Sunday Session: February 3, 2019

Lionel Loueke

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:

* The most sampled drum loop in history (Boing Boing)
* New Sounds (London Review of Books)
* Spotify Is Hosting a High-Priced Executive Retreat In Cancun (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Antonio Sanchez's 'Lines In The Sand' Is Inspired By Migrants' Stories (NPR)
* Underrated Blue Note Musicians: 12 Artists Worth Rediscovering (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Not just a 'glass ceiling' but 'cement': Female film composers struggle to be heard (CBC)
* Think David Crosby Is Too Gruff? “Tough Shit” (Vanity Fair)* Photos: Roy Hargrove Musical Celebration (Jazz Times)
* For Betty Carter, 'The Music Never Stops' — Even 27 Years Later (NPR)
* Dave Liebman: Archives and Improvisations - The Past and the Now of a Life in Jazz (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The mystery tracks being 'forced' on Spotify users (BBC)
* David Gilmour on Why He’s Selling 120 Guitars: ‘Everything Has Got to Go’ (Rolling Stone)
* These might be the 5 most powerful people in the music business – despite none of them working in the music business (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Gonzalo Rubalcaba Discusses Chucho Valdés, creativity, and the SFJAZZ Lifetime Achievement Award (SFJAZZ.org)
* Peter Jackson to Direct New Beatles Documentary Film (Pitchfork.com)
* Brian Eno: ‘I’ve spent longer in Ireland than I have almost anywhere else’ (Irish Times)
* Big Ears Festival Will Pay Tribute to 50 Years of ECM Records (Jazz Times)
* Vintage piano turned into analog hybrid of 20 instruments controlled by piano keys (DesignBoom.com)
* New Collection Spans Gary Burton’s Boundless Career (DownBeat)
* Bob James Looks Back (Jazz Times)
* Young people are turning to classical music to escape ‘noise of modern life’ (The Guardian)
* John Coltrane 1958 Vinyl Box Set Announced (Pitchfork.com)
* 2019 Grammys: Breaking Down the Jazz Category Nominees (Billboard)
* Stewart Copeland on his Police career: "We fought like cat and dog over the f**king hi-hat" (MusicRadar.com)
* How gospel music gave birth to rock and soul (UPenn.edu)
* Lionel Loueke’s Journey of Empathy (DownBeat)
* Aretha’s Grace (New York Review of Books)

Sunday Session: January 13, 2019

Roy Hargrove

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:

* Vinyl and cassette sales saw double digit growth last year (TheVerge.com)
* How one designer created the “look” of jazz (Vox.com)
* A Guide To Blue Note: 10 Essential Albums You Must Hear (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Musician performs highest ever classical concert on a grand piano in the Himalayas (iNews.co.uk)
* On Roy: The Jazz Gallery Speaks (JazzSpeaks.org)
* Dom Flemons Presents A New Image Of The American Cowboy (NPR)
* Blue Note's High Notes: The Jazz Label Celebrates 80 Years (Billboard)
 * No Color Photos of Jazz Singer Mildred Bailey Existed… Until Now (Smithsonian)
* A Mosaic of Music: Jazz Pianist, Composer, and Arranger Toshiko Akiyoshi (Nippon.com)
* Sun Ra: Never A Part Of This Planet (PleaseKillMe.com)
* ARP Founder Alan R. Pearlman Has Died (Synthtopia.com)
* SFJAZZ Celebrates Wayne Shorter (DownBeat)
* Universal Music Group Will Get New Owners This Year (Rolling Stone)
* Latin Music Is Now More Popular Than Country & EDM In America (Forbes.com)
* Woodstock Will Return This Summer, For Its 50th Anniversary (NPR)
* Roy Hargrove Tribute at Jazz at Lincoln Center: Common, Norah Jones, Wynton Marsalis & More Pay Homage to Late Trumpeter (Billboard)
* Drummer Alvin Fielder Dies at 83 (Jazz Times)
* Jazz at Lincoln Center Tribute Recalls Hargrove’s Big-Tent Approach (DownBeat)
* Best Kept Secret: Hear the First Song From a New Album by the Branford Marsalis Quartet (WBGO)
* How 1960s Pop Songs Helped Young Women Find Their Own Voices in a Time of Social Change (TIME)
* Bucket List Travels: 8 Music Museums Around The World (KEFWhat.com)
* Why Spotify Is Not A Music Company (Medium.com)
* Joey Calderazzo Bounces Back (DownBeat)
* Clarinetist Anat Cohen to Premiere New Concerto at Carnegie Hall (Jazz Times)
* Bill Evans “in” Paris “with” Gene Lees (Jazz Profiles)
* Joseph Jarman, 81, Dies; Mainstay of the Art Ensemble of Chicago (New York Times)
* Gary Clark Jr.’s New Song Is a Scathing Account of Trump-Era Racism (Rolling Stone)
* Motown: The Music that changed America (BBC)
* Remembering Urbie Green (1926-2018)(Jazz Times)
* Philip Glass Finishes His David Bowie Trilogy, Debuting His Lodger Symphony (OpenCulture.com)

