Sunday Session: September 1, 2019

Johnny Hodges

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

* Before & After: Miguel Zenón (Jazz Times)
* Inside the Jazz Household of Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran (Vogue)
* Music Charts Reflect The Changing Pace Of Culture And Society, Scientists Say (Forbes.com)
* Standing Grand gives concert sound while saving space (NewAtlas.com)
* The Survival of Iggy Pop (The New Yorker)
* Artist Spotlight: Theo Croker (Jazz Times)
* Roscoe Mitchell Returns (Chicago)
* Are Opening Acts Becoming A Thing Of The Past? (UltimateClassicRock.com)
* Jazzmeia Horn is Steeped Tradition, Yet Fully Planted in the Present (DownBeat)
* 89 year-old piano legend Ahmad Jamal announces first solo album (JazzFM.com)
* Do vintage electric guitars really sound better with age? (Guitar)
* Improviser Evan Parker on the ‘Weight of Tradition’ and Staying in Motion (DownBeat)
* Charlie Parker Fest Captures A Bit of Bird’s Freewheeling Spirit (DownBeat)
* After Katrina, a priceless musical archive was thought lost. It showed up in Torrance (Los Angeles Times)
* Benny Carter vs. Johnny Hodges: Who Was Better? (Jazz Times)
* Moor Mother preaches Afrofuturist techno-gospel on Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes (FactMag.com)
* See Inside Jazz Great Dave Brubeck's Groovy Connecticut Home (Town and Country)
* What Ever Happened To The Pop Song Fade-Out? (WPR)
* Nile Rodgers On Writing Smash Hits And Reworking David Bowie's 'Let's Dance' (NPR)
* Delmark Records Focused on ‘a New Era’ of Creativity (DownBeat)
* Christian Sands & the Legacy of Erroll Garner (Jazz Times)
* 50 years on, soul music legend Don Bryant is getting the success he deserves (TheNational.ae)
* Haynes family: a slice of Roxbury history (Bay State Banner)
* Inside Steinway Piano’s secret underground vault (Fast Company)
* Saxophonist Dave Rempis builds a band with the stamina for deep dives (Chicago Reader)
* A Bird’s Life: How Charlie Parker Changed The Course Of Jazz History (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Why Art Pepper’s Straight Life is still the most harrowing jazz memoir ever (Jazz Times)
* Santana's Debut Album Turns 50 Years Old (NPR)
* Jazz Is a Music of Perseverance Against Racism and Capitalism (TruthOut.org)
* The coming death of just about every rock legend (The Week)

Jazz this week: Jazzmeia Horn, a master class with Nate Smith, "A Retrospective on Langston Hughes," Denise Thimes, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes the local debut of one the top young vocalists in jazz, a master class from a first-call drummer, a musical look at the works of a world-famous poet and playwright with Missouri roots, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 8
Singer Jazzmeia Horn (pictured, top left) performs for the first of five nights at Jazz St. Louis.

One of the most talked-about and critically acclaimed jazz vocalists to emerge in recent years, Horn will be making her St. Louis debut with these shows. You can find out more about her and see some videos of recent performances in this post from last Saturday.

Also on Wednesday, drummer Nate Smith, who's worked with bassist Dave Holland and saxophonist Chris Potter, will present a master class and solo performance at Gaslight Studios.

Thursday, May 9
Guitarist Vincent Varvel's trio will perform at The Dark Room; saxophonist Tim Cunningham plays at Jazzy 159 Lounge & Bar in Fairview Heights; and percussionist Joe Pastor will lead his St. Louis Legacy Ensemble in hosting a jam session at Evangeline's.

Friday, May 10
The Nu-Art Series wraps up its Spring 2019 poetry-and-jazz series with "A Retrospective on Langston Hughes," featuring poets Roscoe Crenshaw, Cheeraz Gormon, Shirley LeFlore, Eugene Redmond, Abdul Waahid Jones, and Claude Montgomery along with trumpeter George Sams and saxophonist Kendrick Smith at Xavier Hall on the St. Louis University campus.

Also on Friday, new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound plays their final concert of the season at the Sheldon Concert Hall, and singer Anita Jackson performs for the late show at The Dark Room.

Saturday, May 11
The St. Louis Jazz Club presents their monthly jam session, hosted by keyboardist Bob Row and drummer John Gillick at J P's Corner.

Also on Saturday afternoon, the electronic jazz-fusion ensemble Koplant No will play a free show at Saxquest, and the annual Art Fair at Laumeier Sculpture Park will feature sets from musicians including guitarist Dave Black and the Funky Butt Brass Band.

