Sunday Session: June 27, 2021

Kurt Elling

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

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

Sunday Session: October 25, 2020

Keith Jarrett

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

* Ronnie's review – fascinating story of the fabled Soho jazz club (TheArtsDesk.com)
* 5 Questions to Tyshawn Sorey (composer, multi-instrumentalist) (ICareIfYouListen.com)
* Met Opera’s musicians haven’t been paid since April. Now, a third have left New York (ClassicFM.com)
* Master Jazz Drummer Rodney Green on Jason Moran, Charlie Haden and Purgatory Perceptions (WhiteHotMagazine.com)
* With COVID-19 stimulus stalled, L.A. clubs face doomsday scenario: ‘We’re in the deep end, drowning’ (Los Angeles Times)
* Earl Freeman: Poems and Drawings (AquariumDrunkard.com)
* Louis Armstrong and Comedy Part 2: “Always a Showman!” 1922-1933 (LouisArmstrongHouse.org)
* Jazz Educators Step Up to Face COVID-19’s Challenges (Jazz Times)
* The Genius Of… Super Session by Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (Guitar)
* Toshinori Kondo, Trailblazing Modern Trumpeter, Dies At 71 (NPR)
* Acid, nudity and sci-fi nightmares: why Hawkwind were the radicals of 1970s rock (The Guardian)
* Pianist Keith Jarrett unlikely to perform again after two strokes (The Guardian)
* National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2021 NEA Jazz Masters (Arts.gov)
* Nubya Garcia Injects Fresh Energy Into The UK Jazz Scene (DownBeat)
* A Cultural History of the Cranked Snare Drum (Full-Stop.net)
* Analog Africa: digging deeper into forgotten corners of global groove (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Inside Bob Dylan’s Lost Interviews and Unseen Letters (Rolling Stone)
* Slo-mo artistry of a sax genius (Sydney Morning Herald)
* Little Richard Made Millions. It All Went to His Label (Vice.com)
* Jazz singer Kurt Elling moves back home to Chicago: ‘It was always a question of when was going to be right’ (Chicago Tribune)
* “You Need Both Sides of the Coin to Feel Like There is Substance:” An Interview with Nubya Garcia (PassionWeiss.com)
* With The Specter Of Winter Looming, Venues Explore Paths Forward (DownBeat)
* A Guide to the Music of Archie Shepp, Who Kept Jazz Vitally Political (Bandcamp.com)
* Jazz Clubs Are in Crisis (Jazz Times)
* Cindy Blackman Santana Blends Music, Spiritual Approaches (DownBeat)
* As Keith Jarrett Closes a Chapter, Jazz United Reflects on His Monumental Solo Piano Career (WBGO)
* Five Songs That Exemplify the Musical Legacy of Pharoah Sanders (WDET)
* Canadian musician Angie C just used a brainwave-reader to play the monster analogue synth TONTO with her mind (MusicRadar.com)

Sunday Session: May 10, 2020

Stevie Wonder

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

* Shut In Due to Pandemic, Cuba Opens a Window to the World With Music (Billboard)
* Richie Cole, Esteemed Alto Saxophonist and a Keeper of the Bebop Flame, Has Died at 72 (WBGO)
* Levon Helm’s spirit remains in barn that bears his name (PBS)
* INTERVIEW: Dr. Michael White, the musician who ventures deep into NOLA jazz history (HollywoodSoapbox.com)
* Battered by coronavirus, L.A.'s legendary recording studios prep for a post-shutdown ‘resurgence’ (Los Angeles Times)
* Richie Cole 1948 – 2020 (Jazz Times)
* Bass Magazine Lockdown Check-In With Trevor Dunn (BassMagazine.com)
* The Making of Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, and Mingus - The Steve Katz Interview (JoniMitchell.com)
* Nelson George on Stevie Wonder's "Innervisions" (1973) (Simplecast.com)
* Afrobeat: An Alternative Top Ten (AllAboutJazz.com)
* New Orleans Mourns the Loss of Ellis Marsalis: ‘We Were All His Children’ (The Daily Beast)
* Kurt Elling & Danilo Pérez Share the Secrets of Collaboration (Jazz Times)
* ‘Black Coffee’: Peggy Lee’s “Darker Exploration Of Love” (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* What Will The Future Of Concerts Look Like After The Pandemic? (WBUR)
* ‘It’s a Clusterf-ck’: Musicians Struggle to Get Pandemic Assistance (Rolling Stone)
* Dave Liebman Manifests The Elements (DownBeat)
* New Orleans Music Documentary Set for Home Release Via Local Theaters (Variety)
* Kraftwerk Co-Founder Florian Schneider Dies at Age 73 (Billboard)
* Chicago jazz club owners ponder when to reopen, and how (Chicago Tribune)
* Laurie Anderson: where to start in her back catalogue (The Guardian)
* Hillard 'Sweet Pea' Atkinson, Legendary Vocalist With Was (Not Was), Dies at 74 (Billboard)
* Stevie Wonder turns 70: 7 memorable moments in the music icon’s life (New York Post)
* Without Federal Aid, More than 1,000 U.S. Music Venues Are in Danger of Closing (Rolling Stone)
* How Florian Schneider and Kraftwerk influenced five decades of music (BBC)
* The Vintage Vibe of Robert Cray (DownBeat)
* What is the value of exposure when exposure is all there is? (Music Industry Blog)
* Little Richard, Founding Father of Rock Who Broke Musical Barriers, Dead at 87 (Rolling Stone)
* 'He hit us like a bolt of lightning': stars pay tribute to Little Richard (The Guardian)