Sunday Session: November 11, 2018

Charles Mingus

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:

* Edgefest 2018: The Chicago Connection (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Release of Live Mingus Recordings to be Celebrated at Jazz Standard (DownBeat)
* A Great Day in Harlem, Revisited (Wall Street Journal)
* In Memoriam: Roy Hargrove (DownBeat)
* Blown away: will we miss the sweet sound of school recorders? (The Guardian)
* Myra Melford: Taking Flight Where Life Leads Her (NationalSawdust.org)
* Roy Hargrove 1969 – 2018 (Jazz Times)
* Everything Adds Up for Lorraine Feather (DownBeat)
* Novelist Jeff Jackson on the 4 Best Rock Chronicles You’ve Never Heard of (Vulture.com)
* Aretha Franklin doc ‘Amazing Grace’ to finally see the light (Associated Press)
* Engineer Al Schmitt on Winning 23 Grammys and Working With Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney & Steely Dan (Billboard)
* Has stadium rock been unplugged? (BBC)
* Inside the booming business of background music (The Guardian)
* Sound decision: Why studios still matter in the age of smart phones (Toledo Blade)
* Aaron Parks Crafts a New Context (DownBeat)
* Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz to be Renamed in 2019 (DownBeat)
* The Free Music Archive is closing this month (TheVerge.com)
* 26 Abandoned Discos (Flashbak.com)
* At Tampere Jazz Happening, History and Revolution (DownBeat)
* Guitar Center Unveils Remodeled Hollywood Store and How It Plans to Come Back From the Brink (Billboard)
* Spotify debuts an analytics service for music publishers (TechCrunch.com)
* L.A.’s air raid sirens are blaring this week. Why composer Lawrence English says you should listen (Los Angeles Times)
* Blanchard Premieres New, Poignant Commission in Cleveland (DownBeat)
* Eliot Zigmund: A Sideman Moves to the Front (Jazz Times)
* Cécile McLorin Salvant: Wide Open Window (Jazz Times)
* Dianne Reeves: Christmas Time Is Here (FYIMusicNews.ca)
* There Was No Song of the Summer This Year — and There Won't Be Ever Again (Rolling Stone)
* 'Mingus: Jazz In Detroit' Catches A Giant At A Moment Full Of Possibility (NPR)
* Monsters of Rock Criticism: Greil Marcus Interviews Robert Christgau (Rolling Stone)
* Bar Four: A Vibraphone Summit (Jazz Times)
* A Jazz Legend Out of the Shadows (IberiaNet.com)
* Tyshawn Sorey Unveils a 3-Disc Extravaganza (Jazz Times)

Sunday Session: November 4, 2018

Roy Hargrove

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:

