So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:

* Jazz St. Louis will raise scholarship money for college-bound local music students with “Swing For The Scholars,” an event at 6:00 p.m. Sunday, May 5 at JSL's HQ, aka the Harold and Dorothy Steward Center for Jazz.

Musical entertainment for the evening will include the Adam Maness Trio, the Route 66 Alumni Band, Good 4 The Soul, singer Anita Jackson, and students from the organization's JazzU program.

* The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLToday.com this week published their annual "Go List," and the staff picks in the "Music" section included a nod to singer and multi-instrumentalist Tonina Saputo for "Best Shout-Out," referencing the inclusion of her song "Historia De Un Amor" on President Barack Obama's 2018 list of favorite songs.

In the reader's poll section of the "Go List," BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups won both "Favorite place to hear jazz" and "Favorite place to hear the blues."

* Drummer Dave Weckl is offering a free two-and-a-half-hour DVD, "Flies On The Studio Wall," to new subscribers to his Dave Weckl Online School who sign up before May 1.

* Prompted by the 60th anniversary of the original recording sessions for the album, writer Eric Schewe of JStor Daily looks at "Why Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” Is So Beloved."

* Pianist Peter Martin's "Ask Me Anything" session that was webcast last Friday via the Open Studios Facebook page has been posted to YouTube.

* Singer and East St. Louis native Phil Perry (pictured) will be inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame in a ceremony on Saturday, June 23 in Detroit. Perry's fellow inductees this year will include Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Ray Parker, Jr., Stephanie Mills, and more.

* And speaking of halls of fame, public voting for new members of Jazz at Lincoln Center's Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame is open until 11:59 p.m. this coming Monday, April 29. The 2019 nominees include Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, Kenny Clarke, Roy Haynes, Freddie Hubbard, Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill, Cecil Taylor, Frank Trumbauer, Dinah Washington, Chick Webb, and Teddy Wilson.

* General manager Jason Church's efforts to put radio station WSIE on firmer financial footing are the subject of a story in the SIU Edwardsville campus newspaper The Alestle.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:

* KDHX has posted online a photo set from last Saturday's New Music Circle concert featuring pianist Johanna Ballou at 560 Music Center.

* Euclid Records, both in St. Louis and New Orleans, was featured in the Vinyl Lives section of GlideMagazine.com.

* Saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas’ band Soundprints, featuring St. Louis native and Berklee grad Lawrence Fields (pictured) on piano, is set to release their debut album Live at Monterey Jazz Festival, which includes two new Wayne Shorter compositions.

* Saxophonist Oliver Lake's NYC Winter Jazzfest show with Trio 3 and guest pianist Vijay Iyer was reviewed by Feast of Music.

* Guitarist Farshid Soltanshahi aka Farshid Etniko will be performing a live soundtrack of original music for Upstream Theater’s upcoming production Bashir Lazhar. Described as "a timely and poetic piece about grief and healing, love and survival," the play tells the story of "an Algerian refugee in Montreal who is hastily hired as a substitute teacher for a class of sixth graders who, like him, have experienced recent trauma."

The production opens next Friday, January 30 and continues weekends through Sunday, February 15 at the Kranzberg Arts Center, with tickets on sale now via Brown Paper Tickets.

* The Arts & Education Council's video tribute to singer Denise Thimes, first shown Monday night at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel when Thimes was honored at the annual St. Louis Arts Awards ceremony, has been posted to YouTube.

* Saxophonist Greg Osby's latest blog post ruminates about the potential difficulties and rewards for musicians trying to deal with change.

* Singer and East St. Louis native Phil Perry has released a new album, A Better Man, on the Shanahachie label. The CD, which features guest musicians including saxophonist Kim Waters and trumpeter Rick Braun, is Perry's sixth for the label and eleventh overall.

* Pianist Peter Martin's New Year's Eve performance with singer Dianne Reeves and the New York Philharmonic has been posted online by PBS. (Martin's bit begins in the second half of the concert at about 1:15, with his piano solo on "Embraceable You" starting at 1:35:53.)

* Singer Wendy L. Gordon has announced details on new scholarships funded with proceeds from her "Jazz Heaven" series of concerts. The two LeeVert & Wendy Gordon Scholarships are worth $500 each, and will be awarded to a Sumner High School student (or students) attending Harris Stowe State University in the fall of 2015. (Both Gordon and her husband LeeVert are alumni of Sumner HS.)