Sunday Session: March 22, 2020

John McLaughlin

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

* The Secret History of Motown’s Greatest Hits (Rolling Stone)
* Kurt Elling on Working with Danilo Pérez, Politics and Recording with an Indie Label (DownBeat)
* Charles Lloyd, a tireless jazz sax legend at 82, talks music and hanging with Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead (San Diego Union Tribune)
* The Jazz Label: Marc Free of Posi-Tone (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The Inner Critic of Irving Berlin (DownBeat)
* Beating Her Own Drum, Terri Lyne Carrington Continues To Push Jazz Forward (WBUR)
* “Every musician I know is now facing bankruptcy” – the impact of coronavirus cancellations on classical artists (ClassicFM.com)
* How Mapping Relationships Between Jazz Musicians Elevates Unsung Histories (Pratt.edu)
* Jeff Parker Is "Just Trying to Make Weird Shit" (Premier Guitar)
* Duchess Looks for Joy Amid Perilous Times (DownBeat)
* With Clubs Gone Dark and Festivals Postponed, the Musical Action Migrates to the Livestream (WBGO)
* Gerald Veasley: Everybody Has Something to Say (Jazz Times)
* John McLaughlin offers fans free download of new album (LouderSound.com)
* Ornette Coleman Biography Explores The Free Jazz Saxophonist’s Genius (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* The lost art of deep listening: Choose an album. Lose the phone. Close your eyes. (Los Angeles Times)
* Recording Academy and MusiCares Commit $2M For Coronavirus Relief Fund (Billboard)
* Music streaming may actually be falling because of coronavirus (QZ.com)
* How The Coronavirus Fallout Could Be Devastating To The Practice Of Jazz (NPR)
* Carlos and Cindy Santana on the Power of ‘Playing from Your Heart’ (Q&A) (RockCellarMagazine.com)
* The Intakt Label is Providing a Supportive Home for the Avant-Garde (Bandcamp.com)
* Electronic Intimacy: The Surreal Experience of Playing in a Quarantined Hall (Atavist.com)
* A Shelved Album By Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers Will Finally See the Light of Day (WBGO)
* Origin Records Puts Superlative Musicianship on Display (DownBeat)
* 'Solace' Amidst The 'Deeply Odd': Pianist Aaron Parks On Releasing A Record Right Now (NPR)

Sunday Session: March 1, 2020

Terri Lyne Carrington

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

* Winner Takes All: Igor Levit in the Attention Economy (Atavist.com)
* Innovation is Kris Davis’ Motivation (DownBeat)
* ‘You’re one of the more normal composers’: Simon Rattle and Thomas Adès swap notes (The Guardian)
* In Solo Works and Soundtracks, Colin Stetson Follows a Narrative (DownBeat)
* Scientists study blind piano prodigy (CBS News)
* How Long Will Spotify Allow Bootleg “Podcasts” to Top the Charts? (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* American Routes Shortcuts: Michael Cuscuna (WWNO)
* Fela Kuti’s “Coffin for Head of State” was genuine life-and-death protest music (TrebleZine.com)
* It was banned by the Nazis, Stalin and the Vatican. This is the surprising history of the saxophone (ABC.net.au)
* 'Say Amen, Somebody' Restoration Unveils The Wonder Of The Gospel Pioneers (NPR)
* Musicians Algorithmically Generate Every Possible Melody, Release Them to Public Domain (Vice.com)
* On “I Am A Man,” Jazz Bassist Ben Williams Redefines Protest Music On His Own Terms (Bandcamp.com)
* The B-52s’ Kate Pierson on the Music That Made Her (Pitchfork.com)
* Melissa Aldana has burgeoning ‘Visions’ for her quartet (CapitalBop.com)
* There Was A Time: James Brown, The Chitlin’ Circuit, And Me: The First Days On The Bus (TheRecoup.com)
* Kurt Elling on Working with Danilo Pérez, Politics and Recording with an Indie Label (DownBeat)
* Social Science Becomes Social Art for Terri Lyne Carrington’s New Band (Jazz Times)
* Interview: Free Jazz Trumpeter Jaimie Branch on Music-Making as Time-Travel (Reverb.com)
* Watch the Trailer for Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things (Jazz Times)
* Bria Skonberg Digs Into Tension With ‘Nothing Never Happens’ (DownBeat)
* How Martin Luther King Jr. and Motown Saved the Sound of the Civil Rights Movement (TIME)
* Music Benefactors Wants to Solve the Crowdfunding Riddle for Musicians — Introducing the ‘Artist Public Offering’ (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Baltimore Rebirth: A New Bloom Of Jazz In Charm City (NPR)
* Pianist Abdullah Ibrahim reflects on life before and after apartheid, and how Duke Ellington and Thelonius Monk helped shape his career (Chicago Tribune)
* Post-club: Why DJs and producers are leaving nightclubs behind (MixMag.net)
* Branford Marsalis: Jazzman For The Masses (Long Island Weekly)
* Dweezil, Son of Frank (Weekly Alibi)

