Sunday Session: February 9, 2020

Albert Ayler

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

* Interview with Colin Stetson (FilmMusicMag.com)
* The 10 most groundbreaking avant-garde albums of all time (HappyMag.tv)
* 58 Minutes With the Omnivorous Composer Caroline Shaw (Vulture.com)
* Rodney Whitaker Explores Ellingtonia on Latest Disc (DownBeat)
* Michel Camilo: Teller of Tales (Jazz Times)
* Appeals Court Gives Drake a "Fair Use" Win in Sampling Case (Hollywood Reporter)
* Beatles, Rolling Stones Appear in New Chuck Berry Tribute Program (Rolling Stone)
* Myra Melford on Jazz’s Cutting Edge and Improvisation (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* Battle for the bass: the story of Fender and Gibson's fight for low-end supremacy (Guitar World)
* Why are pop songs getting sadder than they used to be? (Aeon.co)
* Jimmy Haslip: Amperes Beyond The BASSics, Part One (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The Overlooked Activist Power Of Marlena Shaw (NPR)
* One Company Now Owns The Only Record Store Chains Left In US, UK and Canada (Hypebot.com)
* Ballaké Sissoko's Kora Dismantled by American TSA (Afropop.org)
* Nights in Brazil: Dianne Reeves & Ivan Lins (SFJAZZ.org)
* Roscoe Mitchell Remembers Joseph Jarman (Jazz Times)
* “Round and Round and Round You Go” (WUSTL.edu)
* A Chronological Roadmap to Albert Ayler’s Almighty Free Jazz (Bandcamp.com)
* John McLaughlin Heads Out on the Road Again (DownBeat)
* Five Questions with Kermit Ruffins on His New 9th Ward Juke Joint (Offbeat)
* “Devastating” Manufacturing Plant Fire Threatens Worldwide Vinyl Record Supply (Pitchfork.com)
* New Company and Video Aim to Keep the Spirit of Roy Hargrove Alive (Jazz Times)
* We'll Soon Be Able To Stream Nina Simone's Late-Career Rarity 'Fodder On My Wings' (NPR)
* Ever-evolving guitar hero Mary Halvorson brings two distinct bands to Minneapolis (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
* This guy now owns Murfie’s nearly 1 million abandoned CDs (TheVerge.com)
* At 91, Charlie Parker protege Sheila Jordan still dedicating her life to the jazz music she loves (Calgary Herald)
* Take one: lost Dave Brubeck tapes reveal jazz hit originally sounded like ‘a bad student band’ (The Guardian)
* Ahmad Jamal on having a ‘spiritual anchor,’ remembering Jimmy Heath and the world beyond the piano (CapitalBop.com)

Jazz this week: Jeff Lorber Fusion, Lotte Anker & Okkyung Lee, and more

This week's jazz and creative music offerings in St. Louis run the gamut from fusion to free improvisation, with plenty of mainstream sounds as well. Let's go to the highlights... 

Wednesday, February 18
Keyboardist Jeff Lorber and the latest iteration of his Fusion group featuring bassist Jimmy Haslip and saxophonist Eric Marienthal (pictured, top left) will begin a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. You can see a video preview of the performances here, and Lorber, Haslip and Marienthal also are featured in this week's "Music Education Monday" post.

Also tonight, Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Open Mic Night" at the Tavern of Fine Arts.

Thursday, February 19
Saxophonist Kristian Baarsvik plays a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; The 442s will perform in the "community room" at St. Louis Public Radio in Grand Center; and singer Feyza Eren returns to Nathalie’s.

Friday, February 20
Trumpeter Randy Holmes' quintet with singer Kim Fuller will present "A Tribute to the Music of Billie Holiday" at Voce; Second Generation Swing will play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; singer Joe Mancuso, guitarist Dave Black and bassist Willem von Hombracht will perform at Element STL; and the Midwest Jazz-tette will bring their West Coast "cool jazz' sound to Cigar Inn.

