Sunday Session: June 20, 2021

Don Cherry

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

* Now That You’ve Bought a Multi-Million-Dollar Music Catalog, What Are You Going to Do With It? (Variety)
* The greatest 'lost tapes' ever found? (BBC)
* The 10 Great Record Stores in America (SPIN)
* Don Cherry’s Life-Affirming Organic Music (Bandcamp.com)
* Mystical Discipline: Anthony Braxton Interviewed (TheQuietus.com)
* Jeff Beck: my stories of Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Stevie Ray Vaughan and more (LouderSound.com)
* Elevation Studios Breaks Ground On Massive Production, Rehearsal Campus In Nashville (Pollstar.com)
* Can classical music organizations survive the longest-running disruption in history? Opera Australia has cracked the code. (CultureForHire.com)
* The Sound of Early Sci-Fi: Samuel Hoffman’s Theremin (Reverb.com)
* ‘We could lose it all’: UK jazz tries to get its groove back after Covid (The Guardian)
* U.S. Recorded Music Revenues Are Still 46% Below 1999 Peaks, RIAA Data Shows (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Buddy Guy Documentary Explores the Roots of an American Master (Soulhead.com)
* Jazz Elder Statesman Anthony Braxton Continues To Defy Expectations (NPR)
* The Guitar Playing of Julian Lage (The New Yorker)
* Don And Moki Cherry's Organic Dreams Made Real (NPR)
* Pedal-Steel Guitarist Greg Leisz on His Years With Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, and Daft Punk (Rolling Stone)
* How Boston’s Tom Scholz made their entire debut album in his basement (RockAndRollGarage.com)

Sunday Session: April 10, 2016

Pharoah Sanders

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

* Local Jazz Musicians Turn to D.C. Council to Support the Scene (Washington City Paper)
* US Is One Of Just 4 Countries Not Paying Performers For Radio Play, And The Others Are... (Hypebot.com)
* Big Ears Festival diary – three days at Knoxville's genre-spanning event (The Guardian UK)
* Media's Digital Upheaval in 6 Charts (Bloomberg.com)
* Jeff Beck To Release New Album on July 15 (DownBeat)
* Abdullah Ibrahim: A Life in Song (SFJAZZ.org)
* Steven Bernstein Premiers Guitar-Centric Quartet in New York (DownBeat)
* 'The Dude': Remembering Quincy Jones’ Most Important Album Ever (Ebony)
* New owners to take over Heritage Guitar in old Gibson Guitar factory (MLive.com)
* ‘Jazz Masters’ honor genre’s greats, but keep them watching from the audience (Washington Post)
* Photos: NEA Jazz Masters Concert - Gary Burton, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and Wendy Oxenhorn honored (Jazz Times)
* So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star: Photos of the 1960’s Garage Band Explosion (DangerousMinds.net)
* Carol Kaye, 81-Year-Old Pioneer of Rock, Gives Kiss’ Gene Simmons a Bass Lesson (OpenCulture.com)
* Man Who Stole Jazz Pianist Cecil Taylor’s Prize Money Is Sentenced (New York Times)
* Singer Bill Henderson Dies at 90 - Recorded with Oscar Peterson, Horace Silver; was also successful actor (Jazz Times)
* Merle Haggard’s America (DaveHoekstra.com)
* Why the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame should be put out of its misery (The Guardian UK)
* Long Live WWOZ (Offbeat)
* Rare Sun Ra singles to be issued on space-age 7″ vinyl (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Sony Sues Rdio Executives for Fraud, A Cautionary Tale for Entrepreneurs (MusicTech.Solutions)
* Branford Marsalis To Release New Album with Kurt Elling on June 10 (DownBeat)
* Silver Swing - 10 must-watch jazz movies (Jazz Times)
* Jazz great Sonny Rollins still not finished at 85 (The Telegraph UK)
* Paul Simon Announces New Album ‘Stranger to Stranger’ (Wall Street Journal)
* The Man Who Recorded, Tamed and Then Sold Nature Sounds to America (Atlas Obscura)
* A Record Shopkeeper Writes: Why Record Store Day Must End (The Quietus)
* These Rarely Seen Images Show Jazz Greats Pouring Out Their Hearts (Smithsonian)

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:

* The New Music Circle concert earlier this month featuring saxophonist Tim Berne's Snakeoil was reviewed for DownBeat magazine by St. Louis freelance writer Terry Perkins.

