Sunday Session: September 27, 2020

John McLaughlin

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

* CTI Records: Ten Tasty Albums With No Added Sugar (Almost) (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Alexis Cole: Teaching & Learning (Jazz Times)
* Funk Legend Steve Arrington Celebrates a Long Career with “Down to The Lowest Terms” (Bandcamp.com)
* Albert Murray Talking Modernism, Race, and Jazz (Hyperallergic.com)
* Third of British musicians may quit industry amid pandemic (The Guardian)
* Rediscovering The Enormous Social And Spiritual Legacy Of Black Jazz Records (NPR)
* When Front Page Challenge met Ella Fitzgerald (CBC)
* Regina Carter’s Extraordinary Career Continues to Evolve (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* 12 synths that could have been classics, but weren’t (MusicRadar.com)
* Punch the 'Clockface': Elvis Costello On Making Albums In a Streaming World (Billboard)
* Paul Desmond and the Canadians (JazzHistoryOnline.com)
* Asynchronous Ensembles Come Out Swinging (DownBeat)
* Five Decades On, An Eclectic Church Preaches The Message Of John Coltrane (NPR)
* The Beat of Her Own Drum (TheLAndMag.com)
* John McLaughlin: Where The Muse Leads (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The Band’s Robbie Robertson: “If there was anything wrong with ‘The Last Waltz’ it was that the cocaine wasn’t very good” (NME.com)
* We’ve Got A File On You: Thurston Moore (Stereogum.com)
* Sound Territory: The Genius of Ornette Coleman (Los Angeles Review of Books)
* Congress Is Killing Independent Music Venues (Vice.com)
* Spike Lee Brings David Byrne’s American Utopia to the Big Screen (American Songwriter)
* Rishi Sunak's winter economy plan will silence the UK music scene (The Guardian)
* Documentary Tracks Charters ‘Searching for Secret Heroes’ of Blues Music (UConn.edu)

Sunday Session: September 13, 2020

Gary Peacock

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

* 'Masses of performers are still grounded': pianist Sophia Rahman on a UK music scene in crisis (TheArtsDesk.com)
* Sonny Rollins at 90: A Guided Tour of the Saxophone Colossus on Record, By Decade (WBGO)
* How a musician locks onto a rhythm, according to science (BigThink.com)
* Gary Peacock, A Jazz Bassist Always Ahead Of His Time, Dies At 85 (NPR)
* Rollins '57: Sonny Rollins Takes The Lead (WFIU)
* How Keith Richards is Spending His Quarantine (Rolling Stone)
* Paused Jazz Venues Hit a Low Note and Warn Music Could Soon Stop (TheCity.nyc)
* In Newport, A Quiet August And The Virus’ Financial Fallout (DownBeat)
* Gary Peacock 1935–2020 (Jazz Times)
* Former Baltimore house of jazz legend Cab Calloway demolished despite activists’ push (Baltimore Sun)
* How Jimmy Carter (Literally) Rocked the Presidency (Rolling Stone)
* Silver Apples synth pioneer Simeon Coxe dies aged 82 (The Guardian)
* Silver Apples' Simeon Coxe: visionary who saw music's electronic future (The Guardian)
* A Final Bow From Hal Willner, The Producer With The Golden Rolodex (NPR)
* Interview: Gregory Porter on the loss of his brother to Covid and his new album (The Scotsman)
* Understanding Bird (Tidal.com)
* Lifetime Achievement: Doug Hammond’s Kaleidoscopic Jazz, Funk, and Blues (Bandcamp.com)
* Remembering Lenny Breau, jazz’s most inventive guitarist (LiveMint.com)
* Charles Tolliver: Before & After (Jazz Times)
* Kool & the Gang Co-Founder Ronald ‘Khalis’ Bell Dead at 68 (Rolling Stone)
* A Former Spotify Exec Explains Why Artists Get Paid So Little on Streaming (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* A Deep Dive into John Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' by His Biographer Lewis Porter (Pt. 2) (WBGO)
* Sparks Of Wonder, Discovery Propel Rising Stars (DownBeat)
* In Newport, A Quiet August And The Virus’ Financial Fallout (DownBeat)
* Alice Coltrane: A Partial Primer (River Cities Reader)
* Ornette Coleman: An Outsider Cracks the Egg (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Black Women Jazz Artists Are Using Virtual Spaces To Speak On Race, Gender (DownBeat)
* My Conversation with Gary Peacock (AllAboutJazz.com)
* 1% of Artists Generate 90% of All Music Streams, Latest Data Shows (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Nina Simone's childhood home is now permanently protected (CNN)

