Sunday Session: February 21, 2021

Phatoah Sanders

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

* Can Caroline Shaw Make Classical Cool? (The Atlantic)
* Remembering Rupert Neve, Console Creator, 1926-2021 (SonicScoop.com)
* 'He was the Steve Jobs of audio': how Rupert Neve changed the sound of music (The Guardian)
* Memories of Chick Corea – by Tim Garland (London Jazz News)
* Herbie Hancock on Chick Corea: ‘He Always Wanted to Share Whatever He Had’ (Rolling Stone)
* Pharoah Sanders Announces First Album in a Decade With Floating Points (Rolling Stone)
* Milford Graves, Visionary Drummer Who Mapped The Music Of The Heart, Dead At 79 (NPR)
* Rock-Star Journalist Lisa Robinson Has Lived in Her Apartment for 45 Years Even her sofa has an interesting backstory. (Curbed.com)
* The Best Books About Billie Holiday (Rolling Stone)
* Joe Chambers Heads Back To Blue Note (DownBeat)
* Don't Make Her Over: Dionne Warwick Is Still Crushing It at 80 (Billboard)
* New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult Steps (Van-Outernational.com)
* SoundCloud Fan-Artist Payment System: Too Little, Too Late? (Variety)
* Raymond Hill: Remembering Clarksdale’s Unsung Reed Man (Memphis Flyer)
* Six East Coast Jazz Clubs Band Together for One-Day Virtual Festival (Jazz Times)
* Beach Boys Sell Rights to Intellectual Property, Including Name, Likeness, Masters (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Sonny Rollins interview: “I love music of course, but I don’t listen any more... It’s too frustrating to listen to music when I can’t participate” (Jazzwise)
* Gary Bartz Bridges Generations (DownBeat)
* I Pay $9.99 a Month for Spotify Premium. So Why Am I Listening to Podcast Ads? (DigitalMusicnews.com)
* Her saxophonist neighbour wouldn’t stop playing ‘Pink Panther’, so she chronicled her nightmare (ClassicFM.com)
* Irma Thomas, Soul Queen of New Orleans, at 80: 'I'm living fine, as far as I'm concerned' (NOLA.com)
* Milford Graves (1941–2021) (Art Forum)
* Roy McCurdy: From Cannonball to the Rochester Music Hall of Fame (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Livestream Community Survey: What We Learned from the Field (New Music Box)
* The Jazzy Score of "Judas and the Black Messiah" (WBGO)
* Faced with the cold, SMU professor slept with his 331-year-old violin to protect it (Dallas Morning News)

Sunday Session: February 14, 2021

Chick Corea

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

* Show's over for British roadies as Brexit blocks European music tours (MSN.com)
* Trane '63: A Classic, A Challenge, A Change (WFIU)
* Mary Wilson, longest-reigning original Supreme, dies at 76 (Associated Press)
* Music wars on Valentine’s Day: when your partner hates your record collection (London Jazz News)
* The Idea of the Blues: It’s Time for Chicago to Capitalize on the Heritage that Changed the Course of Music (NewCity.com)
* Ivo Perelman’s Massive Oeuvre (DownBeat)
* Harvey Brooks: View From The Bottom (Blues.gr)
* Sonny Rollins: “Musicians can live a charmed life” (Uncut.co.uk)
* International Anthem's Celebratory Approach Is Breaking Boundaries (ClashMusic.com)
* New Orleans avant-jazz saxophonist Kidd Jordan improvises his way to $50K fellowship (NOLA.com)
* Composer Anthony Davis Imagines His Freedom (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* The Hidden Legacy Of The Pointer Sisters, Genre-Busting Pioneers Of Message Music (NPR)
* Ancient shell horn can still play a tune after 18,000 years (Associated Press)
* Terri Lyne Carrington is the definition of Black Girl Magic (Associated Press)
* Trumpeter Rob Mazurek May Have Made Marfa’s Great Cosmic Jazz Album (Texas Monthly)
* Arbors Records Puts Art First (DownBeat)
* Black Women Who Shaped Rock & Roll (Rolling Stone)
* Chick Corea, Jazz Fusion Pioneer, Has Died Of Cancer At 79 (NPR)
* Impulse! Records Marks a 60th Anniversary, and a Creative Legacy, with Music Old and New (WBGO)
* Chronology: McCoy Tyner, Sideman (Jazz Times)
* Gretchen Parlato In Bloom (DownBeat)
* Todd Rundgren Reacts to Latest Rock Hall Nomination: 'I Don't Care About It' (Billboard)
* Nubiyan Twist: Real Life Stories (Jazz Times)
* Brexit is destroying music. Why has the government let this happen? (The Guardian)
* Brilliant, broke and wilfully annoying: the sad legacy of Frank Zappa (Sydney Morning Herald)
* Milford Graves: jazz drummer dies aged 79 (The Guardian)
* The Checkout: Steve Gadd Remembers When Chick Corea Gave Him a Lesson On the Drums (WBGO)
* Milford Graves, Pioneering Jazz Drummer and Polymath, Dies at 79 (Pitchfork.com)

