StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The BAG legacy, part 4

This week continues our look at music made by former members of St. Louis' Black Artists Group, which existed for a relatively brief time in the late 60s and early 70s and helped launch the careers of a number of successful creative musicians.

You can see part one of the series, which includes some links to background information about the group here, part two here, and part three here.

This week's installment features music from trombonist Joseph Bowie and saxophonist/flutist Luther Thomas, whose respective careers share a few important characteristics.

Bowie and Thomas were two of the youngest musicians affiliated with BAG, both still teenagers when the group was founded. Both wound up in New York City at the turn of the 1980s and got some notice for their involvement in the downtown scene mixing free jazz, funk and punk rock. Both subsequently expatriated to Europe, and stayed there. And both have made music that exhibits one of the distinctive features of St. Louis creative musicians: the mixing of free improvisation with rhythms and motifs from blues, funk, and other popular genres.

In addition to playing jazz and improvised music, a number of the BAG musicians also did casual gigs with bluesmen like Albert King and Little Milton, and the influence of that music shows up in various ways in their individual catalogs. For example, Joseph Bowie in the late 70s formed the band Defunkt, featuring raucous, sometimes free-form soloing over often-frantic funk beats, and it has remained one his main musical vehicles ever since.

You can get a good sampling of Defunkt's sound in the first video up above, a full show recorded in 1981 at the Metropol in Berlin, Germany for the TV program Rockpalast. In addition to Bowie on trombone and vocals, this version of Defunkt featured two more St. Louisans, guitarists Richard Martin and Kelvyn Bell, plus Bowie's longtime associates Kim Clarke on bass and John Mulkerin on trumpet, and drummer Kenneth Joseph Martin.

Defunkt also references tradition in other ways, as demonstrated in the video after the jump, which features their version of Charlie Parker's "Au Privave" as recorded in 2017 in Leverkusen, Germany by Bowie, Mulkerin, Bell, Clarke, and drummer Garry "G-Man" Sullivan.

Bowie also has "up-sized" a number of Defunkt songs, creating expanded arrangements for a project called Big Band Funk. You can see and hear what that sounds like in the third video, an absolutely bonkers (in a good way) version of one of Defunkt's signature songs, "Make Them Dance," that was recorded in 2008 with a group of student musicians called the Barbary Coast Ensemble at Dartmouth College.

Bowie is still living in Europe, still releasing new music, and, until the recent shutdown of live music around the world, playing gigs. Sadly, the same can't be said for Luther Thomas, who passed away in 2009 when he was just 59 years old.

While none of his projects ever got quite as much worldwide attention as Defunkt, he seems to have worked regularly while living in Denmark and over the course of his career released a number of albums, at least one of which, 1977's Funky Donkey, is considered an underappreciated classic and was reissued in 2006.

While there's much less video documentation of Luther Thomas available online, before he passed, he did set up a YouTube channel, on which he posted the next clip, a short excerpt of a performance by his Dizzazz Quartet that he described thusly: "This is MY personal blend and what TRULY think that I sound like: an OliverLake LesterBowie Dolemite NiggahsWithAnAttitude LesterYoung SunRa TyroneDavis MartinLutherKing RoscoeMitchell & PTBarnum COCKTAIL, mixed and blended ON the SPOT."

That's followed by an excerpt from a show at the 2008 Copenhagen Jazz Fest by Thomas' QuartetDK, with Nils Davidsen on bass, Jeppe Gram on drums and Mikkel Mark on piano. The final video also is from the 2008 Copenhagen Jazz Festival, and features Thomas mixing it up with guitarist Eugene Chadbourne, Davidsen and drummer Kresten Osgood.

It looks as if might be enough remaining BAG-related video material for one more post in this series next week, but if not...well, you'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, you can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Trombonist, bandleader and St. Louis native Joseph Bowie (pictured) was interviewed at length by PopMatters.com.

