Sunday Session: September 16, 2018

Billy Cobham

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:

* For Chelsea native Chick Corea, one passion, many paths (Boston Globe)
* Pianist Matthew Shipp can make magic with the perfect partner (Chicago Reader)
* Bassist Eric Revis works at the conflux of the mainstream and its far-out tributaries (Chicago Reader)
* Conversation with Billy Cobham, Part 1: The Art of Creation (SomethingElseReviews.com)
* Conversation with Billy Cobham, Part 2: Brian Gruber and Ronnie Scott’s (SomethingElseReviews.com)
* Monterey Jazz Festival celebrates 40 years in Japan – and China could be the next stop (South China Morning Post)
* Hank Mobley, the greatest sax player you never heard (The Spectator)
* Channeling the cosmic imperfections of Sun Ra’s record sleeves (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Israeli music scene jolted by international boycott movement (Associated Press)
* Documentary Offers Intimate Portrait of a Demur Abercrombie (DownBeat)
* Barre Phillips announces his farewell record End To End (The Wire)
* Guantánamo Mixtape: This Would Be the Soundtrack to Hell (LitHub.com)
* Quincy review – portrait of a musical legend fails to sing (The Guardian)
* Musicians, Labels and Festival Programmers Anxious Over Brexit (DownBeat)
* Live Review: 2018 Detroit Jazz Festival (Jazz Times)
* The Untold Stories of Paul McCartney (GQ)
* No Boundaries: The Many Sides of Steven Bernstein (SFJAZZ.org)
* Fifteen Questions Interview with Olivia Block (15questions.net)
* The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s (Pitchfork.com)
* 'I didn’t just fade off the planet.’ Reconnecting with ’70s funk queen Betty Davis (Washington Post)
* No more heroes: how music stopped meaning everything (Irish Times)
* Count Basie Orchestra Knows Pop Music (DownBeat)
* Jazz in the Display Case (Jazz Times)
* With 'Emanon,' legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter finds a way to marry comic books and jazz (Los Angeles Times)
* In Memoriam: Randy Weston (DownBeat)
* Cuong Vu Keeps it Close to Home for ‘Change In The Air’ (DownBeat)
* Former Bad Plus pianist still 'loves playing in the Midwest' despite rocketing career (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
* Wilco Guitarist Nels Cline Reclaims Mood Music In The City Of Brotherly Love (NPR)
* Berkeley's Legendary Fantasy Studios to Close Its Doors (KQED)
* Trumpet Colossus Kenny Dorham Towers Alongside the Jazz Gods (Austin Chronicle)
* The World On Six Strings (ArtForum.com)

Jazz this week: Karrin Allyson, Olivia Block, Eric Marienthal, Tommy Halloran, and more

This week's schedule of jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes a typically varied assortment of sounds and styles, with a couple of notable touring performers in the middle of the week. So, without further delay, let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday November 11 
Singer Karrin Allyson (pictured, top left) returns to St. Louis for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro, touring in support of her recent release Many a New Day: Karrin Allyson sings Rodgers and Hammerstein.

The album has received generally positive reviews, and you'll find links to several of them, plus some videos of Allyson performing, in this post from last Saturday.

Also tonight, electronic musician and composer Olivia Block performs at Foam, with Circuit des Yeux opening the show; and singer Eve Seltzer returns to Nathalie's.

Thursday, November 12
The Gaslight Cabaret Festival fall series continues with an encore performance from the duo Sleepy Kitty at the Gaslight Theater.

Also on Thursday, the SIUE jazz faculty will feature saxophonist Jason Swagler in a concert entitled "Brazil and Beyond" at Dunham Hall on the SIUE campus; and Wack-A-Doo returns to the Tavern of Fine Arts.

Friday,
November 13
Guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran’s band Guerrilla Swing (pictured, center left) are regulars at Jazz at the Bistro, performing weekly for Sunday brunch, but they're also playing Friday and Saturday nights this week to promote the release of Halloran's new album State Streets.

Ticket buyers will get a free digital download of the album, which will be released on vinyl at a date TBA.

Elsewhere on Friday, singer Karen Oberlin explores the songs of Elvis Costello in the first of two performances of her show "His Aim Is True" at the Gaslight Theater; trumpeter Randy Holmes' quintet featuring pianist Carolbeth True will pay tribute to trumpet legend Clifford Brown at the Ozark Theatre; and Miss Jubilee plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, November 14
On Saturday afternoon, saxophonist Frank Catalano will be in from Chicago for a free performance and workshop at Saxquest

That evening, saxophonist Eric Marienthal teams up once again with St. Louis' Bach to the Future, this time in a benefit for the Dillon International adoption agency at the Mandarin House Banquet Hall in U City; and trumpeter Jim Manley performs at Thurman Grill.

