci-Fi: Samuel Hoffman’s Theremin (Reverb.com)
* Back on the Road! Live Sound Gears Up for Reopening (MixOnline.com)
* Five things to know about Hamid Drake (Vancouver Sun)
* Susie Ibarra: Hybrid Culture (New Music Box)
* John McLaughlin Discusses Mahavishnu Orchestra, Liberation Time, and More (Jazz Times)
* Mulgrew Miller Saw Us Through (AdmissionsProjects.com)
* What People Actually Listen To In 2021 (Music3Point0.com)
* Numbers Don’t Lie: Lilli Lewis Talks Black Presence in Americana (Offbeat)
* Frank Sinatra And Quincy Jones: When The Voice Met The Dude (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Jam & Lewis: “With Prince, we learned to use synthesizers in a very musical way” (MusicRadar.com)
* Tony Scott: How A BeBop Jazz Clarinetist Invented New Age Music (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Legendary Pete Escovedo ready to help jump-start Bay Area jazz scene (San Jose Mercury News)
* Call It Mourning: Mark Ruffin Remembers Gil Scott-Heron on the 10-Year Anniversary of the Poet’s Death (Jazziz)

Sunday Session: September 8, 2019

Hamid Drake

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

* Linda Ronstadt Has Found Another Voice (The New Yorker)
* Charles Lloyd: 'Looking for the one note that can say it all' (Japan Times)
* White Supremacy Tried to Kill Jazz. The Music Triumphed (TruthOut.org)
* Vijay Iyer (Musicality, Wigmore Hall residency, 2019/20) (London Jazz News)
* Drummer Rudy Royston’s Always Listening (DownBeat)
* Michael Brecker Competition Continues Legacy of Generous Musician (Jazz Times)
* The Voice That Shattered Glass (NPR)
* Detroit Jazz Festival Offers a Mixed Bag (DownBeat)
* CBS SF Talks To King Crimson Bassist Tony Levin (CBSLocal.com)
* The Many Requirements Of Hold Music, A Genre For No One (NPR)
* Jimmy Johnson, Muscle Shoals Guitarist Who Backed Soul & Rock Giants, Dead at 76 (Rolling Stone)
* A Decade of Music Is Lost on Your iPod. These Are The Deleted Years. Now Let Us Praise Them (Esquire)
* Brian Blade & Life Cycles: Uncorking The Spirit of Bobby Hutcherson (SFJAZZ.org)
* How Ella Fitzgerald Turned Forgotten Lyrics Into One Of Her Best Performances Ever (NPR)
* Vinyl Is Poised to Outsell CDs For the First Time Since 1986 (Rolling Stone)
* Iggy Pop: 'I've finally got the voice I was supposed to have' (BBC)
* ‘We Always Swing’ To Launch 25th Anniversary Season (DownBeat)
* Music legend Taj Mahal talks music, race and the Rolling Stones (San Diego Union Tribune)
* Delving Into Consciousness: Hamid Drake's Favourite Music (TheQuietus.com)
* Abdullah Ibrahim: Grace Under Pressure (Jazz Times)
* “I Was Always Trying To Get Better”: Sonny Rollins On A Life In Jazz (UDiscoverMusic.com)

Jazz this week: Poncho Sanchez; Cooper-Moore, Abrams & Drake; Glendale Jazz Festival; Willie Akins Jazz Festival; and more

The busy Memorial Day weekend schedule of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes the return of a leading light of Latin jazz; an all-star assembly of creative improvisors; a benefit raising funds for scholarships in the name of the late St. Louis saxophonist Willie Akins, and more.

Let's go the highlights....

Wednesday, May 23
Percussionist Poncho Sanchez (pictured, top left) and his band, who are pretty much the gold standard these days for small combo Latin jazz, perform for the first of four nights at Jazz St. Louis. 

For some samples of what you might expect to hear, check out Sanchez and company in action via video in this post from 2014.

Also on Wednesday, this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features the St. Louis Steady Grinders at The Stage at KDHX, the jam session led by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet at The Dark Room.

Elsewhere around town, the Ambassadors of Swing return for another "Shake and Shout Wednesday" at Tin Roof St. Louis; and The 442s and Erin Bode will perform for the monthly concert series at the World Chess Hall of Fame.

Thursday, May 24
Percussionist Joe Pastor's trio returns to The Dark Room; pianist Adam Maness' trio is back at Thurman's in Shaw; and bassist Willem von Hombracht duets with violinist Abbie Steiling at The Pat Connolly Tavern.

Friday, May 25
The Glendale Jazzfest, now in its 19th year, has moved from City Hall to Glendale Lutheran Church, but still is free and open to the public. This year's fest will feature trumpeter Randy Holmes and his Hard Bop 7 playing music by Horace Silver, plus Chicago saxophonist Shawn Maxwell and singers Anita Rosamond and Coco Soul.