* Dave Weckl was one of six well-known drummers who participated this week in a free online master class in brush technique presented by drumstick and accessories maker Vic Firth.

* Trumpeter Keyon Harrold was the subject of a feature on the website of Thomas Mason, a UK-based maker of fabrics for men's clothing.

* Harrold also was interviewed on this Wednesday's episode of the podcast "The John Roa Show: Leading from Home."

* Washington University School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic and the ACLU of Missouri have filed a lawsuit against University City arguing that the city has routinely and unconstitutionally suppressed the public performance of music in the Loop.

Guitarist Raymond Douglas and saxophonist "Raven Wolf" C. Felton Jennings II, who both have had issues with police while busking in the Loop area, are the plaintiffs in the suit, which was filed Tuesday, April 28 in the US District Court Eastern District, Eastern Division.

* Eight deluxe multi-CD box sets known as "The Miles Davis Series" now are available again in limited quantities from the official Miles Davis Store. Originally released on Columbia/Legacy between 1996 and 2007, the volumes explore various phases of Davis' music from 1955 to 1975, ranging from from his Columbia recordings with saxophonist John Coltrane to the complete sessions for On The Corner.

* Singer Joe Mancuso was the featured guest on this week's episode of Shock City School of Music's "Coffee Conversations" podcast.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The BAG legacy, part one

For the next couple of weeks, let's revisit part of St. Louis creative music history by looking at some videos featuring musicians who were part of the Black Artists Group, a multi-arts collective that produced music, poetry, dance, theater and visual arts here from 1968 to 1972.

Partly inspired by and operating similarly to Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), BAG helped launch the careers of a number of notable musicians, including saxophonists Hamiet Bluiett, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and J.D. Parran; trumpeters Baikida Carroll and Floyd LeFlore, trombonist Joseph Bowie, drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw, and more.

At its peak, the group was getting funding from organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Danforth Foundation to present performances and educational programs in local schools, as well as from their headquarters at 2665 Washington Blvd in what's now the Grand Center district.

By 1972, much of that funding had dried up, and most of the BAG musicians moved on, some heading to Europe and subsequently to New York City, where a number of them would play significant roles in the "loft jazz" scene of the 1970s.

Though not much documentation survives of what BAG did during its busiest years, there was one "official" album credited to the group, In Paris, Aries 1973, which, as the title implies, was recorded in Europe while a number of the musicians were living there as expatriates.

The first video up above, also recorded in 1973 in Paris, is part of what seems to be the only footage available online of an ensemble billed as the Black Artists Group, in this case including Lake, Carroll, Bowie, guitarist Jimmy Jones, and drummer Donald Robinson. The performance continues after the jump in today's second video.

Even though BAG may have been relatively short-lived, its influence continued to be felt through the continuing careers of the musicians who were part of it. One of the most significant groups to emerge after BAG was the World Saxophone Quartet, formed in 1977 by Lake, Bluiett, Hemphill, and saxophonist David Murray.

Their innovations, combining free jazz with arranged material in a band without a traditional rhythm section, proved to be both artistically influential and relatively popular by the non-commercial standards of creative music.

You can see and hear the WSQ's original lineup in the third video, recorded in 1987 at JazzFest Berlin in Germany and featuring material from their 1986 album Plays Duke Ellington.

Around that same time, Bluiett pursued a somewhat-similar concept with his band Clarinet Family, bringing together a half-dozen clarinetists including fellow St. Louisan and ex-BAG member J.D. Parran for a 1984 recording on the Black Saint label and live performances including the fourth video, a full set of music recorded in November 1984, also in Berlin.

The fifth video is an interview of Lake and Bluiett, recorded in March 2014, and the final clip is an interview with Bluiett alone, recorded in 2016 under the auspices of instrument makers P Mauriat North America.

While these clips just begin to scratch the surface, the history of the Black Artists Group was documented extensively in the 2004 book BAG: Point from which creation begins: the Black Artists' Group of St. Louis, written by Benjamin Looker, then a graduate of Washington University working on a master's at Yale, now an associate professor of American Studies at St. Louis University.