* Guitarist Jeff Beck's show this past Tuesday night at the Fox Theatre was reviewed for the Post-Dispatch by freelancer Dan Durchholz.

* Saxophonist Oliver Lake's latest release (pictured), a duet album with bassist William Parker called To Roy, was reviewed by AllAboutJazz.com's John Sharpe.

* Drummer Kaleb Kirby and his band Animal Children are featured in the latest issue of St. Louis magazine.

* The Sheldon and Jazz St. Louis are among 11 St. Louis arts groups that will get funding next year from the PNC Arts Alive program.

* Hand drummers are congregating this weekend in St. Louis at the first ever Grandmaster Djembe Xplosion, a four-day event presented by Africa United Ballet at Better Family Life Cultural, Educational and Business Center. Instructors from Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, New York and Chicago are leading more than 20 workshops and demonstrations of drumming techniques, as well as discussions of African history and culture.

* Jazz radio update: On this Saturday's edition of Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis's program “Somethin’ Else,”  host Calvin Wilson will be puttin' the bass in your face, with a selection of music featuring bassist Ron Carter, both as a bandleader and as a sideman to Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, and others. The program can be heard at 8:00 p.m. on 107.3 FM, 96.3 HD-2, and online at http://www.rafstl.org/listen. 

Jazz this week: Regina Carter, Jeff Beck, STL Free Jazz Collective, and more

This week's calendar of jazz and creative music performances in St. Louis is book-ended by two performers - perhaps the most famous living jazz violinist, and a legendary rock guitarist - who both have successfully stretched the boundaries of their respective musical genres.

In between, there are a number of noteworthy shows from local musicians in styles ranging from traditional jazz to free improv. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 13
Violinist Regina Carter returns to Jazz at the Bistro, opening a four-night engagement that continues through Saturday.

During this visit to St. Louis, Carter (pictured, top left) will be showcasing music from her 2014 album Southern Comfort, which presents her personal interpretations of folk, blues, country and roots music from the rural South. You can find out more about the project, and see videos of Carter performing several songs from the album, in this post from last Saturday.

Also tonight, singer Eve Seltzer fronts a trio at Nathalie's; and keyboardist Bob Werner and singer Ellen Martinez host a new "open mic" night at Shakers, which recently moved into the space formerly occupied by  Jazz on Broadway at 554 W. Broadway, in downtown Alton.

Thursday, May 14
Singer Tony Viviano pays tribute to the legacy of Bobby Darin at Patrick's Westport Grill; bassist Willem von Hombracht will team up with singer Arvell Keithley for a duo show at Thurman Grill; and trumpeter Jim Manley and guitarist Randy Bahr are now doing their duo gig at Momo's Greek Restaurant in U. City on Thursdays as well as Mondays.

Friday, May 15
The recently formed STL, A Free Jazz Collective will take the stage for their second-ever show at Tavern of Fine Arts.

Explicitly attempting to carry on the improvised music banner once raised by the historic Black Artists Group, the band (pictured, center left) features an intriguing assortment of musical personalities, including Jim Hegarty (piano, electronics), "Baba" Mike Nelson (trumpet, shells, miscellaneous instruments), Jerome "J. Dubs" Williams (alto sax), Paul Steinbeck (bass), and Gary Sykes (drums, percussion), topped off by the spoken word contributions of St. Louis poet laureate Michael Castro.

Elsewhere on Friday, veteran trumpeter Gary Dammer plays a rare public gig at Jacoby Arts Center; saxophonist Jay Hutson brings his R&B sound to Evangeline's; saxophonist Tim Cunningham will return to Troy's Jazz Gallery; the Ambassadors of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; and guitarist Vincent Varvel will perform in the intimate confines of the house concert venue KindaBlue.

Saturday, May 16
Guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran's Guerrilla Swing will play a kid-friendly "Musical Merry-Go-Round" matinee, sponsored by KDHX, at the Tick Tock Tavern, 3549 Magnolia.

