Sunday Session: September 22, 2019

Harold Mabern

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

* California Senate Passes Gig Economy Bill That Could 'Gut the Music Industry' (Billboard)
* The World Of Celia Cruz: A Turning The Tables Playlist (NPR)
* Steve Dalachinsky, Poet Who Chronicled and Championed the Jazz Avant-Garde, Dies at 72 (WBGO)
* Steve Dalachinsky, Poet and Pillar of NYC Jazz Scene, Dies at 72 (Jazz Times)
* In Memory of the Critic’s Trade (21CM.org)
* The Village Vanguard: NYC's Bright Red Shrine To Jazz (Patch.com)
* Martin, Medeski & Wood to Premiere New Documentary (Jazz Times)
* Everybody forgets Creedence Clearwater Revival headlined Woodstock in 1969. A new live recording will change that (Chicago Tribune)
* Celia Cruz: The Voice Of Experience (NPR)
* Apple Sued for Copyright Infringement, Pirating Musical Works Recorded by some of the Greatest Jazz & Popular Artists of all Time (PatentlyApple.com)
* Creepy Whitney Houston Hologram Tour Is Officially Happening (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* The Hardest Song I Ever Chased (Vulture.com)
* Keyboardist Robert Glasper to Play 56 Shows at New York’s Blue Note (DownBeat)
* The Incomparable Django (Commentary)
* Spotify: ‘Owning’ discovery of music will lead to improved gross margin (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* A Century Ago, This Eerie-Sounding Instrument Ushered in Electronic Music (Smithsonian)
* We’ve Got A File On You: Jeff Tweedy (Stereogum.com)
* As jazz elder statesman, Pat Metheny embraces band of up-and-comers (Columbus Dispatch)
* Johnathan Blake: Fascinated by Rhythm (Jazz Times)
* Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash Session Unearthed for Bootleg Series (Pitchfork)
* Memphis jazz great Harold Mabern has died (Memphis Commercial Appeal)
* Poncho Sanchez Provides the Percussive Punctuation (DownBeat)
* Why Is American Classical Music So White? (NPR)
* Watch Bassist Linda May Han Oh Perform Her Dynamic New Project, 'Aventurine' (NPR)
* With The Emmys Around The Corner, A Look At What Makes Good TV Theme Music (WBUR)
* How composer Terence Blanchard wove history into the score for “Harriet” (Fast Company)
* Jazz Pioneer Bennie Maupin’s Next Chapter (Good Times)
* Sunshine Superman: The Transformation of Donovan Leitch (PleaseKillMe.com)

Notes from the Net: "Miles From India" in NYC and Montreal; Elling, Bridgewater pay tribute to jazz classics, plus news, reviews, interviews & more

Here's the latest compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* Let's start, as we often do, with some Miles Davis-related items. The Montreal Jazz Festival has announced that the ensemble for the "Miles From India" concert on July 4 at the Theatre Maisonneuve, Place des Arts will include bassist Darryl Jones, whose first big-time gig was with Miles and who now plays with the Rolling Stones, and the Indian percussionist Selvaganesh, a member of the group Remember Shakti.

On a related note, here a review done for AllAboutJazz.com by Martin Longley of a "Miles From India" performance in late May at NYC's Iridium. Also, via Miles Davis Online, we learn that drummer Jimmy Cobb and an edition of his So What band featuring Wallace Roney on trumpet did a Kind of Blue tribute at last weekend's Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles.

* Turning to news of coming attractions, singer Kurt Elling is performing songs from his new CD Dedicated to You this week at NYC's Birdland, and the news Web site/cable channel NY1 has a feature story with accompanying video. Elling will be in St. Louis in December at Jazz at the Bistro to perform material from the CD, which re-imagines songs from the famous collaboration of singer Johnny Hartman and saxophone legend John Coltrane.

* Here's a review for AAJ.com by Chris M. Slawecki of Bach in Havana, the new CD from Tiempo Libre. The band will perform in St. Louis next year at Washington University's Edison Theatre.