You can listen to interviews with Looker, Parran and another former BAG member, playwright and poet Malinke Elliott, in a 2006 episode of St. Louis Public Radio's "St. Louis History in Black and White" podcast. In February of that same year, several ex-members of BAG and Looker also took part in a symposium at Washington University exploring BAG's history and legacy.

Lake spoke about his experiences with BAG in a 2017 interview with Bandcamp Daily, and also was interviewed briefly by Psychedelic Baby magazine in 2018 when In Paris, Aries 1973 got a limited-edition reissue from Aguirre Records.

There's also a documentary film about BAG that's been in production for several years, with a trailer here and a Facebook page, though there's still no word about when the film might be released.

Next week, we'll take a look at some more music from Oliver Lake and Hamiet Bluiett, as well as videos featuring other former members of the Black Artists Group. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Trumpeter Keyon Harrold appears on the cover of the latest issue of Jazziz magazine (pictured), and was interviewed by journalist Ted Pankin for the magazine's cover story.

* Trombonist Joe Bowie's band Defunkt has released a new album, The Cleansing, recorded live last year in Europe.

The recording features Bowie, guitarist and fellow St. Louis native Kelvyn Bell, bassist Kim Clarke, and trumpeter John Mulkerin from the band's classic lineup, plus drummer Gary "GMan" Sullivan, and can be downloaded from the Defunkt Bandcamp page.

* Message to Our Folks, bassist Paul Steinbeck's history of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, was named a "Notable Book of 2017" by the Seminary Co-op bookstore in Chicago.

* A brief article in the latest Alive magazine looks at "A Night Out at Jazz St. Louis."

* As recounted in an article in Jazz Times, the compositions of the late saxophonist and St. Louis native Oliver Nelson are featured in a new album by trumpeter and arranger John Vanore.

* In a new post on his blog, saxophonist Greg Osby responds to a story published in November by the Boston Globe alleging misconduct by former faculty members at the Berklee College of Music.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Just in time for what will be a long holiday weekend for some, the recently released film Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary is getting a St. Louis run starting today and continuing through Thursday, July 6 at the Tivoli Theatre.

* Trumpeter Kelan Phil Cohran, an influential player, bandleader and educator in Chicago for more than six decades, has died at age 90. Though Cohran is best known for his work in the Chicago avant-garde scene and for playing with Sun Ra, he also had a St. Louis connection.

According to his obituary in the Chicago Tribune (linked above), Cohran moved to St. Louis with his family from Oxford, MS "when he was about 10, immersing himself in the city's robust jazz scene and playing alongside trumpeter Clark Terry in the late 1940s" and lived here until he was drafted into the military in 1950.

* Multi-instrumentalist Lamar Harris has posted a recording of "Harvest For The World," as performed last week during his Isley Brothers-themed shows at Jazz at the Bistro, to his SoundCloud page

* The Gaslight Squares have made a music video of "Nicklin' & Dimin'" as part of producer/director Bill Streeter's Lo-Fi St. Louis series.

* Speaking of videos, pianists Peter Martin and Adam Maness made one this week recorded live on Facebook to talk about their Open Studio Network's new "Elements of Jazz Piano" online video course.

* Completing today's video troika, guitarist Todd Mosby has posted a video of his composition "Moon Song" on YouTube.

* Trombonist Joseph Bowie has just released a new duet album with percussionist Adam Rudolph. Good Medicine by IG-BO Duet: Joseph Bowie & Adam Rudolph is available now as a digital download from Rudolph's BandCamp page and as a CD.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* A post at Marc Myers' JazzWax blog looks at how saxophonist and arranger Oliver Nelson wound up collaborating with Leo Gooden, owner of the Blue Note Club in East St. Louis, on the 1963 album Leo Sings With Strings.

