Sunday Session: July 21, 2019

Shabaka Hutchings

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

* Nile Rodgers: ‘I’d always talk about strange jazz with David Bowie’ (The Guardian)
* Bromberg violin collection to be broken up after Library of Congress deal falls through (Wilmington News Journal)
* Talking More Music with George Benson (Jazz Times)
* Paul McCartney Brings Ringo Starr to the Stage for End-of-Tour Surprise (Variety)
* Space Is Still the Place for Marshall Allen and the Sun Ra Arkestra (PopMatters.com)
* Capturing The Undersung Blues People Of The Rural South (NPR)
* John Patitucci’s Soulful Bass (Jazz Times)
* Steve Turre joins the stellar Armstrong Summer Camp faculty to celebrate its 25th Anniversary (Louisiana Weekly)
* What every songwriter and publisher needs to know about the Music Modernization Act (TheFader.com)
* Chick Corea Looks Back on His Long History With Latin Jazz (Billboard)
* Damon Locks: In the Style of Mavericks (DownBeat)
* From Concert Halls to the Streets at The Copenhagen Jazz Festival (DownBeat)
* Ornette Coleman and the Emancipation of the Individual (Sound American)
* Jazz, Zen, and Hip-Hop: The 2019 Montreal Jazz Festival (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Billy Lester, an Insightful Jazz Pianist Hiding in Plain Sight, Finally Has His Moment to Shine (WBGO)
* Pianist Bobo Stenson Discusses Solo Work and Freedom in European Jazz (DownBeat)
* For Julian Lage, Love Hurts and Music Heals (Jazz Times)
* Thirty Years Ago, Ronald Langestraat Took Jazz to Outer Space (Bandcamp.com)
* The Murky Ethics of Posthumous Music (The Atlantic)
* As Exclusivity Takes Charge, How Will Music Streaming Change? (Hypebot.com)
* 'An Endless Fiasco': Indie Retailers Describe Worsening Breakdown in Getting CDs, Vinyl Delivered to Record Stores (Billboard)
* David Crosby Celebrates His Ornery Self in the Documentary “Remember My Name” (The New Yorker)
* Get To Know Shabaka Hutchings, The Nipsey Hussle-Inspired British Jazz Maestro (Complex.com)
* Paul McCartney Has Been Secretly Writing an ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ Musical (Variety)
* Faith Winthrop, jazz singer who founded Glide community choir, dies at 87 (San Francisco Chronicle)
* Five Things You Should Know About Mary Halvorson (SFJAZZ.org)
* An Essential Guide to Brian Eno: "Ignorable as It Is Interesting" (Exclaim.ca)
* In First For Berklee, Students Join The Circus (Sort Of) To Make Music Fit For Clowns (WBUR)
* Ron Carter, Beatniks and Corrective History (DownBeat)
* Roger and Brian Eno, and Daniel Lanois Expand ‘Apollo’ Soundtrack for Moon-Landing Anniversary (DownBeat)
* Jazz Generated by a Neural Network Is Absolutely Terrifying (Futurism.com)
* On And On And On: A Guide to Generative Electronic Music (Bandcamp.com)
* Alan Lomax and the Search for the Origins of Music (TabletMag.com)
* Do You Know Randy Weston? (MusicAficionado.com)

Jazz this week: Donny McCaslin; Lea Bertucci & Sarah Davachi; Brian Blade & John Patitucci in "Winter Jazz Festival"; and more

Though the weather forecast for this weekend is looking a bit dicey, the calendar of upcoming live jazz and creative music performances in St. Louis provides a number of good reasons to get out of the house, including the return engagement of a top tenor saxophonist; a double-bill of experimental composer-performers making their local debuts; and a benefit event featuring a stellar lineup of touring and local musicians.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, January 16
Saxophonist Donny McCaslin returns for the first of five nights of performances continuing through Sunday at Jazz St. Louis.