* Sonny Fortune, Stalwart Saxophonist Of New York, Dies At 79 (NPR)
* Open Land: Meeting John Abercrombie (ECM) - The late guitarist's gentle spirit is captured in a moving documentary (Jazz Times)
* Nate Wooley: Plays Whole With Others (NationalSawdust.org)
* Big in Japan: A History of Jazz in the Land of the Rising Sun, Part 1 (AllAboutJazz.com)
* This Danish Band Plays Music Underwater. The Results Are Eerily Spectacular (Time)
* REPORT: 35th Conference of the Radio Jazz Research Group, Salzburg. – " Improvisation: New Perspectives (London Jazz News)
* Guitarist Jimmy Page looks back at 50 years of Led Zeppelin (Associated Press)
* Even Classical Music Is Getting Faster These Days (Rolling Stone)
* Did the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame wait too long on Bob Marley? (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
* The Residents’ Co-Founder Hardy Fox Dead at 73 (Rolling Stone)
* Meet The Women Pushing UK Jazz Forward (ClashMusic.com)
* Festival Jazz International Rotterdam 2018 (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Jason Moran: The Harlem Hellfighters review – the soldiers who brought jazz to Europe (The Guardian)
* Is Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram the Future of the Blues? (Rolling Stone)
* The Secret Jewish History Of Queen (The Forward)
* Bluesman Chris Thomas King says he’s been banned by the GRAMMYs (Offbeat)
* Adam O’Farrill Does Not Play Latin Jazz (Jazz Times)
* Resonance Records Marks 10-Year Anniversary at Birdland (DownBeat)
* Tuba in the House (Jazz Times)
* An Indie Music Expert Explains Why Artists Are Turning Away From Record Deals (Rolling Stone)
* Bob James Returns with Acoustic Trio Disc (DownBeat)
* Andrew Cyrille, Lifetime Achievement Honoree at the Vision Fest, Isn't Resting on His Laurels (WBGO)
* These Duck-Billed Dinosaurs Wore Their Instruments on Their Heads (LiveScience.com)
* What is All the Fuss About? Kenny Barron Takes Years of Experience and Plays in the Moment (VoiceOfOC.org)
* Life In Frank Zappa's Pad, 1968 (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Too much Christmas music can mentally harm you (BigThink.com)
* “The tyranny of collecting” – why I gave away my entire record collection (GetIntoThis.co.uk)
* Roy Hargrove, Grammy-Winning Jazz Trumpeter, Dies At 49 (NPR)
* Inside the Secretly Lucrative World of Solo Piano Music (Rolling Stone)

Jazz this week: Roy Hargrove, "Holiday Brasstravaganza," Ellington's "Nutcracker,"a big band murder mystery, and more

For this last week before Christmas, the calendar of jazz and creative music performances in and around St. Louis features the long-overdue return of a top touring trumpeter, plus several holiday-themed shows and some other special presentations from local performers. Let's go to the highlights....

Wednesday, December 17
Trumpeter Roy Hargrove returns to Jazz at the Bistro to begin his first St. Louis gig as a leader in more than a decade.

When he last played here, Hargrove (pictured) already had recorded several well-regarded albums of hard-bop-inspired sounds and was tagged as a rising star. Since then, he's gained a good deal of additional recognition for leading groups influenced by Latin-jazz (the Grammy-winning Crisol) and funk (RH Factor), but during his four nights in St. Louis, Hargrove will be fronting a quintet playing in a more straight-ahead style.

For more about what Hargrove's been up to, and some video samples of his quintet performing earlier this year on tour in Europe, see this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Also on Wednesday, singer Tony Viviano presents his "Christmas in St. Louis" show at Vito's in the Valley; the Route 66 Jazz Orchestra plays at Kirkwood Station Brewing Company; Cabaret Project St. Louis will hold their monthly "Open Mic Night" at the Tavern of Fine Arts: and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes will play at The Feasting Fox.

Thursday, December 18
Miss Jubilee plays an early show at the Blues City Deli; guitarist Tom Byrne and singer Erika Johnson will pair up at Evangeline's; and guitarist Dave Black will be joined by a rhythm section and guest vocalist at Nathalie’s.

Friday, December 19
The Funky Butt Brass Band will present the first of two nights of their sixth annual "Holiday Brasstravaganza" at Off Broadway, featuring a long list of guest performers and various seasonal hijinks.

Also on Friday, the St. Louis Big Band adds a theatrical element to their usual program of danceable swing and pop, staging an retro-themed, audience-participation "murder mystery" at Casa Loma Ballroom; and singer and multi-instrumentalist Alan Ox pays tribute to Ol' Blue Eyes with his show "Straight-Up, A Shot of Sinatra" at the Sheldon Concert Hall, backed by pianist  Dave Venn, drummer Miles Vandiver, bassist Dave Troncoso, and Dave Black on guitar.

Saturday, December 20
Trumpeter Jim Manley duets with guitarist Randy Bahr at One 19 North Tapas and Wine Bar.

Sunday, December 21
The Ambassadors of Swing perform at Southminster Presbyterian Church, 10126 E Watson; and BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups has a double bill with singer/guitarist Tommy Halloran playing the matinee, and percussionist Joe Pastor and the Legacy Jazz Band taking the night shift.

Monday, December 22
The Jazz St. Louis Big Band, stocked with many alumni of the jazz program at SIUE, will present Duke Ellington’s famous arrangement of Tchaikovsky's “Nutcracker” along with other selected Ellington favorites at Jazz at the Bistro. The show is one set only, but if you can't make it on Monday, you should know that the program also will be repeated on Tuesday.. The program repeats on Tuesday, and while tickets for the first sets are nearly sold out, there are seats remaining for the second sets on both nights.