* Singer DeeDee Bridgewater (pictured) is performing material from her new Billie Holiday tribute CD during a week-long gig at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago. Bridgewater will do her Holiday tribute in St. Louis this October at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

* Speaking of the Sheldon, here's a review, written by Jerry D'Souza for AllABoutJazz.com, of guitarist Frank Vignola's Live at the Sheldon DVD from Mel Bay Records. Vignola's most recent St. Louis appearance was in May at Jazz at the Bistro.

* The funky organ trio Medeski, Martin & Wood, who were in St. Louis in April to play the Loyal Earth Festival, will play the music of John Zorn during a concert at the Barbican in London.

* Banjo player Bela Fleck, who brought his Africa Project tour to the Sheldon in April, also is doing some duo concerts with Toumani Diabate. Fleck and Diabate were just in Tuscon, AZ, and were featured in the Tucson Weekly.

* Lastly, a few items from the "general interest" files, starting with the unfortunate news that Jazz Times magazine has suspended publication. The mag hopes to find new owners and get back to publishing soon, but given the current economic climate, it's far from a done deal. Howard Mandel has details at his Jazz Beyond Jazz blog here.

* Meanwhile, the once very popular smooth jazz radio format continues to take a beating around the U.S.A, with more stations changing formats to rock music or talk in recent weeks. There's an interesting piece here from the Contra Costa Times (which covers communities near the Bay Area in California) that looks at this trend, noting that the whole notion of "smooth jazz" as a category of music was largely a creation of radio programmers.

* In happier news, the always interesting online jazz magazine Point of Departure has a new issue online.

* The Jazz Journalists Association Awards for this year were announced last Tuesday, and the list of winners includes several musicians who have performed in St. Louis in the past year, such as trumpeter Terence Blanchard, organist Dr. Lonnie Smith and electric bassist Steve Swallow. See the entire list of 2009 award recipients here.

* And in my favorite quirky-story-with-a-happy-ending of the week, drums and other music gear that had belonged to the late Max Roach and were stolen after his death turned up last week in an unlikely place: a barn in Byrdstown, TN. The gear is now on its way back to Roach's heirs; read the whole "lost and found" story here.

Notes from the Net: An 8-bit tribute to Miles Davis, David Sanborn interviewed, plus news, reviews, and more

Here's this week's compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* As is customary, we begin with the Miles Davis beat, where the news is that an exhibition of Davis' drawings and oil paintings will be showcased during the first week of June at The Exchange Court Gallery in London. On another non-musical note, via Miles Davis Online, here's an article from the Web site of clothing designer Ralph Lauren about Davis' "Ivy League" sartorial style of the 1950s and early 1960s.

As for news of Davis' music, check out the review/essay "The Arab Roots of Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain" written for AllAboutJazz.com by John Murnane, which connects Davis' interpretation of "Concierto de Aranjuez" to traditional Spanish music, which in turn was influenced by Arab musical ideas.

And in a year full of remembrances of the late, great trumpeter, one of the most unusual homages to Davis has to be "Kind of Bloop," a planned reworking of Kind of Blue in the electronic music style known as "8-bit," or "chiptune," which utilizes sound chips from vintage video game consoles and early home computers as primary sound sources.

* In other news of former St. Louisans, saxophonist David Sanborn (pictured) was interviewed recently about his latest CD for AllAboutJazz.com by Jason Crane (who also does the Jazz Session podcast series).

* Opening the "coming attractions" file, guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli, a frequent visitor to St. Louis who likely will be returning next year, will be honored next month at the Montreal Jazz Festival with the Fest's 2009 Ella Fitzgerald Award, which is given in recognition of "the versatility, improvisational originality and quality of repertoire of a jazz singer." It's one of several prizes awarded annually by the Festival to artists "who have made extraordinary contributions to the evolution of music."

* Speaking of frequent visitors to St. Louis, those habitués of our town's Jazz at the Bistro The Bad Plus just performed at NYC's Merkin Concert Hall on a bill with the Benevento-Mathis-Barr Trio, and the show was reviewed here for the New York Times by Nate Chinen.

