Notes from the 'Net: Inside the Kind of Blue sessions, a Julius Hemphill tribute, new CDs, interviews, reviews, and more

Proving that you can't keep a good recurring feature down, we once again bring you Notes from the Net, a compilation of short news bits related to musicians from St. Louis, musicians who will soon visit (or have recently visited) the Gateway City; and assorted other items of interest. The plan this time is to try to make NFTN a more-or-less regular Sunday feature, providing material suitable for perusal during either idle weekend hours or Monday morning's coffee break. And so, without further ado:

* We start this installment, as is the tradition, with a Miles Davis-related item, as the NPR show Morning Edition recently ran a story called "Between Takes: The Kind Of Blue Sessions" featuring excerpts from Ashley Khan's liner notes for the album's 50th anniversary reissue. Listen to the mix of in-studio dialog from the musicians, Khan's commentary, and musical examples here.

* In other news related - at least tangentially - to musicians from St. Louis, Rifftides' Doug Ramsay links to a report on the current post-Katrina state of New Orleans' Armstrong Park, adding the story of how trumpeter and St. Louis native Clark Terry inspired the movement that got New Orleans its Armstrong statue.

* On Thursday, February 26, Philadelphia's Ars Nova Workshop series will present a Composer Portrait concert at the city's World Cafe featuring the music of former St. Louisan Julius Hemphill (pictured) as performed by the Warriors of the Wonderful Sound, an 18-member big band led by multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native Marty Ehrlich. Ehrlich also was part of last week's Oliver Lake big band gig at NYC's Jazz Gallery.

* Via the always useful Avant Music News (which is sporting a pleasing new look for the New Year), two John Zorn performances featuring the Masada Sextet and The Dreamers are coming to Henry Street Settlement in New York. Zorn also is the subject of a new book written by John Brackett and published by the Indiana University Press, reviewed by Popmatters here. (For those unaware of Zorn's St. Louis connection: he went to Webster University back in the 1970s.)

* Turning to news from the "coming attractions" file, in April bassist Victor Wooten is opening Wooten Woods, a new 150 acre site on the Duck River near Nashville, TN for the "bass/nature camp" he and his family have been running since the year 2000. Wooten will be in St. Louis to play The Pageant on Friday, March 13.

* No doubt hoping for a taste of some of that sweet, sweet cash that gets spent every year for Valentine's Day, Boney James is releasing a new CD, Send One Your Love, on February 3. The smooth jazz saxophonist formerly known as James Oppenheim will play The Pageant on Thursday, March 25.

* Al Jarreau will be in St. Louis to sing at the Touhill Performing Arts Center on Friday, February 13, but this past weekend, he, Kevin Mahogany and The Godfathers of Groove, the Cyrus Chestnut Trio, and St. Louis area native Bonnie Bramlett were among the performers at the seventeenth annual "All That Jazz" weekend held at The Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa in Asheville, NC.

* In news on a couple of musicians being considered for next season at Jazz at the Bistro, singer Alyssa Graham performed at the Tin Angel in Philly on January 30th, and West Coast jazz blogger and radio host Leroy The Jazzcat" Downs recently interviewed pianist Vijay Iyer, with the conversation now available in MP3 format here (or if that link doesn't work, search Downs' archives here).

* From the "recent visitors" file: Saxophonist Javon Jackson and keyboard player Les McCann, who played at Jazz at the Bistro last fall with their Swiss Movement Revisited band, now can be heard in a concert from Kennedy Center available for streaming via NPR's Jazz Set with DeeDee Bridgewater.

* Saxophonist and composer Benny Golson, another recent visitor to the Bistro, celebrated his 80th birthday this past week with a new album on Concord Jazz. For more Golson, check out this interview and excerpts from the CD via NPR's Weekend Edition; this post at WFIU's Night Lights blog, with an archive of the program's Golson tribute plus related info and links; and Doug Ramsey's appreciation of Golson, with videos.

