Sunday Session: March 17, 2019

Tomeka Reid

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:

* Lennie Tristano at 100 — Scenario for a Jazz Legend (Town Topics)
* First Listen: The Comet Is Coming, 'Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery' (NPR)
* Separated by 50 Years, Israels, Diehl Find Common Ground (DownBeat)
* More evidence of sound waves carrying mass (Phys.org)
* In Focus: Joe McPhee (NTS.live)
* Deep Dive: Odds 'n' Ends About Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Lester Young and "Jazz" Itself (WBGO)
* Makaya McCraven: The Brain Behind The Mind-Bending Beats (NPR)
* Hal Blaine, Drummer Behind the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” Dead at 90 (Pitchfork.com)
* Delfeayo Marsalis bringing everything from New Orleans but the cuisine to Lied Center (Lincoln Journal Star)
* How we made Booker T and the MGs' Green Onions (The Guardian)
* Fort Apache: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful (Jazz Times)
* On the Road with Cellist Tomeka Reid (DownBeat)
* Blue Note Launches Vinyl Reissue Series (Keyboard)
* Joe Lovano: The intimate moment of now (SFJAZZ.org)
* Lambert, Hendricks & Ross: Four Classic Albums (Jazz Journal)
* Sidewinder: The Murder of Lee Morgan (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Rebuilding the ARC: America’s Largest Music Collection Needs Your Help (Rolling Stone)
* No Man's Band: All-Female Jazz Orchestras Then and Now (NPR)
* A Short History of… The Legend of Buddy Bolden (Jazziz)
* Wearing headphones at a concert isn’t as weird as I thought it would be (Engadget.com)
* Welcome to Birdpunk: A Subculture of a Subculture (Audubon)
* A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music (RootsMusic.ca)
* How the 45 RPM Single Changed Music Forever (Rolling Stone)

Jazz this week: Byron Stripling; Bonearama; Lee, McPhee, Corsano & Orcutt; Dave King & Chris Weller; and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes New Music Circle's first concerts of their 60th season; the return of a popular trumpeter and singer to Jazz St. Louis; the drummer of The Bad Plus in one of his several side projects; and more.

Let's go to the highlights ...

Wednesday, September 19
Trumpeter Byron Stripling (pictured, top left) returns to Jazz St. Louis for the first of five nights of performances.

Stripling, who directs the Columbus (OH) Jazz Orchestra and also is known for his tribute to the music of Louis Armstrong, will be the first musician to do a five-night run at the Bistro since Sunday matinees and evening performances were added for select artists.

Elsewhere in Grand Center, Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Singers Open Mic" at Sophie's Artist Lounge & Cocktail Club; and the weekly "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features the Jazz Troubadours at The Stage at KDHX, plus the jam session led by bassist Bob DeBoo at the Kranzberg Arts Center and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's band at The Dark Room.

Also on Wednesday, Wright's Project plays jazz-fusion and funk at Al's Lounge, and bassist Glen Smith and guitarist Eric Slaughter perform at Evangeline's.

Thursday, September 20
Guitarist Daryl Darden, back home from California for visit, will lead a quartet in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Also on Thursday, The People's Key play at the Chase Club, and the Joe Park Trio performs at The Dark Room.

Friday, 
September 21
New Music Circle presents cellist Okkyung Lee, multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, percussionist Chris Corsano and guitarist Bill Orcutt (pictured, bottom left) at Joe's Cafe in the first of two nights of improvised duo performances.

While they're in town, Lee also will present a workshop and artist talk at 3:00 p.m. Thursday at SLU’s Xavier Hall Studio Theatre, and McPhee will do a solo performance at 1:00 p.m. Saturday at the Contemporary Art Museum, responding to CAM’s exhibit of works by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Both events are free and open to the public.

Also on Friday, New Orleans' Bonerama returns for a show at the Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, with an opening set from the Funky Butt Brass Band

Elsewhere around town, jazz-fusion band Koplant No plays a free concert at 560 Music Center, and Carolbeth True and Two Times True with saxophonist Larry Johnson returns to the Parkside Grille.