Elsewhere around town, the Funky Butt Brass Band performs for the the St. Louis Zoo's free "Jungle Boogie" event; and Miss Jubilee plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, May 26
New Music Circle closes out their 2017-18 presenting season with a show featuring a collaboration among multi-instrumentalists Cooper-Moore, Joshua Abrams, and Hamid Drake (pictured, bottom left) at Off Broadway.

All three are veterans of the international creative music scene, performing together for the first time here in St. Louis. You can find out more about them and see videos of all three in action (albeit individually) in this post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, singers Jeanne Trevor and Joe Mancuso will be backed by guitarist Dave Black and bassist Willem von Hombracht for a show at Focal Point; Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes return to the Venice Cafe; and singer Tony Viviano performs at One 19 North Tapas & Wine Bar.

Sunday, May 27
The second annual Willie Akins Jazz Festival will take place at the Grandel Theatre, with a post-concert jam session at The Dark Room. 

The event, which is raising money for scholarships in Akins' name at Webster University, will feature music from Ben Reece's Unity Quartet; trumpeter Danny Campbell's quartet; a specially assembled band fronted by saxophonists Freddie Washington, Paul DeMarinis, and Kendrick Smith; singers Erika Johnson and Joe Mancuso; and more.

Monday, May 28
Dizzy Atmosphere plays Swing and Gypsy jazz at The Shaved Duck, and singer and guitarist Tommy Halloran is back at Yaquis on Cherokee.

Tuesday, May 29
"Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective return to BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups, and pianist Pat Joyce will play at Evangeline's.

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: Cooper-Moore, Joshua Abrams & Hamid Drake

This week, let's check out some videos featuring multi-instrumentalists Cooper-Moore, Joshua Abrams, and Hamid Drake, who will be teaming up for a show presented by New Music Circle next Saturday, May 26 at Off Broadway.

All three are veterans of the international creative music scene who have performed in St. Louis previously in different ensembles.

Most recently, Drake played here with violinist Iva Bittová last year; with fellow percussionist Adam Rudolph in 2016; and, along with Cooper-Moore, as part of bassist William Parker's band In Order To Survive in 2013. For his part, Abrams - who, like Drake, is based in Chicago - played a show here for New Music Circle in 2014 with his band Natural Information Society.

NMC has brought them together specifically for this concert, so there's really no video available of the three of them as an ensemble. Instead, today's collection of clips features performances from each of them that may provide some insights into their individual styles and potential ways of interacting.

The first video up above features Cooper-Moore playing solo piano for just short of half an hour, recorded in December 2017 in NYC.

After the jump, you can see him speaking briefly and then playing balafon on a piece called "Emancipation," recorded in May 2017 in the studios of WBGO in Newark, NJ.

A larger version of the same instrument turns up in the third video, which features Hamid Drake on drums and percussion and Aly Keita on balafon in an excerpt from a set at the 2017 Sant'Anna Arresi Jazz Festival 2017.

Below that, you can see an entire solo set by Drake, recorded in September 2013 at the Festival Isole che Parlano in the island nation Palau.

The fifth video is a brief clip of Joshua Abrams recorded solo in 2012 on a Chicago rooftop, in which he's playing guimbri, a West African lute that's his go-to instrument when he's not playing bass. 

The sixth and final video shows him playing both guimbri and bass in a scaled-down, touring version of Natural Information Society, with Lisa Alvarado on harmonium and Frank Rosaly on drums. It's a a full set of music, recorded in April 2015 at the Tarcento Jazz Festival in Italy.

For more about these three musicians, you can read Cooper-Moore's 2017 interview with the Free Jazz Blog; Abrams' interview with Bandcamp.com, also from 2017, and the interview with Drake published in 2015 by a site called The Attic.

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

Jazz this week: Regina Carter, Iva Bittová & Hamid Drake, and more

Wondering what's happening this week in live jazz and creative music in St. Louis?

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, January 18
Arguably the premier jazz violinist working today, Regina Carter (pictured, top left) opens a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro.

Like many a conservatory trained musician, Carter (pictured) certainly has fluid technique, but what really sets her apart from other equally proficient players are her expressive abilities as an improvisor, her feeling for blues and swing, and a canny sense of curation when conceiving albums and live performances.

On this visit to the Bistro, she'll be "performing music celebrating the 100th birthday of the great Ella Fitzgerald," and no doubt will have some interesting and enjoyable interpretations of material from the singer's vast catalog.

Thursday, January 19
Pianist Ptah Williams and guitarist Eric Slaughter will play at The Dark Room.

Friday, January 20
New Music Circle presents their first show of 2017, featuring a duo performance by Czech violinist and singer Iva Bittová and Chicago-based percussionist Hamid Drake (pictured, bottom left) at Joe's Cafe.

Also on Friday, Miss Jubilee plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; singers Rick Jensen and Lina Koutrakos present their cabaret show "After All Those Love Songs" at the Kranzberg Arts Center; and SpaceShip will bring their jazz/fusion sound to Evangeline's.