* Saxophonist Dave Liebman, who played Washington University's Jazz at Holmes series in November, was interviewed before a recent performance in New Hampshire. Also, the New York Times reviewed a recent Liebman NYC performance at NYC's Birdland with a quintet that included Randy Brecker on trumpet, Billy Hart on drums and Marc Copland on piano. (Copland will be in St. Louis on Friday, February 13 to play a trio concert at the 560 Music Center.)

* The Bad Plus, who just did their annual gig at the Bistro a couple of weeks ago, have a new CD, For All I Care, coming out this week. Another Bistro perennial, singer/pianist Tony DeSare, also has a new CD called Radio Show, reviewed here

* Last but not least, following up on a previous post here about adding support for the arts to the stimulus bill currently being considered by Congrees, via New Music ReBlog: The Performing Arts Alliance is alerting everyone that Congress is still debating whether or not to include the National Endowment for the Arts in the stimulus bill, officially known as the American Reinvestment Recovery Act of 2009.

Under the House of Representatives plan, the NEA will receive a $50 million supplement to further the arts, but under the Senate’s plan, the NEA is not included. The Performing Arts Alliance has sent out mass emails encouraging everyone to write their Senator, and have even set up a way to do it electronically. "In a time when the world’s view of the United States is less than favorable, we need artists now more than ever to contribute to the world’s culture as a whole," says the PAA. "Submitting the electronic letter takes about five minutes to complete and is very user friendly, so please take action today and help further the good in American culture."

On the same subject, while noting in his monthly big band report that the Toledo Jazz Orchestra recently suspended all concert activities, AllAboutJazz.com's Jack Bowers makes the case for increased support of the arts :

"In times of economic stress, the arts (excepting perhaps the cinema) are among the first things to be sacrificed on the altar of belt-tightening. Those who rely on the arts to help maintain some semblance of sanity in otherwise troubled times know the opposite should be true, but their voices are weak and ineffectual in the face of fiscal disarray. And so there will be less music (of substance), less dance, less theatre (some Broadway shows already are closing the doors while others are barely alive and kicking). Unless people have discretionary money to spend on such pursuits, many are doomed to failure, especially as philanthropic grants are also drying up.

Let us hope the situation is temporary, and that the arts will someday soon regain their lost footing and flourish again. It is something to look forward to."

(Edited 2/11/09 to correct the venue for the Al Jarreau concert.)

Jazz this week: Les McCann & Javon Jackson, Fran Landesman, Cooper-Moore, TKT Memorial Scholarship Concert, and more

There's lots going on in jazz and creative music this week in St. Louis, and so we bring you StLJN's weekly highlights post slightly earlier than usual to perhaps better help facilitate some advance planning.

One of the week's major attractions is the team-up of pianist and singer Les McCann (pictured) and saxophonist Javon Jackson, who will perform Wednesday through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. Both men previously have led their own bands at the Bistro, but their current collaboration, dubbed "Swiss Movement Revisited" in honor of McCann's famed partnership with the late saxophonist Eddie Harris, will be making its St. Louis debut.

Though McCann, who turned 73 last month, and Jackson, who's 43, are from different generations, they seem like a natural musical match - both men have made a lot of groove-oriented music over the course of their respective careers, but both also have shown a proclivity for occasional detours into more adventurous and/or eccentric territory. For some video of McCann and Jackson together, see this post from last Saturday. You may also enjoy perusing this interview Jackson did with StLJN back in 2005.

Also returning to St. Louis this week for a four-night stand is songwriter and poet Fran Landesman, who's performing a cabaret show called "The Gaslight Square Years" beginning Wednesday and running through Saturday at the Gaslight Theater, 356 N. Boyle in the Central West End. Landesman is something of a St. Louis legend, having (with her husband Jay) operated the Crystal Palace nightclub, one of the key venues during Gaslight Square's heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Landesman also co-wrote (with pianist Tommy Wolf) the musical The Nervous Set, which ran briefly on Broadway and yielded the frequently recorded tune "Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most." The St. Louis Beacon's Bob Duffy, a former Post-Dispatch writer who knew her way back in the day, has a feature story about Landesman and her show here.