The 2015 edition of "Jazz Heaven" is scheduled for Sunday, August 30 at the Florissant Civic Center's James Eagan Theater.

* The St. Louis Cabaret Conference has announced July 18-25, 2015 as the dates for its tenth anniversary, with more details promised next week. To get on the email list for conference information, just send a request to info@stlouiscabaretconference.com.

* Jazz radio update: This Saturday on Radio Arts Foundation - St. Louis, Calvin Wilson's “Somethin’ Else” program will explore the influence of Charlie Parker via the bop stylings of alto saxophonists Frank Morgan, Jackie McLean, and Sonny Stitt. Wilson can be heard at 8:00 p.m. Saturdays on 107.3 FM, 96.3 HD-2, and online at http://www.rafstl.org/listen.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short local news items of interest:

* Singer and former East St. Louisan Phil Perry (pictured) has a new album called Say Yes on Shanachie Records.

* Drummer and St. Louis native Mark Colenburg, now working with acclaimed pianist Robert Glasper's band, is starring in a new promotional video for Vater drumsticks.

* While in town last week to perform at Jazz at the Bistro, singer Kurt Elling was interviewed on KWMU's "Cityscape" program.

* The St Louis Low Brass Collective has posted on Facebook an album of photos from trombonist's Jim Pugh's performance last week here at Maryville University.

* St. Louis' new classical music radio station, founded by a group of former KFUO staffers, supporters and others known as the Radio Arts Foundation, has received FCC approval to begin broadcasting on Monday, April 8. The station will be available via a low-power signal at 107.3 FM; on HD radio at KIHT-HD2 (96.3 FM); and as an online audio stream. The Post-Dispatch's classical music writer Sarah Bryan Miller has more here.

* Also in the Post, pop music writer Kevin Johnson notes the five-year anniversary of music venue The Gramophone.

* At a meeting at The Sheldon on Monday night, the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis announced the results of last year's Artists Count survey and some new grant programs for individual artists. Starting later this year, RAC will award 10 $20,000 fellowships per year to area artists, hoping to provide "a financial endowment and investment in the careers of the selected artists and in the cultural vibrancy of the region." RAC also will invest another $75,000 into support grants of $500 to $3,000 to fund specific projects and needs of individual artists. Read more in the agency's news release here (.pdf file).

* And speaking of surveys, the Arcade Building downtown at 812 Olive St is being restored as live/work space for artists, and the developer, Dominium, Inc, is working with a group called PLACE (Projects Linking Art, Community & Environment) to conduct a survey of local creative types, which you can take online here.

Notes from the Net: Phil Perry's new collaboration; Mtume vs. Crouch; plus news, reviews, interviews, and more

Here's the latest compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* In this week's Miles Davis-related news, Davis' former percussionist James Mtume and journalist and critic Stanley Crouch recently debated the merits of the trumpeter's electric music of the 1970s, and their discussion was captured on video and posted online. Most opinions I've seen so far say Mtume schooled Crouch, but you can make up your own mind after watching the video clips here.

Meanwhile, Davis' iconic image remains as marketable as ever, with another recent example being Canada's jazz.fm using a limited edition print of a photo of Davis for a pledge premium.

* East St. Louis native Phil Perry (pictured) is the vocalist and co-writer on "Forever United," the first single released from Chicago flute player Nicole Mitchell's upcoming CD The Bi-Polar Music Project...Vol. 1: Licensed to Chill. Mitchell and Perry wrote the tune with Preston Glass, whose songs have been recorded by Aretha Franklin, Jermaine Stewart, Whitney Houston, Earth Wind and Fire, Kenny G, Lenny Williams and others. The single is showing on the Music Choice R&B/Soul channel and getting radio play in the U.K.

* In news of recent visitors to our town, the New Jersey public radio station WBGO's program The Checkout recently interviewed guitarist John McLaughlin, who was in St. Louis on Friday at the Sheldon Concert Hall as part of his current tour of North America. The guitarist also was interviewed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette before a show in that city, and is the subject of Follow Your Heart, a recently published book by music journalist Walter Kolosky that offers a song-by-song analysis of McLaughlin's recorded work.

* Violinist Regina Carter played Jazz at the Bistro earlier this month, and then went to Minneapolis to perform at the Dakota, where Pamela Espelund of the Twin Cities jazz blog Bebopified caught the show and wrote a enthusiastic review.