Sunday Session: October 18, 2020

Charles McPherson

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

* The Many Instruments of Stanley Crouch, Who Transformed the Entirety of Jazz and Cultural Criticism (Mother Jones)
* Wynton Marsalis Says Cultural Con Jobs Began Long Before Trump (The Daily Beast)
* Late night TV musicians push for parity in pay, health care and residuals (KCRW)
* Alone Together: A Q&A with Pianist Benny Green (SFJAZZ.org)
* Philly’s jazz community improvising to deal with COVID-19 (Philadelphia Inquirer)
* Visionary who turned down a gig with Miles Davis and pivoted to cardiology (among other pursuits) is subject of Philly ICA show (Philadelphia Inquirer)
* The company that has a monopoly on ice cream truck music (TheHustle.co)
* Charles McPherson Straddles The Artistic Fence (DownBeat)
* Stevie Wonder Releases First New Music in 15 Years (Rolling Stone)
* He Helps Folk Musicians Stay Alive (Ozy.com)
* Sheet music sales soar 25% as UK turns to piano practice during Covid lockdown (INews.co.uk)
* Theo Croker Exemplifies This Moment In Jazz (DownBeat)
* Mary Halvorson: New York City and the Pull of the Moon (BarryCleveland.com)
* The Spiritual Power of Pharoah Sanders (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Diana Krall Reflects on Her Creative Process, Her Late Producer, and an Emotive New Album (WBGO)
* 50 Years Ago B.B. King's 'Indianola Mississippi Seeds' Retooled R&B (PopMatters.com)
* An Oral History Of Tom Petty’s Landmark 1994 Album, ‘Wildflowers’ (Uproxx.com)
* Billy Childs Engages The Vastness Of Music (DownBeat)
* A Love Supreme: Carlos Santana and Cindy Blackman Santana on Coltrane, Miles and Making Music Together (Jazziz)
* Gearhead: Memories of the Guitorgan (Jazz Times)
* Field Studies: Manfred Eicher, Founder of ECM Records, Picks His Top Five Blue Note Albums (WBGO)
* Field Studies: Don Was, President of Blue Note Records, Picks His Top Five ECM Albums (WBGO)
* Are We Reaching Peak Streaming Subscriptions? (Billboard)
* Michael Cuscuna: In The Vault Playing God (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The Tragedy of Stanley Crouch (Counterpunch.org)
* Randy Brecker: Overdue Ovation (Jazz Times)
* “AngelHeaded Hipster”: Hal Willner Does T. Rex (The New Yorker)

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)

Sunday Session: March 25, 2018

Sun Ra

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:

* Chick Corea remains perpetually active: "I don't know what 'retire' means." (San Diego Union Tribune)
* ‘Keeping The Blues Alive’: Watch Exclusive Interview With Muddy Waters’ Daughter (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Streaming is easy but I don't want idiots listening to my favourite albums (The Guardian)
* Q&A with Ethan Iverson (BlueWallStudio.com)
* Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Sharing the Passion for Jazz (Jazz Times)
* Buell Neidlinger 1936-2018 (TheBlueMoment.com)
* At 80, Charles Lloyd Continues to Explore (DownBeat)
* A Message Behind the Music: Jazz and Social Justice (SFJazz.org)
* Milford Graves: Full Mantis (4Columns.org)
* Marian McPartland: A Centennial Celebration (NPR)
* How We Reverse Engineered the Cuban “Sonic Weapon” Attack (IEEE.org)
* Artist’s Choice Playlist: Steve Jordan on Masters of Swing & Groove (Jazz Times)
* How Today's Blockbuster Soundtracks Are Launching New Artists to Stardom (Rolling Stone)
* The 25 Greatest Soundtracks of All Time (Rolling Stone)
* These Women Make A Living By Singing at People's Funerals (Vice.com)
* How The Sound Of Country Music Changed (NPR)
* Afrofuturist and Jazz Pioneer Sun Ra’s Legendary Indianapolis Concert (Nuvo.net)
* U.S. Music Industry Hits Highest Revenue Mark in a Decade, Fueled by Paid Subscriptions (Billboard)
* Guitar Center’s $1 billion in debt reveals this truth about musical tastes (Los Angeles Daily News)
* Will Spotify Eat the Music Industry? (Motley Fool)
* In Tennessee, music is being made deep below Earth's surface (Rock Hill Herald)
* At Lawrence Jam Sessions, An Unusual Instrument Lets Everyone Make Music Together (KCUR)
* Jane Bunnett And Maqueque: The New Queens of Afro-Cuban Jazz (NPR)
* Brain Damage Saved His Music (Nautil.us)
* ‘I realised that no-one in the music business knew what they were doing’(MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)

