Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* A long-unheard audio interview with Miles Davis, conducted in 1969 at the trumpeter's NYC home for the Japanese publication Swing Journal, has resurfaced on YouTube.
* Following the removal of a statue of Christopher Columbus from Tower Grove Park, a report from St. Louis Public Radio's Shala Farzan says that the candidates being discussed for a possible replacement statue include singer, dancer and St. Louis native Josephine Baker.
* Hasan Kenyatta Lake, son of saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake, has died at age 48, according to a report in the St. Louis American. The younger Lake worked as a barber and also was involved in music, releasing a rap album, Laclede Town Survivor, in 2001.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* Trumpeter, former member of the Black Artists Group and St. Louis native Baikida Carroll is the winner of the 2020 FONT Music Award of Recognition, which was presented to him in an online event Wednesday night as part of this year's Festival Of New Trumpet Music (aka FONT Music).
Carroll (pictured) was lauded for being "one of trumpet’s most original and creative voices since the early ‘70s." You can see an archived video of the award presentation, which includes performance footage featuring Carroll and commentary from fellow musicians, here.
* Singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja will be one of four featured performers for the "Jazz's Rising Star virtual White Plains Jazzfest" at 8:00 p.m. EDT tonight. Olatuja, fellow vocalist Veronica Swift, and pianists Connie Han and Matthew Whitaker each will present short live sets, and then take part in a moderated discussion. You can preregister to view the event via Zoom here, or watch on Facebook.
* Saxophonist David Sanborn has announced that he'll be teaching online master classes in November, sharing techniques and tips and taking questions from a group of 10 to 12 students for a couple of hours on four consecutive Sunday afternoons. Signup details are TBA via Sanborn's website and Facebook page.
This week, let's check out some more videos featuring music made by former members of the influential Black Artists Group, which existed here in St. Louis from 1968 to 1972 and helped launch the careers of a number of notable creative musicians. Today's focus is on two of the most prominent BAG alumni, alto saxophonist Oliver Lake and baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett.
(You can see the first part of this series, featuring the only known online videos of a "core" BAG ensemble plus full sets of two of the groups it spawned, the World Saxophone Quartet and Bluiett's Clarinet Family, here. A third installment next week will feature videos from some other members of BAG.)
Today's first three clips show off some different aspects of the work of Oliver Lake, starting up above with a full set of his big band, recorded in October 2017 at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY. While a number of different soloists including the leader are featured at various points, the compositions and arrangements are all Lake's, and together give a good sample of some of his ideas for large ensemble.
After the jump, you can see two more videos featuring Lake, both recorded in October 2014 when he was curating a week-long residency at the creative music performance space The Stone in New York City. The first is a trio set featuring Lake, drummer Andrew Cyrille and bassist Santi Debriano, and the second documents Lake's Organ Quartet, with trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, organist Jared Gold, drummer Chris Beck and special guest, tenor saxophonist Billy Harper.
The next three videos show Bluiett with three different ensembles, starting with a trio set recorded in January 2016 in NYC featuring Bluiett with bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake. Given Drake's affiliation with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), this group represents a meeting of improvisational styles forged among similarly minded musicians in both St. Louis and Chicago.
The following clip captures part of a set by a sextet led by Bluiett in 1999 at the Knitting Factory in NYC, in which the leader is joined by guitarist Ed Cherry, bassist Jaribu Shahid, percussionists Chief Bey and Leopoldo Fleming, and drummer Nasheet Waits.
Last but not least, there's a full set from the group billed as Hamiet Bluiett's Bio-Electric Ensemble, recorded during the annual Vision Festival in June 2013 at Roulette, and featuring Bluiett, Hamid Drake, pianist D.D. Jackson, bassist Harrison Bankhead, and what has to have been one of the first high-profile gigs for the young keyboard phenom Matthew Whittaker, then just 12 years old. (Whitaker, a New Jersey native who's still just 19 years old, headlined a weekend at Jazz St. Louis last season.)
Look for more videos featuring musicians associated with BAG next week in this space. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
For the next couple of weeks, let's revisit part of St. Louis creative music history by looking at some videos featuring musicians who were part of the Black Artists Group, a multi-arts collective that produced music, poetry, dance, theater and visual arts here from 1968 to 1972.
At its peak, the group was getting funding from organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Danforth Foundation to present performances and educational programs in local schools, as well as from their headquarters at 2665 Washington Blvd in what's now the Grand Center district.
By 1972, much of that funding had dried up, and most of the BAG musicians moved on, some heading to Europe and subsequently to New York City, where a number of them would play significant roles in the "loft jazz" scene of the 1970s.