UPDATE, 11:35 p.m., 10/23/08 - 52nd City's Thomas Crone blogs his impressions of Landesman's opening night performance here.

Elsewhere in town, NYC-based multi-intrumentalist Cooper-Moore, who plays original jazz- and blues-influenced music on both conventional and self-invented instruments, will perform Saturday at Joe's Cafe and Sunday at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site's Rosebud Cafe. Cooper-Moore has roots in the 1970s avant garde and loft jazz scene, but since then he's forged his own distinctive musical path. For more on Cooper-Moore's performances, see these two posts. You also can see an excerpt from a Cooper-Moore improv with bassist William Parker in the embedded video window below.

In addition to these distinguished visitors, St. Louis' local musicians also have much to offer this week, starting on Thursday when saxophonist Dave Stone and pianist Adam Maness (of Erin Bode's group and Orange) perform a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University. If you're still in the mood for more music after Stone and Maness, you can head over to Brandt's in the nearby Delmar Loop and catch the gypsy jazz stylings of Sandy Weltman and Hot Club Caravan.

On Friday, the Legacy Jazz Quintet, led by pianist Phil Dunlap and trumpeter Anthony Wiggins, will do a free performance in the St. Louis Art Museum's Griggs Gallery, while singer, pianist and saxophonist Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum plays at Brandt's.

Then on Saturday, guitarist William Lenihan's quartet will do a free concert at the Kemper Museum on the Wash U. campus as part of the ongoing series accompanying the museum's current "Birth of the Cool" exhibit.

Sunday evening brings two more events of interest, starting with a performance by guitarist Matthew Von Doran's trio, featuring Nick Jost on bass and Miles Vandiver on drums, at Music Folk in Webster Groves. (UPDATE - 11:50 p.m., 10/22/08: Von Doren emailed to say that his show Sunday at Music Folk has been canceled, but will be rescheduled at a later date.)

That same night, the 45th Oliver Sain Soul Reunion will take place at the Sheldon Concert Hall, featuring blues and soul from singers Renee Smith, Roland Johnson, Mae Wheeler, Skeet Rogers, Uvee Hayes and Beau Shelby as well as a goodly helping of Sain's funky instrumental compositions as played by the current Oliver Sain Revue. Dan Durchholz has more on Sain's legacy and this year's show in an article for the St. Louis Beacon, found here. (Full disclosure: Yr. humble editor is a member of said Revue, and will be at the keyboards Sunday night at the Sheldon.)

On Monday morning, Red Lehr and the Old St. Louis Levee Band, featuring pianist Pat Joyce, will do a "Coffee Concert" of traditional jazz at the Sheldon. (They'll repeat the program at another performance on Tuesday morning.)

On Monday evening, the annual TKT Memorial Scholarship Concert takes place at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium. This year's event pays tribute to the musical legacies of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Billy Eckstine, with featured performers including singers Jeanne Trevor, Sherri Drake, and Eddie Eaton; pianists Marion Miller, Carolbeth True, and Kim Portnoy; guitarists Steve Schenkel and Tom Byrne; Paul DeMarinis on tenor sax; and the rhythm section of Willem von Hombracht on bass and Kevin Gianino on drums. Also on Monday evening, the Sessions Big Band continues their ongoing series of gigs at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups downtown.

For more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

(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: Les McCann and Javon Jackson

This week's videos feature keyboardist Les McCann and saxophonist Javon Jackson, who will be in St. Louis next week to perform Wednesday, October 22 through Saturday, October 25 at Jazz at the Bistro. Their team-up is billed as "Swiss Movement Revisited," a reference to McCann's collaboration with the late saxophonist Eddie Harris and the famous live album the two recorded in 1969 at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

In part because their collaboration is relatively recent, there's not a whole lot of footage online showing Jackson and McCann playing together, but let's take a look at what is out there. First up is an excerpt from a recent performance at the Deer Valley Jazz Festival in Park City, Utah (also the home of the Sundance Film Festival). This clip apparently comes from some sort of promo for the Deer Valley fest, so there's also some interview footage with an audience member before the music starts.