* Pianist Vijay Iyer, who was here the weekend before last with Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet, last week selected five of Smith's recordings for a sort of "intro to..." post about the trumpeter on NPR's A Blog Supreme.

* Saxophonist Victor Goines, who played the Sheldon that same weekend, just did a performance & lecture for the Chicago Humanities Festival exploring the standard "Body & Soul"

* Glancing quickly at the "coming attractions" file, The Bad Plus, who will be here in January at the Bistro, just played the London Jazz Festival

* Lastly, a few items of general interest to jazz fans: The Concord Music Group is offering 25% off the entire order when you spend at least $40 on recordings from the group's contemporary artists such as John Pizzarelli, Esperanza Spalding, Christian Scott, Stanton Moore, Stanley Clarke and others. Use the promo code NEWJAZZ to get the special pricing. There's also a free sampler album available for download, with tracks by Spalding, Scott, Mindi Abair, Fourplay, Hiromi, Lee Ritenour and Gerald Albright.

* Want to follow your favorite jazz artist(s) on Twitter? Donna, the single-named proprietress of the blog Elements of Jazz, has put together a handy yet comprehensive list of Twitter addresses for jazz musicians, receord labels, presenters, journalists, organizations, and so on.

* And from the "Handy Things You Can Do On The Internet" file, have you ever wanted to save the audio from a YouTube video as an .MP3 file for later reference? Turns out there are a number of websites created specifically for this purpose, and yr. humble StLJN editor recently has used two of them - http://www.video2mp3.net/ and http://www.listentoyoutube.com/ - with quite satisfactory results. Both sites are free, and neither requires registration. They do serve some pop-ups and interstitial ads, but if you don't mind clicking through that stuff, both seem to handle the conversion quickly and easily.

Jeremy Davenport, Phil Perry to perform in fall Twilight Tuesdays concerts

The Missouri History Museum has announced the schedule for its fall series of Twilight Tuesdays concerts, and the lineup includes a couple of shows that will be of particular interest to jazz fans.

Trumpeter, singer and St. Louis native Jeremy Davenport will perform on Tuesday, September 7, and singer and former East St. Louisan Phil Perry (pictured) will take the Twilight Tuesdays stage on Tuesday, September 28. Fans of classic soul also may enjoy guitarist Ernie Isley of the Isley Brothers, who will headline a show on Tuesday, October 5.

Other performers in the fall 2010 series will include Tribute to Earth, Wind and Fire (August 31); Take It to the Limit Eagles Tribute Band (September 14); The Fabulous Motown Revue (September 21); PowerPlay (October 12): and HoneyVox (October 19).

Twilight Tuesdays concerts take place from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on the lawn outside the History Museum, 5700 Lindell in Forest Park. In the event of bad weather, concerts will be rescheduled. For more information, go to www.mohistory.org or call 314-746-4599 or 800-916-8212.

Notes from the Net: Win the Miles Davis 70-CD box set; Orchestrion unleashed; plus news, reviews, interviews, and more

Here's the latest compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* We always like to start this feature with any news of St. Louis' most famous jazz musician, Miles Davis (pictured), and we've got several related items this week, starting with one from the blog Hot House offering the story behind Miles' recording Four And More: The Complete Concert 1964.

Via Miles Davis Online, here's an interview with artist Tobias Dahmm about painting pictures of Davis, and an item about a production from North Carolina A&T State University's theater department called Mad at Miles, penned by playwright Pearl Cleage and inspired by the troubles in Davis' marriage to Cicely Tyson.

Next up, here's a review by John Kelman of AllAboutJazz.com of Visions of Miles: The Electric Period of Miles Davis, a new CD of big band arrangements written by Colin Towns and performed by Germany's HR Big Band.

Finally, AOL's Luxist website is giving away a free copy of the 70-CD mega box set The Complete Miles Davis Columbia Album Collection (which costs a whopping $328.49 and is available only through Amazon.com), plus a Miles Davis T-shirt and a Miles Davis USB stick, to one lucky reader. To enter, leave a comment on the post linked here before 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Feburary 26. The winner will be selected in a random drawing.

* Turning to news of other St. Louis area residents past and present, singer and East St. Louis native Phil Perry is back performing again after some health problems, most recently serenading New Yorkers on a Valentine's weekend cruise.