* Jeff Schaefer (aka The Reapercussionist), the drum technician who hand-built the house kit now used at Jazz at the Bistro, was featured on KSDK's Show Me St. Louis.

* Speaking of KSDK, the station's longtime morning anchor and reporter Art Holliday was interviewed by Chris King of the St. Louis American about efforts to raise money for the music licensing needed to complete Holliday's long-awaited documentary film about the late pianist Johnnie Johnson.

* While they're in town to do a concert for New Music Circle on Friday, December 4, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and violinist Mark Feldman also will take part in a free, public performance and Q&A session at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 3 at Jackson Pianos, 4354 Olive St.

* The Vernacular String Trio's Alex Cunningham has posted to SoundCloud some audio from the group's set for the "3 Nights in September" festival at the Tavern of Fine Arts.

* The KDHX website has photos of saxophonist Eric Marienthal and Bach to the Future from last Saturday's benefit concert for Dillon International adoption agency.

* Turning to news of St. Louis expats, saxophonist Eric Person has posted to YouTube a video of a full set from his recent gig at the Blue Note in NYC.

* Singer Lynne Fiddmont (pictured) was interviewed on the web video series The Black & White Sessions.

* Trombonist and singer Joe Bowie has posted online the official video for "Voodoo Basics," a track from the new Defunkt album Mastervolt, which is currently available in Europe and will be released worldwide early next year.

* The Chicago Jazz Orchestra with guest soloists Wycliffe Gordon and Houston Person will pay tribute to the late trumpeter Clark Terry in a concert on Friday, December 18 at the Feinberg Theater in Chicago.

* Music for Lifelong Achievement (MFLA) and the Sheldon Concert Hall say that MFLA's recently concluded annual drive collected more than 50 used musical instruments, which will be refurbished as needed and then donated to local school and community music programs.

St. Louis area Starbucks stores served as collection points for the instrument drive, but MFLA also continues to accept donations of instruments and money year-round at the Sheldon and online at http://www.supportmfla.org/donations.php

* Two other programs working with local music students have launched online fundraising efforts via Gladitood.com: The North County Big Band, a group of students from several local school districts that rehearses and performs at The Sheldon; and Jazz St. Louis' "Jazz Academy," a new jazz education and training program developed specifically for middle school students in the Normandy, Riverview Gardens, and East St. Louis school districts.

* The Broadway Oyster Bar announced via Instagram that they've been named "Restaurant of the Year" by the Missouri Restaurant Association.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Trombonist, singer and St. Louis native Joseph Bowie (pictured) is the subject of In Groove We Trust: A Joe Bowie Experience, a 2014 documentary film that now can be streamed online.

The movie, produced by the Dutch public broadcasting system Boeddhistische Omroep, offers an intimate look at the Defunkt founder's life both on and off-stage, and includes some footage shot here in St. Louis as well as interviews with St. Louis musicians including Ronnie Burrage, Oliver Lake, Kelvyn Bell, and more.

* Trumpeter, St. Louis native, and former Jazz St. Louis student All-Star Joshua Williams and his band Shades of Jade are prepping a new album, Fingerprinted Memories Part 2, for release in the fall. The Kansas City based ensemble will drop an advance track, a jazz-infused R&B slow jam called "That One" featuring guest singer Derick Cunigan, on Thursday, August 20.

* Saxophonist David Sanborn's latest album Time and the River is on sale for a discounted price at Amazon from now until the end of the month.

* The Sheldon Concert Hall has posted on Facebook an album of photos from last Friday's tribute to the late pianist and St. Louis native Ray Kennedy.

* Trumpeter Andy Tichenor has landed a gig in the band for the national tour of the musical theater production of "Dirty Dancing." Tichenor will join the tour in Chicago after the end of the Muny season here in St. Louis. 

* St. Louis based sound and lighting contractor Logic Systems is in the running for two industry awards: Front of House Online's 2015 Hometown Hero Sound Company award, which allows for reader voting, and an ESPRIT Award from the International Special Event Society, the results of which will be announced on August 22.