Saturday, January 21
Live jazz starts in the daytime, as trumpeter Jim Manley will play at Evangeline's as part of their new live music policy for Saturday brunch, and saxophonist Jason Swagler will be the first local player featured in a new monthly series of free Saturday matinee concerts at Saxquest.

Then on Saturday evening, saxophonist Tim Cunningham returns to @Nesby's in Sunset Hills.

Monday, January 23
Guitarist Tom Byrne and his quartet will kick off this semester's series of jazz concerts at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium, and Dizzy Atmosphere will play swing and Gypsy jazz at The Shaved Duck.

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.)

New Music Circle announces 2016-17 season schedule

New Music Circle has announced their 2016-17 season schedule.

The organization's 58th season will include nine events at a half-dozen venues around town, starting with a duo performance from pianists Craig Taborn and Kris Davis (pictured) on Saturday, October 1 at the 560 Music Center.

Taborn and Davis, who are doing a series of concert dates together in the fall, will perform on two grand pianos on the stage at the venue's E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall. The concert will be recorded for possible release on a CD documenting their joint tour.

In addition to Taborn and Davis, both of whom have performed in St. Louis under NMC's auspices in recent years, the lineup also will include return visits from musicians such as percussionist Hamid Drake, electronic musician Ikue Mori, and percussionist Tomas Fujiwara, whose group The Hookup includes his collaborators from the band Thumbscrew, guitarist Mary Halvorson and bassist Michael Formanek, plus saxophonist Brian Settles and trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson.

Performers making their St. Louis debuts will include Chicago-based cellist Tomeka Reid, who will play in a trio with two other buzzworthy Chicago musicians, flute player Nicole Mitchell and drummer Mike Reed; trumpeter Nate Wooley, who will work in a duo with Mori; and French flute player and composer Sylvaine Hélary, who will play with her Spring Roll Quartet.

The complete season schedule (pending confirmation of details for a couple of shows later in the season) is:

Saturday, October 1 at 560 Music Center: Craig Taborn and Kris Davis

Saturday, October 22 at The Stage at KDHX: Sylvaine Hélary's Spring Roll Quartet

Friday, November 11 at the Kranzberg Arts Center: Jen Shyu

Saturday, December 3 at Joe's Cafe: Tomeka Reid Trio

Saturday, January 21 at Joe's Cafe: Iva Bittová and Hamid Drake

Saturday, February 18 at The Luminary: Ikue Mori and Nate Wooley

Thursday, March 16 at The Stage at KDHX: Erik Friedlander's Black Phoebe Trio

Friday, April 28 or Saturday, April 29 at The Stage at KDHX: Tomas Fujiwara's The Hook Up

May 2017, date and location TBA: New Music Circle Showcase

Most of the performers also will do some sort of free public workshop, master class or other event during their visits to St. Louis, with details on those TBA.

Tickets for NMC shows are $20 for regular admission, $10 for "students or struggling music supporters," and can be purchased in advance online or at the door. In the past, they've also offered a subscription package that includes "flex" tickets that can be used for any show(s) in any combination, plus other benefits. For details on that, or to purchase single tickets, see NMC's website.

Jazz this week: Oliver Lake, Hamid Drake, Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, David Liebman, and more

It's a fine week to be a fan of jazz and creative music in St. Louis, as the calendar offers a jam-packed schedule of upcoming performances in a variety of styles and genres from big band and straight-ahead swing to free improv and experimental music.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, April 20
The Bad Plus Joshua Redman finish their two-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. While some tickets may remain for the 9:30 performance, call ahead to check for availability.

Also tonight, Erin Bode performs at Cyrano's, Sarah Jane & The Blue Notes return (in trio form) to The Feasting Fox, and Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Open Mic Night" at the Tavern of Fine Arts.

Thursday, April 21
Saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake returns to headline "BAG - A Celebration of the Black Artists Group" at Jazz At The Bistro.

Lake, poet Shirley LeFlore and drummer Charles “Bobo” Shaw will take part in a panel discussion about BAG, and then will perform, abetted by bassist Darryl Mixon and trumpeter George Sams. The latest from Jazz St. Louis is that this free event is at capacity, so if you don't already have a ticket, you can still show up and watch from the Bistro's adjacent first floor lounge or hope for returns and/or no-shows.

Also on Thursday, drummer Hamid Drake (pictured, top left) will be visiting from Chicago to perform with bassist Joshua Abrams and saxophonist Ernest Dawkins at Joe's Cafe Gallery.

Abrams and Dawkins are last-minute replacements for percussionist Adam Rudolph, who was scheduled for a duo performance with Drake but unfortunately, has fallen ill and can't travel this week.While their presence will make the program undoubtedly different than a Drake/Rudolph duet, it nevertheless should prove to be a satisfying experience for fans of creative improvised music.

