StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Six musicians to watch in 2021

As the new year begins, no one is sure exactly when live music will resume on a widespread, regular basis or when touring artists will be able to start traveling again. We can, however, still keep an eye and ear on some of the jazz artists who seem likely to be influential over the next 12 months. So let's take a look at some performances from six musicians who made news in the year just ended and are poised for even bigger things in 2021.

First up is Nubya Garcia, whose most recent album Source showed up on a lot of critics' year-end "best of" lists for 2020. The London-based saxophonist and her band are seen here performing a mini-set for NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts at Soup Studio, a recording facility built on a decommissioned floating lighthouse that's moored on the River Thames in London. It's also where Garcia recorded Source, and this set features three songs from the record.

After the jump, you can see a set by drummer, producer and "beat scientist" Makaya McCraven, performing with his band in August 2019 at the Flow Festival in Helsinki, Finland. McCraven in 2020 released Universal Beings E&F Sides, an extension of his critically-acclaimed 2018 album Universal Beings, which the New York Times said "affirms the drummer and beatsmith's position as a major figure in creative music."

Next up is another Londoner, saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, who is seen here with Sons of Kemet, one of three bands he leads, in a set recorded live in March 2019 at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN.

That's followed by a set by the most-talked about young vibraphonist in jazz, Joel Ross. This clip was recorded in August 2020 at the Arts Center at Duck Creek in upstate New York, with Melissa Aldana on tenor saxophone, Matt Brewer on bass and Craig Weinrib on drums.

The fifth video features another up-and-coming saxophonist, Immanuel Wilkins, who debut album Omega, released in August by Blue Note, earned much positive attention from critics and fans alike. Wilkins and his quartet are seen here in a show recorded in November 2019 at the Millennium Stage of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Today's sixth and final video features trumpeter Theo Croker, who's been around since the mid-2000s, but has enjoyed favorable buzz recently thanks to his 2019 album Star People Nation and the EP Understand Yourself, which came out last year. The video was recorded in June 2019 at Paste Studio in NYC.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Sunday Session: October 25, 2020

Keith Jarrett

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

* Ronnie's review – fascinating story of the fabled Soho jazz club (TheArtsDesk.com)
* 5 Questions to Tyshawn Sorey (composer, multi-instrumentalist) (ICareIfYouListen.com)
* Met Opera’s musicians haven’t been paid since April. Now, a third have left New York (ClassicFM.com)
* Master Jazz Drummer Rodney Green on Jason Moran, Charlie Haden and Purgatory Perceptions (WhiteHotMagazine.com)
* With COVID-19 stimulus stalled, L.A. clubs face doomsday scenario: ‘We’re in the deep end, drowning’ (Los Angeles Times)
* Earl Freeman: Poems and Drawings (AquariumDrunkard.com)
* Louis Armstrong and Comedy Part 2: “Always a Showman!” 1922-1933 (LouisArmstrongHouse.org)
* Jazz Educators Step Up to Face COVID-19’s Challenges (Jazz Times)
* The Genius Of… Super Session by Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (Guitar)
* Toshinori Kondo, Trailblazing Modern Trumpeter, Dies At 71 (NPR)
* Acid, nudity and sci-fi nightmares: why Hawkwind were the radicals of 1970s rock (The Guardian)
* Pianist Keith Jarrett unlikely to perform again after two strokes (The Guardian)
* National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2021 NEA Jazz Masters (Arts.gov)
* Nubya Garcia Injects Fresh Energy Into The UK Jazz Scene (DownBeat)
* A Cultural History of the Cranked Snare Drum (Full-Stop.net)
* Analog Africa: digging deeper into forgotten corners of global groove (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Inside Bob Dylan’s Lost Interviews and Unseen Letters (Rolling Stone)
* Slo-mo artistry of a sax genius (Sydney Morning Herald)
* Little Richard Made Millions. It All Went to His Label (Vice.com)
* Jazz singer Kurt Elling moves back home to Chicago: ‘It was always a question of when was going to be right’ (Chicago Tribune)
* “You Need Both Sides of the Coin to Feel Like There is Substance:” An Interview with Nubya Garcia (PassionWeiss.com)
* With The Specter Of Winter Looming, Venues Explore Paths Forward (DownBeat)
* A Guide to the Music of Archie Shepp, Who Kept Jazz Vitally Political (Bandcamp.com)
* Jazz Clubs Are in Crisis (Jazz Times)
* Cindy Blackman Santana Blends Music, Spiritual Approaches (DownBeat)
* As Keith Jarrett Closes a Chapter, Jazz United Reflects on His Monumental Solo Piano Career (WBGO)
* Five Songs That Exemplify the Musical Legacy of Pharoah Sanders (WDET)
* Canadian musician Angie C just used a brainwave-reader to play the monster analogue synth TONTO with her mind (MusicRadar.com)

