Sunday Session: May 3, 2020

Tony Allen

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

* Mark Guiliana Meets Kneebody (Jazz Times)
* Billboard's Coverage of 1918 PANDEMIC Reveals Eerie Similarities (Billboard)
* Charles Tolliver Set To Issue New Album Through UK Label Gearbox (DownBeat)
* Charlie Parker's Story to Be Told in Graphic Novel 'Chasin' the Bird' (Exclusive) (Hollywood Reporter)
* Because You're Mine: Searching For The Children Of Screamin' Jay Hawkins (NPR)
* How One Article Changed Fair Use (PlagiarismToday.com)
* How Aaron Parks Creates New Worlds On His Second Little Big Album (DownBeat)
* Jazz Artists Join Music Workers Alliance Call for Economic Justice Online (Jazz Times)
* Gary Bartz And Maisha Spark An Intergenerational Conversation (DownBeat)
* Why We Picked Erroll Garner’s Last Album As This Month’s Classics Release (VinylMePlease.com)
* A Month To Celebrate Jazz, Turned Tragic (NPR)
* Kurt Rosenwinkel: One World, One Music (Blues.gr)
* Donald Fagen is Keeping His Sense of Humor in Isolation (Rolling Stone)
* David Crosby on Live Music’s Uncertain Future — and Why He Hasn’t Given Up on Reuniting CSNY (Rolling Stone)
* Tony Allen, Pioneering Afrobeat Drummer, Has Died (Rolling Stone)
* Novelty and Identity: An Interview With Colin Stetson (PopMatters.com)
* Tony Allen, Afrobeat's Foundational Drummer, Has Died At Age 79 (NPR)
* At the drive-in: ENO to stage opera at a safe physical distance (The Guardian)
* The Music Industry Is About to Put Out a Lot of Very, Very Uplifting Songs (Rolling Stone)
* So Drive-In Concerts Are a Thing Now (LoudWire.com)
* Wayne Escoffery On Yale, Repertoire And Humble Warriors (DownBeat)
* Herbie Hancock and the recurring bridging of time (Johannesburg Mail & Guardian)
* How Do We Safely Reopen Music Venues? (Offbeat)
* 84% of Freelance Musicians Still Haven’t Received Government Relief (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Missouri Governor Says Concerts Can Resume Monday (Billboard)

Jazz this week: Kurt Rosenwinkel; Christian Sands; J.D. Parran, K. Curtis Lyle and friends; Too Many Zooz, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features headlining appearances from a top guitarist and a rising young pianist; free improvisation from a renowned St. Louis native and friends; a rowdy trio of former subway buskers; and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, February 5
Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel performs for the first of five nights continuing through Sunday at Jazz St. Louis.

Since his last headlining appearance here in 2006, Rosenwinkel (pictured, top left) has evolved from an up-and-coming player into a significant voice internationally among contemporary guitarists. You can see and hear some recent samples of his playing on video in this post from last Saturday.

Thursday, February 6
Multi-instrumentalist Jeff Anderson will pick up his tenor sax to lead a group in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Also on Thursday, pianist Adam Maness' trio is back at Thurman's in Shaw, and The Dark Room has a double feature with guitarist Dave Black at the dinner hour and saxophonist Scooter Brown playing the late show.

Friday, February 7
"Brasshouse" trio Too Many Zooz, featuring the flamboyant virtuoso baritone saxophonist Leo Pellegrino, will perform at Off Broadway.

In the last five years, they've gone from being literally an underground sensation, playing for tips in the NYC subway, to touring internationally and having their music featured in a national TV commercial from Google. And while Pellegrino's stage antics may get a lot of attention, he's a formidable musical presence as well.

Also on Friday, bassist Darrell Mixon and Friends will play at The Judson House; the Midwest Jazz-tette serves up West Coast cool jazz at The Abbey in Belleville; and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes make their cabaret debut at Blue Strawberry.

Saturday, February 8
Pianist Christian Sands (pictured, bottom left) and his trio will be "Remembering Erroll Garner" in a performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Sands, one of the top young pianists in jazz, has played here before with bassist Christian McBride but will be making his St. Louis debut as a bandleader with this show. You can find out more about Sands and see and hear some samples of his playing on video in this post from Saturday before last.

Also on Saturday, multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native J.D. Parran, poet K. Curtis Lyle and Friends will perform improvised music with spoken word in a free show at St. Louis University's Xavier Hall.

Sunday, February 9
Bassist and singer Janet Evra plays for brunch at The Dark Room, and Genesis Jazz Project will feature a guest performance from singer Robert Nelson as part of their matinee performance at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Monday, February 10
Dizzy Atmosphere plays for diners at The Shaved Duck, and singer Debby Lennon leads a quartet in a concert at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus.

Tuesday, February 11
Keyboardist and singer Jesse Gannon returns to BB's Jazz, Blues and 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.)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Kurt Rosenwinkel

This week, our video spotlight falls on guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, who's coming to town to perform starting next Wednesday, February 5 through Sunday, February 9 at Jazz St. Louis.