Elsewhere on Thursday, trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet will play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, and the high school students of the North County Big Band will show off what they've learned this semester in a performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Friday, April 22
The public portion of the 2016 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival gets underway with a concert by guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli at the Touhill Performing Arts Center., with the UMSL Jazz Ensemble as opening act.

A longtime favorite of St. Louis audiences, Pizzarelli (pictured, center left) was here most recently last year to perform at a benefit gala for The Sheldon. You can read StLJN's review of a Pizzarelli performance in 2014 at Jazz at the Bistro here.

Also on Friday, singer Erika Johnson and guitarist Tom Byrne perform at Evangeline's; guitarist Eric Slaughter and bassist Glen Smith will play at Thurman Grill; singer Joe Mancuso leads a quartet at Nathalie's; and Miss Jubilee will play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, April 23
Saxophonist David Liebman makes a rare visit to St. Louis with his group Expansions, presenting a free workshop and concert during the afternoon at Saxquest and then performing two sets on Saturday evening at Jazz at the Bistro.

For more about Liebman (pictured, lower left) and a video of a workshop and performance featuring him and the members of Expansions, see this post from Monday.

Also on Saturday, the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival wraps up with a "Tribute to Maynard Ferguson," featuring a group of former Ferguson sidemen billed as the M.F. All-Star Band, at the Touhill. You can see videos of some of the musicians performing in the concert in this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Elsewhere around town, saxophonist Chad Evans will perform at Mozingo Music; guitarist Matthew Von Doran leads a trio at The Dark Room; and multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman and guitarist Dave Black will play at the house concert venue Kinda Blue Club.

Sunday, April 24
The Dave Dickey Big Band will present their monthly performance at Jazz at the Bistro, with the UMSL Jazz Ensemble playing at intermission, while the Gateway City Big Band takes the stage at Kirkwood Station Brewing Company.

Monday, April 25
Webster University's student jazz singers will perform at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus.

Tuesday, April 26
New Music Circle ends their 2015-16 season with a free event presenting a program of experimental films from Poland plus live musical accompaniment from 18&Counting, Vernacular String Trio and Chris Smentkowski at the St. Louis Public Library downtown.

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.)

Hamid Drake & Adam Rudolph to perform Thursday, April 21 at Joe's Cafe

Percussionists Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph (pictured) are bringing their duo project Karuna to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m. Thursday, April 21 at Joe's Cafe, 6010 Kingsbury Ave.

Though this is their first tour as a duo, the two Chicagoans have known each other since they were teenagers, and have been playing music together for more than 40 years.

In combination, they've worked with the tenor saxophonist and Chicago jazz patriarch Fred Anderson, Foday Musa Suso and Mandingo Griot Society, Don Cherry, Yusef Lateef, Pharaoh Sanders, Hassan Hakmoun, and Rudolph’s groups Hu: Vibrational and Moving Pictures.

Individually, their credits span an equally impressive range of jazz, free improv and creative music artists. Rudolph has released more than 30 recordings under his own name, and also has worked with musicians such as Sam Rivers, Muhal Richard Abrams, Shankar, Wadada Leo Smith, Philip Glass, Jon Hassel, and Omar Sosa.

Drake's projects as a bandleader include the groups Bindu and Bindu Reggaeology, and he's played with Peter Brotzmann, William Parker, David Murray, Misha Mengelberg, Bill Laswell, Archie Shepp, Ken Vandermark, Nicole Mitchell, Cooper-Moore, and many others.

Karuna features Rudolph primarily on hand drums and Drake mostly on the drum set, though both will play many different instruments over the course of a show. The name "reflects Drake and Rudolph’s ongoing research and dialogues into the connection of the inner life to musical expression. Karuna speaks to the idea of creative action as a gesture of compassion."

Tickets for Karuna with Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph are $20 for general admission, $15 for students, and can be purchased now from show presenter Josh Weinstein (of KDHX's "All Soul, No Borders") online at http://paypal.me/JoshuaWeinstein/20.

Jazz this week: Peter Brötzmann Trio, Peter Martin & Vivian Sessoms, Kurt Elling, New Mastersounds, Jamie Cullum, and more

It's the first week of a new month, and a very busy one for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with several noteworthy headliners in town. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, the all-star free jazz trio of saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, drummer Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker (pictured) performs at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center.

If you have any interest at all in free jazz, this concert is an absolute must-see, as all three of the players are adventurous, uncompromising improvisors with international reputations, and this is their first tour together in more than a decade. You can find out more and hear all three musicians, together and apart, via this recent Saturday video showcase post.

Also tonight, Chicago's Lowdown Brass Band will be at the Broadway Oyster Bar with the Funky Butt Brass Band as opening act; and pianist Peter Martin leads a quartet plus special guest singer Vivian Sessoms to kick off this year's Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

For more about that show and what else Martin has coming up in the near future, check out this article by Terry Perkins for St. Louis Public Radio.