McCaslin (pictured, top left) in October released his latest album Blow, which features the same band he led  accompanying David Bowie on Bowie's final album Blackstar, plus guest vocalists.

The recording has earned generally positive reviews, with Rolling Stone's Hank Steamer praising the band's choice to "step boldly into hybrid, tough-to-classify musical terrain, grafting their trademark sleek, emotive electrojazz onto lush, proggy art rock."

Though McCaslin will have a different lineup of musicians in St. Louis,  it seems likely that he'll include at least some of the material from Blow in his sets here, which should provide some interesting opportunities for contrast with the recorded versions of those tunes.

Also on Wednesday, pianist Jim Hegarty leads a trio at Evangeline's, and this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features multi-instrumentalist TJ Muller and friends at The Stage at KDHX, the weekly jam session led by bassist Bob DeBoo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor and his band at The Dark Room.

Thursday, January 17
Saxophonist Tim Cunningham brings his smooth jazz and R&B sounds to The Laugh Lounge STL, and guitarist Vincent Varvel leads a trio at The Dark Room.

Friday, January 18
Singer Erin Bode performs for the first of two nights at the Emerald Room at The Monocle; trumpeter Keith Moyer leads a quartet at Evangeline's; and the Second Generation Swing Band plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, 
January 19
New Music Circle presents electronic musician and composer Sarah Davachi and saxophonist and composer Lea Bertucci (pictured, bottom left) performing in separate sets at Link Auction Galleries in the Central West End.

Also on Saturday, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade headline the "Winter Jazz Festival" at the Grandel Theatre. The event also will feature performances by Bach to the Future, violinist Tracy Silverman, guitarist Dave Black, keyboardists Jay Oliver, Mo Egeston, and Ptah Williams,  drummer Lucrezio de Seta, and multi-instrumentalist William Lenihan, with proceeds benefiting the Dillon International adoption agency.

Sunday, January 20
Singer and guitarist Tommy Halloran plays for brunch at The Dark Room, and the St. Louis Jazz Club presents Annie and the Fur Trappers in a matinee performance at the Moolah Shrine Center.

Monday, January 21
Guitarist Tom Byrne leads a quartet in a concert at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium.

Tuesday, January 22
Singer and bassist Janet Evra will play a "Notes From Home" concert at The Sheldon.

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: June 12, 2016

Kidd Jordan

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

* Rhino to Release Coltrane “Atlantic Years - In Mono” Box - Set includes “Giant Steps,” “The Avant-Garde” and other classic LPs (Jazz Times)
* Prince: death by ignorance and fear (Boing Boing)
* What It’s Like to Be a Children’s Rap Lyricist (The Atlantic)
* Music curation and playlists: the new music battleground (#midem) (Musically.com)
* These Three Music Startups Just Won Big In Cannes (Forbes)
* Corea To Play 80 Shows at Blue Note During Historic Residency (DownBeat)
* This Is What Synths Made of Repurposed Telephone Switchboards Sound Like (Vice.com)
* Google's art machine just wrote its first song (TheVerge.com)
* Court Declares Remastered Old Songs Get Brand New Copyright (HypeBot.com)
* Sound Salvation - Spinning the tales and tracks of a college radio DJ (TheSmartSet.com)
* How to Buy a Hit Song In 24 Hours or Less (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Rocking out to ‘Heavy Metal Parking Lot’ with one of the men who made it (Washington Post)
* Do Musicians Get Better With Age? (BBC)
* Saxophonist Kidd Jordan plays free jazz rooted in tradition (Boston Globe)
* Lovano Salutes Lundvall, Hank Jones on 25th Blue Note Disc (DownBeat)
* Cool Papa - Paul Simon’s musical afterlives (The New Yorker)
* Old Locks and Irregular Pounds - Henry Threadgill’s improvisations are adventurous, though never at the expense of human feeling (The Nation)
* Live Review: Creative Risks Pay Off at Healdsburg’s Billy Hart Tribute (KQED)
* Little Richard mono vinyl box set set for release (LiveForVinyl.net)
* An Underrated Soul Singer Returns (The New Yorker)
* A California club bans DJs who use laptops … but why? (The Guardian UK)
* Canada Tempest: Debating Critic’s Role In Our Time (Classical Voice America)
* Dr. John, Krall & Other Stars To Honor LiPuma at Tri-C Jazz Fest (DownBeat)
* Mapping Coltrane's Life (RamseyCastaneda.com)
* Is Caroline Shaw really the future of music? (The Guardian UK)
* The Museum Of Psychphonics opens in Indianapolis (Wire)
* Is the Era of Free Streaming Music Coming to an End? (Pitchfork.com)
* Distributor Allegro Closes, Leaving 100s Of Indie Labels In Limbo (HypeBot.com)
* These Charts Show How Drastically Pop Has Changed Over the Past 50 Years (Mic.com)
* Airport Security Damaged John Patitucci’s Bass (TheJazzline.com)