* Jazz radio update: This Saturday on Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis, Calvin Wilson's program “Somethin’ Else,” will focus on jazz versions of soul and R&B songs such as "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" as performed by musicians including Joshua Redman, John Scofield and Marcus Miller. The program can be heard over the air on 107.3 FM, on HD radio at 96.3 HD-2, and online at http://www.rafstl.org/listen.

Then on Sunday night, Dennis Owsley's "Jazz Unlimited" program on KWMU/St. Louis Public Radio will be the second part of a special featuring music from the labels run by the late jazz impresario Norman Granz. You can listen in from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Sundays over the air at 90.7 FM and online at http://www.stlpublicradio.org/listen.php.

Black Artists Group video from 1973 performance in France now online

Today, let's wish a very happy birthday to trumpeter and St. Louis native Baikida Carroll, who was born on this day in 1947.

Carroll (pictured) first gained wide attention in the late 1960s as a member of St. Louis' Black Artists Group, and after the group's  members went their separate ways a few years later, continued to perform and record with Oliver Lake and other associated musicians.

He's made four albums as a leader - one per decade in the 1970s, 80s, 90s and 2000s - and also has recorded as a supporting musician with many well-known jazz and creative music performers, including Muhal Richard Abrams, Jack DeJohnette, John Carter, David Murray, Carla Bley, Sam Rivers, and more. Carroll also has composed scores for a number of theatrical productions and films, including the PBS American Playhouse production of Ntozake Shange's "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf."

To help celebrate Carroll's birthday, we've got some rarely seen footage of the Black Artists Group performing in 1973 in France, which was posted online just last week and came to StLJN's attention via the Twitter feed of trombonist Joseph Bowie, brother of Lester Bowie and also a BAG veteran.

The two clips, which together are slightly more than 26 minutes long, are from the last of 21 episodes of a 1973 French TV program, Jazz Harmonie. They feature a latter-day lineup of BAG musicians including Carroll, Bowie on trombone and percussion, saxophonist Oliver Lake, guitarist Jimmy Jones, and drummer Donald Robinson, performing three selections: "Suite," "Rhythm," and "Harlem Color."

(This is, so far as StLJN can determine, the only live performance footage available online of any of the BAG lineups or events from around that time, and as such, should be considered a rarity. We hope you enjoy!)

Remembering Lester Bowie

Today, we remember the great St. Louis trumpeter Lester Bowie, who was born October 11, 1941.

Though Bowie (pictured) actually was born in Maryland, he grew up in St. Louis as part of a family that included two brothers who also became professional musicians: Joseph Bowie, a trombonist and leader of the funk-jazz band Defunkt; and Byron Bowie, a saxophonist and arranger/composer.

After developing his trumpet chops playing blues gigs around St. Louis with singers including Albert King and Little Milton and jazz wherever and whenever he could, Lester Bowie moved to Chicago in 1965, where he became a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the group with whom he is most closely associated.

In addition to the AEC, Bowie was involved in many different musical projects, recording in duo and trio settings with many of the musicians from BAG and Chicago's AACM, and leading a number of his own groups, notably Brass Fantasy and the Lester Bowie Organ Ensemble. His work incorporated many types of music, from free improv and knotty post-bop to gospel and doo-wop, and he stood out among trumpet players of his generation for his combination of deep concepts, a sense of humor, and use of extended techniques. Sadly, Lester Bowie died young, passing away from liver cancer on November 9, 1999 when he was just 58.

In the first video window below, you can see him in 1983 performing with From The Root To The Source, a multi-stylistic group reflecting Bowie's love of popular and church music as well as jazz that also was something of a family band, since it featured his ex-wife Fontella Bass and former in-laws Martha Bass and David Peaston.

In the window below that, you can see him performing "Summertime" in an undated clip with Brass Fantasy, and below that, in two parts, a complete Art Ensemble concert recorded in 1991 in Budapest.