Though not much documentation survives of what BAG did during its busiest years, there was one "official" album credited to the group, In Paris, Aries 1973, which, as the title implies, was recorded in Europe while a number of the musicians were living there as expatriates.
The first video up above, also recorded in 1973 in Paris, is part of what seems to be the only footage available online of an ensemble billed as the Black Artists Group, in this case including Lake, Carroll, Bowie, guitarist Jimmy Jones, and drummer Donald Robinson. The performance continues after the jump in today's second video.
Even though BAG may have been relatively short-lived, its influence continued to be felt through the continuing careers of the musicians who were part of it. One of the most significant groups to emerge after BAG was the World Saxophone Quartet, formed in 1977 by Lake, Bluiett, Hemphill, and saxophonist David Murray.
Their innovations, combining free jazz with arranged material in a band without a traditional rhythm section, proved to be both artistically influential and relatively popular by the non-commercial standards of creative music.
You can see and hear the WSQ's original lineup in the third video, recorded in 1987 at JazzFest Berlin in Germany and featuring material from their 1986 album Plays Duke Ellington.
Around that same time, Bluiett pursued a somewhat-similar concept with his band Clarinet Family, bringing together a half-dozen clarinetists including fellow St. Louisan and ex-BAG member J.D. Parran for a 1984 recording on the Black Saint label and live performances including the fourth video, a full set of music recorded in November 1984, also in Berlin.
The fifth video is an interview of Lake and Bluiett, recorded in March 2014, and the final clip is an interview with Bluiett alone, recorded in 2016 under the auspices of instrument makers P Mauriat North America.
While these clips just begin to scratch the surface, the history of the Black Artists Group was documented extensively in the 2004 book BAG: Point from which creation begins: the Black Artists' Group of St. Louis, written by Benjamin Looker, then a graduate of Washington University working on a master's at Yale, now an associate professor of American Studies at St. Louis University.
There's also a documentary film about BAG that's been in production for several years, with a trailer here and a Facebook page, though there's still no word about when the film might be released.
Next week, we'll take a look at some more music from Oliver Lake and Hamiet Bluiett, as well as videos featuring other former members of the Black Artists Group. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
* Billboard magazine presented the online premiere of "So Emotional," a track from the forthcoming "lost" Miles Davis album Rubberband (featuring vocals from Lalah Hathaway) that will be released on Friday, September 6.
* Elsewhere on the Miles Davis beat, NPR this week devoted the latest episode of their program "Jazz Night In America" to a retrospective look at Davis' album Bitches Brew, with music from bassist Marcus Miller's tribute to the trumpeter's electric bands.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* St. Louis magazine's annual "A List" issue is out, and the winners in the readers poll include Vintage Vinyl for "Record Store," the Whitaker Music Festival for "Free Music Series," and singer Erin Bode for "Musical Artist, Female."
Singer and multi-instrumentalist Tonina Saputo also got a special mention from the editors as a "Musician So Good, Barack Obama Loves Her." You can see the complete list of 2019 "A List" winners here.
* Following up his 2006 tome City of Gabriels: The History of Jazz in St. Louis, 1895-1973, radio host, photographer, and author Dennis Owsley has written Jazz in St. Louis: A History, which he calls "a new book on St. Louis jazz that brings everything up to date." The book (pictured) comes out on Monday, July 15 from The History Press and can be pre-ordered here. (Full disclosure: StLJN and yr. humble editor are name-checked on page 122.)
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* The U City Jazz Fest, which last week was cancelled due to a financial dispute between its companion event Fair U City and the municipal government of University City, is back on for the originally scheduled date, but at a new location.
Temporarily renamed the Old Orchard Jazz Festival, the free event will take place with all the previously announced acts from 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 8 at Gazebo Park in the Old Orchard business district of Webster Groves.
(Prospective festival-goers should know that Gazebo Park is considerably smaller than Heman Park, the fest's original location, and Old Orchard is a busy commercial district, so if you're planning on attending, you may want to arrive early so you'll have enough time to find parking and seating.)
* The latest sounds from saxophonist Oliver Lake can be heard on Bamako, the debut recording by the OGJB Quartet (pictured), a band that also includes cornetist Graham Haynes, bassist Joe Fonda, and drummer Barry Altschul. The album includes original compositions from all four members, plus two collective improvisations, and will by released next Friday, May 17 by TUM Records.
* Voting in St. Louis magazine's annual "A-List" poll is now open, and while there are no jazz-specific categories, you can cast a ballot for your favorite music venues, festivals, and more here.
