Sunday Session: June 27, 2021

Kurt Elling

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

* Her Kind Of Blue: Joni Mitchell's Masterpiece At 50 (NPR)
* 5 Albums I Can’t Live Without: Pat Metheny (SPIN)
* Jen Shyu Blends Just About Everything with Zero Grasses (Jazz Times)
* “A Message To My Fans And Friends From All Over The World”: Louis Armstrong’s “Open Letter to Fans” (LouisArmstrongHouse.org)
* Senior's Week: 96-year-old Eve Duke still entertaining music fans (Vancouver Sun)
* Shuttered SideBar in New Orleans Continues To Provide Creative Outlets (DownBeat)
* Julius Eastman, A Misunderstood Composer, Returns To The Light (NPR)
* The Doors’ greatest songs – ranked! (The Guardian)
* 'The Big Blind': Kurt Elling's Jazz Radio Drama In 1950s Chicago (NPR)
* This Orchestra Just Made History As The First All-Black Orchestra To Feature At Carnegie Hall In Its 130-Year-History (BecauseOfThemWeCan.com)
* A Peek Inside the World’s Greatest Record Store (Smithsonian)
* Hannah Peel: "Delia Derbyshire would be completely in awe of all the synthesizers and recording technology we have now" (MusicRadar.com)
* The Beatles: Get Back—An Exclusive Deep Dive Into Peter Jackson’s Revelatory New Movie (Vanity Fair)
* Matthew Whitaker Confronts Racial Injustice on the First Single From His Sweeping New Album, 'Connections' (WBGO)
* Are we headed for a shortage of vinyl records? It looks like it. (AJournalOfMusicalThings.com)
* Jefferson Airplane’s ‘Surrealistic Pillow’: The LP That Fed Your Head (BestClassicBands.com)
* Dream comes true for man who bought his favorite record shop, St. Augustine's Music Matters (St. Augustine Record)

Sunday Session: June 6, 2021

Anthony Braxton

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

* The Making of Sex Pistols' "Never Mind the Bollocks" (Reverb.com)
* Chops: Sam Gendel Creates a Distinctive Sax Sound (Jazz Times)
* With 'Zero Grasses,' Jen Shyu Forges Grief into Revelation (WBGO)
* What Music Is Making Movies Tick? Here Are the 12 Biggest Film Sync Licensing Trends of 2021 (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* 47 Years of Music Industry Change — In 47 Seconds or Less (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Interview with Jeff “Tain” Watts (EthanIverson.com)
* From Heliopolis to Saturn: Sun Ra and Egypt (DIYWorldwide.com)
* Man in Black at 50: Johnny Cash’s empathy is needed more than ever (The Guardian)
* Jazz Singer Nnenna Freelon Works Through Grief With New Album And Podcast (NPR)
* After Delays and Snafus, Music Venues Tenuously Seeing Next Steps Toward Relief (Rolling Stone)
* The ‘Big Bang’ in Jazz History (WNYC)
* How SoundScan Changed Everything We Knew About Popular Music (TheRinger.com)
* Riddle Me This: Jazz Artists Remember Arranger Nelson Riddle on His Centennial (Jazziz)
* The Source - Sun Ra and his Arkestra’s Egpytian adventure (The Nation)
* Alice Coltrane Turiya Sings Reissue Announced (Pitchfork.com)
* A Legendary Stand by the Lee Morgan Quintet Finally Sees Full Release, as 'The Complete Live at the Lighthouse' (WBGO)
* As Grants For Shuttered Venues Trickle Out, Many Owners Are Still Waiting (NPR)
* Producer Mitch Easter shares the inside story of R.E.M.’s early recording sessions: “It was glorious. They rehearsed a lot just because they liked to play together“ (MusicRadar.com)
* ‘Songs In A Minor’ at 20: How Alicia Keys' debut album set the tone for contemporary R&B (USA Today)
* Anthony Braxton On The Radiance Of Standards, His Search For Charlie Parker & The Forces That Divide America (Grammy.com)
* Hear Bach's Music Like You've Never Heard It Before: Upside Down (NPR)
* What Is Asian American Music, Really (Pitchfork.com)
* Gary Bartz & Jazz Is Dead (Jazz Times)

Jazz this week: Chucho Valdés & Joe Lovano, Jen Shyu, "Jazz Explosion," and more

Here's what's happening with live jazz and creative music over the next few days in St. Louis...

Wednesday, November 9
Keyboardist Adaron “Pops” Jackson takes a seat behind the Hammond organ as he and guitarist Eric Slaughter co-headline a two-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro themed "To B3 or Not To B3."  Saxophonist Jason Swagler and drummer Miles Vandiver will complete the ensemble.

