Sunday Session: December 9, 2018

Dexter Gordon

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:

* All-too-easy listening - The music industry sells classical as soothing background music — robbing a great art of its power (Washington Post)
* Marcus Strickland Harnesses Power of Vocalists, Organ on Latest Album (DownBeat)
* The Multiple Personalities of Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Jeff Simon: Is posthumous jazz a problem or a glorious resurrection? (Buffalo News)
* Wynton Marsalis: Jazz And Holiday Music Go Together Like Holly And Ivy (HoustonPublicMedia.org)
* Esperanza Spalding says goodbye to song-driven shows (Washington Post)
* It’s official: Galactic has purchased Tipitina’s (Offbeat)
* This Thing Never Stops: Roscoe Mitchell and Phillip Greenlief in Conversation (SFMOMA.org)
* Jazz Is Dance Music Again (Rolling Stone)
* The Life Force of Esperanza Spalding (OfficeMagazine.net)
* The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition Has a Winner (WBGO)
* Classical Hands: Composer Kris Bowers on Scoring ‘Green Book,’ Teaching Mahershala Ali Piano, Seeing His Hands On Screen (Pollstar)
* The good fight: Jan Ramsey keeps music journalism alive in New Orleans (Columbia Journalism Review)
* St. Nick: The Long, Strange and Wonderful Career of Nick Lowe (Rolling Stone)
* Interview: Milford Graves (Modern Drummer)
* Can We Get to That (Oxford American)
* Indie Labels Now Account for 39.9% of the Global Recorded Music Market (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Dexter Gordon Biography 'Sophisticated Giant' Chronicles a Jazz Life (Billboard)
* The Unclassifiable, Unstreamable Eighties Albums of Annette Peacock (The New Yorker)
* Sachal Vasandani Celebrates the American Songbook (Jazz Times)
* At 80, Saxophonist Charles Lloyd Finds Enlightenment in the Groove (NPR)
* Jazz legend Herbie Hancock becomes first musician to receive Ben Franklin Medal (WHYY)
* Hi Records star and instrumental hitmaker Ace Cannon dead at 84 (Memphis Commercial Appeal)
* Selling Vintage Records in Tokyo (LongReads.com)
* Covering both sides: Catherine Russell and John Pizzarelli (Santa Fe New Mexican)
* Playing the theory of relativity: Sunny Murray in Europe 1968–72 (The Wire)
* Daversa, Salvant, Mehldau Nominated for Grammy Awards (DownBeat)
* 'Fight The Power': A Tale Of 2 Anthems (With The Same Name) (NPR)
* Feds allege wider cover-up by Irvin Mayfield, Ronald Markham in New Orleans Library Foundation scandal (New Orleans Advocate)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Helen Sung, Marcus Strickland and the Metta Quintet

This week, we've got a grab-bag of videos related to the Metta Quintet, who will be in St. Louis next week to do an educational residency for Jazz St. Louis, culminating in performances at Jazz at the Bistro on Friday, October 31 and Saturday, November 1.

As the the official resident ensemble of JazzReach Performing Arts & Education Association in NYC, the Metta Quintet spends a good deal of time in educational settings, but the group's members - pianist Helen Sung, saxophonists Marcus Strickland and Mark Gross, bassist Joshua Ginsburg and drummer/JazzReach founder H. Benjamin Schumann - are all accomplished working players with substantial musical resumes outside the group as well. (Past members of the Metta Quintet include saxophonist Mark Turner and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, both of whom have led their own groups at the Bistro in recent years, and pianist George Colligan.)

Unfortunately, there seem to be no readily available videos online that feature the entire quintet in action, so instead, let's take at look at some clips featuring two of the group's better-known members. First up is a video featuring pianist Helen Sung performing "Blues Connotation" at the Perugia jazz festival in Italy earlier this year, backed by bassist Giuseppe Bassi, drummer Sangoma Everett and saxophonist Roberto Ottoviano.

The next video embed features an excerpt from a performance by saxophonist Marcus Strickland's group Twi-Life in April 2008 at Small's in NYC. The video quality is not great, as the clip was shot using only ambient light in a dark club, but the sound certainly is good enough to hear what Strickland is playing, ably abetted by guitarist Lage Lund, bassist Carlos Henderson and drummer E.J. Strickland.

Finally, since the Metta Quintet will be giving school performances and working with music students during their visit to St. Louis, today's final clip is an excerpt from a workshop in which they coach student musicians at the Garde Arts Center in New London, CT through some basic improvisations on the standard "C Jam Blues." Although the objective musical value of this clip is slight (assuming you're not one of the students involved, or a proud parent of same), it does provide a glimpse of how the Metta Quintet helps young musicians get acquainted with jazz concepts, as well as the enthusiasm they bring to the task.