On Thursday, Sessoms and Martin's trio will team up for another performance, this time spotlighting Sessoms in the intimate confines of the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Also on Thursday, the New Orleans Suspects, featuring musicians associated with the Neville Brothers, the Radiators, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and James Brown, will be back in town to play at the Broadway Oyster Bar; and Good 4 The Soul returns for their monthly gig at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

On Friday, singer Kurt Elling, who's become a local favorite thanks to numerous appearances over the years at Jazz at the Bistro, will make his debut at the Sheldon Concert Hall, performing in a benefit for the Sheldon Art Galleries. Some concert-only tickets may still be available; call the Sheldon directly at 314-533-9900 for details.

Also on Friday, the British funk/jazz quartet The New Mastersounds will play at the Old Rock House, with Dopapod as opening act. For more about them, plus some performance videos, see this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Elsewhere around town on Friday, percussionist Craig Russo's Latin Jazz Project, based up the road in the Champaign/Urbana area, will be back in St. Louis to play at Robbie's House of Jazz; and guitarist Brian Vaccaro's trio will serve as the nucleus for the first in a prospective series of jam sessions at The Wolf in West County.

On Saturday, Carolbeth True and Two Times True are at Robbie's House of Jazz, and Miss Jubilee plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Then on Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis Jazz Club will present pianist Pat Joyce and his "All-Stars" at the DoubleTree Hotel at Westport. Joyce will be aided and abetted by Jerry Epperson (reeds), Bob Ceccarini (trumpet), Jay Hungerford (bass), Joe Berger (drums) and Cody Henry (trombone).

Sunday evening, singer and pianist Jamie Cullum will be back in St. Louis for the first time in four years to perform at The Pageant. For more about Cullum and his latest album Momentum, plus recent performance videos and interviews, see this post from last Saturday.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday Dean Christopher brings his "Rat Pack & More" show back to One 19 North Tapas & Wine Bar, and percussionist Joe Pastor returns to BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

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: Peter Brötzmann, William Parker & Hamid Drake

Today, we focus our video lens on the trio of saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, bassist William Parker and percussionist Hamid Drake, who are coming to St. Louis to perform in a concert at 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 4 at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center as part of LNAC's 20th anniversary celebration.

Bound by a web of musical associations stretching back more than 20 years, they first recorded and toured together under the name Die Like A Dog, and in the ensuing years have come to be known as something of a free-jazz all-star band. StLJN covered some of Brötzmann's back story in a Saturday video post before his first St. Louis appearance back in June 2009 at LNAC, while Parker was the subject of a similar post last October when he brought his quintet here to play a New Music Circle-sponsored concert at Mad Art Gallery.

That band also included Drake, and you can see him in several of the videos in the Parker post. The longtime Chicagoan has been a player on the international jazz and creative music scene since the late 1970s, leading his own groups and collaborating with a wide variety of musicians.

In addition to many recordings and tours with Brötzmann and Parker, both individually and together, Drake had a long musical association with saxophonist Fred Anderson, who drew him into Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and also has worked with Don Cherry, Herbie Hancock, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, David Murray and Reggie Workman. Drake also has played reggae and world music throughout his career, and in fact made his very first recording as a member of Foday Musa Suso’s Mandingo Griot Society.

While there's not a whole lot of footage online of Drake, Brötzmann and Parker together, and the usual caveats about previews being of somewhat limited use when dealing with totally improvised music certainly apply, today's selection of clips at least should provide some idea of what to expect when they play at LNAC.

First up is a video showing Brötzmann, Parker and Drake together at a gig on November 28, 2004 at the Teatro Fondamenta Nuove in Venice, Italy. Down below the jump, we go back almost a full decade for a full set featuring Brötzmann, Parker, Drake and trumpeter Toshinori Kondo recorded in 1995 at Jazzfest Berlin.

Below that are several excerpts from more recent duo performances by Brötzmann and Drake. The first three were recorded at three different stops of their spring 2010 tour, on April 18 at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center in NYC; April 23 at the Hideout in Chicago; and April 28 at the Victory Grill in Austin, TX. The fourth is from a show in April 2012 for the Europajazz Festival at La Fonderie in Le Mans, France.

The last two videos serve to provide a bit more background, both for these specific performers and for the musical world in which they operate. The seventh clip is an interview with Brötzmann recorded in 2013 before his performance at the Ljubljana Jazz Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

And for some broader context, check out the final video of Free The Jazz, a full-length, Hungarian-produced documentary in English directed by Czabán György that includes interviews and music from Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson, Joe McPhee, Matthew Shipp and many others.

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

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on William Parker

This week we feature some video clips of bassist William Parker, who will be here with his In Order To Survive quintet to perform in a concert presented by New Music Circle next Friday, October 25 at Mad Art Gallery.