StLJN Audio Archive: Oliver Lake - Ntu: The Point From Which Creation Begins

As Black History Month winds down for this year, it seems an appropriate time to revisit an historic session involving musicians from St. Louis' original Black Artists Group of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Recorded in 1971 here in St. Louis, saxophonist Oliver Lake's album Ntu: The Point From Which Creation Begins was issued in 1976 on the Arista Freedom label, which was putting out a lot of avant-garde and "loft" jazz around that time. It's been out of print for years, but fortunately Ntu has been preserved online and can be downloaded, thanks in this case to the (seemingly now dormant) music sharing blog Botched Surgery.

Though delayed in reaching the public, Ntu actually is one of the earliest recordings involving the BAG crew, and shares some personnel and sensibility with another early session, Solidarity Unit, Inc's Red, Black & Green (which recently got a limited edition reissue on vinyl from the small label Eremite Records.)

In addition to Lake on alto sax, soprano sax, flute and "small instruments," Ntu features a number of musicians who were important parts of the Black Artists Group, most of whom went on to have substantial careers. (Interestingly, the LP's title also wound up serving as inspiration for author Benjamin Looker's 2004 history of BAG.)

The personnel on Ntu includes Baikida E.J. Carroll (trumpet, small instruments); Floyd LeFlore (trumpet, small instruments); Joseph Bowie (trombone, small instruments); Richard Martin (guitar); John Hicks (piano); Clovis Bordeaux, Jr., misspelled on the original cover as "Bordeux" (electric piano); Don Officer (electric bass); Charles "Bobo" Shaw (drums); and the Art Ensemble of Chicago's Don Moye (conga).

There are five tracks in all: "Africa," "Tse'lane," "Electric Freedom Colors," "Eriee," and "Zip." As you might expect given the parallel development of BAG and Chicago's AACM, the alternating sparse and dense textures and free-form improvisations of Ntu suggest some kinship with the Art Ensemble, but there also are passing resemblances to Sun Ra's Arkestra, the various "New Thing" recordings by Coltrane, Shepp and others on the Impulse! label, and some of the music Miles Davis was doing around the same time. If you have any interest in this period or style, it's certainly worth hearing for both aesthetic and historic reasons.

To download a free copy of Oliver Lake's Ntu: The Point From Which Creation Begins, go here, scroll down about a third of the way through the post until you see the text "Ntu: The Point From Which The Creation of Botched Surgery Begins," which links to a Rapidshare page containing the actual download.

The StLJN Audio Archive links only to recordings that are out-of-print or that never have been commercially available. The purpose of the Audio Archive is to encourage discussion, appreciation and knowledge of St. Louis jazz artists, and we urge you to support them (or their estates) by purchasing authorized recordings and merchandise and, whenever possible, attending live performances.

StLJN Audio Archive: Human Arts Ensemble - Whisper of Dharma

This week's Audio Archive post comes to us once again from the fine avant-jazz music sharing blog Nothing Is v2.0, and features Whisper of Dharma, a rare album by the Human Arts Ensemble that originally was issued in 1972 on the Committee for Universal Justice label (pictured, above left), and later reissued in 1977 on Arista Freedom (pictured, below left).

The Human Arts Ensemble was an offshoot of St. Louis' Black Artists Group, created as a vehicle for musicians of all races to perform together, while including a core of musicians from BAG. HAE first recorded under the nominal co-leadership of drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw and saxophonist James Marshall, who conceived the idea, and then just Shaw, but from all accounts the group essentially functioned as a musical collective.

Whisper of Dharma was recorded on October 6, 1972 in St. Louis, and features of lineup of players that includes Shaw (drums, small instruments) and Marshall (alto sax, radong, wooden flutes) as well as Joseph Bowie (trombone, congas, small instruments), Oliver Lake (tenor sax, radong, flute, small instruments), J.D. Parran (tenor and sopranos saxes, bass clarinet, small instruments), Floyd Leflore (trumpet, small instruments) and Baikida E.J. Carroll (gong, small instruments). The album also marks the recording debut of Oliver Lake's son Gene Lake, now a respected professional drummer, then just 6 years old and credited on the session with drums and small instruments. Whisper of Dharma includes what in the original LP format were two side-long pieces, the title track and "A World New," and has never been reissued on CD.