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.)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Six from Roy Hargrove

Today, let's get re-acquainted with the music of trumpeter Roy Hargrove, who's coming to St. Louis to perform with his quintet starting Wednesday, December 17 through Saturday, December 20 at Jazz at the Bistro.

It's been 15 years since Hargrove, who's now 45, last headlined a St. Louis gig at the old, pre-Jazz St. Louis iteration of the Bistro, though he did turn up here in 2005 at the Pageant as a member of Herbie Hancock's revived Headhunters. He returns this time to fill the spot on the Bistro's schedule left by the death of pianist Joe Sample, who had been booked for these December dates but, sadly, passed away in September.

Discovered by Wynton Marsalis at a workshop while still in high school in Texas, Hargrove was something of a prodigy, cutting his first album as a leader for the Novus label when he was just 20 years old. Though in the first part of his career he played and recorded with a number of well-known jazz elders, including Sonny Rollins, Bobby Watson, Jackie McLean, Oscar Peterson and Jimmy Smith, Hargrove largely avoided the apprenticeship phase many young jazz musicians go through and has been primarily a bandleader almost from day one.

In addition to various iterations of his quintet, Hargrove also has led Crisol, a Latin jazz band that won a Grammy Award for their 1997 album Havana; a big band that works occasionally in Europe; and, perhaps most significantly, RH Factor, a funk/hip-hop flavored ensemble formed at the turn of the century that reflects some of Hargrove's experience working with neo-soul and hip-hop performers such as Erykah Badu, Common, and D'Angelo. All totaled, Hargrove has been the leader on nearly two dozen albums, though the most recent, a big band date called Emergence, came out way back in 2009.

Bringing things into the present day, here we've got a half-dozen clips recorded in various European cities this year with Hargrove's current band, which includes Justin Robinson (alto sax), Sullivan Fortner (piano), Ameen Saleem (bass), and Quincy Phillips (drums).

First up is "I'm Not So Sure," a tune by pianist Cedar Walton that's seen here in a version recorded on July 30 at the Internationaler Jazzsommer Augsburg in Germany.

After the jump, there are versions of two Hargrove originals, "Soulful" and "Strasbourg-St. Denis," from a gig on April 24 at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam.

Next up are "Capetown Ambush," a tune by pianist Donald Brown that the group performed on July 1 at New Morning in Paris, and "Tom Cat," composed by trumpeter Lee Morgan and recorded on August 9 at the Festiwal Jazz na Starówce in Warsaw, Poland.

Last but not least, there's a version of pianist Randy Weston's "Hi-Fly," recorded on July 23 at Gregory's Jazz Club in Rome.

For more on what to expect from Hargrove and his quintet, check out these reviews of recent shows in Paris from AllAboutJazz.com's Patricia Myers; in London, from London Jazz News, and in Minneapolis, from the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

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

Roy Hargrove Quintet to perform December 17-20 at Jazz at the Bistro

Jazz St. Louis has announced that trumpeter Roy Hargrove's quintet will perform Wednesday, December 17 through Saturday, December 20 at Jazz at the Bistro. Hargrove's group will fill the dates originally scheduled for pianist Joe Sample, who died on September 12.

"We were all saddened by the passing of legendary pianist/keyboardist Joe Sample. His music, both with The Jazz Crusaders and after, touched many lives and left a lasting impression on the jazz world and beyond," said a statement released by Jazz St. Louis. "We will always remember his amazing week of shows at Jazz at the Bistro in March 2013 and wish we could see him perform once again this December."

It's been a while since Hargrove (pictured) has been in St. Louis - he was here with Herbie Hancock's Headhunters in 2005 at The Pageant, and according to Jazz St. Louis, he last played at the Bistro way back in August, 1999. The trumpeter's most recent albums as a leader are 2008's Earfood with his quintet and Emergence, a big band date that came out in 2009, though since then he also has guested on recordings by Jimmy Cobb, Marcus Miller, Angelique Kidjo, and Cyrille Aimée.

Ticket holders for Joe Sample can use their tickets for the corresponding day and time for the Hargrove quintet, or return them for a full refund by calling the Jazz St. Louis box office at 314-289-4030 between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Tickets for the Roy Hargrove Quintet go on sale to Jazz St. Louis subscribers starting at 10:00 a.m. this Wednesday, October 29 and to the general public at 10:00 a.m. this Friday, October 31.