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: March 6, 2016

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

* Ginger Baker Cancels Tour Due to 'Serious Heart Problems' (Rolling Stone)
* Mavis Staples’ HBO doc hits relevant Civil Rights notes (Arts Journal)
* Resonance Records Presents LARRY YOUNG - IN PARIS: THE ORTF RECORDINGS With Never-Before-Released Tracks by The Jazz Organist And Pianist (JazzCorner.com)
* Content ID and the Rise of the Machines (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
* Is Jazz The Brand (Offbeat)
* Kamasi Washington Presents Jazz-Rock Spectacle in New York (DownBeat)
* Today’s best country music songwriter is a Twitter bot (Dangerous Minds)
* Sun Ra's Voice On Earth (WELD)
* Is the Album Review Dead? (Vice.com)
* Swing Vote: What Would the Presidential Election Sound Like as Jazz? (The Atlantic)
* Jazz Legend Archie Shepp Reflects On John Coltrane’s Quest For Musical Freedom (Consequence of Sound)
* Ron Carter Named Artist-in-Residence at Detroit Jazz Fest (Jazz Times)
* Why is China’s music market still so small? (Quartz.com)
* Jean-Paul Sartre on How American Jazz Lets You Experience Existentialist Freedom & Transcendence (OpenCulture.com)
* Sarah Vaughan forever stamp to be unveiled in Newark (New York Amsterdam News)
* How One Museum Is Fighting To Preserve The History Of Recorded Sound (Fast Company)
* Music is getting worse, unless of course it isn’t (CreateDigitalMusic.com)
* How Ahmad Jamal’s The Awakening became a hip hop sample goldmine (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Blanchard’s Incisive Jazz Opera Packs Powerful Punch (DownBeat)
* Nina Simone Estate Slams Biopic Star Zoe Saldana (Rolling Stone)
* How Steely Dan Returned to Form by Remaining 'Two Against Nature' (UltimateClassicRock.com)
* Shuggie Otis plays guitar (Financial Times)
* Gary Clark Jr: Blues Brother (Wax Poetics)

Sunday Session: September 6, 2015

Marshall Allen

For your Sunday reading, here are some interesting music-related items that have hit StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Yale Students Campaign for All That Jazz (New York Times)
* God and jazz at Yale (The Rest Is Noise)
* Watch a 1986 TV story on house music, plus too many documentaries (CreateDigitalMusic.com)
* Contemporary Opera: Pleasing Both Connoisseurs and the Masses? (WQXR)
* Sarah Vaughan to Appear on U.S. Postage Stamp in 2016 (Jazz Times)
* Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s Ben Jaffe Remembers Hurricane Katrina Ten Years Later (Relix)
* Biography of Charles Lloyd by Josef Woodard to be published in September 2015 (JazzCorner.com)
* Smith, Watts, Bey Extend Bird’s Legacy at Charlie Parker Fest (DownBeat)
* Is Copyright Duration Too Long? (Arts Law Journal)
* Noise Uprising - The Audiopolitics of a World Musical Revolution (PopMatters)
* Nashville's Cheatin' Heart: Why Country Music Has Been Obsessed With Adultery for the Last Century (Atlas Obscura)
* Billboard Music Executive Survey: Top Brass Weigh In On the Artists They Covet Most, Taylor Swift and More (Billboard)
* How long can go-go keep going? (Washington Post)
* Maria Schneider on her hometown of Windom, leading the band and working with David Bowie (MinnPost.com)
* Original 1890s Manuscript of “Happy Birthday” Found In a Filing Cabinet (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Carla Bley conducts the Charlie Haden Jazz Liberation Music Orchestra at the Detroit Jazz Festival (Detroit Metro Times)
* Are Movie Theaters the New Music Venue?(LiveNationTV.com)
* The Last Audio Cassette Factory (Bloomberg News)
* How Record Labels Conspired To Kill Off Public Domain Beatles Music In Canada (TechDirt.com)
* Washington Lives Up to Hype in Howard Theatre Performance (DownBeat)
* The piano: Keys of the future (Washington Post)
* White Noise Wackiness (Pro Sound News)
* “Where can you go if you’re in a box?”: Marshall Allen of the Sun Ra Arkestra interviewed (FactMag.com)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Summer 2014 jazz film festival

It's summertime, when the livin' is allegedly easy, and yr. humble editor needs a brief respite from the usual blogging routine. So today, in keeping with a venerable tradition that we just made up a couple of years ago, we're bringing back StLJN's online summer festival of jazz-related films, featuring a whole day's worth of documentaries about some all-time greats of jazz. .

First up is On The Road with Duke Ellington, filmed in 1967 by documentarian Robert Drew and updated in 1974 after Ellington's death, which offers an inside look at the Duke traveling and working with his orchestra.

After the jump, you'll find Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way, a 2010 BBC documentary about Brubeck's life and work.

The life of another famous jazz pianist, Oscar Peterson, is the subject of the next film, Music in the Key of Oscar, which was made in 2004.

The fourth movie, The World According to John Coltrane, is a 1990 documentary about the groundbreaking saxophonist, bandleader and composer, directed by Robert Palmer and Toby Byron.

In the fifth slot, it's Triumph of the Underdog, a 1998 documentary about bassist Charles Mingus, produced in cooperation with his widow Sue Mingus and bearing the same name as Mingus' well-known autobiographical book.

The festivities conclude with Queens of Jazz: The Joy and Pain of the Jazz Divas, produced in 2013 by the BBC as "a celebration of some of the greatest female jazz singers of the 20th century," including Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and more.

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