Saturday, September 22
New Music Circle presents a second evening of improvisational duets from Okkyung Lee, Joe McPhee, Chris Corsano and Bill Orcutt, this time at Off Broadway; and trumpeter Jim Manley leads a trio at Evangeline's.

Sunday, September 23
Drummer Montez Coleman and friends will play for brunch at The Dark Room, while Miss Jubilee performs at Evangeline's.

Then on Sunday evening, drummer Dave King of The Bad Plus and Happy Apple teams with Chicago-based saxophonist Chris Weller for a duo performance at The Dark Room.

Monday, September 24
Dizzy Atmosphere plays vintage swing and Gypsy jazz for diners at The Shaved Duck, and guitarist Daryl Darden gets in another gig on his visit home, this time at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

Tuesday, September 25
Singer and multi-instrumentalist Tonina Saputo and band perform at The Dark Room.

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.)

Sunday Session: August 26, 2018

Mary Halvorson

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:

* He read the news all day, oh boy: how Beatles ‘froze out’ George Martin on White Album (The Guardian)
* How a Jewish kid from the burbs helped launch Springsteen and make music history (Times of Israel)
* Nicole Johänntgen Channels the Vitality of New Orleans (DownBeat)
* The Sounds of Music in the Twenty-first Century (The New Yorker)
* When a Music Legend Dies, How Does Today’s Mostly Automated Radio React? (Variety)
* Joe Lovano Toasts Ben Webster, and Vocalist Emma Frank Visits 'Ocean Av,' on The Checkout (WBGO)
* Why does bass make you want to dance? (MedicalNewsToday.com)
* Lifetime Achievement: Joe McPhee’s Vast and Brilliant Improvisational Discography (Bandcamp.com)
* Unlocking the Secrets of Jazz Genius Bill Evans (Playbill.com)
* Regional, International Talent Meet at San Jose Jazz Summer Fest (DownBeat)
* Napster Proves That Streaming Music Can Be Profitable (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* "Just the Essential Thing": Bill Frisell and Mary Halvorson Honor Johnny Smith's Jazz Legacy (Reverb.com)
* My Journey with Jazz (The New Yorker)
* Eddie Willis, Original Motown Funk Brother, Dies At 82 (Billboard)
* Live Review: 2018 San Jose Jazz Summer Fest (Jazz Times)
* Will Ramsey Lewis retire after Jazz Fest? He’s having second thoughts (Chicago Tribune)
* Wynton Marsalis on Aretha Franklin's All-Caps Emails and 'Healing' Voice: She Was a 'Triumph Over the Blues' (Billboard)
* Vijay Iyer: A Moral Imperative to Speak for the Musical Margins (LitHub.com)
* Sony Confesses To Releasing Fake Michael Jackson Music (Vibe.com)
* For Chick Corea, Music is an Antidote to Life’s Dark Side (ShepherdExpress.com)
* The Dearth Of Musical Performances On Late Night TV Speaks To A Larger Cultural Shift (Uproxx.com)
* From Bowie's Blackstar to Restoring Lou Reed: The Death and Re-Birth of The Magic Shop Studio (Reverb.com)
* Beyond Genre: Taylor McFerrin Creates His Own Musical World (SFJAZZ.org)
* Meet the Company Preparing to Be the Last CD Distributor Standing (Billboard)
* Wayne Shorter to Release 3-Disc Set with Graphic Novel (Jazz Times)
* Can data reveal the saddest number one song ever? (BBC)
* Music is ‘fast becoming the birthright of the elite’, say leading conductors, performers and educators (ClassicFM.com)

Sunday Session: July 15, 2018

Brian Blade

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:

