As regular readers know, this space frequently is used to preview shows from touring jazz and creative music performers coming to St. Louis. But with a relative paucity of acts visiting here in the next several weeks, today's video showcase offers something a little different: a look back at some of jazz performers who have been making news during the first half of 2016, starting with trumpeter and St. Louis native Keyon Harrold.
Harrold has gotten good notices and a lotofpublicity this year for his work on the soundtrack of Miles Ahead, actor/director Don Cheadle's film about Miles Davis that was released in April. The first video up above features a full set of Harrold's own music, as performed at Revive Music's recent tenth anniversary celebration in NYC and captured on video by Boiler Room.
After the jump, the first video features pianist Robert Glasper, who's also been in the news a lot this year thanks to his involvement in Miles Ahead. Glasper wrote five new compositions for the film's soundtrack, and last month also released Everything's Beautiful, a tribute/remix album using samples from the Miles Davis catalog. The clip is an interview with Glasper, in which he talks about his work on Miles Ahead, his musical relationships with hip-hop performers such as The Roots and the late J Dilla, and more.
The first video of Threadgill features a brief interview with him conducted in January by Frank Oteri of New Music USA. That's followed by a full 75-minute Zooid performance, recorded in October 2013 at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
Although Bridgewater, Smith, and the other winners won't actually receive their awards until 2017, you can celebrate now by enjoying a full set of Bridgewater, recorded live at the 2013 Jazzaldia festival in San Sebastian, Spain, followed by the good Doctor's version of Paul Simon's "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover," as performed earlier this year with guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and drummer Kendrick Scott at Kente Arts Alliance in Pittsburgh, PA.
(If you'd like to hear more, both Bridgewater and Smith have been the subjects of previous Saturday video posts. StLJN looked at Bridgewater's current collaboration with trumpeter Irvin Mayfield in this post from March of this year, and paid visits to Dr. Smith in 2009, 2012, 2013, and 2015.)
Smith's latest album Evolution was released by Blue Note in January, and based on thecriticalreception, seems likely to end up on a fair number of year-end "best of" lists. Two other performers who released muc-talked-about albums in the first half of 2016 were bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding and singer Cyrille Aimée.
Spalding picked up an electric bass, a new look and a new theatrical persona for her album Emily's D+Evolution, which went in what NPR Music called "a louder, proggier, weirder funk-rock direction." You can see and hear that direction in today's seventh clip, a full performance recorded by NPR and WFUV in March of this year at BRIC in NYC.
For those who tastes run more toward the traditional, that's followed by a clip of Spalding's appearance at this year's International Jazz Day celebration held on April 30 at the White House, in which she performed a swinging version of "On The Sunny Side Of The Street" for the President, First Lady, and assembled guests.
As for Aimée, her album Let's Get Lost was released in February to goodnotices, and audiences around the country seem to be responding enthusiastically to her updated take on Gypsy jazz You can see her singing much of the material from that album in today's penultimate clip, recorded in February at WNYC in New York.
Last, but certainly not least, you can check out some music from saxophonist Kamasi Washington, whose sprawling three-CD debut album The Epic was one of the best-reviewed records of last year.
Washington's star has continued to rise quickly in 2016, as he's gotten major press coverage from the New York Times, Rolling Stone, GQ, and many other mainstream media outlets, and has been touring to enthusiastic and often sold-out houses.. Today's final clip is a concert version of The Epic, recorded last August for NPR's "Jazz Night In America".
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
Since saxophonist and composer Henry Threadgill recently won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for music for his composition "In for a Penny, In for a Pound," this seems like an opportune Music Education Monday to share with StLJN readers a video master class with him.
Threadgill, 72, is a Chicago native who's been creating innovative music since the 1970s with a variety of ensembles, notably the trio Air with bassist Fred Hopkins and drummer Steve McCall; Very Very Circus; the seven-member Sextett; the Society Situation Dance Band; his current group, Zooid; and several others.
An original member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Threadgill (pictured) also has written music for orchestra, solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and theatre, and has released more than 30 albums as a leader or co-leader.
You can see the master class, recorded in June 2014 at the Creative Music Studio Workshop in Big Indian, NY, in the embedded video window below.
For more about Threadgill and his approach to music, read “A Door to Other Doors,” an extended interview with him originally published in 2011 in the journal Critical Studies in Improvisation; and "The Improvisational Techniques of Henry Threadgill," a analysis with notated examples by saxophonist Richard Savery.
Also, just below the embed of the master class, there's a bonus video featuring an hour-long interview with Threadgill conducted a couple of years ago for the Library Of Congress, in which he discusses his upbringing in Chicago, the AACM, his experience in Vietnam, the music of his groups Air and Zooid, and his approach to composition and improvisation.