Sunday Session: January 26, 2020

Jimmy Heath

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

* Commentary: George Walker is the black composer you should know but don’t. Why that may change (Los Angeles Times)
* Jimmy Heath, Legendary Saxophonist, Composer and Jazz Educator, Dies at 93 (WBGO)
* Jimmy Heath 1926 – 2020 (Jazz Times)
*Harmonica virtuoso Charlie Musselwhite sees the old year out (Sonoma Press Democrat)
* John McLaughlin: “Listening to any kind of real music is a meditative experience” (TheHinduBusinessLine.com)
* Roberta Flack: 'My music is my expression of what I feel in a moment' (The Guardian)
* The Neuroscience of Drumming: Researchers Discover the Secrets of Drumming & The Human Brain (OpenCulture.com)
* Winter JazzFest Broadens Scope, Encompassing Physical and Mental Well-Being (DownBeat)
* Grammy Awards Nominating Is Marred by Insider Deals, Ousted CEO’s Complaint Alleges (Variety)
* Listen Deeper: The Strange Case Of Iannis Xenakis & Pauline Oliveros (TheQuietus.com)
* Dave Brubeck Archives Headed to Connecticut (Jazz Times)
* Kendrick Scott: Making Walls into Bridges (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The Major Undertakings of Meredith Monk (DownBeat)
* All Sound Is Music: Laurie Anderson Interview (SFJAZZ.org)
* Psst! A Peek at 'Secrets Are the Best Stories,' Kurt Elling's New Album with Danilo Perez (WBGO)
* Louis Armstrong Musical A Wonderful World to Have World Premiere in Miami (Playbill)
* Birdland, The Jazz Corner of the World (Forbes.com)
* Vincent Herring on Charlie Parker’s Perennial Influence (DownBeat)
* Survival Records Returns with New Jazz Releases (Jazz Times)
* A Long Talk With James Newton Howard, One of Hollywood’s Most Accomplished Composers (Vulture.com)
* Chick Corea Is the Well-Tempered Clavierist (Jazz Times)
* Following Outrage, Discovery Networks Backs Down on Composer Ultimatum (Variety)
* Cecil Taylor: Looking (BurningAmbulance.com)
* Pete Brown: White Rooms & Imaginary Westerns, Part 1 (AllAboutJazz.com)

Jazz this week: Kurt Elling, Nicole Mitchell, Lubambo, Alves & Ribeiro, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis brings sounds from all over, including two prominent performers who each got their start in Chicago, one who made his name on Broadway, and three coming from Brazil via NYC. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, March 13
Singer Kurt Elling - one of the aforementioned Chicagoans, though he now lives in New York - performs for the first of five nights, continuing through Sunday at Jazz St. Louis.

Elling (pictured, top left) returns here for the first time since the release in 2018 of his most recent album The Questions, so it seems likely that a good portion of material from that recording will be part of his sets here. You can see videos of live performances of several of those tunes, and find out more about what Elling has been up to more recently, in this post from last Saturday.

Elsewhere around town, clarinetist and former St. Louisan Chloe Feoranzo, now residing in New Orleans, will be back in town for a concert with her quartet at Focal Point, and guitarist Brian Vaccaro leads a trio at Evangeline's.

Thursday, March 14
Pianist Jim Hegarty returns with his quintet to the The Dark Room; guitarist Dave Black and singer Erika Johnson perform at The Pat Connolly Tavern; and pianist Adam Maness' trio is back at Thurman's in Shaw.

Friday, March 15
Pianist, singer and Tony Award-winning musical theater composer Jason Robert Brown performs in concert at the Grandel Theatre; and the Original Knights of Swing play for dancers at Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, March 16
Flute player and composer Nicole Mitchell’s Liberation Narratives, featuring poet Haki Madhubuti, performs in a concert presented by New Music Circle at Xavier Hall on the St. Louis University campus.

A composer and conceptualist with wide-ranging interests, Mitchell (pictured, bottom left) is a past president of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and recently was appointed head of the jazz program at the University of Pittsburgh, succeeding the late Geri Allen.

Mitchell has been involved in a constantly evolving variety of musical projects over the years, with her latest collaboration with poet Haki Madhubuti offering "an unabashed take on the state of the nation" via her compositions and the poet's spoken word performances.  For a bit more about that, plus some videos of Mitchell performing in various contexts, see this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Elsewhere around town, pianist Peter Martin's Open Studio will present a concert of Brazilian jazz featuring guitarist Romero Lubambo, pianist Helio Alves, and drummer Edu Ribeiro, along with St. Louis' own Bob DeBoo on bass.