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.)

Notes from the Net: Lester Bowie reissued; Jimmy Cobb's So What band reviewed; 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 we usually do, with a couple of items about Miles Davis, it seems that Kind of Blue drummer Jimmy Cobb's So What band played last week at the Gem Theater in Kansas City, and the show was reviewed for the Kansas City Star by Bill "Plastic Sax" Brownlee here, for Pitch Weekly by Jason Harper here, and by local music blogger Joel Francis here.

In other Davis-related news, Monster, the company that makes premium-priced audio cables and similar products, is coming out with Miles Davis special edition headphones. The 'phones, which feature a silhouetted image of the trumpeter, have a "pre-sale price" of $399 (!) and go on sale in November.

* Turning to news of other St. Louis natives and former denizens, the late trumpeter Lester Bowie's first recordings as a leader, made in 1967 for the Nessa label, have been reissued on a two-CD set. All The Numbers: Complete Numbers 1 & 2 Sessions features Bowie, saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, and bassist Malachi Favors in the first documentation of what would soon become the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and includes everything from the original LP plus much previously unreleased material and outtakes.

* Baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett performed with percussionist Kahil El’Zabar last weekend at Sista’s Place in Brooklyn, NY.

* Meanwhile, multi-instrumentalist Marty Ehrlich's Rites Quartet with James Zollar on trumpet, Erik Friedlander on cello and Pheeroan akLaff on drums, just played a concert at NYC's Miller Theater.

* And way out West, we learn via LeRoy "The JazzCat" Downs that saxophonist Eric Person and Meta Four West just performed this past weekend at Santa Monica College.

* Saxophonist David Sanborn will be featured in January by the jazz series at the South Orange Performing Arts Center in New Jersey. Sanborn just wrapped a four-night stand at Yoshi’s Jazz Club in San Francisco.

* Saxophonist Greg Osby (pictured) will lead a group of Berklee College of Music students on Monday for a gig in NYC at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola as part of the Lincoln Center Upstarts! program, where up-and-comers and veteran musicians jam together on one bandstand. Osby also is blogging now for the Web site Indaba Music, and his recent entry on the sartorial choices and mistakes of jazz musicians has attracted some attention and sparked some conversations among musicians and fans.

* Here's a review of saxophonist John Zorn's new Masada CD, which feature tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano.

* Electronic/experimental/noise composer and former St. Louisan Andy Ortmann is now doing a podcast called "The Eternal Now" for NYC's eclectic public radio station WFMU. Get more info, subscribe to the podcast feed, or listen online here.

* Opening up the "recent visitors" file, tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins and his band will perform a special benefit concert for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater in December at the Tarrytown Music Hall in Tarrytown, NY. Rollins played here last month at the Touhill Performing Arts Center under the auspices of Jazz St. Louis.