To download a copy of the Human Arts Ensemble's Whisper of Dharma, go here, scroll down to the bottom of the post and click on the link that says "Download Whisper of Dharma." That takes you to a Rapidshare page with the download; look for the green button that says "download" and follow the instructions there.

The StLJN Audio Archive links only to recordings that are out-of-print or that never have been commercially available. The purpose of the Audio Archive is encourage discussion, appreciation and knowledge of St. Louis jazz artists, and we encourage you to support them (or their estates) by purchasing authorized recordings and merchandise or, whenever possible, attending live performances.

(Edited after posting to fix a typo.)

StLJN Audio Archive: Black Artists Group: In Paris, Aries 1973

This week's Audio Archive post features a rare recording by St. Louis' Black Artists Group, courtesy of the blog Nothing Is, v 2.0.

In Paris, Aries 1973 was, as the title implies, recorded live in Paris in 1973 by a lineup including Joseph Bowie (trombone, conga, miscellaneous instruments), Baikida E.J. Carroll (trumpet, flugelhorn, bass, log drum, cowbells, miscellaneous instruments), Charles "Bobo" Shaw (drums, woodblocks, gong, miscellaneous instruments), Floyd LeFlore (trumpet, miscellaneous instruments, voice) and Oliver Lake (saxophones, flute, marimbas, mud drums, miscellaneous instruments).

The program includes four tracks: "Echos" (credited to Bowie, Lake, Shaw, Le Flore, Carroll), "Something To Play On" (Shaw), "Re-Cre-A-Tion" (Lake) and OLCSJBFLBC (Bowie, Lake, Shaw, Le Flore, Carroll). The album was a limited release, with only a few hundred copies pressed, and thus quite rare in its original form. Quoting now from the post at Nothing Is:

"A short review taken from "TOP TEN FROM THE FREE JAZZ UNDERGROUND" by Thurston Moore

The Black Artists Group was an unit not unlike that of The Art Ensemble of Chicago. Except they only recorded this one document and it only came out in France on a label named after the group. This is squeaky, spindly stuff and very OPEN and a good indication of what was happening in the early 70's with members Oliver Lake (later of the infamous World Saxophone Quartet) and Joseph Bowie (Art Ensemble's Lester Bowie's bro, later to start Defunkt).

If you like Art Ensemble of Chicago (circa the 1970s) and the Human Arts Ensemble, you'll like this recording. Needless to say, this music is hard as hell to come by.

See also: Poets of Action: The Saint Louis Black Artists' Group, 1968-1972 (Part 1-4) by Benjamin Looker to learn more about the group."

To download a copy of Black Artists Group: In Paris, Aries 1973, go here, look at the bottom of the post for the words "Download In Paris, Aries 1973," click on them, and follow the instructions from there.

The StLJN Audio Archive links only to recordings that are out-of-print or that never have been commercially available. The purpose of the Audio Archive is encourage discussion, appreciation and knowledge of St. Louis jazz artists, and we encourage you to support them (or their estates) by purchasing authorized recordings and merchandise or, whenever possible, attending live performances.

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: Marty Ehrlich live in Bruges, plus some vintage Defunkt

This week, our video spotlight shines on two more native St. Louisans with ties to the original Black Artists Group. Saxophonist and clarinetist Marty Ehrlich was still a teenager when he took part in BAG's workshops for young musicians; since then, he's gone on to have a busy career as a performer, recording artist and composer, based now in New York but playing all over the world.