Sunday Session: August 23, 2020

Charlie Parker

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

* Don’t Give Up: An Interview with John Hollenbeck (Night After Night)
* Music zooms into nursing homes (Limelight)
* Dickey Betts on the real Allman Brothers Band stories behind the film ‘Almost Famous’ (Sarasota Herald-Tribune)
* Ornette Coleman: The Territory And The Adventure (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The Two Maria Schneiders (The Nation)
* 2020 NEA Jazz Masters: A Q&A with Roscoe Mitchell (SFJAZZ.org)
* Now’s the Time for the Charlie Parker Centennial (Jazz Times)
* Steve Grossman, Saxophonist And Post-Coltrane Leading Light, Dead At 69 (NPR)
* The Strange World Of... Hawkwind (The Quietus)
* The History of ESP-Disk’ (Jazz Times)
* Archie Shepp Bridges Jazz, Hip-Hop On New Recording (DownBeat)
* Time’s Arrow Flies through 500 Years of Classical Music, Physicists Say (Scientific American)
* And in the End (Rolling Stone)
* Chris Dingman Wants To Help Others Find ‘Peace’ (DownBeat)
* What Store Stickers On Old Records Reveal About History Of Mexican American Music (NPR)
* 2020 NEA Jazz Masters: A Q&A with Music Director Terri Lyne Carrington (SFJAZZ.org)
* We Insist!: Jazz and Racial Injustice (Jazz Times)
* The Latest from Jazz Icon Charles Tolliver Reflects His 50-Plus Years in Music (Bandcamp.com)
* A mushroom-related brush with mortality: how John Cage fell for fungi (The Guardian)
* The Tiny Desk Guide To Rare And Amazing Instruments (NPR)
* Have a First Taste of 'The Lost Berlin Tapes,' Which Casts Ella Fitzgerald As a Returning Hero (WBGO)
* Remembering Santa Cruz Jazz Great Don McCaslin (Good Times)
* David Sancious on His Journey From the E Street Band to Tours With Sting, Peter Gabriel (Rolling Stone)

Sunday Session: August 2, 2020

Ornette Coleman

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

* Chris Spedding: living life backwards (Jazz Journal)
* What Enhanced Unemployment Benefits Mean To Jazz (DownBeat)
* Sullivan Fortner: Before & After (Jazz Times)
* Unsolved Mysteries: Conglomerate Records (AnomalyIndex.com)
* Jon Hassell, music's great globetrotter: 'Be more aware of the rest of the world!' (The Guardian)
* New Lives: Experimental, Folk, and Jazz Artists Revitalize the Live Album (Bandcamp.com)

* Book Review: Ornette Coleman –The Life of a Jazz Visionary (ArtFuse.org)
* Jazz Commentary: Ornette Coleman — An Outsider Cracks the Egg (ArtsFuse.org)
* TRIBUTE: Anita Wardell remembers Annie Ross (London Jazz News)
* When jazz royalty came to Paly: Monk's long-lost record (nearly) goes public (PaloAltoOnline.com)
* New Bill Aims To Help Music Venues Suffering Amid COVID-19 Pandemic (NPR)
* 17 pro guitarists who play cheap guitars (Guitar World)
* Remembering Fleetwood Mac Founder Peter Green, The Soulful Voice Of British Blues (NPR)
* Senators Introduce Bill to Fund Independent Venues Struggling During COVID-19 (Rolling Stone)
* Rhiannon Giddens Named Artistic Director of Silkroad (BroadwayWorld.com)
* Danny Scher: Back To School With Thelonious Monk (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Academic Programs Restructure Amid Pandemic (DownBeat)
* Interview with Latin Jazz Musician and Educator John Santos (WorldMusicCentral.org)
* Fishbone’s (mostly) original lineup working on first new album in decades; Fat Mike producing (Brooklyn Vegan)
* Spotify CEO Daniel Ek says working musicians may no longer be able to release music only “once every three to four years” (TheFader.com)
* Interview: Jeff Parker on Chopping and Assembling "Max Brown" (Reverb.com)
* Where Are The Thousands Of Nazi-Looted Musical Instruments? (NPR)
* Spotify thinks the Top 40 is over (and other key takeaways from its Q2 results) (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* The Stars Shine: A Newport Jazz Festival Special (NPR)
* The “Palo Alto” record: How a high schooler, a janitor and Thelonius Monk made local history (TheSixFifty.com)
* Spotify CEO talks Covid-19, artist incomes and podcasting (interview) (MusicAlly.com)

Sunday Session: June 7, 2020

Idris Ackamoor

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

* Buddy Bolden’s Blues (64Parishes.org)
* Killing Of George Floyd Prompts Response From Music Industry, Performers (DownBeat)
* Remembering “Uganda” Roberts (Offbeat)
* Robert Northern, who, as ‘Brother Ah,’ became a synthesizer of sounds, dies at 86 (Washington Post)
* Thundercat Looks For Connection During A Bewildering Moment (DownBeat)
* The Chance Music Of New Orleans’ Kidd Jordan (DownBeat)
* Lennie Niehaus, Jazz Player and Composer for Clint Eastwood Films, Dies at 90 (Variety)
* Idris Ackamoor: An Afro-Futurist Odyssey (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Sandy Jordan Research on Clifford Jordan (AtticToys.com)
* The Law Police Used To Discriminate Against Musicians Of Color (NPR)
* On Taking Lip [Service] (WQXR)
* Of George Floyd and John Coltrane (Jazz Times)
* Add some township jive! How London's jazz scene set itself apart (The Guardian)
* Pandemic Entrepreneurship for Jazz Musicians (Jazz Times)
* What Socially Distanced Live Performance Might Look Like (Vulture.com)
* Venues, Festivals Search For Hope Amid A Slowly Opening Economy (DownBeat)
* A TCM Series and a New Book Celebrate the Expansive Pleasures of Jazz in the Movies (WBGO)
* Jim Snidero Explores South Korea (Jazz Times)
* Lennie Niehaus 1929–2020 (Jazz Times)
* This Is How Much More Money Artists Earn From Bandcamp Compared to Streaming Services (Pitchfork.com)
* How Jazz Helped Fuel the 1960s Civil Rights Movement (OpenCulture.com)
* Think You've Been Productive in Quarantine? Try Checking in with Tim Berne and David Torn (WBGO)
* Arturo O’Farrill’s ‘Four Questions’ Brings Together Art, Activism (DownBeat)
* Swing Time: Ahmed Abdullah (Relix.com)
* How Can Artists Respond to Injustice? Thoughts from Seven Musicians (New Music Box)
* The Radically Inclusive Music of Ornette Coleman (The New Republic)
* The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The New Sounds Of Protest And Hope (NPR)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: A jazz film mini-festival (shutdown edition)