Saturday, February 21
New Music Circle presents a double bill featuring cellist Okkyung Lee (pictured, center left) and saxophonist Lotte Anker at the "house concert" venue Joe’s Cafe.  You can see some performance videos of Lee in this Saturday video showcase post (which also has a link to an earlier post about Anker.)

Elsewhere around town, Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes will return to Evangeline's; guitarist Tom Byrne and clairnetist Scott Alberici will duet at Thurman Grill; and The Wire Pilots will play original jazz-fusion compositions at Focal Point.

Sunday, February 22
St. Louis musicians from a variety of genres will join together in a benefit concert for bassist Phil Burton (pictured, bottom left) at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups. Burton has played with numerous rock, blues and jazz bands around town since the 1980s, and also works as a musical instrument and audio repair technician at Winston Electronics. He recently suffered a heart attack, and the performance will raise funds to help with some of his expenses while he recovers.

Monday, February 23
Trumpeter Byron Stripling will be featured in a free "Happy Hour" of music and conversation with Jazz St. Louis' Phil Dunlap at the Tavern of Fine Arts;  the Webster University Jazz Collective will perform music by Charles Mingus, Horace Silver and more in a Black History Month concert at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus; and saxophonist "Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective will play their monthly date at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

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.)

Music Education Monday: Fusion fundamentals with Lorber, Haslip & Marienthal

Most of the musicians who come to St. Louis to play at Jazz at the Bistro also get involved in some sort of educational activity on behalf of Jazz St. Louis, performing at local schools and/or working with their jazz ensembles, and doing master classes and workshops for the student musicians involved in JSL's own JazzU program.

While these events are open only to the student groups involved, as it happens the three named headliners playing this week at the Bistro all have created some fairly detailed educational materials that can be found for free online.

Keep reading after the jump for instructional videos and links to some useful lessons from keyboardist Jeff Lorber, bassist Jimmy Haslip, and saxophonist Eric Marienthal.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The return of Jeff Lorber Fusion

Today, let's check out some video clips previewing next week's performances by keyboardist Jeff Lorber, who will be playing Wednesday, February 18 through Saturday, February 21 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Officially billed as Jeff Lorber Fusion featuring Jimmy Haslip and Eric Marienthal, this will be the group's second time at the Bistro after having played there previously in 2011. That was shortly after Lorber first teamed up with Haslip, longtime bassist for the Yellowjackets, and Marienthal, who originally came to wide public attention with the Chick Corea Elektric Band, to revisit the ensemble style and sound, and even some of the same material, that first brought him to fame in the late 1970s.

Their initial album under the revived Jeff Lorber Fusion banner, Now Is The Time, was released in 2010 on Heads Up Records and nominated for the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. Lorber's subsequent recordings Galaxy (2012) and Hacienda (2013) continued the collaboration with Haslip and Marienthal. In recent years the three also have played a number of live dates, backed by several different drummers, and today you can see and hear some close-up examples of what their show is like.

First up is a version of Lorber's tune "Chinese Medicinal Herbs" recorded in May, 2014 at the Baked Potato in Los Angeles with Third Richardson on drums. This looks to have been shot by an audience member sitting jsut a few feet away from the band, and does a good job of conveying what it's like to hear them in an intimate venue.

After the jump, you can see them playing Frank Zappa's "King Kong" and Lorber's own "Hacienda" from a gig in June, 2014 at The Blue Note in NYC, this time with Lionel Cordew on drums. (These recordings appear to have been made surreptitiously from the audience, but even if the video quality reflects that, the audio is good.)

That's followed by a version of "Montserrat" with drumming from Gary Novak, recorded in 2012 at Spaghettini's in Los Angeles; and finally, a full show in three parts, featuring Lorber, Marienthal, Haslip and drummer Sonny Emory at the 2012 Festiwal Jazz na Starówce in Starówce, Poland.

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