Then on Saturday evening, trumpeter Kasimu Taylor leads a quintet in a Miles Davis birthday tribute show at the Kranzberg Arts Center; and Wack-A-Doo plays swing, hot jazz and Americana at Evangeline's

Sunday, May 17
St. Louis Jazz Club presents a matinee performance by the Union Dixie Jazz Band at Concord Farmers' Club.

Monday, May 18
 "Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective are doing their regular gig at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups a week earlier that usual this month, as BB's will be closed for Memorial Day..

Tuesday, May 19
It's been 50 years since Jeff Beck (pictured, lower left) first came to public attention as the guitarist tapped to replace Eric Clapton in the British blues-rock band the Yardbirds, and 40 years since the all-instrumental album Blow by Blow showed the world that he was much more than just a stereotypical raving rocker.

Although there have been some periods of relative inactivity in the ensuing years, Beck's command of tone, touch and time remains distinctive and nearly unequaled, and so his show at the Fox Theatre should be a highlight of the year for fans of crafty electric guitar playing. As of this writing, there still are some tickets available, so if you've ever wanted to see Jeff Beck, now would seem to be the time

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.)

Jeff Beck returning to perform Tuesday, May 19 at the Fox Theatre

Guitarist Jeff Beck, who first gained fame in the 1960s as a British Invasion blues-rocker but later earned the appreciation of jazz/fusion fans with instrumental outings like Blow By Blow and Wired, is returning to St. Louis to perform at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 19 at the Fox Theatre.

This will be Beck's second local appearance in as many years after a 14-year drought. He played here last year on a double bill with ZZ Top at Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre.

In addition to his solo tour, which starts on April 16 at The Paramount in Huntington, NY, Beck (pictured) is doing some rescheduled dates with the Texas blues-rockers this year, making up for some shows that were cancelled last fall after ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill was injured while on tour.

Beck's most recent recording to be released was a DVD, Live in Tokyo, which came out last November. He also is said to have a new studio album in the works, though details on that remain scarce. The band for his 2015 tour will include former Wet Willie singer Jimmy Hall, plus bassist Rhonda Smith, drummer Jonathan Joseph and second guitarist Nicolas Meier.

Tickets for Jeff Beck at the Fox Theatre are priced from $49 to $129, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. this Friday, April 10 via Metrotix. An online-only pre-sale will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 9; to participate, go to the Metrotix site and when prompted, enter the promotional code "KSHE" (without the quote marks).

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.)

Reviews of Jeff Beck concert, Larry Johnson CD now online

Just a quick note about a couple of reviews of interest:

Guitarist Jeff Beck was in St. Louis last night to perform at the Fox Theatre, and Dan Duchholz reviewed the show for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. You can read the review online here.

Also, St. Louis saxophonist Larry Johnson's debut CD Circles was reviewed recently for AllAboutJazz.com by Nicholas F. Mondello, who called it "an enjoyable effort by a very talented saxophone artist." You can read the full review here.

Jazz this week: Count Basie Orchestra, John Patitucci, Jeff Beck, Curtis Roads & Bryan O'Reilly, Steve Tyrell, and more

It's going to be another busy weekend for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with shows on tap ranging from classic big-band swing to experimental electronics, along with several stops in between. Let's go to the highlights:

Starting tonight, bassist John Patitucci (pictured) leads his trio for two sets per night through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. Considered one of the top bass players in jazz since the mid-1980s, Patitucci has played St. Louis before, most recently as part of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Guitar Festival in the fall of 2008, but the chance to see him up close and leading his own band undoubtedly will bring out legions of fellow bass players and music students, so advance reservations are suggested.

On Thursday, guitarist Jeff Beck brings his current tour to the Fox Theatre. While I don't care for some of the material Beck chooses to do, and wish he'd spar a bit more with his band instead of just using them as a backdrop, there's no denying the man's skills. Since it's the first time he's been to St. Louis is something like 15 years, expect a packed house.

On Friday, there are three noteworthy free concerts featuring St. Louis-based musicians. Over at Washington University, bassist Tom Kennedy and guitarist William Lenihan will co-lead a group in a free performance at the Danforth Center. Meanwhile, that same evening keyboardist Jim Hegarty, bassist Willem von Hombracht and drummer Kyle Honeycutt will give a free performance at Three Sinks Gallery in Webster Groves in conjunction with the opening of a show of paintings by Firmin Puricelli. Also on Friday, guitarist Matthew Von Doran, bassist Bob Deboo and drummer Steve Davis will play a free show at the Broadway Bean coffeehouse in the Carondelet neighborhood.