* Phil Dunlap, who has run education and community outreach programs for Jazz St. Louis for the past 12 years, is leaving the organization to take a new job as director of cultural affairs for Broward County, FL, running that county's equivalent to the Regional Arts Commission. Dunlap will depart JSL at the end of April; there's been no announcement yet about a successor.
This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis is jam-packed with so many noteworthy shows that it defies easy summary, so in the interest of getting to the good stuff as soon as possible, let's go to the highlights...
Thursday, March 21 The 442s play original instrumental music at Joe's Cafe, and guitarist Billy Barnett will perform in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.
Friday, March 22
The Nu-Art Series and St. Louis University present saxophonist Oliver Lake(pictured, top left) in concert at Xavier Hall on the SLU campus.
The former St. Louisan and co-founder of the Black Artists Group and the World Saxophone Quartet will be reciting some of his poetry as well as playing music, with some help from pianist Greg Mills, trumpeter and Nu-Art Series impresario George Sams, and dancers Antonio Douthis-Boyd and Kirven Douthis-Boyd.
Saturday, March 23
NYC-based band The Bailsmen will play vintage swing and Gypsy jazz at Focal Point, and a series of shows celebrating the release of the new book St. Louis Sound kicks off with "St. Louis Sound: Experience Jazz," featuring sets from Tonina, the Adam Maness Trio, and trumpeter Danny Campbell with guest vocalist Anita Jackson, at the Grandel Theatre.
Sunday, March 24
Israeli-born jazz-fusion guitarist Oz Noy wraps up his current tour with drummer and St. Charles native Dave Weckl (pictured, bottom left) and bassist Jimmy Haslip with two shows at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.
Tuesday, March 26
Nashville-based ensemble The Cosmic Collective plays at Evangeline's.
For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on the StLJN Facebook page.
(If you have calendar items, band schedule information, news tips, links, or anything else you think may be of interest to StLJN's readers, please email the information to stljazznotes (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)
This week, StLJN's video spotlight shines on musician, painter, poet, and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake, who's coming to town to perform in a concert sponsored by the Nu-Art Series and St. Louis University next Friday, March 22 at Xavier Hall on the SLU campus.
Lake will joined for the performance by pianist Greg Mills, trumpeter and Nu-Art Series impresario George Sams, and dancers Antonio Douthis-Boyd and Kirven Douthis-Boyd, and, in keeping with the "Jazz 'N Tongues" theme of Nu-Art's current slate of shows, he'll read some of his poetry as well as playing saxophone.
Though born in Arkansas, Lake grew up and spent his formative musical years here in St. Louis, helping co-found the famed Black Artists Group in the late 1960s before moving away to pursue his career. With fellow former BAG members Hamiet Bluiett and Julius Hemphill (plus tenor saxophonist David Murray), he then went on to found the critically acclaimed and influential World Saxophone Quartet, which brought new ideas about arrangements and rhythm sections (or the lack of same) from the avant-garde towards - if not fully into - the mainstream.
In the 1990s, Lake co-founded another significant ensemble, Trio 3, with bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Andrew Cyrille, and they've continued to reunite periodically for new projects to this day. But it is as a solo artist that Lake has been most prolific, releasing more than 40 albums as a leader with various ensembles, many on his own Passin' Thru label.
For many years a resident of Montclair, NJ, Lake also spends a good deal of time these days on his visual art, as described in the first video up above, a feature story about him produced last year for a local PBS affiliate.
After the jump, you can see a couple of videos from 2018 featuring Lake and his big band, recorded during the Vision Festival at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY and at the DC Jazz Festival in Washington.
Next are recently posted clips of Lake with two different trios - the Crash Band Trio, with drummers Bill McClellan and Reggie Nicholson, recorded during the Bang on a Can Marathon in May, 2017 at the Brooklyn Museum; and a set of music from October, 2014 with guitarist Vernon Reid and drummer Marlon Browden, recorded at John Zorn's venue The Stone in NYC.
Those are followed by two samples of Lake reading his poetry, a work called "Do you remember the time?" recorded in 2010 in Pittsburgh, and "Poem for Amiri Baraka" from the 2014 Vision Festival.
Finally, you can see a short video that Lake made last year for Jazz at Lincoln Center's education department, in which he discusses his process for composing and gives some advice to students.
The Nu-Art Series has announced three more concerts in their "Jazz n’ Tongues" series presented in cooperation with St. Louis University's music department.
The series resumes with multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native J.D. Parran, who will perform with poet K. Curtis Lyle and trumpeter and Nu-Art Series head George Sams on Saturday, February 16.