The second clip features Jackson and McCann playing a tune called "Fun Time", composed by bassist Kenny Davis, at a show in May at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. The video quality is rough, as it's from a cellphone camera. The third clip was shot around the same time, and shows McCann and Jackson on a visit to the High School for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, MN, where they interact with and listen to some student performers and then play a bit themselves. And finally, as a reminder of the collaboration that helped inspire the McCann/Jackson pairing, the fourth video is a vintage clip showing McCann and Eddie Harris performing the most famous song they recorded together, "Compared to What".

Notes from the Net: More on Miles From India, an appreciation of Oliver Nelson, plus reviews, interviews and more

It's now officially summer time, and the linkin' is easy...to yet another collection of news bits about jazz musicians with a St. Louis connection, recent visitors and coming attractions, pus assorted other items of interest:

* First up, some links related to the Miles Davis-inspired project Miles From India, starting with another review of the two-CD set, written by ContemporaryJazz.com's John Luciano. The CDs have also spawned a limited series of concerts, including one in Los Angeles, reviewed here, and one in San Francisco that inspired an article about how the jazz now is incorporating musical influences from all over the world, Last but not least, AllAboutJazz.com has an interview about the project with former Davis sideman, guitarist Pete Cosey (pictured).

* The film blog Cinema Styles recently had a nice appreciation of saxophonist and St. Louis native Oliver Nelson's film and TV scoring, with an accompanying .mp3 of his composition "A Typical Day in New York."

* Saxophonist Oliver Lake is featured in Breakin' Glass, a new book in the Photonality Jazz Series

* Saxophonist and composer John Zorn recently designed a sound installation/experiment for a San Francisco museum.

* Composer, sound artist and St. Louis native Ben Manley is taking part in NYC performance space Roulette's annual Mixology Festival, which focuses on new and unusual uses of technology in music.

* Here's a review of No Strangers Here, bassist Ben Wolfe's new CD from the St. Louis-based MAXJAZZ label, and a review of Wolfe's recent gig at NYC's Jazz Standard.

* Check out these two interviews with saxophonist John Ellis, who guests on the new Erin Bode CD The Little Garden - one in print from AllAboutJazz.com, the other on radio with blogger and DJ LeRoy "The Jazzcat" Downs.

* The Return to Forever reunion tour, which came through St. Louis last week for a date at the Fox Theatre, is getting lots of press, starting with news that group's two-CD Anthology has been released; the collection gets an AllAboutJazz.com "extended analysis" here. Also, check out reviews of the band's shows in Denver, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles, and this interview with drummer Lenny White in Drum Magazine

* Since playing at Jazz at the Bistro last October, bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding's star has contined to rise. She recently was interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered, and the New York Times has reviewed her new CD.

* Guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli, who's performed in St. Louis at both the Bistro and the Sheldon Concert Hall , has released a new CD devoted to the songs of Richard Rodgers

* Singer Paula West will perform at the Sheldon next season; here's a review of her recent gig in Charleston, SC.

* Trumpeter Rick Braun and saxophonist Richard Elliot have been added to the lineup of this fall's Dave Koz Cruise, produced by St. Louis-based Jazz Cruises LLC. Braun, Elliot and Koz all will perform at The Pageant this summer.

* Pianist Les McCann and saxophonist Javon Jackson, who will team up for a four-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro in October, were a last-minute replacement for pianist McCoy Tyner at the jazz festival earlier this month in Telluride, CO.

* The National Endowment for the Arts has announced its 2009 Jazz Masters honorees, including guitarist and singer George Benson, drummer Jimmy Cobb, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, guitarist and harmonica player Toots Thielemans and trumpeter Snooky Young. Recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder will receive the 2009 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy.

* Last but not least, composer and blogger Darcy James Argue recently had a couple of insightful and amusing posts about the phenomenon of "fan service," which he defines as "a marker or signifier that serves no legitimate aesthetic purpose, but is there to stroke those in the in-crowd while simultaneously alienating even the most sophisticated and open-minded newbies."