Also on Saturday night, percussionist Herman Semidey and Orquesta Son Montuno will play salsa, Latin jazz, and more at Club Viva; and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes return to the Venice Cafe.

Sunday, November 15
The St. Louis Jazz Club will present Cornet Chop Suey playing traditional jazz and swing in a matinee performance at the DoubleTree Hotel at Westport.

Also on Sunday, the Community Women Against Hardship's annual "Circle of Support Gala" will feature singer Kimmie Horne (pictured, lower left), a Detroit native and cousin of the legendary Lena Horne, at the Sheldon Concert Hall; and the St. Louis Big Band gets ready for an upcoming road trip with a show at CJ Muggs in Webster Groves.

Monday, November 16
Guitarist Dave Black plays for diners at The Shaved Duck, and Webster University's student jazz singers will show off their skills in a concert at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus.

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.)

Olivia Block, Circuit des Yeux to perform Wednesday, November 11 at Foam

Electronic musician, composer and sound artist Olivia Block is returning to St. Louis to perform at 9:00 p.m. next Wednesday, November 11 at Foam, 3359 Cherokee.

Block (pictured), who's based in Chicago, uses a combination of field recordings, composed music for acoustic instruments, and electronically generated sound to create works for live performance, recorded media, chamber ensembles, video, and site-specific sound installations.

She has performed here before a couple of times in events presented by New Music Circle, most recently as part of a program co-presented by NMC and the St. Louis International Film Festival in November 2013 at the St. Louis Art Museum.

The opening act for Block's show at Foam will be Circuit des Yeux, aka Haley Fohr, a solo performer who works with bent electronics, vocals, percussion, piano, and acoustic guitar.

Admission to the all-ages show is $10 and $15 at the door.

2013 SLIFF schedule includes music documentaries, live performances

The 2013 St. Louis International Film Festival has released its complete schedule for this year, and once again it includes several programs of potential interest to jazz fans.

Now in its 22nd year and billed as "one of the largest international film festivals in the Midwest," SLIFF this year will present more than 350 films from November 14 through November 24 at venues including the Tivoli Theatre, Plaza Frontenac Cinema, Webster University’s Winifred Moore Auditorium, Washington University's Brown Hall Auditorium, the Wildey Theatre, and the new KDHX headquarters in Grand Center.

As part of the festival, New Music Circle will present composer Olivia Block and filmmakers Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder (pictured) in a performance at 8:00 p.m. Friday, November 15 at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. The event will include "Dissolution," a solo piece for 4-channel sound by Block, and "Untitled," a collaborative work of "live cinema" for dual 16mm film projectors and electronic sound.

Tickets are $20 for regular admission. $10 for CAM members, students, and "struggling music lovers," and can be purchased in advance from Brown Paper Tickets or at the door.

Block, Gibson and Recoder also will present a free workshop and talk at 1:00 p.m. the next day, Saturday November 16, at CAM, at which they'll demonstrate their extended techniques and approaches to film and sound. This event is free and open to the public.

Other offerings of potential interest to jazz fans include:

* Bayou Maharaja: The Tragic Genius of James Booker, a biography of New Orleans pianist James Booker, will be screened at 6:30 p.m., Saturday, November 16 at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium. Tickets are $12.

Booker, who seems inevitably described as an eccentric genius, was a virtuoso performer who was widely respected on the New Orleans music scene during the 1960s and 70s. The film, lauded by the Hollywood Reporter as "a must-see for aficionados of New Orleans jazz," explores the his life and the reasons why he never achieved breakout stardom.

Director Lily Keber will participate in a post-film Q&A, and the screening also will include an hour-long, Booker-inspired performance by pianist and St. Louis native Tom McDermott, who's become known as something of a New Orleans music scholar since moving there in the mid-1980s.

* The Pleasures of Being Out of Step, which looks at the life and work of journalist, author and critic Nat Hentoff, will play at 5:00 p.m. Sunday, November 17 and again at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, November 24, both times at KDHX, 3524 Washington Blvd. Tickets are $12.