Taking the slot in the season schedule once announced for fellow guitarist Pat Martino, it's been a long time between visits for Rosenwinkel, who will be playing his first shows here as a leader since 2006, when he headlined a week at what then was called Jazz at the Bistro.

Back then, he was still considered something of an up-and-coming player; now, he's one of the busiest guitarists in jazz, considered a mainstay of the scene in New York City and internationally.

Rosenwinkel, who will turn 50 this year, grew up in Philadelphia and studied at Berklee College of Music until getting hired to tour with vibraphonist Gary Burton. Moving to Brooklyn, he worked with drummers Paul Motian and Brian Blade, saxophonist Joe Henderson and later, saxophonists Mark Turner and Joel Frahm, pianist Brad Mehldau, and more. In addition to appearing on dozens of albums as a collaborator and sideman, Rosenwinkel since 1996 has recorded a dozen of his own as a bandleader in settings ranging from trio to big band, the most recent being 2017's Caipi.

Today's collection of clips pulls together a half-dozen of the guitarist's most recent performances available via online video, starting up above with a half-hour long excerpt from a set recorded last month at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) annual trade show in Los Angeles.

After the jump, you can see Rosenwinkel with fellow Philadelphians Joey DeFrancesco on organ, Christian McBride on bass, and Lil' John Roberts on drums, performing Benny Golson's "Along Came Betty" during their "Philly Reunion" gig last month at the Blue Note in New York City.

That's followed by a clip of the guitarist performing "Under It All" on August 2, 2019 in Bitonto, Italy, and then another, longer excerpt from the same show, also featuring pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts.

Next, it's an excerpt from another performance by the same ensemble, recorded four days later at the Peperoncino Jazz Festival in Calabria, Italy.

The final video shows Rosenwinkel playing the standard "All or Nothing At All" at a gig in 2018 with bassist Alex Claffy and drummer Mark Whitfield Jr.

For more about Kurt Rosenwinkel, read his interview from September 2019 at BandOnTheWall.org, in which he discusses his work with the free improv trio Bandit 65; his interview published on the improvisational music website Meloport; and his 2017 interview with the NYC website Jazz Trail.

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

Sunday Session: September 3, 2017

Thelonious Monk

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

* Elvis Presley’s Archivist on the Heartbreak of Tapes Trashed by RCA, Scouring the South for Lost Recordings (Variety)
* Esperanza Spalding’s Pop Culture Loves (Smithsonian)
* Tin Men and the Telephone: the jazz band you control with a smartphone (The Guardian)
* Review: The Mingus Prom (Jazz Journal)
* The Devo De-Evolution Of Golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez (WBUR)
* Close Encounters of the 4th Kind with the Sun Ra Arkestra in San Francisco (PopMatters.com)
* Pharaoh’s Den, the Sun Ra-themed grocery store in Philadelphia (DangerousMinds.net)
* Kurt Rosenwinkel: A Whole New Vista (Jazz Times)
* Hancock-Washington Double Bill Rocks the Hollywood Bowl (DownBeat)
* INTERVIEW: Marilyn Mazur (London Jazz News)
* Review: Oslo Jazz Festival 2017 (Jazz Times)
* Q&A with Sean Jones: The Spirit Calling (DownBeat)
* Woody Shaw Takes on “’Round Midnight,” the Trumpeter’s Supreme Challenge (The New Yorker)
* The Omnivorous Mind of Pamela Z (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* Where's the Best Seat in the Concert Hall? (WQXR)
* The South Side’s Last Remaining Jazz Landmarks (Chicago magazine)
* Rock ’N’ Roll: America’s Midlife Crisis (Talkhouse.com)
* Pop music is rejecting the piano. Why? (The Economist)
* ‘The Simpsons’ Composer Alf Clausen Fired (EXCLUSIVE) (Variety)
* Review: Jazz re:freshed Live at Nublu in NYC (Jazz Times)
* Traditional Radio Faces a Grim Future, New Study Says (Variety)
* How we made Roy Ayers' "Everybody Loves the Sunshine" (The Guardian)
* Stevie Wonder Reflects On Motown, God And Prince (NPR)
* Off Minor Prophet: Thelonious Monk at 100 (Think Christian)
* Son of Jazz Great Thelonious Monk Sues California Brewery (USNews.com)
* Hudson: Upstate New York’s Supergroup (Jazz Times)
* From Jazz Clubs to Classrooms (The Nation)
* Revitalization project honors jazz great, Toledo native Art Tatum (Toledo Blade)
* Kirk Knuffke’s Time: The Story of Some of the Year’s Best Jazz (Village Voice)
* Avant-garde elder Roscoe Mitchell celebrates 50 years of Nessa Records (Chicago Reader)
* Quincy Jones Looks Back on the Making of Michael Jackson's 'Bad' (Rolling Stone)
* A Brand You Can Trust? Record Nerds’ 20 Favorite Labels From the 20th Century (Variety)
* Jazz trumpeter Hino attacks schoolboy drummer (The Asahi Shimbun)
* First Listen: Arturo O'Farrill & Chucho Valdés, 'Familia: Tribute To Bebo & Chico' (NPR)
* Meet the Ace of Cups, the Haight’s (Almost) Forgotten All-Girl Band (KQED)