* Perry's fellow former East St. Louisan trumpeter Russell Gunn has announced a new CD, Ethnomusicology Vol. 6: The Return of Gunn-Fu set to be released on April 9, with a digital download available on March 5. (Note that Gunn's dot-com address on the Web seems to have been domain-jacked, so his official site is now located at groidmusic.com, which, you should be duly warned, serves up some auto-playing audio when you load it. )

* The life of St. Louis native, singer, dancer and actress Josephine Baker is depicted in a current exhibit at the World Erotic Art Museum in Miami Beach; Baker's son, Jean-Claude Baker, also recently lectured at the museum about her life and work.

* The Wee Trio, featuring former St. Louisan Dan Loomis on bass, are releasing their second CD, Capitol Diner Vol. 2 Animal Style.

* Saxophonist, composer and long-ago Webster University student John Zorn is conducting a two-night marathon of ten different versions of his band Masada at the Abrons Art Center in NYC, with featured musicians including percussionist Cyro Baptista, keyboardist Uri Caine, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and the Masada String Trio.

* Looking for news of recent visitors, we find that bassist Christian McBride, who was in St. Louis in December to perform at Jazz at the Bistro, was profiled here by the LA arts mag Venice. This past weekend, McBride presented his civil-rights-themed jazz opus "The Movement Revisited" in Detroit with the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra, the Second Ebenezer Majestic Voices, and his quintet, which included East St. Louis' Terreon Gully on drums. While in the Motor City, McBride also answered five questions from the Detroit Free Press.

* Singer/songwriter, pianist and frequent visitor to St. Louis Ann Hampton Callaway once again will open the Great American Songbook for an upcoming gig at Dizzy's in NYC with pianist Ted Rosenthal, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Willie Jones III.

* Meanwhile, via the always useful Avant Music News, we learn that pianist Vijay Iyer is headed to London's Vortex Jazz Club next month for a duo performance with saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. Iyer was here in January to play four nights at the Bistro.

* Drummer Stanton Moore, who's in town tonight at The Pageant with Galactic, has a new trio CD called Groove Alchemy. It's part of a multimedia project, along with an instructional book and DVD of the same name, exploring the roots of funk drumming by examining the work of pioneers like James Brown's drummers John "Jabo" Starks and Clyde Stubblefield and The Meters' Zigaboo Modeliste.

* Opening the "coming attractions" file, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra saxophonist and arranger/composer Ted Nash has written a series of posts about his new "Seven Shades" suite for the Museum of Modern Art's website. The JaLCO have a new CD out that features the suite, and they'll play in St. Louis on March 13 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

* Guitarist Jeff Beck's new album and tour elicited a feature article from the New York Times' Larry Rohter. Beck will be in St. Louis on Thursday, April 29 to play the Fox Theatre.

* Guitarist/mad scientist Pat Metheny has started his Orchestrion tour in Europe, and reviews are coming in. Here's one of a performance in the Netherlands, written by Philip Woolever for AllAboutJazz.com, and four from Metheny's show at the Barbican in London: from Rod Fogg for the LondonJazz blog; an unbylined review from AllAboutJazz.com; one from a seemingly unlikely source, the Financial Times, written by Mike Hobart; and a rather snarky one (subtitled "Time to pull the plug on this tousle-haired mechanic") written by Michael Church of the Independent. Metheny and the Orchestrion are coming to St. Louis to play the Touhill Performing Arts Center on May 13.

(Edited 2/18/10 to correct the description of Tobias Dahmm, who is a painter, not a photographer.)

Anita Rosamond performing on Dave Koz Smooth Jazz Cruise

Singer and pianist Anita Rosamond (pictured) is escaping the St. Louis winter cold this week, heading down to the Caribbean where she's been added to the roster of performers for the 2010 Dave Koz Smooth Jazz Cruise.

The sold-out cruise, which starts Saturday and continues through January 24, is produced by St. Louis-based Jazz Cruises LLC. It will feature nearly 40 musicians and singers, including Rosamond and two East St. Louis natives - vocalist Phil Perry and saxophonist Andre Delano - as well as Marcus Miller, Stanley Jordan, Rick Braun, Richard Elliot, Euge Groove, and other smooth jazz stars.

Rosamond performed on the company's Jazz Cruise in November of last year, and also is booked to appear on the Jazz Cruise scheduled for January 2011.

(Edited 1/20/10 to fix a bad link.)

Notes from the Net: Phil Perry recovering; the continuing legend of Miles Davis; plus news, reviews, interviews, and more

Here's the latest compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest.