With live music still shut down for the foreseeable future, this week we revisit an idea used in this space occasionally during the slow weeks of summer, and offer up a mini-festival of six feature-length films about jazz. 

The first film, embedded up above, is 1959, The Year That Changed Jazz, a 2009 documentary originally aired on the BBC. It uses archival performances and interviews to look at developments in jazz as reflected in four historically significant albums released that year by Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman.

After the jump, you can see A Great Day In Harlem, an Academy Award-nominated documentary released in 1994 that tells the story of the iconic 1958 photo of dozens of jazz greats taken on a Harlem stoop.

Next up is Mingus: Charlie Mingus 1968, a documentary by filmmaker Thomas Reichman that captures the bassist and composer at a particularly tumultuous time, including some infamous footage of Mingus being evicted from his New York City apartment.

After that, it's keyboardist, bandleader, composer and self-proclaimed extraterrestrial Sun Ra in an extended cut of Space is the Place, a 1972 film that DownBeat described as "a sci-fi trip through the East Bay during the 1970s with Sun Ra in the lead."

The penultimate video is Thelonius Monk: An American Composer, a 1993 documentary that includes archival footage and various jazz greats discussing Monk and his enduring influence on jazz.

Last but not least, it's Herbie Hancock - Possibilities a 2006 "making of" documentary about Hancock's album of the same name, featuring guest performers drawn from rock, pop, hip-hop, and more.

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

Sunday Session: March 22, 2020

John McLaughlin

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

* The Secret History of Motown’s Greatest Hits (Rolling Stone)
* Kurt Elling on Working with Danilo Pérez, Politics and Recording with an Indie Label (DownBeat)
* Charles Lloyd, a tireless jazz sax legend at 82, talks music and hanging with Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead (San Diego Union Tribune)
* The Jazz Label: Marc Free of Posi-Tone (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The Inner Critic of Irving Berlin (DownBeat)
* Beating Her Own Drum, Terri Lyne Carrington Continues To Push Jazz Forward (WBUR)
* “Every musician I know is now facing bankruptcy” – the impact of coronavirus cancellations on classical artists (ClassicFM.com)
* How Mapping Relationships Between Jazz Musicians Elevates Unsung Histories (Pratt.edu)
* Jeff Parker Is "Just Trying to Make Weird Shit" (Premier Guitar)
* Duchess Looks for Joy Amid Perilous Times (DownBeat)
* With Clubs Gone Dark and Festivals Postponed, the Musical Action Migrates to the Livestream (WBGO)
* Gerald Veasley: Everybody Has Something to Say (Jazz Times)
* John McLaughlin offers fans free download of new album (LouderSound.com)
* Ornette Coleman Biography Explores The Free Jazz Saxophonist’s Genius (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* The lost art of deep listening: Choose an album. Lose the phone. Close your eyes. (Los Angeles Times)
* Recording Academy and MusiCares Commit $2M For Coronavirus Relief Fund (Billboard)
* Music streaming may actually be falling because of coronavirus (QZ.com)
* How The Coronavirus Fallout Could Be Devastating To The Practice Of Jazz (NPR)
* Carlos and Cindy Santana on the Power of ‘Playing from Your Heart’ (Q&A) (RockCellarMagazine.com)
* The Intakt Label is Providing a Supportive Home for the Avant-Garde (Bandcamp.com)
* Electronic Intimacy: The Surreal Experience of Playing in a Quarantined Hall (Atavist.com)
* A Shelved Album By Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers Will Finally See the Light of Day (WBGO)
* Origin Records Puts Superlative Musicianship on Display (DownBeat)
* 'Solace' Amidst The 'Deeply Odd': Pianist Aaron Parks On Releasing A Record Right Now (NPR)

Sunday Session: May 26, 2019

Aretha Franklin

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest, drawn from StLJN's inboxes, newsfeeds, and assorted other sources:

* "Over the Rainbow" Composer Seeks Pot of Gold from Apple (Forbes.com)
* ‘Fake Artists’ Have Billions of Streams on Spotify. Is Sony Now Playing the Service at Its Own Game? (Rolling Stone)
* Doris Day: Her Jazziest Moment (Jazz Times)
* Aretha in church (TheBlueMoment.com)
* Blue Note boss Don Was: 'Jazz can't become synonymous with pop again' (The Guardian)
* Burnt Sugar Applying Heat for 20 Years (DownBeat)
* Ray Charles - Confessin’ The Blues (FYIMusicNews.ca)
* Scientists create the loudest possible sound (NewAtlas.com)
* Wire Playlist: Free Jazz In Japan, Sounds From The First Decade (The Wire)
* Idagio—the Spotify for Classical Music—Has Changed My Life (Vogue)
* National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2020 NEA Jazz Masters (Arts.gov)
* Kamasi Washington: 'Right now it feels like people are really open to jazz, the freedoms, the abstract side of it' (List.co.uk)
* How Nashville plans to save Music Row, a threatened cultural treasure (Curbed.com)
* The Borderless Music of Antonio Sánchez (DownBeat)
* Pacific Ocean coup: how Ronald Reagan helped bury a Beach Boy at sea (The Guardian)
* How Panic! at the Disco Cornered the Market on Trumpet-Heavy Hits (Variety)
* Flashback: Ornette Coleman Sums Up Solitude on ‘Lonely Woman’ (Rolling Stone)
* Pianist gives concert from vertical piano hanging from construction crane (WPXI)
* 20 Questions for New Artists Sidebar: The Economic Reality of Streaming (MusicTechPolicy.com)
* Repair Of Iconic ’60s Era Synthesizer Turns Into Long, Strange Trip For Engineer (SanFrancisco.CBSLocal.com)
* Resonance Records’ Further Exploration of Wes Montgomery (DownBeat)
* The Shed Attempts to Inject Culture Into Hudson Yards (The New Yorker)
* Flying Lotus and His Grandmother Talk Being in a Family Bound by Music (Pitchfork.com)
* Sofar Sounds house concerts raises $25M, but bands get just $100 (TechCrunch.com)
* ECM At Big Ears: A Boundless Label Meets A Broadminded Festival (NPR)
* Frantic, Distorted, Defiant: When Punk Jazz Upended the Underground (Jazz Times)
* How synthesizer pioneer Bob Moog brought electronic music to the masses (Fast Company)

Sunday Session: September 30, 2018

Horace Tapscott

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:

* Trane ’63: A Classic, A Challenge, A Change (WFIU)
* 10 Classic Vocal Jazz Duets (Jazz Times)
* The Absence Of Alice Coltrane – Reflections On Spiritual Eternal (TheQuietus.com)
* George Freeman still swinging hard — at 91 (Chicago Tribune)
* AudioFiles: The Controversy Over MQA (Jazz Times)
* Five Electronic Digital Instruments That Are Changing Music (Berklee.edu)
* SiriusXM buying Pandora Media in $3.5 billion deal (Associated Press)
* Terence Blanchard: Music, Social Justice and Raising Awareness About Violence Against Black People (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Pat Metheny still brings a unique voice to jazz guitar (Wisconsin Gazette)
* Interview with Cooper-Moore: My thinking is that intellect and emotion are part of what makes up the “Soul”: New video 2018, Photos (JazzBluesNews.space)
* Earning the Songs of Bill Withers (Jazz Times)
* Out of Dance, the Distinct Groove of Allison Miller and Carmen Staaf (DownBeat)
* Watch Paul Simon deliver an emotional farewell to fans during his last ever concert (NME.com)
* The Legend of Horace Tapscott and His Arkestra on Nimbus West Records (Bandcamp.com)
* The Smithsonian Robot Pepper Can Create Music from Visual Art. Now You Can Hear the Creepy Sample Tracks. (Washingtonian)
* A Brief History of Guitar Distortion: From Early Experiments to Happy Accidents to Classic Effects Pedals (OpenCulture.com)
* Streaming now accounts for 75 percent of music industry revenue (TheVerge.com)
* Tiny Desk Concert: Cécile McLorin Salvant (NPR)
* Wayne Shorter: Other Worlds (Jazz Times)
* ‘Love Is Here To Stay’: The Eternal Power Of Tony Bennett And Diana Krall (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* The Crosscultural Significance of Ornette Coleman (Jazz Times)
* Jazz isn’t dead: it’s just moved to new venues (TheConversation.com)
* Forgotten Giants: Willie Dixon - The Poet Laureate of Chess Records (Paste)
* Cosmic composers: how scientists helped reinvent Holst's Planets suite (The Guardian)
* Sony Music Faces Class Action Litigation for Allegedly Withholding Streaming Royalties (DigitalMusicnews.com)
* Q&A: Bridgette Wimberly tells the story of the Atlanta Opera’s “Charlie Parker’s Yardbird” (ArtsATL.com)
* Bruce Iglauer Memoir Tells Story Of Blues Staple Alligator Records (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Sound Off: The Sonic Circuits Festival's Enduring Legacy (Washington City Paper)
* Herb Alpert Remembers Hugh Masekela (Afropop.org)
* Tia Fuller: The Brilliance of a Diamond (DownBeat)
* Sun Ra’s Afrofuturistic Album Covers (Flashbak.com)
* Branford Marsalis speaks his mind on music and politics, and he’s not holding back (Charlotte News-Observer)
* 40 years after Are We Not Men? we’re just now starting to get Devo (AVClub.com)
* Otis Rush, Seminal Chicago Blues Guitarist, Dead at 84 (Rolling Stone)