Also on Saturday, the Coleman Hughes Project celebrates six years as a band with a gig at Lowes Entertainment; and trumpeter Jim Manley and keyboardist Chris Swan will play at One 19 North Tapas & Wine Bar.

Sunday, March 17
Friends have organized a benefit for saxophonist Fred Walker, who no longer can perform due to recent health issues, for late Sunday afternoon at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups, with announced performers including Walker's former band Mystic Voyage, saxophonist Kendrick Smith, blues singers Kim Massie, Eugene Johnson, and Lady J Huston, and more.

Monday, March 18
Pianist Carol Schmidt and saxophonist Paul DeMarinis will team up for a concert of duets at Winifred 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: Catching up with Kurt Elling

Today, let's take a look at some videos featuring singer Kurt Elling, who's coming to town to perform starting next Wednesday, March 13 through Sunday, March 17 at Jazz St. Louis.

Widely acclaimed as one of the top male vocalists in jazz, Elling by now should be no stranger to St. Louis audiences, having performed here a number of times in recent years, most recently in 2017 with saxophonist Branford Marsalis' quartet at the Bistro. For this visit, he arrives just after the world premiere of The Big Blind, a live radio drama/musical staged for the first time last week at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater.

Inspired by Elling's own experiences performing at Chicago’s famed Green Mill, the real-life story of comedian Joe E. Lewis, and elements of the 1957 Frank Sinatra film The Joker Is Wild, The Big Blind was devised by Elling, writer Phil Galdston and director Terry Kinney, and tells the story of a 1950s nightclub singer confronting career and romantic conundrums.

In addition to Elling in the starring role, the production features a 23-piece big band led by drummer Ulysses Owens Jr., with a Foley artist performing sound effects on stage, and additional speaking/singing roles for Dee Dee Bridgewater, Broadway veteran Ben Vereen, and UK singer/actor Ian Shaw.

While Elling hopes to tour with The Big Blind in the near future, next week in St. Louis, audiences likely will hear a good portion of material from his most recent studio recording, 2018's The Questions.

This week's videos shows him performing songs from that album, starting up above with his version of Carla Bley's "Lawns," given a lyric and recast by Elling as "Endless Lawns." The clip was shot in October of last year at a venue called De Doelen in Rotterdam, Netherlands, with a band include Adonis Rose (drums), Clark Sommers (bass), Jim Watson (piano), and John McLean (guitar).

After the jump, you can see four segments of Elling's performance in April 2018 at La Seine Musicale in Paris, just as The Questions was released, with a band including McLean on guitar, Stuart Mindeman on keyboards, Clark Sommers on bass, and Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums.

The first clip shows Elling opening the show with his version of Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." Next, it's "A Happy Thought," penned by Mindeman with a text from poet Franz Wright, paired with a version of "I Have Dreamed," written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein for the Broadway musical The King and I.

That's followed by "Washing of the Water," a Peter Gabriel composition, and then Elling's reworking of Jaco Pastorius' "Three Views of A Secret" as "A Secret in Three Views." The final video is a promotional clip of Elling singing Paul Simon’s “American Tune,” which several critics have cited as one of the album's highlights.

For more about Kurt Elling and The Questions, see his 2018 interview with Jazz Times magazine,  his interview with the Australian magazine Limelight from last year's tour "down under," and this December 2018 feature from Elling's hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune.

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

Sunday Session: March 3, 2019

Kurt Elling

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:

* Ennio Morricone settles old scores with ‘simplistic’ directors (The Guardian)
* High Point Plans To Preserve John Coltrane's Childhood Home (WFDD)
* Cosmic jazz for modern times: an interview with Sun Ra Arkestra (Beat.com.au)
* Ira Gitler, Influential and Impassioned Jazz Critic, Historian and Advocate, Dies at 90 (WBGO)
* Worcester native Jaki Byard inspires as jazz artist, educator (Worcester Telegram & Gazette)
* Kurt Elling Talks About 'The Big Blind,' His New Jazz Melodrama, Coming to JALC (WBGO)
* Kurt Elling Readies The Big Blind for NYC Premiere (Jazz Times)
* Jamie Saft Delves into Rich Conversations on new RareNoise Disc (DownBeat)
* Tea at The St. Regis (GreenleafMusic.com)
* EXCLUSIVE TRAILER: Wynton Marsalis Brings Jazz Pioneer Buddy Bolden’s music to life in ‘Bolden’ (TheGrio.com)
* The So-Called 'Local Radio Freedom Act' Is Actually an Anti-Creator, Anti-Property-Rights Bill (Guest Column) (Billboard)
* Oscar Peterson Festival Highlights Canadian Talent (DownBeat)
* Cooper-Moore: Catharsis and Creation in Community Spirit (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The many faces of Bill Frisell in Berkeley residency (San Francisco Chronicle)
* Rhiannon Giddens’ 21st-Century Sound Has a Long History (Smithsonian)
* Neneh Cherry: ‘All that awkward stuff became a force’ (Yorkshire Post)
* The web is killing newspaper arts critics like me. Why that matters (Fast Company)
* WATCH: See Soul Singer Al Green Preach at His Church in Memphis (Southern Living)
* A Guide to Harry Nilsson, Who You've Loved Forever Without Knowing It (Vice.com)
* Gaffer Tape Inventor Ross Lowell Dead at 92 (UltimateClassicRock.com)
* Allison Miller’s Life of Juxtapositions (DownBeat)
* U.S. Music Industry Generated $9.8 Billion in 2018, Third Straight Year of Double-Digit Growth: RIAA (Billboard)
* André Previn, Musical Polymath, Has Died At Age 89 (NPR)
* Do the Rite thing: how Stravinsky's Rite of Spring changed music for ever (The Guardian)
* RIP, Ed Bickert (Ottawa Citizen)
* Yusuke Ogawa: The man in Japan giving jazz fans their rare record fix (Japan Times)
* Delving deep into the Kanto jazz bar scene (Japan Times)
* Joe Lovano Moves on to the Next Chapter (DownBeat)
* Sun Ra: “There’s a lot of strange stuff that goes on around the pyramids – why don’t you bring a tape?” (Uncut)
* New Orleans Music: From Mardi Gras To The Meters… And All That Jazz (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Has Spotify’s Warner bust-up spooked Wall Street? (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Ears Embiggened – 50 Years of Great Black Music: Ancient to the Future (ImmuneToBoredom.com)

Sunday Session: June 10, 2018

John Coltrane

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:

* The 21 Best Concert Films of All Time (Paste)
* REVIEW: Art Ensemble of Chicago at Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona (London Jazz News)
* Kurt Elling: Living the Questions (Jazz Times)
* 'Still A Lot Of Love': Arturo O'Farrill On Cuba-U.S. Artistic Relations (NPR)
* This legendary Utah saxophonist just turned 99 and you can hear him play tonight (Deseret News)
* Truesdell’s Gil Evans Project Recasts Classics at Jazz Standard (DownBeat)
* The chords of the universe (Aeon.co)
* Discover Weakly (TheBaffler.com)
* “Sun Ra Radio” Premieres Online (Jazz Times)
* Vision Festival Offers Bracing Sounds and a Space for Creativity (DownBeat)
* Q&A with Ambrose Akinmusire: Geographies of Influence (Jazziz)
* The club night making classical music dance to a new beat (The Telegraph)
* 20 essential fusion records that have never been more influential (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Bobby Bradford: Musician, Educator, Survivor (AllAboutJazz.com)
* What Was the Point of Elevator Music? (AtlasObscura.com)
* There’s an “Inverse Piano” in Your Head (Scientific American)
* What was the loudest rock band ever? And how loud was that? This infographic explains everything (AJournalOfMusicalThings.com)
* Shemekia Copeland: A Humble 'Queen Of The Blues' (WGLT)
* Motéma Music Fosters Intense Creativity (DownBeat)
* Byrds Co-Founders Plan 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo' 50th Anniversary Tour (Rolling Stone)
* Coltrane’s ‘Lost’ Studio Album Found (DownBeat)
* Hear Woody Shaw and Dexter Gordon On Tour, and On Fire, In Newly Discovered Recordings (WBGO)
* Jalal Mansur Nuriddin: Bidding Farewell To The Schoolyard Bard (NPR)
* Ticketfly Confirms Hack Exposed Personal Information of 27 Million Accounts (Gizmodo)
* Jazz in the Age of Trump: A Roundtable Discussion (Jazziz)
* Spotify Offers Managers, Artists Advances to License Music Directly to Its Streaming Service: Exclusive (Billboard)
* Happy Birthday Prince: A Look At His Legacy, Progressiveness And Royal Badness (Vibe)
* Eddie Henderson’s Cool Collective (DownBeat)
* On 10 Years of the New New-Music Scene, and 30 Years of My Own (Vulture.com)
* Jazz Meets Hip Hop: Soweto Kinch's Singular Path (SFJAZZ.org)
* BBC to Close Iconic Maida Vale Studios (Pro Sound News)
* The Aural Magic of Stanford's Laptop Orchestra (Wired)
* Why repeating words sound like music to your brain (TheVerge.com)
* ‘We Out Here’ Documentary on London Jazz Scene Now Streaming (DownBeat)
* Lorraine Gordon, Guardian Of Legendary Jazz Club, Dies At 95 (NPR)

Sunday Session: March 18, 2018

Charles McPherson

Here's the 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:

* Syrian refugees using music therapy to soothe the trauma of war (ABC.net.au)
* Meet the Electric Guitarist Who Gave Benny Goodman a Jolt (OZY.com)
* Inside the Gramercy: The Grit and Glamour of New York's Rock & Roll Hotel (Rolling Stone)
* The long, slow death of print music journalism (GlobalNews.ca)
* Dark and Deep Flows the River: An Interview with Wadada Leo Smith (PopMatters.com)
* The Treasured Preservation Hall Sousaphone Has Been Returned (Offbeat)
* Saudi Arabia's bootleg music shops (BBC)
* Why Labels Are Looking to Africa to Find the Next Global Pop Star (Billboard)
* Kurt Elling Remembers Jon Hendricks (Jazz Times)
* Blue Note Label Boss Don Was Is Not Ready to Give Up on Jazz (Forbes.com)
* The end of live music? (CompleteMusicUpdate.com)
* Kamasi Washington at Sydney Opera House: a defiant cry from a jazz star in his prime (The Guardian)
* Will Corporations Ruin Live Music in the Bay Area? (East Bay Express)
* Expert Introductions: The Quietus' Top 40 Genre Compilation Albums (TheQuietus.com)
* iHeartMedia Files for Bankruptcy (Variety)
* Charles McPherson: The Man and His Muse (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Chicago saxophonist Dave Rempis builds an intentional community in jazz (Chicago Reader)
* Q&A with Paal Nilssen-Love: In a Natural Way (DownBeat)
* The Residents pay tribute to Sun Ra (and Barry White) (DangerousMinds.net)
* Here's a Playlist of Songs You Know But You Can’t Name (Lifehacker.com)
* Reconsidering Gene Krupa, A Great Jazz Drummer Hiding in Plain Sight (WBGO)
* Bobby Previte: the Art of Travelling Trustingly (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Quincy Jones: 20 Great Productions (Rolling Stone)
* Which Cities Get the Most (and Least) Concerts? (Priceonomics.com)
* The Man Who Made Violins Out of New York City Buildings (AtlasObscura.com)
* Celebrating the Free Jazz Revolution, in Black and White (Village Voice)

Sunday Session: December 3, 2017

The Soul Rebels

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have appeared in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* The Grateful Dead Levitate Egypt’s Pyramids Under A Lunar Eclipse (Flashbak.com)
* Rudy Royston on Cymbal Creativity (Jazz Times)
* A War Is Brewing in the Steely Dan Universe (Vulture.com)
* Walter Becker Estate Responds to Donald Fagen's Steely Dan Lawsuit (Paste)
* 'We could build something revolutionary': how tech set underground music free (The Guardian)
* What Thelonious Monk's Most Famous Composition Owes to Dizzy Gillespie (WBGO)
* Tricky Repertoire: The Soul Rebels step out of the box (Offbeat)
* Within The Context Of All Contexts: The Rewiring Of Our Relationship To Music (NPR)
* Antoine “Fats” Domino Jr. (February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017) (Offbeat)
* Have Scientists Found a Secret Chord for Happy Songs? (Scientific American)
* Jon Hendricks obituary (The Guardian)
* Billy Childs, Fred Hersch and Chris Potter Lead the Jazz Nominees for the 60th Grammy Awards (WBGO)
* The Payola Blues: New Technology, Same Old Tune? (Hhhhappy.com)
* 17 of the Greatest Televised Moments in Music History (Soundfly.com)
* John McLaughlin on his final US tour and playing with Miles Davis (Chicago Tribune)
* Mel Martin, Stalwart of the Bay Area Jazz Scene, Dead at 75 (KQED)
* Kurt Elling Channels Divinity, Philosophy, and Poetry into Jazz (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* What the hell’s happening to music’s trade press? (And what does it mean for the rest of us?) (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* A Brief History of Funk (Afropop.org)
* What Music-Playing Plants Can Teach Us About Consciousness (Hyperallergic.com)
* Clarke Peters: from green hair to good times, Louis Jordan brought joy to my world (The Guardian)
* Antonio Sanchez: Immigrant Songs (Jazz Times)
* Deck the Halls with Vince Guaraldi (The New Yorker)
* Hermeto Pascoal's Music Reaches Far Into The Stratosphere (NPR)
* The Tree That Rocked The Music Industry (NPR)
* Mickey Hart On His Experimental New Solo Album And Why It’s Impossible For Him To Leave The Grateful Dead (Uproxx.com)
* Jimmy Iovine Breaks Down What's Wrong With the Music Business, Warns Against Overoptimism in Streaming: 'They're Not Making Money' (Billboard)
* For Women in Jazz, a Year of Reckoning and Recognition (New York Times)

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Singer Jeanne Trevor (pictured) and pianist Dave Venn's gig Saturday night at Jazz at the Bistro was touted by St. Louis Post-Dispatch/STLtoday.com columnist Joe Holleman.

* Elsewhere in the P-D, theater critic Judith Newmark reviewed Max and Louie Productions' staging of Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, which continues through Saturday, March 4 at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

* DK Annex, the business incubator and event space recently opened by drummer James Jackson and his wife Kristy, was spotlighted this week in the St. Louis American.

* The latest episode of pianist Peter Martin's podcast "The Process" features a chat with saxophonist Branford Marsalis and singer Kurt Elling.

* Also on the podcast front, drummer Dave Weckl is interviewed on a recent episode of DrumTalk.