* 'You can't judge a generation's taste': making Now That’s What I Call Music (The Guardian)
* Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band Leaves Michael Bourne Mouth Agape in Montreal (WBGO)
* Kamasi Washington, the wisest man on Earth (TheFader.com)
* How did Irvin Mayfield, the man with the golden trumpet, end up in the poorhouse? (New Orleans Advocate)
* The Adventurous World of Brazilian Experimental Music (Bandcamp.com)
* MIT Develops AI That Can Isolate and Edit the Individual Instruments in a Song (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* An AI system for editing music in videos (MIT.edu)
* ‘Skyrockets in flight/Afternoon delight’: The story behind Starland Vocal Band’s one big hit (Washington Post)
* In Istanbul, a Display of National Music Culture (DownBeat)
* NEA Announces 2019 Jazz Masters (Jazz Times)
* Coltrane, Kamasi and the art of looking both directions at once (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Synths may be spared worst of US trade war – for now (CDM.link)
* Global Notation: a new notation system for world music (Sheffield.ac.uk)
* The Jazz Pianist Who Made One Masterpiece And Disappeared (VinylMePlease.com)
* Before Björk, There Was the Last Incan Princess (MessyNessyChic.com)
* How Ads Get Away with *Almost* Plagiarizing Existing Music (Vice.com)
* 10 Essential One-Track Albums (TrebleZine.com)
* “A Band At The Top Of Their Game”: Ravi Coltrane Talks John’s “Classic Quartet” (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* New $50,000 prize in improvised music gives its first awards to Joe McPhee and Susan Alcorn (Chicago Reader)
* Ellis Marsalis Jazz Piano Competition Winners Announced (Jazz Times)
* The GroundUP Festival Brings Even More Heat to Miami, on Jazz Night in America (WBGO)
* Who Is Benefitting From the Nostalgic Vintage Releases in African Music? (OkayAfrica.com)
* The Sonic Arts Union’s Handmade Electronic Music, 1966-1976 (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* Chicago label Still Music rescues decades of house history from a south-side storage locker (Chicago Reader)
* A Conversation with La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and Jung Hee Choi (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Wednesday night's performance in Chicago by Joe McPhee and Survival Unit III was the subject of a post by Howard Mandel for his blog Jazz Beyond Jazz. The group plays tonight in St. Louis at Joe's Cafe.

* Dan Warner, one of the organizers of the Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival, was interviewed on Radio Arts Foundation - St. Louis about the fest, which happens tomorrow. Featured performers will include the "St. Louis Jazz All-Stars" (pictured), with Montez Coleman (drums), Bob DeBoo (bass), Ptah Williams (keyboards), Freddie Washington (tenor and soprano sax), Danny Campbell (trumpet), and Joe Mancuso (vocals).

* New Music Circle has posted on Facebook an album of photos from last Friday's concert by Thumbscrew.

* There's lots of Miles Davis-related news this week, as both the New York Times and Jazz Times have stories about actor/director Don Cheadle and Miles Ahead, his film about Davis that wrapped principal photography last month in Cincinnati.

* Meanwhile, the website MNSWR.com has an article about Davis as an icon of men's clothing styles; and Medium.com has a piece about a journalist's early-career encounter with Miles. 

* And if all that weren't enough, a four-CD set featuring performances from a 1960 European tour by Davis' band with John Coltrane will be issued in December by Trapeze Music & Entertainment on its Acrobat label.

* Here's a report on last Saturday's memorial service for trumpeter Floyd LeFlore by Chris King of the St. Louis American.

* The St. Louis Rivermen are headed this weekend to McComb, IL, where they'll play at the 13th annual Al Sears Jazz Festival.

* Trumpeter Keyon Harrold helped kick off the 2014 FONT (Festival of New Trumpet) Music Festival with a set last night at the NYC club Smoke. Harrold's band included fellow St. Louisans Shedrick Mitchell on keyboards and Marcus Baylor on drums, plus saxophonist Marcus Strickland on saxophone.