Hentoff has written prolifically over the past 60 years about jazz, civil liberties, and other subjects for the Village Voice, the New Yorker, DownBeat, Jazz Times and many other publications, and has authored many books, both non-fiction and novels. He also has a St. Louis connection, as his daughter Jessica Hentoff lives here and runs the Circus Harmony foundation and school. She will in attendance at both screenings, and the film's director David L. Lewid also will be on hand on November 24.

Other music-related films showing during the festival include Harlem Street Singer, about the late blues and gospel performer Rev. Gary Davis; Something in the Water, a locally produced documentary recounting the "Real Rock Radio" glory days of St. Louis mainstay KSHE (94.7 FM); and more. You can see a listing of all the festival's music-related films here.

Tickets are now on sale for all shows, with direct links to buy tickets on each film page. For more about purchasing tickets and all-access passes, see the site's "venues and tickets" page.

Marty Ehrlich, William Parker to be featured in New Music Circle's 2013-14 season

In the spring, the thoughts of performing arts presenters often turn to the announcement of the next season's schedule. Here in St. Louis, the Sheldon Concert Hall already has announced their various 2013-14 season series, and Jazz St. Louis is set to release next year's schedule for Jazz at the Bistro and the Touhill before the end of the month.

Meanwhile, although New Music Circle isn't quite ready yet to make a formal announcement of their own, NMC administrator Jeremy Kannapell was kind enough to share with StLJN a "sneak peek" at what the organization has planned for 2013-14.

The venues and exact dates are yet to be determined, but NMC's season once again will feature a mix of improvised and composed music and multimedia performances, this year with a bit of a Chicago accent thanks to two shows featuring artists from the Windy City.

First, though, NMC will begin their season in October with a performance from University City's own Marty Ehrlich (pictured). A multi-instrumentalist and composer who plays alto sax, clarinets and flutes, Ehrlich, who turns 58 this month, was influenced early in his career by St. Louis' Black Artists Group and was mentored by saxophonists Oliver Lake and Julius Hemphill.

After attending the New England Conservatory, in 1978 he moved moved to New York, where he's become part of the national and international music scene as both an in-demand sideman and soloist and a bandleader exploring different ways of blending composition and free improvisation. Ehrlich's St. Louis appearances in recent years have been too few and far between, so his visit home will be especially welcome.

Later on in October, NMC will present a concert by bassist William Parker's quartet. Considered to be one of the most important bassists in free jazz, Parker is highly regarded for his work with major musicians including Cecil Taylor, David S. Ware, Peter Brötzmann, Matthew Shipp and many others, as well as for being the organizer of the annual Vision Festival in New York City.

In November, Chicago electronic musician and sound artist Olivia Block, who appeared here in May 2012 as part of an NMC group showcase, will return to do a full length performance. Originally a rock guitarist and vocalist in Austin, TX, Block relocated to Chicago in 1996 and began composing music that incorporates a variety of electronic elements, from drones and glitches to computer-manipulated field recordings, as well as occasional acoustic instruments, too.

Block will be joined by her frequent collaborators, filmmakers/performers Luis Recoder and Sandra Gibson. The three have have been working together since 2007, and their best known piece "Untitled" has been performed at the Sundance Film Festival and in London, Los Angeles, Texas, and Naples, Italy. Gibson and Recoder employ a variety of live performance techniques, including some - film loops, spray bottles, colored gels, unfocused lenses and hand-shadows - that evoke memories of late 1960s psychedelic light shows, though they're used in different ways and for different ends. For more about Recoder, Gibson and "Untitled," check out this video interview.

After a break for the holidays, NMC will resume in February with a concert from bassist Joshua Abrams, who has worked with various groups in Chicago's improvised music scene. His credits include the band Town and Country, Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble, Jeb Bishop, and Hamid Drake, as well as leading a quartet with Guillermo Gregorio, Axel Dorner, and Jeff Parker, and the trio Sticks and Stones with Matana Roberts and Chad Taylor.

In March, NMC will present its annual showcase of St. Louis musicians, with the lineup still TBA at this point.

The season will conclude in April 2014 with a performance from the Claire Chase Quintet. Chase, 35, is a California native who studied music at Oberlin College before founding the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) in 2001. She has premiered over 100 new solo works for the flute incorporating extended techniques and electro-acoustic elements, and has played in diverse venues around the world as a soloist and chamber musician.

When New Music Circle releases their full season schedule complete with dates, venues and ticket prices, StLJN will have details for you right here.