* New photos from DowntownMusic.net include shots of a recent concert by Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core at NYC's Roulette. The pics were taken just four days after their St. Louis performance, presented by New Music Circle at the Sheldon Concert Hall. And here's a review of Och's show, written for AllAboutJazz.com by Martin Longley and bundled with three other live reviews, including one of a Kenny Garrett set two weeks ago at NYC's Iridium. Garrett was in St. Louis this weekend to play at Jazz at the Bistro.

*Singer DeeDee Bridgewater, who also was here earlier this month at the Sheldon Concert Hall, is in Shanghai, China to perform with an international big band

* Catching up with the "coming attractions" file: From the Huffington Post, here's an interview with Nellie McKay about her new CD, which is a tribute to singer and actress Doris Day. McKay will be St. Louis on November 18 and 19 to perform for Cabaret St. Louis at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

* Here's a review by the New York Times' Stephen Holden of the new duet show featuring singer/guitarist John Pizzarelli and his wife, singer Jessica Molaskey, at the Carlyle in NYC. Pizzarelli will be back in St. Louis in April to play at the Bistro.

* Also from the NYT, here's a feature story about bassist John Patitucci, who will follow Pizzarelli at the Bistro next spring.

*Singer Kurt Elling and pianist Bill Charlap were among the musicians featured on the recent 30th anniversary celebration of NPR's "Piano Jazz" program, hosted by Marian McPartland. Elling will be in St. Louis the first week in December to perform at Jazz at the Bistro, while Charlap comes to town the following week for four nights at the Kranzberg backing singer Sandy Stewart (who's also his mom).

* Our fave avant-jazz blog Destination: Out just featured a guest post from pianist Vijay Iyer with two tracks from his new CD. Iyer also recently performed live on the radio program "Studio Session," broadcast by WBGO radio in Newark NJ and available online here. And here's a review of Iyer's latest CD from Music and More's Tim Niland. Iyer will be here in January to play at the Bistro.

* In an interesting little review/essay, Popmatters' Will Layman muses about virtuosity in jazz as it applies to saxophonists Chris Potter and James Carter. Carter returns to St. Louis in May, bringing his organ trio to Jazz at the Bistro.

* Singer/pianist John Proulx, who has a new CD on the St. Louis-based MAXJAZZ label, just kicked off a new "After Hours" series at Feinstein's at Loews Regeny is NYC. performance Sunday, October 18 at 10:00PM. Meanwhile, another MAXJAZZ artist, singer and pianist Dena DeRose, was among the performers at the just-concluded Seasons Festival in Seattle.

*And finally, last week's "Hearing Voices" program on NPR featured excerpts from “The Bushy Wushy Rag,” a new composition by Phillip Kent Bimstein that combines sounds from a St. Louis Cardinals’ baseball game, motifs from Scott Joplin’s "Maple Leaf Rag," and the distinctive calls of veteran Busch Stadium beer vendor Robert Logan, a.k.a. "Bushy Wushy the Beer Man." Bimstein's piece was performed by the Equinox Chamber Players, who premiered the work here in St. Louis. Although "Hearing Voices" isn't broadcast over the air here - it runs on KWMU-2, a digital subchannel of the local NPR affiliate - you can hear the broadcast with "The Bushy Wushy Rag" online at the program's Web site.

(Updated on 10/26/09 to correct the price of the Miles Davis headphones.)

Notes from the Net: A Miles Davis mega-set; Jimmy Forrest remembered; 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.

What with the time demands of the recent site re-design, keeping up with breaking news, and doing some actual paying work in there somewhere, it's been nearly three weeks since our last installment of NftN, and in that time a bunch of Miles Davis-related links have piled up, so let's start there:

* The 50th anniversary of Kind of Blue continues to inspire all sorts of essays, retrospectives and critical assessments. Recent examples include this essay on how KoB shaped 50 years of music, written by John Fordham of the UK newspaper the Guardian; and The Blue Moment: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music, a new book written by Richard Williams and published by Faber & Faber, reviewed here by Sholto Byrnes for the New Statesman. Byrnes' bottom line: "Williams makes an elegant and expansive argument for an album that I, for one, could not bear to be parted from and have returned to frequently in the 20 or so years since I first heard it. Make way on the shelf; this latest book on jazz's great "Prince of Darkness" has earned its place."