Saturday evening, Chicago-based jazz-rock band Marbin returns to BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

Sunday, May 12
If you're headed out for brunch, musical options to accompany your meal include Miss Jubilee at Evangeline's and singer and bassist Janet Evra at The Dark Room.
 
Later on Sunday afternoon, Denise Thimes will present her annual Mother's Day concert raising money to fight pancreatic cancer at the Touhill Performing Arts Center, with some help from friends including vocalist Jermaine Smith and keyboardist Matthew Whitaker.

Monday, May 13
Dizzy Atmosphere plays vintage 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.)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Introducing Jazzmeia Horn

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring singer Jazzmeia Horn, who will make her St. Louis debut with performances starting this coming Wednesday, May 8 though Sunday, May 12 at Jazz St. Louis.

Originally from Dallas, TX, Horn, 28, began singing in church as a young girl and went on to graduate from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in her hometown.

After moving to NYC to attend the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, she first gained wide attention from her participation in the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, in which she was named a "rising star" in 2012 before winning the competition outright in 2013.

Following that up in 2015 by winning the Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition, Horn became one of the most talked-about new vocalists of the decade even before putting out her first album, drawing comparisons to Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter, and Dinah Washington.

Eventually signing with Prestige Records, Horn released her debut recording A Social Call in 2017, and earned a nomination for a 2018 Grammy Award in the "Best Jazz Vocal Album" category. Over the past couple of years, she's become a full-fledged headliner, performing at major jazz venues and festivals in the US, Europe and Asia.

And speaking of those Grammys, you can see Horn's performance at the 2018 Grammy Awards ceremony in the first video up above, which shows her singing the bluesy Bobby Timmons/Jon Hendricks composition “Moanin.”

After the jump, you can see Horn doing the title song from A Social Call in a rehearsal recording from November 2018, backed by the WDR Big Band playing a new arrangement of the tune from saxophonist Bob Mintzer.

That's followed by two songs from a session in October 2018 at KNKX radio in Tacoma, WA, as Horn offers her takes on "Tight," made famous by Betty Carter, and Marvin's Gaye's "What's Going On."

Next is an set of music from Horn's appearance in July 2018 at the Jazz Port Townsend festival in Washington, for which she was accompanied by saxophonist Tim Warfield, pianist Taylor Eigsti, bassist Harish Rhavan, and drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor.

The final clip shows Horn's interpretations of "Please Do Something" and "Willow Weep for Me," as recorded last year at the Blue Note Milano in Italy.

For more about Jazzmeia Horn, check out the episode of NPR's Jazz Night in America that featured her last year; and her interviews with Jazz Times and Rochester City Paper.

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

Sunday Session: June 3, 2018

Dorothy Ashby

Here's a 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:

* Why African and Caribbean sounds are dominating British music right now (DazedDigital.com)
* Three Faces of New South African Jazz (Bandcamp.com)
* We are living in the golden age of the music explainer (QZ.com)
* Avant-Garde Flame Kept Alive at FIMAV (DownBeat)
* The Missing Music of the Left (New York Review of Books)
* Live Review: Dave Burrell Night in Brooklyn (Jazz Times)
* Unbundling The Song: Inside The Next Wave Of Recorded Music's Disruption (Forbes)
* Jazzmeia Horn's vocal jazz shines light on social injustice (Charleston Post and Courier)
* Eddie Palmieri, Age 81 and Going Strong (Miami New Times)
* Walk over, Beethoven (CNU.org)
* Cuba Comes to The Kennedy Center (DownBeat)
* Jazz Today: Young Women Are Sounding the Horns (PopMatters.com)
* The chords of the universe (Aeon.co)
* A Lunchtime Meeting Helped Spawn Nels Cline’s New Album (DownBeat)
* Lyrical Intensity Unabated as The Last Poets Return (DownBeat)
* Watch the full We Out Here documentary capturing London's dynamic jazz community (TheVinylFactory.com)
* The Real-Time Reverence of Ry Cooder (American Songwriter)
* "You go and you play": On Paul Motian's limitless jazz (Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches)
* Photos: Vision Fest 23 in Brooklyn (Jazz Times)
* From ‘25th Hour’ to ‘BlacKkKlansman’: The Man Behind Spike Lee's Music (Vice.com)
* Remembering Dorothy Ashby, the Detroit Pioneer Who Introduced the Harp to Jazz (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* The Transcendental Sound of Moroccan Gnawa Music (Bandcamp.com)
* Shabaka Hutchings Wants a Revolution (Jazz Times)
* DIVA Jazz Orchestra Celebrates 25 Years (DownBeat)