Next up, saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake(pictured) will play with Sams, pianist Greg Mills, and dancers Antonio Douthis-Boyd and Kirven Douthis-Boyd on Friday, March 22.
Sams then will complete the spring series by leading a date of his own on Friday, April 5.
All three concerts will start at 8:00 p.m. in the University Theatre in Xavier Hall on the SLU campus. General admission is $10 per person, free for students with a valid student ID, and tickets for all three shows are on sale now via Metrotix.
* The Dark Room is now open and featuring live music seven days a week, and recently added a new patio seating area. Hours are 4:00 p.m to midnight Monday through Thursday; 4:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. Friday; 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Saturday; and 10:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Sunday.
In addition to Green Jr, who is Green's eldest son and also a guitarist, the band billed as "Grant Green's Evolution of Funk" will include saxophonist Donald Harrison, keyboardist Marc Cary and drummer Mike Clark, and will make their debut with performances from June 28 to July 1 at NYC's Jazz Standard.
* On a related note, London Jazz News has reviewed Green's two new Resonance albums, Live at Oil Can Harry's and Funk in France, which will be released officially this Saturday, April 21 for Record Store Day. You can find much more on this year's RSD jazz releases in this article from DownBeat.
With some coaching from Maness and singer Brian Owens, kids from the not-for-profit LIFE Arts, Inc wrote and performed the lyrics for the video, which can be seen on Major League Baseball's site MLB.com.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* This year for Record Store Day on Saturday, April 21, Resonance Records will release on vinyl two previously unheard albums by guitarist and St. Louis native Grant Green.
* Saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake last week was part of an all-star ensemble assembled for "The Sonic Universe Project" at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, along with multi-instrumentalists Douglas R. Ewart and Roscoe Mitchell, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, bassist Antony Cox, and percussionist Hamid Drake.
* In an interview with the campus newspaper, flute player Oliver Nelson Jr. talked about the concert tonight at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ paying tribute to his father, St. Louis native, saxophonist and composer Oliver Nelson. The university will close its annual jazz festival with a performance of Nelson's works, including his suite "The Kennedy Dream."
* Saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake is part of an all-star lineup of performers taking part in "Timeless Portraits and Dreams: A Festival/Symposium in Honor of Geri Allen" this weekend at Harvard University. The event will include two concerts and two days of panel discussions featuring musicians and artists who worked with Allen, including Lake, Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, Craig Taborn, Don Byron, Carmen Lundy, Kenny Davis, Tia Fuller, and Yosvany Terry.
Miles Davis & John Coltrane - The Final Tour is a four-CD set (pictured) documenting five shows from Davis' 1960 tour of Europe, and is set for release on Friday, March 23, 2018.
* A story in UMSL Daily details the upcoming travels of the UMSL Big Band directed by Jim Widner, including a trip next week to Chicago for the annual Midwest Clinic and appearances in January at the Jazz Education Network convention in Dallas and the Missouri Music Educators Association conference at the Lake of the Ozarks.
* Singer, actor and Belleville native Lea DeLaria was the subject of a feature story on the website OutInStL.com. DeLaria, who's starred on Broadway and in cabaret, TV, and film, will make her debut at Jazz at the Bistro with shows on Wednesday, December 27 and Thursday, December 28 that also will feature singer Janis Siegel of Manhattan Transfer as a guest performer.
* Percussionist Moacyr Marchini of Samba Bom will lead a series of eight Brazilian percussion workshops for adult students beginning Wednesday, January 10 at Lucha in Grand Center. For more info about the workshops and how to sign up, go here.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* Trumpeter Russell Gunn(pictured) has launched a crowd-funding campaign to finance the debut recording of his Royal Krunk Jazz Orkestra, which he describes as an "ultra modern contemporary Jazz Big Band from the U.S.A." featuring vocalist Dionne Farris.
You can find out more about the project and pledge your support here.
* A 100th birthday tribute to Buddy Rich at Ronnie Scott's in London, featuring drummer and St. Charles native Dave Weckl driving a group of alumni of Rich's big band for half the show, was reviewed by Jazz Journal.
* Jazziz magazine has published a download-only article detailing "what they think are the five absolute essential Miles Davis albums that any jazz lover must have in their collection." (Spoiler: Their picks are Kind of Blue, Miles Ahead, 'Round About Midnight, Nefertiti, and In A Silent Way.) The download is available (in exchange for an email address) here.