* Starting, as we usually do, with some Miles Davis items, it seems that the impending release of Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection, the upcoming book The Blue Moment by Richard Williams, and the exhibit "We Want Miles" at the Cité de la Musique in Paris recently prompted the London Times to ask, "Why is Miles Davis so legendary?"

The answer, in part: "Miles’s celebrated urge to keep moving — to play music that was one minute beguiling, the next baffling (“It’s my curse”) is one reason...But music aside, Miles remains an eminently marketable star...Today’s jazz names — from Diana Krall to Pat Metheny — look a meek lot by comparison. "

In other Miles-related news, AllAboutJazz.com has a review by C. Michael Bailey of the recent reissue of Davis' 1950s sessions with Sonny Rollins, and another by George Kanzler covering the 50th anniversary reissue of Sketches of Spain plus a new tribute CD, Miles Ahead Live, by saxophonist Dave Liebman and the Manhattan School of Music Jazz Orchestra.

* Moving on to news of other locals past and present, singer Phil Perry, another former East St. Louisan, is recovering after collapsing while on stage in Connecticut with Pieces of A Dream on October 23. Perry spent three days in the Hospital of Saint Raphael in New Haven, Conn and was equipped with a new defibrillator. Perry says he is doing fine and will be back on the road soon: “My heart is wired like the Energizer Bunny, with a nifty little defibrillator to keep me on beat and keep me on my feet.”

* Writing on the band's blog Do The Math, The Bad Plus' Ethan Iverson recently linked to an interesting 1994 interview with the late saxophonist and former St. Louisan Julius Hemphill.

* The prolific saxophonist and composer John Zorn, who once studied at our town's Webster University, has a new CD called Femina, featuring an all-female ensemble performing a suite dedicated to women artists from various disciplines, such as Louise Bourgeois, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Plath, Meredith Monk and Yoko Ono. Here's a review from AllAboutJazz.com's Troy Collins.

* Turning to news of recent visitors, here's a review of Stone Shift, the most recent CD from saxophonist Larry Ochs & Drumming Core. Ochs and the Core were here last month for a performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

* Moving on to the "coming attractions" file, bassist Christian McBride and his band Inside Straight, with St. Louis' Peter Martin on piano, will be featured on a live audio/video Webcast from NYC's Village Vanguard starting at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, November 11 (tomorrow evening). They'll be here in St. Louis next week for a four-night run at Jazz at the Bistro; meanwhile, you catch the Webcast on the site of NYC public radio station WBGO,

* An article by Nate Chinen in the latest Jazz Times calls singer Kurt Elling "the most influential jazz vocalist of our time." Elling will be in St. Louis in December to perform at Jazz at the Bistro.

* Here's a review of singer/songwriter/pianist Nellie McKay's new CD Normal as Blueberry Pie, written for AllAboutJazz.com by Matt Marshall. McKay (pictured) is coming to St. Louis under the auspices of Cabaret St. Louis to perform next Wednesday and Thursday at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

* Organist Joey DeFrancesco has a new disc called High Note, reviewed here by Music and More's Tim Niland. DeFrancesco returns to St. Louis at the end of March for four nights at Jazz at the Bistro.

* Pianist Vijay Iyer, who will play the Bistro from January 20 through January 23, just wrapped up a gig at NYC's Jazz Standard, reviewed here by the New York Times' Ben Ratliff, and also was just featured on NPR's "Song of The Day."

* Last but not least, from the "miscellaneous items of interest file": A new research paper done by the Council for Research Excellence (CRE) with support from the Nielsen Company challenges many of the myths about how people today listen to music. The study tracked 752 days of audio media usage last year by participants in five markets and found that "from broadcast radio to MP3 players, some popular notions about listening in the digital age appear to be horribly off the mark." Read more about "How U.S. Adults Use Radio and Other Forms of Audio" here.

Shanachie, Amazon offering free download of smooth jazz sampler album

The Shanachie record label is offering a free download on Amazon.com of a smooth jazz sampler album that includes a track from singer and East St. Louis native Phil Perry (pictured).

The sampler album is called Shanachie: Cool Urban Jazz, and also includes songs from drummer Norman Connors, saxophonist Kim Waters, singer Maysa, The Sax Pack, saxophonist Everette Harp, Streetwize, and saxophonist Jeff Kashiwa.

You can download the whole album or individual tracks in .mp3 form for free here.