* Electronic musician Eric Hall has released a new recording featuring guest musicians from the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, with proceeds benefiting the American Civil Liberties Union.

Jazz this week: Branford Marsalis & Kurt Elling, Denise Thimes, and more

This week's calendar of jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes a early-week visit from two well-known jazz performers touring together for the first time, plus a couple of new jam sessions providing musical workout opportunities for local players, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Tuesday, January 24
Tonight, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, his quartet, and singer Kurt Elling will perform for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro.

Marsalis and Elling (pictured, top left) are touring together in support their collaborative album Upward Spiral, which came out last summer. While their shows here likely are sold out by now, you can check with the Jazz St. Louis box office for returns or cancellations, or get to the Bistro early enough to grab a spot in the adjacent first-floor lounge and catch the video simulcast for free.

Also on Wednesday, percussionist Joe Pastor and the Legacy Jazz Ensemble play the late show at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups, and the Jazz Troubadours perform at Evangeline's.

Wednesday, January 25
As mentioned above, there are a couple of new jam sessions starting up this week, the first featuring pianist Curt Landes, bassist Glen Smith and drummer Chuck Kennedy as the house group for a new weekly Wednesday night jam at @Nesby's in Sunset Hills.

Thursday, January 26
The Jazz at Holmes series of free concerts at Washington University gets underway for the semester with a reunion performance by Tracer, the jazz-fusion project of pianist Ptah Williams, bassist Darrell Mixon and drummer Gary Sykes.

Also on Thursday, pianist Adam Maness, bassist Bob DeBoo and drummer Montez Coleman join forces for a one-off gig at Jazz at the Bistro; and the Chamber Jazz Project plays at Joe's Cafe.

Friday, Jan 27
Singer Denise Thimes (pictured, bottom left) will sing music associated with the late Nancy Wilson in the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro.

Also on Friday, the Fleur De Lou All-Stars play swing and Gypsy jazz at Evangeline's; and singer Joe Mancuso and guitarist Dave Black will duet at Edgewild Restaurant and Winery.

Sunday, January 29
The other new jam session happening for the first time this week is aimed at musicians interested in traditional jazz of the 1920s and 30s, and will take place on the last Sunday afternoon of the month at the Folk School of KDHX.

Also on Sunday , Chicago-based jazz/rock band Marbin returns for a performance at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

Monday, January 30
Guitarist Tom Byrne and his quartet will perform (in a concert rescheduled from this week, due to a heating system failure) at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium.

Tuesday, January 31
Saxophonist "Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective return to BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on the StLJN Facebook page.

(If you have calendar items, band schedule information, news tips, links, or anything else you think may be of interest to StLJN's readers, please email the information to stljazznotes (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)

Sunday Session: December 25, 2016

Stevie Wonder

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

* The 84-Year-Old Grandmother Who Fronts D.C.'s Coolest House Band (NPR)
* Chops: Deft Poetry - Kurt Elling, Laurence Hobgood and Roy Nathanson on blending jazz with verse (Jazz Times)
* For Mavis Staples, The Music Of The Civil Rights Era Couldn't Be More Relevant Today (NPR)
* Discovering the Savory Collection (OpenSkyJazz.com)
* 'A True Legend': Bob Krasnow's Legacy Celebrated by Colleagues (Billboard)
* Nina Simone to Be Honored With the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award (Variety)
* Deep-Learning Machine Listens to Bach, Then Writes Its Own Music in the Same Style (Technology Review)
* 9 U.K. Artists Making Jazz Feel Brand New (TheFader.com)
* Motown’s True Visionaries (The New Yorker)
* Love’s in Need of Love Today - Introducing Wonder Week, a toast to Stevie’s greatness (Slate.com)
* Chuck Berry Invented the Idea of Rock and Roll (Vulture.com)
* Dispatches From The War On Marching Bands (Deadspin.com)
* 'Rogue One' Composer on Filling John Williams' Shoes, Pleasing Marvel Franchise Fans (Hollywood Reporter)
* How the Vince Guaraldi Trio's 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' Became the Soundtrack of the Holidays (Vice.com)
* Interview: Robert Glasper (Keyboard)
* Jazz Caliente: Teaching The Tradition (KNKX)
* The Mariachi Men of Yugoslavia (RoadsAndKingdoms.com)

Branford Marsalis, Kurt Elling to perform January 24 & 25 at Jazz at the Bistro

In an addition to the previously announced 2016-17 schedule for Jazz at the Bistro, Jazz St. Louis has announced that saxophonist Branford Marsalis and his quartet will be joining forces with singer Kurt Elling and returning to St. Louis for performances at the Bistro on Tuesday, January 24 and Wednesday, January 25, 2017.

Elling and Marsalis (pictured) recently collaborated on the album Upward Spiral, which was released in June on the Marsalis Music label via OKeh Records.

The recording features a mix of standards, off-the-beaten-path covers and originals, and generally has been well-received by fans and by critics such as AllAboutJazz.com's Dan Bilewsky, who praised it as being "suffused with graciousness, beauty, and, on occasion, heartbreak." (You can see a promotional video for Upward Spiral in the embedded player at the bottom of this post.)