On Saturday morning, former St. Louisan Bob Koester, proprietor of Chicago's Delmark Records label and Jazz Record Mart, will speak about Delmark's history at the Sheldon Art Galleries. For more on Koester, see this post.

Then on Saturday evening, the Count Basie Orchestra, which features former East St. Louisan Tony Suggs on piano, will perform at SIUE's Meridian Ballroom for the university's "Arts & Issues" series. Though the Basie band certainly needs no extended introduction here, StLJN had some choice 1960s video footage of them a post last Saturday, which serves as a pretty good primer on their sound and style.

Also on Saturday, singer Steve Tyrell will appear at the Sheldon Concert Hall in a show that's been sold out for at least a couple of weeks now. (If you're really desperate to get a ticket, I suppose you could go to the Sheldon and hope someone cancels and turns their tix back in to the box office. Otherwise, given the Sheldon's propensity for re-booking acts that do well there, you can take solace in knowing that it likely won't be long until Tyrell is back again.)

For something completely different on Saturday, check out electronic composer Curtis Roads and multi-media artist and musician Brian O'Reilly, who will perform "Flicker Tone Pulse" at St. Louis Community College-Forest Park's Mildred E. Bastian Center for the Performing Arts.

Presented by New Music Circle, the performance will consist of "a set of new electronic compositions with visual accompaniment. These works explore a multiscale approach to composition, and are designed to be spatialized live by the composer, with simultaneous video projection on multiple screens." Roads is considered a leading practitioner of granular synthesis, and you can find out more about him and his techniques in a video profile done a couple of years ago for a Dell Computers promotion, available in three parts here, here and here.

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.)

Metrotix starting online pre-sale of Jeff Beck tickets this Thursday, March 25

Tickets for guitarist Jeff Beck's show on Thursday, April 29 at the Fox Theatre are scheduled to go on sale officially this Saturday, but Metrotix and the Fox also are offering an online pre-sale starting at 10:00 on Thursday, April 25.

To access the pre-sale, which ends at 10:00 p.m. on Friday, March 26, go to metrotix.com and use the promo code MMBECK.

Notes from the Net: Pizzarelli does Ellington; Don Cheadle on the Miles movie; 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:

* In this week's Miles Davis news, AllAboutJazz.com is giving readers a chance to win a free copy of the boxed 70-CD set The Complete Columbia Album Collection. (This is a different giveaway than the one mentioned here earlier.) For details on how to enter, go here.

Meanwhile, as part of an ongoing series reviewing specific jazz tracks (as opposed to entire albums), Jazz.com recently featured a review/analysis by Thomas Cuniffe of Miles' famous rendition of "Bye Bye Blackbird".

The website of GQ magazine just featured Davis as one of "20 Black Style Pioneers," a list that also included jazz musicians such as Johnny Hodges and Duke Ellington as well as St. Louis native, comedian, author and activist Dick Gregory.

And, via Miles Davis Online, there's news that actor Don Cheadle, who's set to play Davis in a proposed film bio of the trumpeter, has spoken out on the movie's prospects, saying the recession has slowed the pace of development and production.

* Turning to news of other former St. Louisans, saxophonist David Sanborn will be one of the headliners at the Ottawa International Jazz Festival in June.

* Here's a review of last weekend's John Zorn retrospective at NYC's Abrons Arts Center from Nate Chinen of the New York Times. (Though he doesn't talk about it much, the tireless saxophonist/composer/producer attended Webster University here, back in the 1970s when it was still called Webster College.)

* Speaking of reviews, a glance at the "coming attractions" files shows that the critics are beginning to weigh in on John Pizzarelli's new CD Rockin' in Rhythm: A Tribute to Duke Ellington. Here's a review from PopMatters' David Gassmann, and another from the Massachusetts local news site MassLive.com. Pizzarelli returns to St. Louis from Wednesday, April 14 through Saturday, April 17 to play at Jazz at the Bistro.