* If you missed the Blue Note 7 at the Sheldon Concert Hall in February, or just want to hear more of the all-star ensemble, you can catch highlights of their recent performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC streaming online here, courtesy of NPR's "Jazz Set" program.

* Keyboardist John Medeski, who was in town last month with Medeski, Martin and Wood to play the inaugural Loyal Earth Festival, has a new CD for which he teams up with the band Sex Mob. Sex Mob Meets Medeski is reviewed here for AAJ.com by Lyn Horton, who calls it "a great ride with a hard-driving nearly rock sensibility that does nothing but cause sweat and a fabulous feel-good vibe."

* Next up, a couple of items with at least a tangential local connection, starting with the news that Broadway producer and impresario Rocco Landesman - the nephew of Fran and Jay Landesman, who operated the famous Crystal Palace nightclub in St. Louis' Gaslight Square - has been nominated to chair the National Endowment for the Arts. The consensus in various news reports seems to be that Landesman is a no-nonsense guy who will be a strong advocate for the arts in Weshington; here's hoping that turns out to be the case.

* Have you ever wondered about the man who wrote the song "St. Louis Blues"? If so, you may be interested in the new biography W. C. Handy: The Life and Times of the Man Who Made the Blues by David Robertson. A review in the New York Times by David Hajdu says the book "casts overdue light on Handy's essential role in establishing the blues as a popular art "

* Last but not least, of interest to all is an item from veteran jazz journalist and critic Howard Mandel over at his blog Jazz Beyond Jazz, in which he muses about women jazz listeners, sexism, and related topics: "The problem is that no one in the jazz world, with the exception of jazz educators, has pleasantly invited women to partake of the music. Rather than being marketed to, women have been neglectfully, perhaps unconsciously, shut out."

I found this to be an interesting notion, and I'm particularly curious as to how any female StLJN readers might react to Mandel's thoughts. Do you ever feel "shut out" with regard to listening to, playing, discussing or enjoying jazz? Is the jazz world more sexist than society in general; less sexist; or about the same? If you like, please feel free share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

Notes from the Net: Another Miles Davis book; riding the "A" train with the Ellington Orchestra; plus news, reviews, interviews, and more

Brought to you a day late, courtesy of this spring's proliferation of pollen and the deleterious effects of same on yr. humble editor's sinuses, here's this week's compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* We've got several Miles Davis-related items this week, starting with the news that the album Sketches of Spain, one of the trumpeter's classic collaborations with arranger Gil Evans, is getting the deluxe 2-CD reissue treatment from Columbia/Legacy, along with Charles Mingus' Mingus Ah Um and Dave Brubeck's Time Out.

Also: Jazz.com's Jared Pauley recently attended a symposium at Columbia University on Davis' electric music, and wrote about it in a blog post titled "Reassessing Miles's Bitches Brew" which notes that "academic discourse and electric fusion don't always mix."

Drummer Jimmy Cobb (pictured), the sole survivor of the recording sessions that produced Miles' Kind of Blue, led a 50th anniversary tribute to KoB and Davis this past weekend at the at New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

And Kind of Blue also will be the central topic of yet another Davis-related book coming out this summer. The Blue Moment: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music was written by the UK newspaper The Guardian’s chief sports writer and former Melody Maker editor Richard Williams, and will be published by Faber and Faber.

(This last item comes to StLJN via Miles Davis Online, a new blog started by Jeffery Hyatt, who also writes the Miles Davis Movie site that we linked to a couple of weeks ago. MDO has a bit of everything Miles-related, from artwork inspired by the trumpeter to a post linking to a video stream of Davis' guest-starring role in an episode of the 1980s TV series Miami Vice. While StLJN no doubt will be linking to MDO in the future, hard-core Miles fans are hereby advised to bookmark it for future reference.)