Also on Wednesday, The 442s will perform in a public concert at St. Vincent Home for Children.

Thursday, November 10
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu (pictured, top left) will present a free, public artist's talk and workshop at the Lewis Center, the Washington University School of Art building located off-campus at 721 Kingsland Ave in U City. (For info on Shyu's New Music Circle concert, see Friday's listing.)

Also on Thursday, Native American flute player Mark Holland and his band will play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; singer Joe Mancuso performs at The Monocle; and fusion band Spaceship and the Liberation Organ Trio sill share a double bill at the Old Rock House.

Friday, November 11
Jen Shyu performs in a concert presented by New Music Circle at Kranzberg Arts Center. For more about Shyu and some video samples of her work, see this post from last Saturday. 

Also on Friday, trumpeter and singer Dawn Weber performs for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro; and the Gaslight Cabaret Festival resumes with stride and ragtime pianist Judy Carmichael. Carmichael,  who's also an engaging storyteller thanks to her experience hosting radio programs for NPR and Sirius XM, will play for one night only at the Gaslight Theater.

Elsewhere around town, the Gateway City Big Band plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; and trumpeter Jim Manley returns to Thurman's in Shaw

Saturday, November 12
Pianist Chucho Valdés and saxophonist Joe Lovano (pictured, bottom left), who are collaborating this year for a series of dates, will play the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Based on the reviews of the tour so far, this has the potential to be one of the top shows of the fall. Lovano, last seen here in 2014 at the Bistro with his band Us Five, is one of the top tenor players working today, while Valdés has helped shape Afro-Cuban music and Latin jazz for decades as a founding member of Irakere and a solo artist and bandleader.

And if you need more incentive, the Sheldon and Metrotix yesterday announced a "buy one, get one free" offer for online purchases of the remaining tickets for the show. To access the offer, go here and enter the promo code CHUCHO16.

Also on Saturday, trumpeter Randy Holmes and his quintet will present a "Tribute to Clifford Brown" at the Ozark Theatre.

Sunday, November 13
The St. Louis Jazz Club hosts a matinee performance by the Funky Butt Brass Band at the Moolah Temple.

Sunday evening, "Jazz Explosion" with Pieces of A Dream, saxophonist Marion Meadows, and keyboardist Mark Harris II, comes to the Emerson Theater at Harris Stowe State University.

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: Jen Shyu's "Solo Rites: Seven Breaths"

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu, who's performing here in St. Louis in a concert presented by New Music Circle next Friday, November 11 at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Shyu, who's now in her late 30s, was born in Peoria, IL to parents who immigrated to the US from Taiwan and East Timor. She was something of a child prodigy, winning many piano competitions and performing a Tchaikovsky piano concerto with the Peoria Symphony Orchestra when she was just 13.

After graduating from Stanford University, Shyu first gained wide attention in the jazz world in the early 2000s for her singing with saxophonist Steve Coleman's band. She also has worked collaboratively with jazz and creative musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Mark Dresser, Bobby Previte, Chris Potter, Michael Formanek, and more.

Currently based in New York City, Shyu has recorded six albums as a leader, the most recent being the critically acclaimed Sounds and Cries of the World, which came out in 2015 and showed up on a number of critics' "best album" lists for the year.

Her compositions reflect her studies of regional music, languages, literature and dance in countries including Cuba, Taiwan, Brazil, China, South Korea, East Timor, and Indonesia. Much of this research was incorporated into her extended 2014 work "Solo Rites: Seven Breaths," which, according to New Music Circle's publicity, will be what she'll perform here in St. Louis.

In the first video up above, you can see Shyu doing a shorter piece called "Song for Naldo," recorded in 2014 in the New York City studios of radio station WNYC. After the jump, there's another track from the same session, Shyu's arrangement of "Qemaiaqaiam: Taiwanese Women's Song of the Pinuyumayan people."

Below that, there's a recording from March of this year featuring Shyu performing music from Sounds and Cries of the World and "Solo Rites: Seven Breaths" at NYC's Rubin Museum, with some help from violist Mat Maneri, drummer Dan Weiss, and dancer Satoshi Haga,

That's followed by an another, earlier version of "Solo Rites," recorded in 2014 at the 1816 House Gallery in Philadelphia, and then a more recent solo performance, captured on video this year at Judson Memorial Church in NYC.

The final video clip is an interview with NewMusicBox editor Molly Sheridan, in which Shyu talks about how her studies overseas have influenced her music. You can read the full version of Shyu's interview with NMB's Frank Oteri here.

For more about Jen Shyu, read her interview on the website MUSEUM, and the 2014 feature about her published on JazzSpeaks.org.

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

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.