* Jeff Beck continues to attract media attention with his impending CD release and tour plans. Here's a interview with t he guitarist from the London Times, and a review of his recent NYC concert with Eric Clapton from the the New York Times' Ben Ratliff. Beck will be in St. Louis on Thursday, April 29 to play the Fox Theatre.

* As if he weren't busy enough already with a new album, tour, and his recent marriage to model Sophie Dahl, pianist and singer Jamie Cullum has announced that he'll host a weekly jazz program on BBC Radio 2. Also, in conjunction with his upcoming tour - which hits St. Louis' Roberts Orpheum Theatre on Sunday, March 14 - Cullum's record company is sponsoring a contest offering fans the chance to win free concert tickets. The grand prize is a private living room performance from Cullum, plus the winner gets to keep the piano (assuming it's not in splinters by the time he gets done with it) . The contest starts this Thursday, March 4, and you can get the details on how to enter here.

* Catching up with a couple of recent visitors, here's an interesting interview with Galactic bassist Robert Mercurio by Slava Kuperstein of the website HipHopDX.com. Mercurio and his bandmates were in St. Louis last week to play The Pageant.

* Singer Dianne Reeves is among the vocalists booked for the 2010-11 season at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Reeves was here earlier this month for a duo performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall with pianist Peter Martin.

Notes from the Net: Win the Miles Davis 70-CD box set; Orchestrion unleashed; 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:

* We always like to start this feature with any news of St. Louis' most famous jazz musician, Miles Davis (pictured), and we've got several related items this week, starting with one from the blog Hot House offering the story behind Miles' recording Four And More: The Complete Concert 1964.

Via Miles Davis Online, here's an interview with artist Tobias Dahmm about painting pictures of Davis, and an item about a production from North Carolina A&T State University's theater department called Mad at Miles, penned by playwright Pearl Cleage and inspired by the troubles in Davis' marriage to Cicely Tyson.

Next up, here's a review by John Kelman of AllAboutJazz.com of Visions of Miles: The Electric Period of Miles Davis, a new CD of big band arrangements written by Colin Towns and performed by Germany's HR Big Band.

Finally, AOL's Luxist website is giving away a free copy of the 70-CD mega box set The Complete Miles Davis Columbia Album Collection (which costs a whopping $328.49 and is available only through Amazon.com), plus a Miles Davis T-shirt and a Miles Davis USB stick, to one lucky reader. To enter, leave a comment on the post linked here before 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Feburary 26. The winner will be selected in a random drawing.

* Turning to news of other St. Louis area residents past and present, singer and East St. Louis native Phil Perry is back performing again after some health problems, most recently serenading New Yorkers on a Valentine's weekend cruise.

* Perry's fellow former East St. Louisan trumpeter Russell Gunn has announced a new CD, Ethnomusicology Vol. 6: The Return of Gunn-Fu set to be released on April 9, with a digital download available on March 5. (Note that Gunn's dot-com address on the Web seems to have been domain-jacked, so his official site is now located at groidmusic.com, which, you should be duly warned, serves up some auto-playing audio when you load it. )

* The life of St. Louis native, singer, dancer and actress Josephine Baker is depicted in a current exhibit at the World Erotic Art Museum in Miami Beach; Baker's son, Jean-Claude Baker, also recently lectured at the museum about her life and work.

* The Wee Trio, featuring former St. Louisan Dan Loomis on bass, are releasing their second CD, Capitol Diner Vol. 2 Animal Style.

* Saxophonist, composer and long-ago Webster University student John Zorn is conducting a two-night marathon of ten different versions of his band Masada at the Abrons Art Center in NYC, with featured musicians including percussionist Cyro Baptista, keyboardist Uri Caine, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and the Masada String Trio.

* Looking for news of recent visitors, we find that bassist Christian McBride, who was in St. Louis in December to perform at Jazz at the Bistro, was profiled here by the LA arts mag Venice. This past weekend, McBride presented his civil-rights-themed jazz opus "The Movement Revisited" in Detroit with the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra, the Second Ebenezer Majestic Voices, and his quintet, which included East St. Louis' Terreon Gully on drums. While in the Motor City, McBride also answered five questions from the Detroit Free Press.