In other Davis-related news, the Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble did a tribute to Davis' Birth of the Cool last month at Lucid Lounge; The Bad Plus' Ethan Iverson examined the influence of saxophonist Lester Young on Davis as part of a 10-part series of posts on the band's blog marking the 100th anniversary of Young's birth; and Blogcritics.com has another review - this one penned by a writer identified only as "The Other Chad" - of the recent reissue of Davis' 1950s sessions with Sonny Rollins.

And while we're on the subject of Miles Davis reissues: Sony is releasing a gigantic boxed set of CDs of all the music the trumpeter recorded for his longtime label Columbia Records. The 71-disc(!) set is called Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection and will be released on November 10. It includes all 52 albums Davis recorded for Columbia, which fill a total of 70 CDs, plus a DVD called Live in Europe that is being released for the first time. The CDs will come packaged in miniature reproductions of LP sleeves, and the set includes a 250-page book about Davis. The price: $369.68, or about $5 a disc, and available exclusively available through Amazon.com.

And speaking of Columbia Records, Rolling Stone has photos of Davis along with shots of the label's various rock stars in a spread commemorating the work of longtime Columbia Records photographer Don Hunstein.

Lastly from the Davis files: Kind of Bloop, the recent tribute to Kind of Blue done in the "8-bit" style of electronic music, has apparently found its way into the mainstream, as indicated by this short piece from that perennial bastion of conventional thinking, Time magazine.

* Turning to news of other former St. Louisans, the late saxophonist Julius Hemphill was featured in a recent post on NPR's A Blog Supreme.

* Pianist and St. Louisan-turned-New Orleans resident Tom McDermott, who was touring out west this summer, was featured in the local paper before a show in Casper, Wyoming.

* Arranger Roy Phillipe told JazzWax's Marc Myers a story about saxophonist Jimmy Forrest (pictured) - St. Louis native, big band veteran and composer of "Night Train" - and his tenure with the great bandleader and pianist Count Basie.

* Here's a review of The Crucible, the new CD from saxophonist John Zorn's ensemble Moonchild, written for AllAboutJazz.com by Mark Corroto.

* Turning to news of coming attractions, saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who will be in St. Louis next Saturday for a concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center, turns 79 today, and is duly celebrated by Rifftides' Doug Ramsey.

* Here's a long feature about bassist John Patitucci's new CD Remembrance, written for AllAboutJazz.com by R.J. DeLuke. Patitucci was here last fall for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Guitar Festival, and will be back in St. Louis next April to play at Jazz at the Bistro.

*And here's a review of saxophonist James Carter's new CD Heaven on Earth, written by the prolific Tim Niland for his blog Jazz and Blues Reviews. Carter's new disc is an electrified set, with guests including John Medeski on organ and Christian McBride on bass. Both McBride and Carter will play the Bistro this season - the former in November, the latter in May.

* While we're on the subject of the Bistro, a recording of one of guitarist Charlie Hunter's sets there in January has made its way to archive.org in high-quality FLAC format.

* Finally, by way of following up on a couple of stories covered before in this space, Broadway producer Rocco Landesman - nephew of Fran and Jay Landesman, who ran the famed Crystal Palace nightclub in St. Louis' Gaslight Square district - has taken over as the new head of the National Endowment for the Arts. The extroverted and sometimes controversial Landesman promises to push for more funding for the NEA, and wants to restore the agency's program of grants for individual artists, which was shut down in the early 1990s after censorious types raised alarms over NEA funding of certain artists and institutions who presented works containing sexual, political and/or religious themes and imagery.

* The latest iteration of the "Can jazz be saved?" debate (covered previously here, here, and here) continues, with some interesting comments from listeners of public radio station WNYC here; a thoughtful manifesto from trumpeter Dave Douglas here, and an update from journalist Howard Mandel on the #jazzlives Twitter campaign here.