A 61-year-old native of the Bronx, NYC, Parker first gained wide attention in the 1980s with pianist Cecil Taylor, and has been a longtime band member for saxophonists David S. Ware and Peter Brötzmann. As organizer of the annual Vision Festival and a frequent collaborator with many different jazz and improvising musicians both in the USA and in Europe, Parker is considered an significant player in the NYC experimental music scene.

As a bandleader, Parker has been involved with many musical projects, and the In Order To Survive quintet is a direct outgrowth of his long-running quartet, adding pianist and multi-instrumentalist Cooper-Moore to that band's existing lineup of Parker, drummer Hamid Drake, alto saxophonist Rob Brown and trumpeter Lewis Barnes.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of footage online of the In Order To Survive quintet, though we did include what seems to be the best clip, an excerpt from their set at the 2012 Vision Festival, here last month in part three of StLJN's fall jazz preview.

So today, as the next best thing, let's check out some videos featuring Parker in some other musical configurations that also include the members of In Order To Survive.

The first clip up top is from a gig in January 2008 in Moscow, Russia, and features the quartet of Parker, Drake, Brown and Barnes performing Parker's composition "Corn Meal Dance."

Down below, they're joined by vocalist and dancer Leena Conquest for a clip recorded in 2004 for the Hungarian public television network Duna, and another made by an audience member in June, 2005 at the Museum Of Art in Norrköping, Sweden.

The fourth and fifth videos take us back to Moscow, and feature excerpts from a duo performance in February 2012 by Parker and Drake. In clip #4, Drake plays frame drum and Parker plays a wood flute; in #5, they're working out on drum kit and bass, respectively.

The sixth and final video is an excerpt from a benefit concert for the NYC venue The Under_Line, recorded last December. It features Parker on bass and Cooper-Moore on drums, plus St. Louis Hamiet Bluiett on baritone sax, Charles Gayle on tenor sax, Jason Kao Hwang on violin, and, somewhat surprisingly, Christian McBride on a second bass.

For more about William Parker, check out this interview he did in 2011 with Capital Bop.com, and this interview with him and Hamid Drake from the May 2010 issue of Jazz Times.

Notes from the Net: "First times" with Miles; Oliver Lake's new CD; Boney James on the mend; plus news, reviews, interviews and more

Here's the latest compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* Starting off, as is our custom, with a Miles Davis item, NPR's A Blog Supreme recently asked readers "What Was Your First Miles Davis Album"? and got "nearly 1,000 replies on NPR's Facebook page; 103 replies here on A Blog Supreme (an astronomical amount for us) and hundreds of tweets and re-tweets." The number one intro-to-Miles album was, unsurprisingly, Kind of Blue, which remains the best selling jazz album of all time; the runner-up was Bitches Brew, which is getting a 40th anniversary re-release this year.

* In news of other St. Louis natives, saxophonist Greg Osby will headline a live webcast for NPR's "Live at the Village Vanguard" program on Tuesday, August 3. (Episodes are archived online for later listening, too.)

* Saxophonist Oliver Lake (pictured) has a new CD called Plan featuring his Organ Trio with keyboardist Jared Gold, trumpeter Freddie Hendrix and drummer Jonathan Blake. Here's a review from Music and More blogger Tim Niland, who calls it "a very exciting and constantly compelling album."

* Turning to news of recent visitors, guitarist Jeff Beck, who played St. Louis' Fox Theatre in April, this week led a tribute to guitarist and inventor Les Paul at the intimate NYC club Iridium, where Paul had a steady Monday night gig for many years right up until his death in 2009. Here's another review, written by Bill Milkowski for Jazz Times.

* Meanwhile, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, last seen here in March at the Sheldon Concert Hall, have headed across the Atlantic for a tour that includes four concerts in Berlin, three in London, and five in other UK cities.

* Singer and pianist Jamie Cullum, who also was in St. Louis in March to play the Roberts Orpheum Theatre, will be one of the headliners at the Carefusion Newport Jazz Festival in August.

* Saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and percussionist Hamid Drake have a new eponymous duo CD, reviewed here by "Stef" of the blog Free Jazz. Their recent duo tour, the first in more than a decade, included a stop in April at St. Louis' Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center.

* As if he wasn't busy enough already, bassist Christian McBride is producing and playing on vibraphonist Warren Wolf's debut CD for Mack Avenue Records. McBride revealed on his Twitter feed that recent sessions in NYC also included drummer Greg Hutchinson, saxophonist Tim Green and, on piano, St. Louis' own Peter Martin, all of whom also have been associated with McBride's Inside Straight band. Last seen here in November at Jazz at the Bistro, McBride will play a duo concert with Martin in September at the Sheldon, and will return again next year in March for a Ray Brown tribute at the Bistro.