Sunday Session: February 25, 2018

Dave Burrell

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:

* Jazz Icon Sonny Rollins on the Difference Between Knowing and Believing (RealClearLife.com)
* “Fascination and fear”: Rhythm and Reaction shows how Edwardian Britain responded to jazz (New Statesman)
* At Gala, SFJAZZ Connects with Preservation Hall (DownBeat)
* The Brian Eno Discography: Stream 29 Hours of Recordings by the Master of Ambient Music (OpenCulture.com)
* A Hall of Fame hitmaker finds happiness and harmony in Bellingham (Seattle Times)
* UK's first live music census warns of threats to small venues (Music Week)
* People find comfort listening to the same songs over and over, study finds (MedicalExpress.com)
* Didier Lockwood, French Jazz Violinist, Dies Suddenly at 62 (Billboard)
* Morton Subotnick Revivifies Silver Apples of The Moon for Its 50th Anniversary (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* How ‘Strange Fruit’ Killed Billie Holiday (Progressive.org)
* John McLaughlin on the Mystery of Creativity, Inspiration, & Music (AllAboutJazz.com)
* 'I didn't give a damn if it didn't sell': how Isaac Hayes helped create psychedelic soul (The Guardian)
* The 50 Best Jazz Guitarists Of All Time (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* The 2018 Vision Festival Will Honor Pianist Dave Burrell, and Feature Prime Younger Talent (WBGO)
* In Pursuit of a Streaming Jazz Utopia with Qwest TV, the New Service From Quincy Jones (WBGO)
* The Sound of Being (Opera News)
* Musical Revolutionary Ornette Coleman Unleashed Free Jazz in 1950s L.A. (LA Weekly)
* In Memoriam: Drummer Ndugu Chancler (DownBeat)
* Gibson Guitar Update: 150 days to save the brand (FarOutMagazine.co.uk)
* NOJO: A Second Chance to Swing (Jazz Times)
* How two GMU professors teamed up to create high-tech music (Washington Post)
* Charley Pride’s music taught listeners that country music was black music, too (Timeline.com)
* Tyshawn Sorey and Terrance Hayes Make a Poignant Statement with 'Cycles of My Being' (WBGO)
* When Sonny Rollins Rose in the West (Village Voice)
* The Last Word: George Clinton on Alien Encounters, Trump's Lack of Funk (Rolling Stone)
* The great big Spotify scam: Did a Bulgarian playlister swindle their way to a fortune on streaming service? (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Q&A with John Surman: Shared Experience (DownBeat)
* From Radiohead to the Oscar-Nominated ‘Phantom Thread’: Jonny Greenwood on His Musical Process (Variety)
* The Kid Who Recorded The First Punk Rock Record (And Invented Surf Guitar) (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Christian Scott: Building Bridges Across Cultures (NPR)
* The Prowess of Nina Simone’s Early Records (The Atlantic)
* Is the greatest hits album dying? (GetIntoThis.co.uk)
* An introduction to Don Cherry in 10 records (The VinylFactory.com)

Sunday Session: July 16, 2017

Tony Allen

Here's the weekly roundup of various music-related items of interest that have landed in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Stream-ripping is 'fastest growing' music piracy (BBC)
* Record Rendezvous: Cleveland cradle of rock 'n' roll sits empty, awaits new life (photos) (Cleveland.com)
* Mulatu Astatke’s “Ethiopia” Is A Love Letter To His Homeland (Bandcamp.com)
* Here’s what happened the last time audio producers got better data (NiemanLab.org)
* Ornette Coleman Takes Flight Again, in Music and Film, This Week at Lincoln Center (WBGO)
* Esperanza Spalding: Jazz Musician, Grammy Award Winner and Now Museum Curator (Smithsonian)
* Kansas City's American Jazz Museum Should Belong To The Entire City, Officials Say (KCUR)
* Lady Gaga's Trumpet Player on 'Insane' Gig With Stevie Wonder, Rose Bar Residency & 'Making It' in NYC (Billboard)
* No Heroes: Lester Bangs on Stage (NoSuchThingAsWas.com)
* Producers Rejoice: Legal Sampling Is Now As Easy As Online Shopping (Video) (AmbrosiaForHeads.com)
* Newark Sings a New Tune on Road To Revival (Wall Street Journal)
* Original Dixie Dregs Announce Reunion (NoTreble.com)
* 6 Nina Simone Songs Brilliantly Sampled by Rappers (Pitchfork.com)
* Spotify denies it’s playlisting fake artists. So why are all these fake artists on its playlists? (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* So… who’s actually behind Spotify’s fake artists? (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Why Spotify’s fake artists problem is an Epidemic. Literally. (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* A Lot of Noise on Spotify (IllusionOfMore.com)
* Women of Jazz: Stream a Playlist of 91 Recordings by Great Female Jazz Musicians (OpenCulture.com)
* This Woman Has Engineered Pop’s Biggest Recent Hits, from ‘Melodrama’ to ‘1989’ (Vice.com)
* For Chamber Music in Silicon Valley, Hoodies and Haydn Don’t Mix (KQED)
* The Crate Crisis: How the Used Vinyl Market is Changing (GetItOnVinyl.com)
* Is the threat of a copyright lawsuit stifling music? (BBC)
* NEW AGE: jazz in 2017 (M-Magazine.com)
* Diminuendo: Is Classical Music Journalism Fading to Silence? (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* Afrobeat Drummer Allen’s Quartet Pays Tribute to Blakey at Poisson Rouge (DownBeat)
* What Can Listening to Nature Teach Us? (EarthEasy.com)
* Mary Halvorson Pushes Jazz Guitar Into New Territory (Village Voice)
* SoundCloud sinks as leaks say layoffs buy little time (TechCrunch.com)
* The avant-garde jazz of Griot Galaxy (Detroit Metro Times)
* Rochester Jazz Fest Emphasizes Jazz at the Fascinating Fringes (DownBeat)
* Bria Skonberg: 5 songs that changed my life (CBCMusic.ca)
* 'A Pocketful Of Blues': Charles Lloyd On 'Passin' Thru' (NPR)
* Photos: 2017 North Sea Jazz Festival (Jazz Times)
* Q&A with Ethan Iverson: Addition through Subtraction (DownBeat)
* Power of the Mind: You Can Play This Instrument Using Just Your Thoughts (Newsweek)
* Van Morrison will salute his blues heroes on new album, 'Roll With the Punches' (Los Angeles Times)
* Robert Mugge’s 1986 film Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus to be rereleased (The Wire)
* The Emergence of A New Black Avant-Garde: Experimental Music and Text (BrooklynRail.org)
* Vijay Iyer: Taking Stock of the Ojai Music Festival Experience (TheLogJournal.com)
* The Story Behind the Surge in Vinyl Film Soundtracks (Paste)