* Singer/songwriter, pianist and frequent visitor to St. Louis Ann Hampton Callaway once again will open the Great American Songbook for an upcoming gig at Dizzy's in NYC with pianist Ted Rosenthal, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Willie Jones III.

* Meanwhile, via the always useful Avant Music News, we learn that pianist Vijay Iyer is headed to London's Vortex Jazz Club next month for a duo performance with saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. Iyer was here in January to play four nights at the Bistro.

* Drummer Stanton Moore, who's in town tonight at The Pageant with Galactic, has a new trio CD called Groove Alchemy. It's part of a multimedia project, along with an instructional book and DVD of the same name, exploring the roots of funk drumming by examining the work of pioneers like James Brown's drummers John "Jabo" Starks and Clyde Stubblefield and The Meters' Zigaboo Modeliste.

* Opening the "coming attractions" file, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra saxophonist and arranger/composer Ted Nash has written a series of posts about his new "Seven Shades" suite for the Museum of Modern Art's website. The JaLCO have a new CD out that features the suite, and they'll play in St. Louis on March 13 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

* Guitarist Jeff Beck's new album and tour elicited a feature article from the New York Times' Larry Rohter. Beck will be in St. Louis on Thursday, April 29 to play the Fox Theatre.

* Guitarist/mad scientist Pat Metheny has started his Orchestrion tour in Europe, and reviews are coming in. Here's one of a performance in the Netherlands, written by Philip Woolever for AllAboutJazz.com, and four from Metheny's show at the Barbican in London: from Rod Fogg for the LondonJazz blog; an unbylined review from AllAboutJazz.com; one from a seemingly unlikely source, the Financial Times, written by Mike Hobart; and a rather snarky one (subtitled "Time to pull the plug on this tousle-haired mechanic") written by Michael Church of the Independent. Metheny and the Orchestrion are coming to St. Louis to play the Touhill Performing Arts Center on May 13.

(Edited 2/18/10 to correct the description of Tobias Dahmm, who is a painter, not a photographer.)

Notes from the Net: More on WSQ and M'Boom; Metheny's Orchestrion released; 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:

* In the latest Miles Davis-related news, Lucid Jazz Lounge in Seattle just put on a multi-show tribute to Miles and the different eras of his career featuring trumpeters Owuor Arunga, Scott Morning, Ahamefule J. Oluo and Jason Parker. Meanwhile, over at the blog Miles Davis Online, the tireless Milesophile Jeff Hyatt has new musings about the proposed feature film biography of the trumpeter and word of a possible HBO documentary as well.

*Before a recent gig in Pittsburgh, saxophonist David Sanborn talked to Rick Howlin of the Post-Gazette about his new CD, Only Everything.

* The World Saxophone Quartet, featuring former St. Louisan Oliver Lake on alto sax and the East Side's Hamiet Bluiett on baritone sax, recently renewed their collaboration with the percussion ensemble M'Boom for a series of shows at NYC's Birdland. Here are impressions of the gig from Howard Mandel and Amiri Baraka.

* AllAboutJazz.com recently published an extended interview of saxophonist and St. Louis native Greg Osby by Lloyd Peterson, excerpted from Peterson's book Music and the Creative Spirit. Osby's remarks are a few years old - the book was published in 2006 - but still make an interesting read.

* Here's a review of saxophonist Chris Cheek's latest CD Rollo-Coaster from Mark F. Turner of AllAboutJazz.com. The release pairs Webster University grad Cheek with the Spanish-born, Berklee-educated accordionist Victor Prieto.

* Turning to news of recent visitors, one evening of The Bad Plus' recent stand at Jazz at the Bistro was reviewed here by Patrick Shamel of JamBase.

* A bit of serendipitous Googling turned up this dialogue about "Improvising Digital Culture" between pianist Vijay Iyer, who also played the Bistro last month, and Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky). The conversation, published by the journal Critical Studies in Improvisation, is available as both text and streaming audio.

* The winners in the jazz categories at Sunday night's Grammy Awards included some names familiar to St. Louis listeners, most notably vocalist Kurt Elling, who performed at the Bistro in December and nabbed the "Best Jazz Vocal Album" Grammy for his CD Dedicated to You. It's Elling's first Grammy after being nominated nine times, and to celebrate the occasion, the Indiana Public Radio station WFIU just reposted an interview from last fall with Elling about the project.