Tickets for the Branford Marsalis Quartet with special guest Kurt Elling and are on sale now to Jazz at the Bistro subscribers only, with the JSL website currently saying that prices "start at $45; $10 students." Single tickets will go on sale to the general public at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, August 10.

Sunday Session: April 10, 2016

Pharoah Sanders

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

* Local Jazz Musicians Turn to D.C. Council to Support the Scene (Washington City Paper)
* US Is One Of Just 4 Countries Not Paying Performers For Radio Play, And The Others Are... (Hypebot.com)
* Big Ears Festival diary – three days at Knoxville's genre-spanning event (The Guardian UK)
* Media's Digital Upheaval in 6 Charts (Bloomberg.com)
* Jeff Beck To Release New Album on July 15 (DownBeat)
* Abdullah Ibrahim: A Life in Song (SFJAZZ.org)
* Steven Bernstein Premiers Guitar-Centric Quartet in New York (DownBeat)
* 'The Dude': Remembering Quincy Jones’ Most Important Album Ever (Ebony)
* New owners to take over Heritage Guitar in old Gibson Guitar factory (MLive.com)
* ‘Jazz Masters’ honor genre’s greats, but keep them watching from the audience (Washington Post)
* Photos: NEA Jazz Masters Concert - Gary Burton, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and Wendy Oxenhorn honored (Jazz Times)
* So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star: Photos of the 1960’s Garage Band Explosion (DangerousMinds.net)
* Carol Kaye, 81-Year-Old Pioneer of Rock, Gives Kiss’ Gene Simmons a Bass Lesson (OpenCulture.com)
* Man Who Stole Jazz Pianist Cecil Taylor’s Prize Money Is Sentenced (New York Times)
* Singer Bill Henderson Dies at 90 - Recorded with Oscar Peterson, Horace Silver; was also successful actor (Jazz Times)
* Merle Haggard’s America (DaveHoekstra.com)
* Why the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame should be put out of its misery (The Guardian UK)
* Long Live WWOZ (Offbeat)
* Rare Sun Ra singles to be issued on space-age 7″ vinyl (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Sony Sues Rdio Executives for Fraud, A Cautionary Tale for Entrepreneurs (MusicTech.Solutions)
* Branford Marsalis To Release New Album with Kurt Elling on June 10 (DownBeat)
* Silver Swing - 10 must-watch jazz movies (Jazz Times)
* Jazz great Sonny Rollins still not finished at 85 (The Telegraph UK)
* Paul Simon Announces New Album ‘Stranger to Stranger’ (Wall Street Journal)
* The Man Who Recorded, Tamed and Then Sold Nature Sounds to America (Atlas Obscura)
* A Record Shopkeeper Writes: Why Record Store Day Must End (The Quietus)
* These Rarely Seen Images Show Jazz Greats Pouring Out Their Hearts (Smithsonian)

Sunday Session: October 18, 2015

Jack DeJohnette

For your Sunday reading, here are some interesting music-related items that have hit StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* RCA Records' Peter Edge and Tom Corson on Why the Label Downsized and its Place in Sony's Big Picture (Q&A) (Hollywood Reporter)
* Rob Mazurek: Sound Affects (Jazz Times)
* The Inside Story Behind the Making of Frank Sinatra's Ambitious and Wacky 1980 Three-Disc Album, 'Trilogy' (Billboard)
* Russia’s wedding playlist: 7 must-have hits (Russia Beyond The Headlines)
* Is ‘Artisanal’ Music the Next New Thing? (The Daily Beast)
* Monk Institute Vocal Competition Semi-Finalists Announced - Finals set for Nov 14-15 in L.A. (Jazz Times)
* The Devaluation of Music: It’s Worse Than You Think (Medium.com)
* Two-Thirds of U.S. Homes Stream Audio Over Broadband, With Amazon in a Surprising Lead (Billboard)
* Review: Sun Ra And His Arkestra - To Those Of Earth... And Other Worlds (The Quietus)
* Legacy to Release 4-CD Live Weather Report Box (Jazz Times)
* Elling To Salute Sinatra in NYC (DownBeat)
* Harry Connick Jr. Syndicated Daytime Show Set for Fall 2016 (Billboard)
* An Ancient Indonesian Music Tradition Gets an Electronic Update (Hyperallergic.com)
* Digital Orphans: The Massive Cultural Black Hole On Our Horizon (TechDirt.com)
* DeJohnette, Coltrane, Garrison Forge Deep Bond in Brooklyn (DownBeat)
* Postage Stamps from Bhutan That Double as Playable Vinyl Records (OpenCulture.com)
* Jazz-playing robot will provide insight into how computers communicate with humans (University of Illinois)
* Documenting the women of LA's 70s rock scene (Vice.com)
* What Does Minecraft for Music Look Like? (Medium.com)
* The unrest is silence: why ‘classical’ music traditions are under threat (The Guardian UK)