Sunday Session: August 16, 2020

Nubya Garcia

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

* Billy Childs Reveals the Influences on His Album Acceptance (Jazz Times)
* Orchestras are totally safe. Just stay away from the flute player (Wired)
* Ben Sidran: The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma (Nardis) (Jazz Times)
* Jazz Showcase founder Joe Segal dies: Chicago’s longest-running jazz impresario presented Charlie Parker and other greats (Chicago Tribune)
* 2020 NEA Jazz Masters: A Q&A with Dorthaan Kirk (SFJAZZ.org)
* David Crosby Remembers Jerry Garcia: ‘He Did Not Play for Money — He Was Chasing the Notes’ (Variety)
* The Alchemical Brothers: Brian Eno & Roger Eno Interviewed (TheQuietus.com)
* Bill Frisell On His New Trio Album, Missing Hal Willner & How COVID-19 Robbed Jazz Of Its Rapport (Grammy.com)
* Is Singing Together Safe In The Era Of Coronavirus? Not Really, Experts Say (NPR)
* Nubya Garcia On Identity, Accessibility And Independence (DownBeat)
* The Radical Legacy of Erroll Garner (Jazz Times)
* Austin leads the way to policies for reopening music venues (Offbeat)
* Venues and crew signal 'red alert' for live music and theatre (BBC)
* The Road to Dollywood (Jezebel.com)
* Sun Ra Shines Over Cafe Nine (New Haven Independent)
* Could Aloha be the low-latency app that finally makes virtual band rehearsals a reality? (MusicRadar.com)
* Ranking the best and worst years in music history (NewsChannelNebraska.com)
* Artists Clobbered By COVID-19, With 2.7 Million Creative Job Losses In The United States, Study Finds (Forbes.com)
* Fridays at Five A Talk with Snarky Puppy's Michael League (SFJAZZ.org)
* Craig Taborn by Camille Norment (BombMagazine.org)
* Film Review: “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” — A Contrarian View (ArtsFuse.org)
* RZA Wrote a New Jingle for Ice Cream Trucks to Replace ‘Turkey in the Straw’ (Rolling Stone)
* Dolly Parton Steers Her Empire Through the Pandemic — and Keeps It Growing (Billboard)
* Joey DeFrancesco Expands His Skill Set (DownBeat)
* Are Livestreams Now Music’s Primary Format and Artist Revenue Stream? (Hypebot.com)
* Joe Segal, Owner Of Chicago’s Jazz Showcase, Dies At 94 (DownBeat)
* Sonic Politics - Sound is Power (TheBattleground.eu)
* A Guide to the Music of Cecil Taylor, the Pianist Who Helped Invent Avant-Garde Jazz (Bandcamp.com)
* The year the music might die: British clubs face closure (Associated Press)
* Remembering Helen Jones Woods (1923–2020) (Jazz Times)
* How a Movie Score Is Really Made — According to a Top Hollywood Director (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* 'I feel like I'm failing at life': the terrible plight of music event staff (The Guardian)
* Kamasi Washington Breaks Down His Process to Score ‘Becoming’ (Variety)