More free MP3 sampler albums available from Amazon.com

Everybody likes getting free stuff, and online retailer Amazon.com regularly offers free music in MP3 format to entice potential customers into checking out some of its more esoteric offerings as well as the top hits. Amazon currently is offering two free sampler albums in MP3 format that, although they may not have a specific connection to St. Louis, may be of interest to StLJN readers.

First, there's a free sampler from Pi Records that contains ten tracks from musicians such as the Art Ensemble of Chicago, trumpeter Corey Wilkes, saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, and more. You can download it here.

Also, there's The Orange Mountain Music Philip Glass Sampler Vol. 1, which includes a total of 21 complete selections and excerpts of longer pieces from the famed minimalist composer's catalog. You can download it here.

Notes from the Net: Reviews of Roy Haynes & Elliot/Braun; free Wynton Marsalis MP3s; and more

Not much on the Interwebs this week about St. Louis' native jazz musicians, but there are a few items of interest pertaining tosome musicians who have performed here recently, or will soon:

* Saxophonist Kirk Whalum, whose performed in St. Louis at the Pageant last month as part of the Guitars and Saxes show (and who's also been known to sit in with his uncle Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum at Brandt's), has a new "best of" disc coming out.

* Trumpeter Rick Braun and saxophonist Richard Elliot, just here at the Pageant as part of the Jazz Attack show, have released a new CD together, reviewed here.

* Drummer Roy Haynes (pictured), due in town to perform at Jazz at the Bistro in September, last week played Dizzy's Club Cola, the jazz club at Lincoln Center. Read the NY Times review here.

* Wynton Marsalis, who's coming to St. Louis to play the Sheldon in February, has a Web-only album available as a free download; go here for more info and links to the individual tracks from Here and Now.

* And lastly, pianist and singer Diana Krall continues to do lots of press for her current tour. This week's entries include interviews with the Detroit Free Press and Wichita Eagle. Krall also wound up on the receiving end of some snark from the Toronto Globe and Mail about her taste in Canadian wine, as recently revealed in tour riders published online by The Smoking Gun.com

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.