Sunday Session: July 9, 2017

Miguel Zenon

Here's the weekly roundup of various music-related items of interest that have landed in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* The real motor of the performing arts isn’t vision. It’s the board, stupid. ​(Washington Post)
* Like it or not, we are in the midst of a second arts revolution (Chicago Tribune)
* Nora Holt - The pioneering African-American composer and critic left little trace of her work, making it – as Matthew Guerrieri writes – all the more important to celebrate her story (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* Jazz Greats in Paris (The New Yorker)
* A room where sound goes to die — and scientists go to study (Seattle Times)
* Redefining the rock god - the new breed of electric guitar heroes (TheConversation.com)
* Churches struggling to find organists (Baltimore Sun)
* Hats Off To The Hammond (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Assessing 'Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan' (WBGO)
* Hudson’s Collective Groove Exceeds Expectations at Montreal Jazz Festival (DownBeat)
* INTERVIEW: Rhys Chatham On Tony Conrad (TheQuietus.com)
* Jazz fest: Robert Glasper takes teamwork cues from Miles Davis (Montreal Gazette)
* Brain Music: How 'Fly Me To The Moon' Can Explain Your Brain On Anesthesia (WBUR)
* The Music Industry's Still Off Key (Bloomberg.com)
* A 60-year run at Royal Studios in Memphis--recording hits with 1960s vacuum-tube technology (KCBX)
* Guitarists Explore Music of Monk in NYC Concert (DownBeat)
* Everything You Need to Know About Music Sales in 2017 (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Why prog rock still deserves your time (The Economist)
* Scrapbook from the Apple (Jazz Journal)
* How to Double Vinyl Record Sales In 2 Years or Less (Guaranteed!) (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* The final bar? How gentrification threatens America's music cities (The Guardian)
* Global Swing: Catching Up with Miguel Zenón in Spain (DownBeat)
* Jane Bunnett & Maqueque: 21st Century Women (Jazz Times)
* The Sound of Avant Garde Jazz: Stream 35 Hours of Experimental Jazz by Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane & More (OpenCulture.com)
* Ornette Coleman: A Jazz Visionary Ready for Prime Time (NBCNews.com)
* 'Baby Driver's' true theme song is 'B-A-B-Y' and Carla Thomas loves it (Memphis Commercial Appeal)
* Stars turning out for tribute to famed SF nightclub Keystone Korner (San Jose Mercury-News)