(Edited 9/11/09 to replace linked photo with one stored on Blogger.)

Notes from the Net: A tribute to Miles Davis and Gil Evans; new CDs from Terence Blanchard and John Patitucci; plus news, reviews, interviews & 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:

* A group including former Miles Davis drummer Jimmy Cobb, Gil Evans' son Miles Evans, Christian McBride, Terence Blanchard, Nicholas Payton, Howard Johnson and Peter Erskine recently gathered at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles for "Miles Davis/Gil Evans: Still Ahead" a concert paying tribute to Davis' and Evans' collaboration on the albums Sketches of Spain, Miles Ahead and Porgy and Bess. Here are reviews of the show from Variety and the Los Angeles Times

For more Davis-related reviews, see this piece from AllAboutJazz.com's John Kelman on the recently issued DVD That's What Happened: Miles in Germany 1987, and this post from Rifftides' Doug Ramsey reviewing new CDs, including the recent reissue compilation of Davis' and Sonny Rollins' 1950s sessions.

And, via The Miles Davis Movie, we learn that actor Don Cheadle said during a recent press appearance at ComicCon in San Diego that he still hopes to do the proposed Hollywood biopic of Davis.

* The group Trio 3, which includes saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake, this year has issued two CDs , At This Time and Berne Concert; you can read a new review of both albums, written by Clifford Allen for AllAboutJazz.com, here.

* Saxophonist/composer (and onetime Webster U. student) John Zorn's Tzadik label has several new releases this month, including one by Zorn himself called O'o.

* Trumpeter Terence Blanchard, who was in St. Louis in May to play at Jazz at the Bistro, has signed with Concord Jazz and is releasing a new CD, Choices

* Bassist John Patitucci (pictured) who will play the Bistro next spring, also has released a new CD on Concord. You can read a review of Patitucci's Remembrance from the UK Independent here, and hear audio streams of sample tracks here and here.

* Bassist Christian McBride, who's also coming to the Bistro for a four-night run in November, recently was interviewed on The Jazz Session podcast. Rifftides' Ramsey also has a take on McBride's new CD Kind of Brown here.

* The Bad Plus' pianist Ethan Iverson and basssit Reid Anderson recently teamed with avant-bop drummer Paul Motian for some dates at NYC's Village Vanguard, reviewed by the New York Times' Nate Chinen here. The Bad Plus will return to St. Louis in January to play at Jazz at the Bistro.

*Lastly, the Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout has gotten some attention in the jazz blogosphere and elsewhere for a recent article entitled "Can Jazz Be Saved?" that draws some gloomy conclusions based on the National Endowment for the Arts’ latest Survey of ­Public Participation in the Arts. Fortunately, in an entry on his Jazz Beyond Jazz blog, the ever wise Howard Mandel already has refuted most of the rather tired arguments contained in the piece, noting that critics have been trying to write obituaries for jazz for at least 60 years now.

What struck me about Teachout's article is that he just now seems to be noticing that much ongoing jazz activity has moved from the commercial sphere associated with popular music into the not-for-profit world of concert halls, universities, and arts presenters, a trend that's been ongoing for decades. His principal prescription - that jazz musicians need to embrace the Internet and new media to build a new, younger audience - isn't particularly original either, although he's not wrong about it. All in all, I'd say Teachout's article seems notable more for simply having appeared in a high-profile media outlet than for the quality of the thinking and/or argument contained therein.

(Edited after posting to correct a typo and revise a reference to AllAboutJazz.com.)

Guitar Festival reviewed in Post-Dispatch

St. Louis Post-Dispatch classical music critic Sarah Bryan Miller attended three of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Guitar Festival performances this past week, and wrote a review of the three programs for Sunday's paper. You can find it online here.