* Gene Dobbs Bradford of Jazz St. Louis is one of seven winners of the Arts and Education Council's St. Louis Arts Awards for 2018. Bradford will receive his award, which is for "Excellence in the Arts," at A&E's gala event on January 22 at the Chase Park Plaza hotel.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* Saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake(pictured) was interviewed about the founding of the Black Artsists Groups and various other subject by journalist Seth Colter Wells for a feature story on Bandcamp.com
McMahon, 57, worked days as a software application architect at Enterprise Holdings. He is survived by his wife Amy McMahon; children Michael, Nathan and Hannah; and other members of his extended family. A visitation will take place at 1:00 p.m. this Saturday, May 20 at Bopp Chapel, 10610 Manchester Rd. in Kirkwood, followed at 2:00 p.m. by a remembrance. The Route 66 Jazz Orchestra dedicated their performance on Wednesday, May 17 at Jazz at the Bistro to McMahon's memory.
* Vernacular String Trio was profiled in the Riverfront Times as one of the 77 local bands set to perform in the paper's ShowcaseSTL event, which is set for Saturday, June 17 at various venues in The Grove.
* The jazz program at St. Dominic's High School in St. Charles, directed by saxophonist Larry Johnson, was featured in the Archdiocesan newspaper St. Louis Review. Trombonist Wyatt Forhan, a junior at St. Dominic's, is one of two St. Louis area student musicians selected this year for the Monterey Jazz Festival's Next Generation Jazz Orchestra.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* I Called Him Morgan, the new documentary film about the life and death of trumpeter Lee Morgan (pictured), opens its St. Louis run today at the Tivoli Theatre in University City. You can see a list of show times here.
* The website St. Louis Musicians Unite has a new post this week about St. Louis jazz, combining a mention of Jazz Appreciation Month, a (much-appreciated!) acknowledgement of StLJN's recent 12th anniversary, and a video annotation of our current "Jazz this week" post.
Edited by Christopher Davis, STLMU has content covering a variety of musical genres and interests, and also has a very active Twitter account, with daily updates on live music shows happening around town.
* Saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake has a new release on his Passin' Thru label. Offered on CD and as a digital download, Right Up On features Lake collaborating on a program of original compositions with the Flux Quartet, a string quartet specializing in contemporary music.
* @Nesbys, the Sunset Hills restaurant and bar with a musical menu including occasional live jazz on weekends and a weekly jam session on Wednesday nights, will close after service this Saturday, April 29.
In a message on Facebook, the proprietors said, "The Econolodge stigma, and what will happen to the hotel in the future, as well as its patrons, was impacting our business. We are looking for another place where we can be successful for years to come!" According to the message, the owners will continue their catering business while looking for a new restaurant location, a process they hope to facilitate with help from a GoFundMe campaign.
* Two students in Jazz St. Louis' JazzU program have been selected for the 2017 edition of the Monterey Jazz Festival's Next Generation Jazz Orchestra. Trombonist Wyatt Forhan, a student at St. Dominic High School in O'Fallon, MO, and drummer Christian McGhee, who attends Westminster Christian Academy in Town and Country, will tour with the band this summer.
Imagining an alternate fate for the title character from Williams' play Hello from Bertha, the musical features singer Anita Jackson and pianist Charles Creath delivering "a saucy stew of bawdy songs" including "I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl", "If It Don't Fit Don't Force It," and "I've Got You Under My Skin."
Clockwise from top left: Bass, Bluiett, Lake and Washington
The St. Louis Jazz Hall of Fame will induct five musicians in a ceremony to be held at 5:00 p.m. Sunday, October 23 at the Emerson Performance Center on the campus of Harris Stowe State University.
As most readers of this site will already know, Bluiett and Lake both were members of the Black Artists Group in the late 1960s and went on to co-found the World Saxophone Quartet with David Murray and former St. Louisan Julius Hemphill. Both Bluiett and Lake continue to enjoy busy careers, recording and touring both nationally and internationally.
Washington has been a mainstay of the St. Louis scene for more than 50 years, teaching and performing regularly in local clubs and concert venues since the 1960s.
Bass, who died in 2012, was best known for her 1965 pop and soul mega-hit "Rescue Me," but also recorded jazz with the Art Ensemble of Chicago (which included her then-husband, St. Louis trumpeter Lester Bowie) and earned a Grammy nomination in 1995 for her gospel album No Ways Tired.
Hines was a highly regarded trumpeter, teacher and mentor who toured with Albert King, T-Bone Walker, Little Milton, Woody Herman, and Ray Charles, and worked frequently in St. Louis until his untimely death at age 49 in a 1991 motorcycle accident.
The induction ceremony is held in conjunction with the university's 18th annual "Homecoming Gold Gala" for alumni and supporters. Ronn Nichols, who serves as curator of the Wolff Jazz Institute, also will be honored with a "Lifetime Achievement Award."