Sunday Session: June 18, 2017

Ornette Coleman

Here are some interesting music-related items that have landed in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Trombone Shorty: Living for the Crescent City (Jazz Times)
* 10 Musicians Look Back on the Albums They Don’t Remember Recording (SPIN)
* Web Exclusive: Hal Blaine (Modern Drummer)
* Tom Oberheim On The Art Of Synthesizer Design (Synthtopia.com)
* After 7 Decades, Sonny Rollins Can't Get Music Off His Mind (NPR)
* Charlie Parker's Yardbird review – beauty, anger and poetry, but the jazz great's genius eludes us (The Guardian)
* Do Androids Dream of Electric Guitars? Exploring the Future of Musical A.I. (Pitchfork.com)
* Interview: Airto Moreira (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2018 Class of NEA Jazz Masters (Arts.gov)
* Gregg Allman: The Wild Times, Lost Years and Rebirth of a Southern-Rock Legend (Rolling Stone)
* Transcending genre labels, Vijay Iyer leads the Ojai Music Festival toward bold new territory (Los Angeles Times)
* Go-Go Forever - The rise, fall, and afterlife of Washington, D.C.’s ultimate rhythm (MTV.com)
* Steve Earle: 'My wife left me for a younger, skinnier, less talented singer' (The Guardian)
* This interracial couple endured discrimination and bullying — but loved each other until the end (Washington Post)
* All That Jazz: The Business Of Over 35 Years At The Blue Note Jazz Club (Forbes)
* Guest Editorial: Why Musicians Don’t Get Paid—A New Orleans Musician’s View (Offbeat)
* A new generation of jazz comes to the fore at Tokyo Lab (Japan Times)
* Who killed the contemporary Christian music industry? (The Week)
* 2 guitars returned to Muddy Waters' heirs in ongoing estate battle (Chicago Tribune)
* Gibson Brands transforms guitar-making into diverse 'music lifestyle' firm (Los Angeles Times)
* Celebrate Ornette Coleman: Artists pay homage to the legendary avant-garde saxophonist (TheVinylFactory.com)

Sunday Session: March 19, 2017

Chuck Berry

Here are some interesting music-related items that have landed in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Hail and farewell: Rock legend Chuck Berry dies at 90 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
* $7.5 million guitar sale questioned by professionals (USA Today)
* Play Paul Simon’s Piano or Croon Into Elvis’ Mic at These Seven Historic Recording Studios (Smithsonian)
* Paul Shaffer Releases ‘Most Dangerous’ Album (AmericanBluesScene.com)
* Metheny Celebrated at Alternative Guitar Summit (DownBeat)
* The Fate of the Critic in the Clickbait Age (The New Yorker)
* Last Call (About Last Night/ArtsJournal.com)
* SoundCloud’s Valuation Has Dropped 75% In Less Than a Year (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Cornelia Street Cafe Struggling With High Rent After 40 Years In Village (DNAInfo.com)
* Tommy LiPuma, Grammy-Winning Producer & Record Exec, Dies at 80 (Billboard)
* Ride the Feedback: A Brief History of Guitar Distortion (Vice.com)
* Ornette Coleman’s Inspired Soundtrack for “Who’s Crazy?” (The New Yorker)
* Return of the Composer-Performer: A Rough Guide to New Music by Virtuoso Musicians (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* Rock Band: An Electromechanical Sound Machine That Makes Music With Rocks (ThisIsColossal.com)
* Late musician Tony Conrad in the documentary 'Completely in the Present': 'I wanted to end composing — get rid of it' (Los Angeles Times)
* Kamasi Washington Follows ‘The Epic’ With a New Work in Whitney Biennial (New York Times)
* Alice Coltrane: Her Sound and Spirit (BBC)
* When East Meets West: Hear What Happened When Ravi Shankar & Philip Glass Composed Music Together (OpenCulture.com)
* In Oakland, Trombone Shorty & Chili Peppers Create Red Hot Groove (DownBeat)
* The UK jazz invasion: 'I’m sure that some purists wouldn’t even call it jazz' (The Guardian)
* The Francis Brothers: African Record Center (Afropop.com)
* REVIEW: John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension at Ronnie Scott's (LondonJazzNews.com)
* The Art of Tour Managing (Projection, Lights And Staging News)
* Enter the SoundBox: How the SF Symphony Turned a Dreadful Room Into Sonic Paradise (Wired)
* John Coltrane Documentary ‘Chasing Trane’ Gets Release Date (Variety)
* James Cotton Dies at 81 (DownBeat)
* The Real Cost of Abolishing the National Endowment for the Arts (The Atlantic)

Sunday Session: February 12, 2017

Jon Hendricks

Here are some interesting music-related items that have landed in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Happy 30th birthday, 'world music' (PRI)
* The Enduring Mystery of Jefferson Airplane’s ‘Surrealistic Pillow’ (Observer.com)
* THE BEAT GOES ON: New Albany jazz master Jamey Aebersold brings music to community (Jeffersonville News and Tribune)
* What if you could touch and feel a score? (CreateDigitalMusic.link)
* “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers” - Classic comedy album a Firesign of the times (Boston Globe)
* 13 Musicians Influenced by Author William S. Burroughs (Paste)
* Michael Chapman: the man who connects Elton, Bowie, Nick Drake and Sonic Youth (The Guardian)
* "This is not a woman's issue' – tackling conducting's gender problem (The Guardian)
* David Axelrod, Influential Musician and Producer, Dies (Billboard)
* The Music Legal Forecast for 2017 (Vice.com)
* Review: 'Celebrate Ornette' Gives Avant-Jazz Legend an All-Star Farewell (Rolling Stone)
* Crate Diggers: Mats Gustafsson -A rare visit to the free jazz giant’s two and a half tonne vinyl cave (The VinylFactory.com)
* The tables have turned, but will vinyl’s record sales last? (TheDrum.com)
* When Discs Die (Tedium.co)
* These Seven Black Composers Made Classical Music History (Nashville Public Radio)
* The Art Ensemble Of Chicago captivate at Cafe OTO (Jazzwise)
* After 50 Years, Hendricks’ “Miles Ahead” Remake Set for NYC Premiere (DownBeat)
* Dear Creepy Men of the Music Industry, Please Stop (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* The cassette revival needs blank tapes – meet the hoarders coming to the rescue (FactMag.com)
* Billboard's 2017 Power 100 List Revealed (Billboard)
* A Sonic Introduction to Avant-Garde Music: Stream 145 Minutes of 20th Century Art Music, Including Modernism, Futurism, Dadaism & Beyond (OpenCulture.com)
* Does College Radio Even Matter Anymore? (Pitchfork)
* How Railroads Influenced Jazz Music (WBUR)
* Al Jarreau: An American Original (Jazz Times)
* ‘Spine-tingling’ lost Bob Marley tapes restored after 40 years in a cellar (The Guardian)
* The Standard Bearers: In Jazz Categories, The Grammys Remain Focused On The Past (NPR)
* Spinal Tap Reunite to Sue Record Label for $400 Million (Guitar World)
* Krall Revisits Songbook on New Album, Announces World Tour (DownBeat)
* “I’ll be there”: Charlie Haden was the Tom Joad of jazz, and his Liberation Music Orchestra lives on (Salon.com)
* How 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' Became The World's First Gold Record (NPR)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Favorite jazz documentaries