* In other news of natives of former denizens of the Gateway City, The Jazz Session series of podcasts produced by Jason Crane just did an interview with The Wee Trio, which includes former St. Louisan Dan Loomis on bass along with vibraphonist James Westfall and drummer Jared Schonig.

* The blog Art Decade recently posted a free downloadable .mp3 of guitarist and St. Louis native Grant's Green's verion of "I Can't Stop Loving You," recorded back in 1969.

* Turning to news of coming attractions, singer Tony Bennett, who will be in St. Louis this Thursday to perform at the Fox Theatre, was just in New Orleans, where he donated "dozens of new instruments Thursday to students at a charter school founded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, hoping the tubas, trumpets and trombones would be used to carry on New Orleans' vibrant musical tradition." An accomplished visual artist, too, Bennett also recently donated a portrait he painted of Duke Ellington to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

* Speaking of the Duke, last week's celebration of his birthday in New York included an event that saw the present-day Ellington Orchestra riding and performing on the fabled "A" train to Harlem. You can read the New York Times' account of the trip here. The Ellington Orchestra played at the Touhill Performing Arts Center earlier this year.

* Catching up with news of other recent visitors to St. Louis, via Doug Ramsey's blog Rifftides, we learned that "Leonard Lopate of WNYC radio in New York invited Bill Charlap to drop by the studio where Lopate does his Please Explain program and talk about how jazz improvisation works. Seated at the piano, Charlap spoke clearly about the raw materials of music and showed what jazz players do with them in the act of creation." You can check out the archived broadcast here. Charlap was in St. Louis in February, performing with the Blue Note 7 at the Sheldon Concert Hall .

* From JamBase.com, here's a review by Will Nissen of a recent Medeski, Martin and Wood performance at Trocadero's in Minneapolis. MMW were in the STL a couple of weeks ago for the Loyal Earth Festival at the Old Rock House downtown.

* And from JazzPolice.com, here's a review by Pamela Espeland of a recent performance in the Twin Cities by The Bad Plus and singer Wendy Lewis. The Bad Plus played Jazz at the Bistro back in January..

* From the "general interest" folder, and following up on an item posted here a while back, it seems that business may be improving at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit as the venerable yet financially beleaguered jazz club celebrates 75 years in business. Or, depending on your point of view, maybe not.

* Finally, a recent article from BBC.com addressed something that's bugged yr. humble editor for a good long while now: "Why should we find modern music so difficult to appreciate - but not modern art? David Stubbs, author of Fear of Music - Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen, points out that the Tate Modern is one of the most popular galleries in Europe - but that an audience presented with the equivalent in music tends to screech." For more on why this is so - Stubbs suggests it's because music is time-based, and therefore harder to escape than a painting you're not enjoying - read the whole article here.

Notes from the Net: Miles Davis reissued on vinyl, Duke Ellington Day in NYC, plus news, reviews, interviews, and more

Here's this week's compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* Four classic Miles Davis albums - Sketches Of Spain, In A Silent Way, Nefertiti, and Bitches Brew - have been newly reissued on 180 gram vinyl LPs. (And on a related note, via AllAboutJazz.com, here's an interesting piece from the Los Angeles Times about the continuing demand for music on vinyl.)

In other Miles-related news, composer/pianist Robert Irving III will present the world premiere of "Sketches of Brazil," an orchestral homage to his mentors Davis and Gil Evans, in August at Chicago's Millennium Park. The piece will feature trumpeter Wallace Roney, guitarist Toninho Horta and percussionist Dede Sampaio, and commemorates the 50th anniversary of the recording of Sketches of Spain, which was arranged by Evans. Irving recorded and performed with Davis during the trumpeter's comeback in the early 1980s.

* Saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake has a new CD with the group Trio 3, which also includes bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Andrew Cyrille. Berne Concert features a guest appearance by pianist Irene Schweitzer, and gets a rave here from reviewer John Sharpe for AAJ.com: "Almost without anyone noticing, Trio 3 has become one of the great working bands in jazz...Trio 3 is sure to find new fans with Berne Concert: not a single track on this outstanding disc is less than stellar."

