Sunday Session: November 19, 2017

Grover Washington Jr.

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have appeared in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* How Roy DeCarava’s jazz photographs captured the soul of Harlem and influenced a generation (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Remembering, With Fondness, the ‘Worst Orchestra in the World’ (AtlasObscura.com)
* Legendary music venue My Father’s Place reopening on Long Island after 30 years (Newsday)
* Pay-Per-Beat: Inside the Underground Market Shaping Soundcloud Rap (Vice.com)
* Ron Lessard Is a Noise Music Hero (Vice.com)
* Renaissance Man: The Story of Hermeto Pascoal’s Great Lost Album, “Viajando Com O Som” (Bandcamp.com)
* ‘Whisperpop’: why stars are choosing breathy intensity over vocal paint-stripping (The Guardian)
* Spatial audio is the most exciting thing to happen to pop music since stereo (ArsTechnica.com)
* A Bottle In Front Of Me: The Strange World Of... Tom Waits (TheQuietus.com)
* Hide And Seek - For a while, hidden tracks were everywhere, especially during the CD era. But thanks to streaming music, there’s nowhere to put them. Is that good or bad? (Tedium.co)
* The concert was about unity; the message was all Russian (Washington Post)
* Hip Hop Named as the Most Popular Music Genre in the US (MagneticMag.com)
* The Body in Question: Herbie Hancock in Concert (CommonReader.WUSTL.edu)
* The New Golden Age Of Jazz (Lnwy.co)
* How Basin Street Records Has Been Giving New Orleans Jazz Music a Home For 20 Years (Billboard)
* Steve Winwood On World Cafe (NPR)
* Influential Jazz and Classical Label ECM Records Releasing Entire Catalogue to Streaming Outlets (SPIN)
* Free improvisation: still the ultimate in underground music? (The Guardian)
* Nicole Mitchell on the lasting legacies of AACM architect Muhal Richard Abrams (The Wire)
* An abandoned pre-WWII Hasidic synagogue gets a second life as a kosher jazz club (Times of Israel)
* With $70M from Alphabet, UnitedMasters replaces record labels (TechCrunch.com)
* How Grover Washington Jr. Defined And Transcended 'Smooth Jazz' (NPR)
* Bassist Ron Carter On His Life With Jazz (WNYC)
* Venezuela's Uprooted Musicians: Bands Struggle to Survive (Rolling Stone)
* The cosmic messenger: How Karlheinz Stockhausen shaped contemporary electronic music (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Field Notes: GoGo Penguin’s “Koyaanisqatsi” in Brooklyn (Jazz Times)
* Jazz and Classical Treasures from the Digitized Catalogue of ECM Records (The New Yorker)
* Ben Riley, a Jazz Drummer Who Made Accompaniment His Art, Has Died at 84 (WBGO)

Sunday Session: July 17, 2016

Herbie Hancock

Some interesting music-related items that have landed in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* The Loudest Sound In The World Would Kill You On The Spot (FiveThirtyEight.com)
* I Can’t Believe I’m Saying This, But I Miss My CDs (Wired)
* Hermeto Pascoal's 80th Birthday Concert - Multi-instrumentalist performs with his all-star British ensemble (Jazz Times)
* Brian Eno Plays the Universe (Nautil.us)
* Jazz Stars Unite Across Generations in Rochester (DownBeat)
* theartsdesk at Love Supreme Festival 2016: Kamasi Washington, Esperanza Spalding and Stanley Clarke - Laid back atmosphere, inspiring music at the UK’s only green field jazz festival (TheArtsDesk.com)
* Marvin Gaye Documentary ‘Marvin, What’s Going On?’ Being Developed With the Support of Gaye’s Family (IndieWire.com)
* Snap, Crackle And Swing: Young Roy Haynes (IndianaPublicMedia.org)
* Four Really Weird Music Gadgets (AJournalOfMusicalThings.com)
* Listen to the Bad Plus Cover Prince’s ‘The Beautiful Ones’ From the Trio’s Upcoming Album ‘It’s Hard’ (Exclusive) (Wall Street Journal)
* New study ranks the best (and worst) U.S. cities for music fans (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* The Music Business And The Great Youtube Debate (MagneticMag.com)
* Surprise! 78 DSO musicians each receive $5,000 bequest (Detroit Free Press)
* A rude car salesman did me a huge favor, says jazz icon Herbie Hancock (CNBC)
* Culture, not biology, decides the difference between music and noise (PBS)
* How the ’70s Dethroned the ’60s as Popular Music’s Golden Age (Pitchfork)
* How It All Stax Up: Charting the Rise of Neo-Classic Soul (Bandcamp.com)
* 50 years ago, this Boston band toured with The Beatles, then broke up immediately (Boston Globe)
* Music Ownership Incredibly Unimportant to 15-19 Year Olds, Study Finds (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Warner Music Issues Potentially Devastating Blow to Small Record Stores (Pitchfork)
* Neuroscientists Still Don’t Know Why Music Sounds Good (Wired)
* Rob Mazurek’s Universe of Sound (Bandcamp.com)
* In New Orleans, scandal tarnishes a jazz star and the libraries he was asked to help (Washington Post)
* Headphones Everywhere (The New Yorker)

Miles on Monday: Memorial project nears completion; Miles Davis & boxing; and more

For this week's installment of "Miles on Monday," here are some links to the latest news:

* "The Miles Davis Memorial Project is nearing completion," according to a story published last week in the Alton Telegraph.

Site preparation will begin when the weather breaks this spring, and Preston Jackson, who is sculpting the staute of Davis that will be placed in downtown Alton, is finishing up his work. Members of the project committee will visit Jackson's studio next month for "final approval of the clay piece prior to sending it to the foundry for casting in bronze."

The project still is seeking financial support through the sale of inscribed bricks and granite blocks that will be part of the memorial site. To purchase a brick or block, or to donate to the Miles Davis Memorial Project, call Pride, Incorporated at 618-467-2375 or visit their website at http://www.prideincorporated.org/index.cfm?page=2573.

* This past week also saw publication of interviews with two former Davis sidemen and another musical associate and friend. Bassist/guitarist Joseph "Foley" McCreary, who played with Davis in the late 1980s and early 90s and now is living in Dallas, was interviewed by the Dallas Observer; guitarist John McLaughlin talked with Relix about a variety of topics including his time with the trumpeter; and, in an excerpt from his new autobiography published on The Daily Beast, guitarist Carlos Santana talked about his first meeting and subsequent interactions with Davis.

* Lastly, Vice.com has posted a very interesting article about Davis' interest in boxing, in which you can read about how he "grew up loving boxing and came of age during a pivotal point in the sport"; his admiration of Sugar Ray Robinson; how he used boxing workouts to help him kick heroin in the mid-1950s; and how Davis once challenged Brazilian multi-instumentalist Hermeto Pascoal only to get popped right in the face.