Trumpeter Terence Blanchard, who's played in St. Louis at both the Bistro and the Sheldon Concert Hall, took home the "Best Improvised Jazz Solo" award for “Dancin' 4 Chicken” from Jeff “Tain” Watts' album Watts. And saxophonist Kenny Garrett, who fronted his own group at the Bistro in October, shared in the award for "Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group" for the live album from the Five Peace Band, led by pianist Chick Corea and guitarist John McLaughlin.

Other jazz Grammy winners were Joe Zawinul & The Zawinul Syndicate, "Best Contemporary Jazz Album" for 75; the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, "Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album" for Book One; and Bebo Valdés and Chucho Valdés, "Best Latin Jazz Album" for Juntos Para Siempre.

Update after posting: As first mentioned here earlier, St. Louis native Clark Terry received a Lifetime Achievement Award in conjunction with this year's Grammy ceremony; you can see Terry's acceptance speech from Saturday's non-televised awards event in the embedded video window below.



* Opening the "coming attractions" file, guitarist Jeff Beck will release a new CD on April 13 before heading out on a tour that will bring him to St. Louis' Fox Theatre on April 29. Emotion and Commotion will feature a mix of original songs and covers of tunes such as Jeff Buckley’s “Corpus Christi Carol,” “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell On You,” with Joss Stone on vocals. Beck also teams up with a 64-piece orchestra for a few tracks, including Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony No. 5”, The Atonement score’s “Elegy for Dunkirk” and Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.”

* Meanwhile, the release of guitarist Pat Metheny's new solo CD Orchestrion has incited a flurry of press coverage, including reviews of the recording from the Associated Press' Charles J. Gans, Jeff Giles of Popdose, Richard Gehr of the Village Voice, and Andy Gill for the UK's Indepdendent.

For even more on Orchestrion, here's a feature interview of Metheny (pictured) by the New York Times' Nate Chinen, a follow-up blog post from Chinen, and another story about the project from Wired magazine. The Orchestrion tour comes to the Touhill Performing Arts Center on May 8.

* Over at the JazzWax blog, proprietor Marc Myers is doing another of his extended interviews with jazz greats, chatting this time with pianist and composer Dave Brubeck, who will return to St. Louis in October for the American Arts Experience-St. Louis festival. Read part one of the interview here, and part two here.

Pollstar: Jeff Beck, Ozomatli coming to St. Louis

The online touring information service Pollstar has just added a listing for a St. Louis show by guitarist Jeff Beck (pictured) on Thursday, April 29 at the Fox Theatre.

It's one of seven new U.S. dates just added to the schedule for Beck, who doesn't tour all that often. (Perhaps some astute reader will chime in via the comments with info on when he last played St. Louis.)

Beck's got a large and diverse fan base, from rock lovers who have been with him since the Yardbirds days to jazz and blues enthusiasts who appreciate his more recent all-instrumental excursions, so this show should be a hot ticket when it goes on sale.

UPDATE - 1/28/10, 4:45 p.m.: Beck's website now has more info about his spring tour, including the news that his band will include Narada Michael Walden on drums, Rhonda Smith on bass and Jason Rebello on keyboards.

UPDATE - 2/2/10, 11:30 a.m.: Confirming the report from Pollstar, the Jeff Beck concert on April 29 is now listed on the Fox Theatre's website, with ticket prices and on-sale date showing as "TBA."

Pollstar also has added a listing showing the Latin/funk/hip-hop group Ozomatli performing at Powell Symphony Hall on Friday, May 14. While the notion of this particular band at this particular venue may seem a bit incongruous at first, it's not completely implausible, given the existence of the "SLSO Presents" series and/or the rental availability of Powell Hall. Guess we'll just have to wait for a bit to see what it's all about...

UPDATE - 1/28/10, 4:45 p.m.: The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra has confirmed that Ozomatli will be performing at Powell Hall with the SLSO on May 14. See this post for more.

In any event, remember that listings on Pollstar should be treated as unconfirmed until officially announced by the venue and/or presenter. When there's an official announcement on either of these concerts, we'll have more details for you right here. In the meantime, you can check out sounds from both Beck and Ozomatli in the embedded video windows below.