For your Sunday reading, here are some interesting music-related items that have hit StLJN's inbox over the past week:
* Music critics should be more tolerant of individual interpretations (The Strad)
* VIDEO: Building A Shipping Container Studio (Pro Sound News)
* Apple to announce $10-per-month on-demand music service, will retain Beats Music for now - report (Apple Insider)
* 10 of the best: redesigned pianos (The Guardian UK)
* Corea, Barron among jazz greats saluting Oscar Peterson on upcoming album (Montreal Gazette)
* Five musicians see how Austin’s economy is squeezing the creative class (Austin American-Statesman)
* Always a rotten apple': BB King, poison and the daughters of an infertile legend (The Guardian UK)
* Threadgill Releases New Zooid Album on Pi Recordings Label (DownBeat)
* Remembering the Revolutionary Life Of Gil Scott Heron (BlackThen.com)
* Jazz at Lincoln Center Changes Hiring Policy (NextBop.com)
* Steve Albini: Copyright Has Expired (Billboard)
* Colbert Picks Jon Batiste as ‘Late Show’ Bandleader (New York Times)
* Digital Underground - Who Will Make Sure The Internet's Vast Musical Archive Doesn't Disappear? (NPR)
* 12 Essential Archives For Internet-Era Music Historians (NPR)
* The hot Harlem club making 1940s jazz cool again (New York Post)
* ‘Charlie Parker’s Yardbird’ Ties Jazz and Opera Together in Philadelphia (New York Times)
* Philip Glass Never Stops Writing (The New Yorker)
* Miles is to Picasso as Who is to Whom (Brilliant Corners, A Boston Jazz Blog)
* Universal publishing chief addresses questions around direct licensing of digital (CompleteMusicUpdate.com)
* Are We All Mistuning Our Instruments, and Can We Blame the Nazis? (The Daily Beast)
* Exposing the employment ploy at concert promoter Live Nation (Los Angeles Times)
For your Sunday reading enjoyment and edification, here are some
noteworthy items encountered during the past week about jazz, creative
music, and more:
* John Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' Is Still a Masterpiece After 50 Years (Newsweek)
* Matt Wilson, on finding consolation in jazz (Ottawa Citizen)
* When Musicians Unintentionally Steal (Pacific Standard)
* Two-Letter Domain Change Lands Jazz at Lincoln Center in the Middle of Heated Debate, V.P. André Guess Weighs In (ClassicalLite.com)
* Concert: The Bad Plus at Berklee Performance Center - Trio performs Ornette Coleman’s “Science Fiction” with special guests (Jazz Times)
* Inside The Awesome Synth Lair Of Mark Mothersbaugh (Synthtopia.com)
* Racism and Jazz Mythology (Brilliant Corners, A Boston Jazz Blog)
* Legendary Bassist Carol Kaye on Joe Cocker and What's Wrong With Today's Singers (Examiner.com)
* Composing the Future: A Talk With Jazz Titan Henry Threadgill (KQED)
* The Netflix of Vinyl: How VNYL actually works (Consequence of Sound)
* New Frequencies Fest brings cutting-edge performers to Bay Area (Contra Costa Times)
* Why Americans Hate Instrumental Music (Ultimate-Guitar.com)
* The End of Guitar Center (Eric Garland)
* The Noise And How To Bring It: Hank Shocklee Interviewed (The Quietus)
* A Striking Exception - A record label proves successful by bucking commercial trends (Wall Street Journal)
* Jazz Searches For The New Land: Yusef Lateef's Jazz ’Round The World (The Wire)
* Yes, Major Record Labels Are Keeping Nearly All The Money They Get From Spotify, Rather Than Giving It To Artists (TechDirt)
* The Next Important Jazz Singer - A Brief Interview with Sara Gazarek (Medium)
* The Bill Evans Legacy (Wall Street Journal)
* The '90s Alliance Between Blue Note and Hip-Hop (Wondering Sound)
* Kind Of Weird: How The Köln Concert Made Keith Jarrett A Pop Star (The Concourse/Deadspin)
* Gentrification versus Jazzification: Birdland nightclub grows vision to spark jazz district (KALW)
* Bleckmann, Vandermark Generate Sparks at Winter Jazzfest (DownBeat)
* Labels, not Spotify, are screwing over artists and breaking the music industry. Here’s how to fix it. (Pando Daily)
* Big Shake-Up to Music Licensing Regime Embraced by U.S. Copyright Office (Hollywood Reporter)
For your Sunday reading enjoyment and edification, some noteworthy news stories from the past week about jazz, creative music, and more:
* 7 Visionary Women Who Paved The Way For Electronic Music (Champion Up North)
* Interview with Jason Moran (Film Music)
* Thailand’s ‘Gong Highway’ (New York Times)
* Café Society: Swing Historical music diluted by a history lesson (Jazz Times)
* Threadgill, with Zooid Quintet, Finds New Voice at Brooklyn Performance (Down Beat)
* Whiplash: Two Thumbs Down (George Colligan)
* 'Birdman' Score Drummed Out Of Oscars As Academy Rejects Filmmaker's Appeal (Deadline.com)
* Market for vinyl albums grows in Columbia and nationwide (Columbia Daily Tribune)
* Key Change: American Jazz Musicians Witness History in Cuba (NBC)
* Why 2015 will be the end of an era in music (Quartz.com)
* Our Times: The Louis Armstrong childhood arrest that no one knew about (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
* Sun Ra Memories by John Sinclair (Iron Man Records)
* This orchestra is made from lamps and electricity (Wired UK)
* Iyer Caps Banner Year with Dynamic Concert at Brooklyn Academy of Music (Down Beat)
* Buddy DeFranco: The Clarinetist Who Swung To Bebop (NPR.org)
* The Night Before Christmas (The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong)
* A Sun Ra Christmas: Hear His 1976 Radio Broadcast of Poetry and Music (OpenCulture.com)