* Speaking of return engagements, trumpeter Chris Botti, who will return to St. Louis in February 2011 for a concert at Powell Hall with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, will perform next week at NYC's Carnegie Hall for the CareFusion Jazz Festival New York. Botti also will play the CareFusion Newport Jazz Festival in August.

* Singer, pianist and songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway, who's coming back to the Gateway City next March to play at the Bistro, recently did a duo show with her sister, Broadway and cabaret performer Liz Callaway, at Town Hall in NYC. The program featured their interpretations of pop hits from the 1960s and 1970s; here's the review from the New York Times' Stephen Holden.

* Saxophonist Gerald Albright has a new CD, Pushing The Envelope, on sale next week. The funk-flavored release features special guest appearances by Fred Wesley on trombone, Earl Klugh on acoustic guitar and George Duke on acoustic piano, along with keyboardists Tracy Carter and Luther "Mano" Hanes, guitarist Ricky Watford and drummer Ricky Lawson. Albright is out on the road this summer with the Guitars and Saxes tour, which hits The Pageant in St. Louis on Friday, August 13.

* Singer Tierney Sutton was one of the headliners at last week's Isthmus Jazz Festival in Madison, WI, resulting in this interview with the local magazine that sponsored the event. Sutton will be back in St. Louis in October to play the Sheldon.

* Saxophonist Chris Potter has put online some free live music from his band Underground, via the website ArtistShare. Potter and Underground will play Jazz at the Bistro next March.

* Lastly, smooth jazz saxophonist Boney James is on the mend from being rear-ended in a recent car accident, in which he suffered a gash in his chin that resulted in 14 stitches, a fractured maxilla bone, and two broken front teeth. James is taking off several weeks for orthodontic repairs and recovery, but anticipates being able to play again the first week of July, which would be in time for him to make his show scheduled for Thursday, July 8 at the Bottleneck Blues Bar in St. Charles.

Some of James' canceled shows have been rescheduled, but for his date this Saturday in Sacramento, trumpeter Rick Braun and saxophonist Richard Elliot will fill in and co-headline what's being billed as a "Get Well Soon Tribute" as part of their ongoing "RnR" tour, which comes to the Pageant on July 30.

(Edited after posting to clean up some typos.)

Notes from the Net: Miles Davis' Blue Moment; Clark Terry honored in KC; plus news, reviews, interviews and more

Here's the latest compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* Starting with some Miles Davis news, "We Want Miles," the exhibit about the trumpeter's life and work first staged last year in Paris, has now opened in Montreal. We Want Miles also is the name of a new book, written by French jazz critic Vincent Bessières and just published here in the US, that includes photographs, handwritten musical scores, album covers, posters, and other visual material from the exhibit. (You can see some of the photos from the Miles-as-fashion-icon section of the book and exhibit here).

Another new book about Davis, The Blue Moment: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music by Richard Williams, was featured recently on NPR. For good measure, here's another review of the tome, from Baltimore City Paper's Michaelangelo Matos.

Finally, we move from literature to libations, with news that the brewers at Dogfish Ale have commemorated the fortieth anniversary of Davis' album Bitches Brew with a special craft beer.

* Trumpeter and St. Louis native Clark Terry (pictured) was honored by the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City a couple of weekends ago, accepting an award and performing briefly as part of a concert of Duke Ellington music. Bill Brownlee, proprietor of the KC jazz blog Plastic Sax, reviewed the concert for the Kansas City Star here. Meanwhile, our town's Dawn DeBlaze of DeBlaze & Associates was there too, enjoying the proceedings and shooting photos, including the one of Terry accepting his award from AJM CEO Greg Carroll that she has graciously provided to StLJN to accompany this post.

* And while we're on the subject of St. Louis trumpet players, the Lester Bowie tribute presented last year by the San Francisco organization Other Minds can now be heard online. The concert was organized by Bowie's daughter Sukari Ivester, and featured Bowie's Art Ensemble colleagues Roscoe Mitchell on saxophones and Famoudou Don Moye on drums, plus trumpeter Corey Wilkes, saxophonist James Carter (who's in St. Louis this week to play at Jazz at the Bistro), trombonist Frank Lacy, pianist Jon Jang and bassist Peter Barshay.

* Turning to news of recent visitors, DowntownMusic.net has photos of saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and drummer Hamid Drake , taken at their NYC performance on the same tour that brought them to St. Louis' Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center last month. (Scroll down the page to see the pix.) After wrapping the duo tour, Brötzmann has since headed down under to play the Melbourne International Jazz Festival in Australia.

* Before playing the Touhill Performing Arts Center last Saturday, guitarist Pat Metheny took his Orchestrion home to Kansas City for a concert at the Uptown Theater, and Bill Brownlee reviewed the show for the Star here.

* Here's another review of drummer Stanton Moore's new CD Groove Alchemy, written for AllAboutJazz.com by Doug Collette. Moore and his band Galactic were in St. Louis most recently in February at The Pageant.