* Jazz radio update: On this Saturday's episode of Radio Arts Foundation - St. Louis' “Somethin’ Else,” host Calvin Wilson will play the compositions of songwriter Arthur Schwartz ("Dancing In The Dark," "Alone Together") as interpreted by jazz musicians including Gary Bartz, Robert Glasper, and Patricia Barber.

Then on "The Jazz Collective," host Jason Church will pay tribute to the late Joe Sample with solo recordings, tracks from the Jazz Crusaders and duets with Randy Crawford, and also will spin tracks from Gregg Karukas, Cindy Bradley, Ryan Montano, Steve Cole, Ragan Whiteside, Erin Bode, Jesse Gannon, Tommy Halloran's Guerrilla Swing, and Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum.

Wilson's program can be heard at 8:00 p.m., followed by Church at 9:00 p.m., on 107.3 FM, 96.3 HD-2, and online at http://www.rafstl.org/listen.

Jazz this week: Joe McPhee & Survival Unit III, Old Webster Jazz & Blues Festival, Snarky Puppy, and more

It should be another good weekend to get out and hear some live jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with several free shows featuring local performers, plus a couple of noteworthy touring acts coming to town. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, there are a couple of free concerts, as guitarist Vincent Varvel plays for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, and trumpeter/singer Dawn Weber performs as part of the "Not So Quiet" concert series at the main branch of the St. Louis Public Library downtown.

Also tonight, there's an eclectic bill of improvised and electronic music at Blank Space, featuring Alex Cunningham, Beauty Pageant, Dave Stone, Eric Hall, Stone Hen, and Willis.

On Friday, you can catch more avant-jazz and free improv from multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee (pictured), cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and percussionist Michael Zerang, aka Survival Unit III, at Joe's Cafe.

The trio performed here in 2011 under the auspices of New Music Circle, and it went well enough that NMC's Jeremy Kannapell set up this return date for them as an independent production. If you missed that show, you can get a preview of Friday's action via a video of a full set by McPhee, Lonborg-Holm and Zerang included in part one of StLJN's fall 2014 jazz preview.

Elsewhere around town on Friday, writer and poet Michael Castro leads his "poetrio" in a show at Tavern of Fine Arts; Second Generation Swing plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; singer Feyza Eren and pianist Curt Landes perform at The Wine Press; and saxophonist Austin Cebulski leads a trio at Cigar Inn.

On Saturday, the annual Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival will take place in the Old Webster business district surrounding the intersection of Lockwood and Gore Avenues in Webster Groves. This year's edition of the free, all-day event will have two stages featuring performances from the Funky Butt Brass Band; the Webster University faculty jazz ensemble; The 442s with Erin Bode; an ad hoc group assembled for the occasion and dubbed the St. Louis Jazz All-Stars; the Webster Groves High School Jazz Band; trumpeter Jim Manley and Wild, Cool and Swingin'; and more.

Also on Saturday, singer Gene Lynn brings his smooth sound to Evangeline's; fusion band Koplant No plays at the Tavern of Fine Arts; and keyboardist Adam Maness and drummer Irvin Neal will perform at Troy's Jazz Gallery.

On Sunday, the jazz/funk/world music ensemble Snarky Puppy (pictured) will be back in town for an encore performance at the Old Rock House. Since their last gig here in May 2013 at The Demo, they've stayed quite busy, spending this past summer playing the festival circuit in the USA, Europe and Asia and promoting their sixth album, We Like It Here, which came out in February. You can read more about them and see a couple of videos of them in action (though several other clips have disappeared due to link rot) in this post made before their last St. Louis appearance.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday saxophonist Paul DeMarinis will lead a sextet performing his original compositions in a concert at Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus.

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: Fall 2014 jazz preview, part 1

This week, StLJN presents the first part of our video preview of the fall 2014 season of jazz and creative music in St. Louis. Today's installment covers the touring bands and musicians visiting during the month of September.