SLSO Guitar Festival previewed in Post-Dispatch

The Sunday edition of the Post-Dispatch has an article by classical music critic Sarah Bryan Miller previewing the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Guitar Festival, which will take place this week at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, The Pageant, and Powell Symphony Hall. The five concerts will include performances of music by Pat Metheny, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix and Edgard Varese, as well as "Hallucination City," a Glenn Branca piece scored for 100 electric guitars, and orchestral fare including two American premieres of new symphonic works and Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring."

Guest performers will include guitarist Jason Vieaux, who will perform the Metheny pieces and other works at the Pulitzer; composer/guitarist Steven Mackey, whose composition "Beautiful Passing" will be performed by the SLSO at Powell Hall; and famed jazz bassist John Patitiucci (pictured), who, for some odd reason, isn't mentioned at all in Miller's article despite being probably the best known (to the non-classical-music-listening public, anyway) of the guest performers. You can read Miller's piece online here.

Tickets for SLSO Guitar Festival concert at The Pageant on sale this Friday

Tickets for what promises to be the most intriguing program of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's 2008 Guitar Festival will go on sale at 5:00 p.m. this Friday, September 12.

The concert is scheduled for Thursday, November 13 at The Pageant, and will feature John Patitucci, known as one of the top bassists in jazz for his work with Chick Corea and other prominent musicians, and guitarist/composer Steven Mackey. Joined by members of the SLSO, they'll perform a program that will include Edgard Varese's "Arcana" and Frank Zappa's "G-Spot Tornado," with 98 more local guitarists pitching in for a rendition of a Glenn Branca symphony scored for 100 electric guitars. Tickets for the November 13 concert at The Pageant can be purchased online via Ticketmaster and in person at The Pageant Box Office and at all Ticketmaster outlets.

The SLSO's Guitar Festival will open with two chamber music concerts featuring Mackey and guitarist Jason Vieaux on Tuesday, November 11 and Wednesday, November 12 at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, 3716 Washington Blvd. The program and the on-sale date for tickets to these two concerts are yet to be announced.

The festival will conclude on Friday, November 14 and Saturday, November 15, with Patitucci performing with the Symphony in a program at Powell Hall that will include Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and a new violin concerto composed by Mackey. Tickets for those two concerts are on sale now via the Powell Symphony Hall box office, with tickets for Friday's performance available here, and for Saturday's concert here.

John Patitucci to perform at SLSO Guitar Festival in November

John Patitucci, known for his virtuoso work on electric and acoustic bass with Chick Corea, Dave Weckl and many other jazz artists, will be one of the guest stars at the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Guitar Festival, which will be held November 13 though November 15 at venues including the Pageant and Powell Symphony Hall.

The Pageant show on Thursday, November 13 will feature music written by Frank Zappa and Edgard Varese as well as Glenn Branca's symphony for 100 electric guitars as performed by Pattiucci, Steven Mackey and 98 local St. Louis guitarists yet to be named. Composer/guitarist Mackey then will team with guitarist Jason Vieaux for a chamber music concert at a venue to be named later, and the festival will conclude with orchestra concerts Friday, November 14 and Saturday, November 15 at Powell Hall featuring Patitucci as guest soloist.

Post-Dispatch classical music critic Sarah Bryan Miller has written an overview of the SLSO's 2008-09 season that's available online here. The Post's package also has a schedule of all the events in the SLSO's various series, and a list of works to be performed next year, ordered by name of the composer.

Although Miller's article says the SLSO next year will lean a bit more on some of the classical warhorses, the orchestra also will be performing music from living composers such as John Adams, Thomas Ades and Kaija Saariaho. The schedule also features works from 20th century composers such as Bartok, Debussy, and Stravinsky, who have been cited as important influences by jazz musicians ranging from Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker to Dave Brubeck and Cecil Taylor. In addition, the SLSO's series of concerts at the Touhill Performing Arts Center will include a Percussion Festival on Sunday, November 23, that seems likely to incorporate some more adventurous and/or contemporary works.