As sometimes happens in mid-summer, the next couple of weeks in St. Louis are looking relatively uneventful with regard to touring jazz performers visiting our town. So this week, StLJN is going to take a break from our regular, locally focused sort of Saturday post to share some some favorite jazz films that can be viewed for free online.

Today's first movie, embedded up above, is The Last of the Blue Devils, a 1979 documentary about the history of Kansas City jazz directed by Bruce Ricker and starring Jay McShann, Count Basie, Big Joe Turner, and various other notable KC musicians.

After the jump, you can see Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz, a 1997 documentary about the famed record label that helped establish the careers of many jazz greats, followed by 1959: The Year that Changed Jazz, a film produced in 2009 by BBC Four that looks at how four key albums released in the titular year affected the course of music for the next half-century.

The remaining three films offer more in-depth looks at individual musicians, starting with Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, a 1988 documentary about the pianist and composer that was directed by Charlotte Zwerin.

Next up, you can see Ornette: Made In America, director Shirley Clarke's 1985 film about saxophonist Ornette Coleman and the opening of the Caravan of Dreams performance center in Fort Worth, TX.

Last but not least, it's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise, director Robert Mugge's look at the pianist, bandleader, and cosmic philosopher that was released in 1980.

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

Music Education Monday: A workshop with saxophonist Dewey Redman

Today for Music Education Monday, you can take in a workshop with saxophonist Dewey Redman, the late Texas tenor man known for his big, bluesy tone, his associations with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett, and these days, for being the father of saxophonist Joshua Redman.

The elder Redman, who died in 2006, was born in 1931 in Fort Worth and went to high school with Ornette Coleman, forming a friendship that would last a lifetime. He played in Coleman's band from 1968 to 1972, and later started the group Old And New Dreams with fellow Coleman alumni Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Ed Blackwell, releasing four albums of music influenced by their former employer.

Redman was much more than just a Coleman disciple, though, putting out a dozen albums under his own name, and a dozen more with Jarrett, recorded during the 1970s when he was a member of the pianist's "American Quartet." He also also performed and recorded with Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, Paul Motian, Pat Metheny, and numerous other jazz musicians active during the 1980s and 1990s.

In 1993, Redman went back to Texas to conduct a workshop with students at Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and fortunately, someone had the presence of mind to record the event on video. You can see that video of Redman's workshop, presented in three parts, after the jump.

And if you're curious to know more about Dewey Redman, he was the subject of an award-winning documentary film, Dewey Time: The Sound of A Giant, released in 2001. You can see that film in its entirety in the fourth video embed below...

Sunday Session: January 3, 2016

Fletcher Henderson

For your Sunday reading, some interesting music-related items that have turned up recently in StlJN's inbox:

* Ornette Coleman remembered by Neneh Cherry (The Guardian UK)
* Globally Acclaimed Composer Paola Prestini Is Turning National Sawdust into an Incubator for the Music World (Vanity Fair)
* Artist's Choice: Luciana Souza on Wordless Singing (Jazz Times)
* The Strange Acoustic Phenomenon Behind These Wacked-Out Versions of Pop Songs (Vice.com)
* 10 Important Things To Know About The Recent Copyright Royalty Board Decision (HypeBot.com)
* Sugarfoot Stomp (Oxford American)
* UK police busts karaoke “gang” for sharing songs that aren’t commercially available (ArsTechnica.com)
* How To Piece Together an Album From 10,000 Different Samples (Vice.com)
* Porter Spreads Jubilant Vibe (DownBeat)
* Joss Stone, racism and reggae (Jamaica Observer)
* Zappa Gets ‘Cosmik’ in Previously Unseen Concert Film (DownBeat)
* Jamie Cullum on how hip hop turned him into a jazz player (South China Morning Post)
* Michael Bates and His Power Trio: Bassist & composer finds profound context for improv (Jazz Times)
* In The Podcast World, Some Music Students Seek A Career Gateway (NPR)
* The Revenant Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto Explains His Process (Vanity Fair)
* Natalie Cole Dies at 65 (JazzTimes)