First up is a clip featuring Roomful of Teeth, the Grammy winning new music vocal ensemble, performing Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw's "Passacaglia" in June 2009 at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. They'll be in St. Louis for a concert next Friday, September 5 at 560 Music Center.

After the jump, you'll find a video of the trio Thumbscrew performing bassist Michael Formanek's "Still...Doesn't Swing" at a gig in April 2012 at Sycamore in Brooklyn, NYC. Formanek, drummer Tomas Fujiwara and guitarist Mary Halvorson will play here on Friday, September 12 at Joe's Cafe in a concert presented by New Music Circle.

Below that, it's Pieces Of A Dream jamming out on their "Mount Airy Groove" in January of this year at the Tampa Bay Black Heritage Festival. The group, which in this clip includes original members Curtis Harmon (drums) and James Lloyd (keyboards) plus Tony Watson Jr. (saxophone, keyboard), Rohn Lawrence (guitar), and David Dyson (bass), will be the headlining act at the free outdoor U City Jazz Festival on Saturday, September 13 in Heman Park.

In the fourth slot, you can see a full set by saxophonist Joe McPhee, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and percussionist Michael Zerang, aka Survival Unit III, recorded in December 2013 at the Jazzhouse in Copenhagen, Denmark. The trio will be in St. Louis on Friday, September 19 to play at Joe's Cafe.

Next up, it's a full set from the eclectic groove band Snarky Puppy recorded live at the 2014 Java Jazz Festival in Jakarta, Indonesia. They'll return here to perform on Sunday, September 21 at the Old Rock House.

The next clip features singer Storm Large, who will kick off the fall edition of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival on Saturday, September 27 at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups. Large is seen here singing "Angels In Gas Stations" in June of this year at the Faculty Club of the University of California - Berkeley.

Today's final video features percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and a performance of his Gong Orchestra project in 2013 in Baltimore, Maryland. Nakatani will return on Tuesday, September 30 to Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center for another performance of the Gong Orchestra, for which he recruits a cast of musicians in each city where the work is performed.

Look for part two of the 2014 fall jazz preview next week. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Jazz this week: Joe McPhee, Old Webster Jazz & Blues Festival, St. Louis Jazz Club's annual picnic, and more

There's a touch of fall in the air here in St. Louis, and along with cooler weather, this weekend also will feature plenty of noteworthy jazz and creative music performances. Let's go the highlights:

Tonight, guitarist Daryl Darden, back home from the West Coast for an extended visit, plays a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, and saxophonist Jim Stevens has the early evening slot at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

On Friday, singer Kim Massie returns to Jazz at the Bistro for the first evening of a two-night stand. If you're planning on heading down, don't forget that the Bistro's new set times of 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. are now in effect for all shows.

Also on Friday, a group billed as the Pleasant Tones Trio, with pianist Dave Becherer, drummer Gary Sykes and bassist Daryl Mixon, will be at Robbie's House of Jazz, and guitarist Dave Black's trio plays at the Cigar Inn in Belleville.

On Saturday, there's a variety of musical choices, starting with this year's edition of the annual Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival in downtown Webster Groves. The free, all-day outdoor event begins at noon and will feature performances from young blues singer/guitarist Marquise Knox, singer-songwriter Javier Mendoza's "Latin jazz" ensemble, the Funky Butt Brass Band, Webster University's jazz faculty ensemble, the Webster Groves High School jazz band, Alvin Jett and Phat Noiz, Jim Stevens, guitarist Tom Byrne's Pat Metheny tribute Have U Heard? and more.

That evening, the free-improvising multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee (pictured) and his group Survival Unit III, with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and percussionist Michael Zerang, will perform at Kranzberg Arts Center in a concert sponsored by New Music Circle. For much more about McPhee and a selection of videos featuring him, see this post.

Also on Saturday evening, singer Denise Thimes performs at the Grand Opera House in St. Charles in a benefit for the United Way; guitarist Matthew Von Doran plays with his trio at Music Folk; and saxophonist Michael Fitzgerald returns to the Halls Ferry Inn Jazz Cafe.

On Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis Jazz Club will have its annual picnic at the Concord Farmers Club, 10140 Concord School Rd, featuring music by the New Orleans R&B cover band Gumbohead, Time and Place, and Banjos & Brass.

Also on Sunday afternoon, Matthew Von Doran will present a guitar clinic at Music Folk, and that evening, pianist Phil Gomez and his Latin jazz band Clave Sol will play at BB's.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday bassist Willem von Hombrecht will lead a quartet in a concert at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium , and drummer Joe Pastor's trio will perform at BB's.

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.)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The improvisations of Joe McPhee

This week, let's take a look at some video clips of multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, who will be performing next Saturday, September 17, at the Kranzberg Arts Center in a concert presented by New Music Circle. The show will feature McPhee with his band Survival Unit III, which also includes Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello and electronics and Michael Zarang on percussion.

McPhee, who will turn 72 this year, was born in Miami, raised in Poughkeepsie NY, and now spends a lot of time in Chicago when he's not on the road. He began his musical career as a trumpet player, later learning to play saxophone at age 32 after being inspired by the music of John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Ornette Coleman, and currently performs on a variety of brass and reed instruments.

McPhee first recorded in 1967 with trumpeter Clifford Thornton, and made several albums as a leader for the small CMJ label before connecting in the mid 1970s with Werner X. Uehlinger, a Swiss businessman who founded the labels HatHut and HatArt specifically to record and release McPhee's music. Those recordings helped bring McPhee to the attention of European audiences as well as music critics and journalists in the USA, though paying work in his home country remained scarce for years. McPhee has continued to record prolifically, with more than 60 titles as a leader released on HatHut and several other independent labels.

During the 1980s McPhee developed his own concept of improvisation called "Po Music," influenced by composer Pauline Oliveros’ theories of "deep listening" and the book Lateral Thinking: a Textbook of Creativity by Edward de Bono. In the 1990s, he began collaborating frequently with Chicago-based musicians, including Lonberg-Holm and Zerang as well as reedman Ken Vandermark and trombonist Jeb Bishop. McPhee also plays in the group Trio X with bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen, and has performed with Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Mats Gustafsson and many other notable improvising musicians.

There seems to be just one online clip available of McPhee with Survival Unit III, which was used here in part 1 of StLJN's fall jazz preview a couple of weeks ago. So today, we offer some videos showing McPhee playing in several different contexts, starting with some solo pieces.

The first one in the embed window up above is called "Pig Knuckles and Rice," and was recorded in March of this year at the University of the Streets in NYC. Down below, you can see and hear an excerpt from McPhee's performance at a tribute concert for saxophonist Albert Ayler presented last December in Paris. In the third slot, McPhee plays another solo piece, "Old Eyes (For Ornette Coleman)," recorded in May 2009 at The Local 269 NYC.

Below that, you can check out McPhee in a duo with bassist Dominic Duval, playing a loose interpretation of Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight," and below that, there's an excerpt from a 2010 duo performance with drummer Chris Corsano (who will play in St. Louis in January in another concert presented by New Music Circle.)

We wrap up with a two-part excerpt from a performance by Trio X in March, 2006 in Vilnius, Lithuania, a show that was released as a double LP by NoBusiness Records.

For more about McPhee, see this interview from 1996, and this one from 2005. For more about Survival Unit III, read this review of their most recent recording Syncronicity.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Fall 2011 jazz preview, part one

For today's video showcase, we've got clips featuring some of the touring jazz bands and musicians who will be visiting St. Louis this fall. While I probably will be writing and/or posting more videos later about many of these acts, this is a chance for you, dear reader, to get a quick overview of some of the season's highlights.

Up top, you can see a video of multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee and his band Survival Unit, which also includes Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello and Michael Zerang on drums, performing in October 2010 at the Vortex jazz club in London. They'll be in St. Louis on Saturday, September 17 to perform at the Kranzberg Arts Center under the auspices of New Music Circle.