* The Clayton Brothers are giving fans an inside look at the production of their next album via the Internet, with rehearsal pictures, videos, interviews, sheet music and more. You can hear bassist John Clayton talk about the development of “Terrell's Tune" here. The Claytons played Jazz at the Bistro in April, and will be back in St. Louis later this month for the Jazz Education Network conference.

* Also performing at the JEN Conference will be bassist Rufus Reid, who has a new trio CD and also guests on the latest disc from Sweden's Norrbotten Big Band. Here's a review of both CDs, written by J. Hunter for AllAboutJazz.com, plus another review of the trio CD by frequent AAJ contributor Pico.

* Saxophonist Kirk Whalum will be one of the headliners at the 31st Detroit International Jazz Festival over Labor Day weekend, performing music from Everything is Everything, his forthcoming tribute to singer, songwriter, keyboard player and St. Louis native Donny Hathaway that will be released in September. Whalum will be in St. Louis with this year's Guitars and Saxes tour in August to play The Pageant.

* Singer Michael Buble, who's performing in St. Louis on June 25 at the Scottrade Center, was one of the top winners at the Juno Awards, the annual Canadian music award ceremony held last month.

* Here's another review of guitarist John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension's new CD To The One , written for AllAboutJazz.com by Ian Patterson. McLaughlin will bring the fusion quartet to the Sheldon Concert Hall in November. McLaughlin also now has an official iPhone App, created by his record label Abstract Logix. You can get it for free by going to the App Store on your iPhone and searching for "John McLaughlin."

Jazz this week: Peter Brötzmann and Hamid Drake, Daryl Sherman, Erin Bode and more

After a jam-packed calendar of offerings last week, this weekend offers a bit more breathing room for St. Louis fans of jazz and creative music. Still, there are several events worth noting, so let's go right to the highlights:

For starters, it's the final weekend for the Black Rep's production of the Louis Jordan musical Five Guys Named Moe, which is playing through Sunday at the Grandel Theatre. The production was directed by Black Rep founder Ron Himes and stars Drummond Crenshaw, Sean Walton, Gary Vincent, Herman Gordon, Horace E. Smith and Anthony Tarvin, Jr, with Charles Creath as musical director.

If you like Jordan's music, or have any interest in the musical period when swing was morphing into jump blues and rock 'n roll, Five Guys... is good fun and, as usual with the Black Rep's musical productions, there are some killer singers in the cast.

On Thursday, singer and pianist Daryl Sherman plays at the Kranzberg Arts Center under the auspices of the Presenters Dolan. Sherman is well-known in NYC's cabaret venues, particularly for her 15-year gig at the Waldorf Hotel, where she played a piano once owned by Cole Porter.

Her show "Lounging At The Waldorf" spotlights material written by Johnny Mercer, along with a few of Porter's songs. Bassist Dave Troncoso will back Sherman, with Don Wolff as MC. The Presenters Dolan also have two cabaret shows this weekend at the Kranzberg featuring St. Louis singers, with Alice Kinsella performing on Friday night and Robert Breig on Saturday.

On Friday and Saturday, singer Erin Bode returns to Jazz at the Bistro. Bode, who's rumored to have a new CD recorded and ready for release sometime soon, is always a good draw at the Bistro, so advance reservations are suggested.

On Sunday, saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and drummer Hamid Drake (pictured) will perform at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center. Brötzmann, who's originally from Germany, has been a significant figure on the European and North American free improv scenes for nearly 40 years now; Drake first gained prominence with Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, but now also plays around the world with a variety of free improv and jazz performers.

Their current duo tour is said to be the first such series of shows in a decade. Their concert at the LNAC would seem to be a must-hear for fans of free jazz, improv, noise, avant garde and experimental music, but, given Brötzmann's uncompromising approach and often-harsh sonorities, it's definitely not for the faint of heart.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Tuesday the Genesis Jazz Project plays a free show at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

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.)

Peter Brötzmann and Hamid Drake to perform Sunday, April 25 at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center

Saxophonist Peter Brötzmann (pictured) is returning to St. Louis for a duo performance with percussionist Hamid Drake at 8:00 p.m. Sunday, April 25 at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center.

Brötzmann played at the LNAC last June with his trio as part of the venue's "Jazz to the Wall" festival. Drake, who like Brötzmann is based in Chicago but tours around the world, has been part of the improvised music scene since the 1970s, working with Fred Anderson, David Murray, William Parker, Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Ken Vandermark and many others.

For more on Brötzmann's recent activities, check out this article published last month in the Chicago Reader. You also can see some video of him in action here.

Regarding tickets, the LNAC website says that "All shows are all ages and $5.00 unless otherwise noted," and currently there are no other notations specific to the Brotzmann/Drake show. More details if/when we get 'em...

UPDATE - 11:20 a.m., 4/10/10: According to the press release received today at StLJN HQ, tickets for the Brötzmann/Drake performance will be $12 at the door.