The two clips on top are excerpted from a concert that took place in January, 2006 in Bruges, Belgium, and show Ehrlich in a quartet format with pianist James Weidman, bassist Brad Jones and drummer Allison Miller.

Down below, we have some footage of trombonist/vocalist Joseph Bowie and his band Defunkt, recorded in 1983 for a British television show. The younger brother of trumpeter Lester Bowie, Joseph Bowie formed Defunkt after moving to New York in the late 1970s. He took BAG's notion of mixing free jazz and funk, cranked it up to 10 and ran with it, helping to define a sound that some dubbed "punk funk".

Defunkt and Bowie are seen here performing one of their best-known early tunes, "Avoid The Funk," along with "Mind Control," which was composed by trumpeter John Mulkerin but not officialy recorded until 1986. Joseph Bowie continues to gig, mostly in Europe, with the current version of the group.

St. Louis Creative Ensemble tracks available as free downloads

The avant-garde audionauts who run the music sharing blog Destination: Out have featured a number of St. Louis artists in their quest to bring attention to underappreciated, adventurous jazz of the last three decades or so, and they've done it again with today's post, which features free downloads of two tracks from a 1979 Moers Music release by the St. Louis Creative Ensemble (as well as a nice shoutout and link to StLJN, for which I'm most grateful).

The personnel on "I Can't Figure Out (Whatcha Doin' To Me)" and ".38 Special" includes Luther Thomas (alto sax), Joseph Bowie (pictured, trombone, vocals), Rasul Siddik (trumpet), Darrell Mixon (bass) and Charles “Bobo” Shaw, drums. Read about them and download the music here. Please note that though the text portion of the post may be online indefinitely, the audio files are available for a limited time only, so act quickly if you want copies.

Get free downloads of rare material from Miles Davis, Human Arts Ensemble

A recent perusal of selected music-sharing blogs turned up three St. Louis-related jazz albums available for free downloading.

Via Penny Tray, Miles Davis All-Stars Live in 1968-59 featuring John Coltrane collects a number of radio airchecks (recordings from live broadcasts) of Miles Davis from the time when his group included such now-legendary players as saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly, bassist Paul Chambers, pianists Red Garland and Bill Evans, and drummers Philly Joe Jones and Jimmy Cobb.

It features a good chunk of the band's customary pre-Kind of Blue repertoire, as performed at Birdland and Cafe Bohemia in NYC and the Spotlight in Washington D.C., as well as one cut from a TV appearance featuring Miles, Cannonball, Garland and an all-star band.

The next two albums come from Nothing Is. First is Miles Davis: Philly May 12 & 17, 1975, a bootleg of a show from a Philadelphia club called Just Jazz. The band includes Davis on trumpet and organ, Sam Morrison (soprano sax, tenor sax, flute), Pete Cosey (guitar, percussion), Reggie Lucas (guitar), Michael Henderson (electric bass), Al Foster (drums), and James "Mtume" Foreman (conga, percussion).

Regarding the session's origins, the post by NI blogger James Benjamin says, "Don't know much about this one other than that the recording is from May of 1975 right as Miles was getting ready to retire. The set is pretty much what one might expect to hear at a Miles gig around that time. Sound quality is a bit dodgy (as one would expect from a bootleg live recording), but gives a decent idea of how Miles and band were sounding at the time."

Finally, also from Nothing Is comes the Human Arts Ensemble's Streets of St. Louis, ripped from a long out-of-print 1978 Moers Music LP. This session was recorded September 6, 1974 at NYC's Studio Rivbea by a band including Charles "Bobo" Shaw (drums), Lester Bowie (trumpet), Hamiet Bluiett (baritone sax), Julius Hemphill (pictured, alto sax), Joseph Bowie (trombone), Abdul Wadud (cello) and Dominique Gaumont (guitar). The cuts include "Streets of St. Louis", "Miles Beyond", "Entensity Big" and "Hard Light".

As always with these sorts of things, there's no telling how long these downloads will be available, so if you're interested, it would be best to act quickly.