Down below, you'll find a video of vocal group Take 6, singing a medley of some of their best-known songs at the Avo Session festival in Basel, Switzerland. Take 6 will be making their St. Louis club debut with two performances nightly starting Wednesday, September 21 and continuing through Saturday, September 24 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Below that, there's a clip of pianist David Torkanowsky playing Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island" at the House of Blues in New Orleans. Torkanowsky will be heading upriver to St. Louis for a duo concert with Peter Martin on Friday, September 23 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Next, it's a video of Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, shot earlier this month from the audience at a festival in San Javier, Spain. Wynton and the JaLCO will return to St. Louis on Friday, September 30 to perform at the Sheldon.

Clip number five features Garage A Trois, who will be in St. Louis the same night, Friday, September 30, for a gig at 2720 Cherokee. This performance of "Fragile" was recorded in the studios of St. Louis' own KDHX (88.1 FM) during their last visit here in September, 2010.

Wrapping part one of our fall 2011 jazz preview is some vintage footage of guitarist and singer George Benson, who will be back here in the Gateway City to play on Sunday, October 2 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center in a concert presented by Jazz St. Louis.

While Benson no doubt will perform many of his familiar hits in his concert here, this particular clip offers something different with a bit of St. Louis twist, as it features him playing an uptempo version of Miles Davis' "So What" with a band that includes St. Louis native Clark Terry on trumpet. Recorded in 1988 at a jazz festival in Pori, Finland, the group also included saxophone legend James Moody, who gets the first solo, and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts, who skillfully negotiates the song's many changes in time feel.

Look for part two of the Fall 2011 Jazz Preview next week...

New Music Circle previews 2011-12 season

New Music Circle has posted a preview of the lineup for their 2011-12 season on their website. At this point, it's just a list of artists - no dates or venues yet - but most notably, the proposed season would include the St. Louis debut of pianist Matthew Shipp (pictured).

The 51-year-old Shipp has been a noted figure in free jazz and improvised music for 20 years now, both for his own work and for his longtime membership in saxophonist David S. Ware's quartet. His piano playing has been compared variously to Cecil Taylor, Andrew Hill and Thelonious Monk, among others, but in recent years Shipp also has experimented with music that references contemporary classical, hip hop and electronica. His most recent recording, the two-disc set Art of the Improviser, was released in February 2011.

Other musicians slated for NMC's 2011-12 season include:

* Drummer John Hollenbeck's Claudia Quintet with Chris Speed (clarinet/tenor saxophone), Matt Moran (vibraphone/percussion), Ted Reichman (accordion) and Drew Gress (bass).

* Composer, improviser and multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee's Survival Unit, with percussionist Michael Zerang and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm.

* Violinist Tony Conrad, who's also an experimental filmmaker and video artist. Conrad was an early member of the Theatre of Eternal Music, the famed 1960s group with John Cale, Angus MacLise and La Monte Young, and also has worked with composer Rhys Chatham.

* Percussionist Chris Corsano, who has toured with Icelandic singer Björk and recorded with Evan Parker, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Nels Cline, Jim O'Rourke, and many others.

The NMC season also will include a video and electronic music performance by Keith Fullerton-Whitman; a concert of electro-acoustic and chamber music by James Mobberley and Paul Rudy; and a return appearance by cellist Craig Hultgren, who's known for his use of extended techniques in both composed and improvised music.

Rounding out the 2011-12 schedule will be a concert of original chamber music by Frank Stemper, who's a professor and composer in residence at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and another "NMC Showcase," a multi-artist concert featuring new work from several different local musicians and ensembles.

Assuming they're able to pull it all off, this would be a very impressive season, balancing improvised music and free jazz, intermedia performances, and contemporary composed music. When NMC releases final information on their 2011-12 schedule, venues and ticket prices, we'll have it all for you right here.

(Edited 5/19/11 to fix a couple of typos.)