Sunday Session: March 11, 2018

Herbie Hancock

Here's the 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:

* Ben Sidran Remembers Tommy LiPuma (Jazz Times)
* An ‘Astral Weeks’ origin story, told 50 years after Van Morrison fled to Boston (Boston Globe)
* Big Ears 2018 – Q&A With Milford Graves (ArtsKnoxville.com)
* McCoy Tyner In The ’70s: Part 1 (BurningAmbulance.com)
* Herbie Hancock 'still learning,' as eclectic music icon works on new album with Kendrick Lamar, Wayne Shorter and more (San Diego Union Tribune)
* Why are concert tickets going on sale so early? And where does all that cash go? (Kansas City Star)
* 7 Candid Photos of Jazz Legends (BBC)
* Like A Cosmic Newspaper: Val Wilmer On Sun Ra (TheQuietus.com)
* How the classical took control of the jazz in ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ (San Francisco Chronicle)
* Mere Virtuosity - Variations on a Slippery Idea (VQROnline.org)
* Inside the Bizarre, Booming Business of Turning Hit Songs into Baby Lullabies (Thrillist.com)
* Q&A with Steven Bernstein: On Respectability (DownBeat)
* Founder of Tower Records dies at 92 while drinking whiskey and watching the Oscars (Sacramento Bee)
* Herbie Hancock Taps Kendrick Lamar, Thundercat for New Album (Rolling Stone)
* NPR’s Tiny Desk Is Actually Not Tiny at All (Vice.com)
* NME to close print edition after 66 years (The Guardian)
* Big Ears Announces Full 2018 Lineup (DownBeat)
* An Impressive Audio Archive of John Cage Lectures & Interviews: Hear Recordings from 1963-1991 (OpenCulture.com)
* There’s a Tuba Crime Wave Sweeping America (Wall Street Journal)
* The Many Dimensions of Drummer, Composer and Bandleader Allison Miller (WBGO)
* Van Morrison teams up with Hammond hero Joey DeFrancesco on new album You’re Driving Me Crazy (Jazzwise)
* A Cherished BBC Radio Show Asks Celebrities to Pick a Desert Island Survival Kit (AtlasObscura.com)
* For iconic jazz club Village Vanguard, music rather than food is its main gig (New York Business Journal)
* Taylor Ho Bynum Presents New Suite in Hartford (DownBeat)
* Linda Ronstadt: From Tucson to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, her lifetime love affair with music (AZCentral.com)
* The Original Noise Artist: Hear the Strange Experimental Sounds & Instruments of Italian Futurist, Luigi Russolo (1913) (OpenCulture.com)
* An Interview with Billy Cobham, Genius Drummer with Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis, Peter Gabriel, Etc. Etc. (The Stranger)
* Kobalt invests $150m in independent artists to challenge ‘stupidity’ of traditional major label deals (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Her Tiny Apartment is New York’s Most Secret Jazz Club (MessyNessyChic.com)

Sunday Session: January 7, 2018

Ron Carter

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's inboxes over the past week:

* A 2017 JT Reader - Selected highlights from the year in JazzTimes (Jazz Times)
* Legendary Jazz Bassist Ron Carter Talks About Music, Recording, and Hi-Fi (Stereophile)
* Long Players: writers on their most cherished albums (NewStatesman.com)
* Wayne Shorter: Artist In Residence At The Detroit Jazz Festival (NPR)
* Lifetime Achievement in Music: The Poet Laureate of Mardi Gras Indians, Monk Boudreaux (Offbeat)
* Iverson Plays Final Show with Bad Plus (DownBeat)
* How a Hit Happens Now (Vulture.com)
* The 'Despacito' effect: The year Latino music broke the charts (NBC)
* Player Pianos and the Commodification of Music (JStor.org)
* Spotify Hit With $1.6 Billion Copyright Lawsuit Over Tom Petty, Weezer, Neil Young Songs (Hollywood Reporter)
* Rick Hall, Producer And Songwriter Who Put Muscle Shoals On The Map, Dead At 85 (NPR)
* Jazz improvisers score high on creativity (Science News)
* In 2018, I want to find new music without using algorithms (TheVerge.com)
* The rebirth of St. John Coltrane church in the Western Addition (TheWesternEdition.com)
* The lost art of music snobbery (The Globe and Mail)
* Matt Wilson – The Ambassador of Unvention (Modern Drummer)
* New Documentary Examines Milford Graves’ Music and Philosophy (DownBeat)
* The Healing Power of Jazz (The New Yorker)
* Producers say record labels are calling projects “mixtapes” to avoid paying them fairly (TheFader.com)
* Fred Hersch: Life, Music, and the Creative Process (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Recording Studios are not Dying (Pro Sound News)
* Pop tunes are welcome in the movies, directors say, as long as it's in service of the plot (Los Angeles Times)
* How Women Shaped The Legacy Of Nashville’s Oldest And Most Celebrated Venue, The Ryman Auditorium (Uproxx.com)
* theartsdesk Q&A: Vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant (TheArtsDesk.com)
* Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, and the Road to West Side Story (Vanity Fair)
* The Alabama Recording Studios Where Music Was Never Segregated (ZocaloPublicSquare.org)
* US Label Cuneiform stops all new releases for 2018 (London Jazz News)
* YouTube’s Unlikely Peacemaker Has a Plan to Make Musicians Rich (Bloomberg.com)

Sunday Session: June 21, 2015

Steve Coleman

For your Sunday reading, here are some interesting music-related items that have hit StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Music is free now – and the industry only has itself to blame (New Statesman)
* Dude Builds Flamethrowing Organ: Blows Minds (Vice.com)
* What the Hell Is Happening at Gibson Guitar? (Gawker)
* Bill Evans’ “Complete Fantasy Recordings” to Be Reissued July 17 (Jazz Times)
* Jazz musician Erroll Garner's materials donated to Pitt library (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
* Have We Turned the Last Page in America’s Songbook? (Zocalo Public Square)
* Interview: NYC percussion legend Milford Graves (Red Bull Music Academy)
* Esperanza Spalding Turns Apprehension Into Admiration at D.C. Jazz Festival (Washington City Paper)
* An insider explains how songs get into TV shows and movies (AV Club)
* When Words Sold Music - The strange, conversational language of early Rolling Stone ads (The Atlantic)
* Chicago Blues Fest Pays Tribute to Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon (DownBeat)
* Book Review: The Sound Book (Pro Sound News)
* My Friend, Ornette Coleman (NPR)
* Steve Coleman's Analogies in Various Places (PopMatters)
* Photos: ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame Ceremony in NYC (Jazz Times)
* John Luther Adams: Leaving Alaska (The New Yorker)
* Harold Battiste, New Orleans saxophonist, composer and educator, dies at 83 (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
* Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Dismisses At Least 16 Nominating Members (Billboard)
* Terry Riley’s Maximal Minimalist Music (The Daily Beast)
* Torrential, Gut-Bucket Jazz (New York Review of Books)

Music Education Monday: A master class with percussionist Milford Graves

The week for "Music Education Monday," we've got a different kind of master class for drummers.

While most drum workshops are full of talk of exercises, licks and rudiments, Milford Graves deals with concepts and philosophy as much as technique, as befits his status as one of the elder statesmen of free jazz drumming.

First coming to prominence in the 1960s, Graves played with the New York Art Quartet, Jazz Composers' Orchestra Association, Albert Ayler, Don Pullen, and others important innovators during that period. He's known for integrating African and Indian elements into his playing, perhaps drawing on early work in the bands of Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba and definitely making use of his extensive studies of the tabla drums. More recently, Graves has enjoyed something of a career resurgence, recording for John Zorn's label and collaborating with a younger generation of musicians.

Working with young people was nothing new for Graves, though, given that he taught at Bennington College in Vermont for nearly thirty years. He also is an herbalist, acupuncturist, and martial artist who draws on all those life experiences to inform his music, as you'll hear in this master class recorded in 2014 at the New School in NYC.

You can see the Milford Graves master class, in three parts, after the jump...