* Turning to news of coming attractions, saxophonist Kirk Whalum will join forces with pianist Cyrus Chestnut and students from the Stax Music Academy for "SOULed on Jazz!" on May 9 at the Germantown Performing Arts Center in Memphis. Whalum is artist-in-residence at the Stax academy, and he'll be in St. Louis twice this summer - in June to perform with his uncle, Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum, at the History Museum, and in July with saxophonist Gerald Albright when their "Sax for Stax" tour comes to Ameristar Casino St. Charles' Bottleneck Blues Bar.

* Next up, we've got a bunch of links related to recent visitors to St. Louis, starting with another review of trumpeter Sean Jones' new CD The Search Within, penned for Blogcritics.com by the writer pseudonymously known as "The Big Geez": "Sean Jones has followed a successful recipe for his fifth album...Solid compositions in a collection that skillfully blends his own outstanding play with that of his talented cohorts — a winning combination." Jones played in St. Louis at Jazz at the Bistro the week before last.

* Jam/funk organ trio Medeski Martin & Wood, who were in St. Louis the same weekend as Jones to play the Loyal Earth Festival, have a new CD called Radiolarians II. It's reviewed here by Doug Collette for AAJ.com - "Notwithstanding the noir ambience of the closing cut, a piano jazz trio reading of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down," Radiolarians II assaults more than it insinuates" - and here by Bryan Castleberry for JamsBio: "Yes, this is Medeski, Martin & Wood, baffling the listener with their inimitable skill at melding genres and making it all sound so perfectly cool you expect Samuel L. Jackson to speak through your ear buds." Keyboardist John Medeski also has a new CD with trumpeter Steven Bernstein's band Sex Mob.

* Singer Rachael Price, who played the Sheldon Concert Hall in March, was interviewed here before a recent gig in Lodi, CA.

* The Bad Plus, the first musicians to play the Bistro in 2009, and singer Wendy Lewis, who's featured on their new CD For All I Care, were back home in the Twin Cities this past weekend. They also recently did an interview and brief performance for National Public Radio, available via online stream here.

* Pianist Dave Brubeck has had to cancel several more concert appearances while he recovers from a recent viral infection. Brubeck, who is 88, is under a doctor’s orders to not travel until the end of May, but is expected to resume touring following his recovery. Brubeck played the Sheldon last fall.

* Last but not least, by decree of the mayor, this Wednesday, April 29, is Duke Ellington Day in New York City. The event celebrates the 110th anniversary of the birth of Ellington (pictured), and will include speeches by his grandchildren and a special run of the last surviving 1939 'A' Train. At 10:00 a.m. that day, Duke's grandson Paul Ellington and the Duke Ellington Orchestra will perform their signature song "Take The A Train" on the mezzanine at 125th Street and St. Nicholas, and then board and perform on the historic train as it travels out on regular service. The Ellington Orchestra appeared in St. Louis earlier this year at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

(Edited 4/27/09 to add tags.)

Medeski Martin & Wood, Fareed Haque to perform in St. Louis this weekend at Loyal Earth Festival

Although the Loyal Earth Festival 2009 scheduled for this weekend in St. Louis will feature primarily musicians identified with the jam-band scene, the event also will include some acts of interest to jazz fans.

Billed as "5 Days of Music & Art to Celebrate Our Planet," it's being produced by local promoters Loyal Family and former Lucas School House proprietor Dan Jameson, and will take place Thursday, April 16 through Monday, April 20 at the Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St. in downtown St. Louis. Promising to "transform the Old Rock House property into a music & arts festival grounds," the event will includes more than 30 musical acts playing on two stages - one outdoors, the other inside - plus "live Art - Earth Awareness - Fire Dancers - Vendors - and More!"

The pick day for jazz fans would seem to be Sunday, April 19, when the organ-driven funk-jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood (pictured) will be playing outside from 8:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., followed by guitarist Fareed Haque and the Flat Earth Ensemble inside from 10:30 to midnight. For a complete schedule of bands, go here.