So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Violinist Alex Cunningham will be featured alongside U.S. Maple guitarist Mark Shippy on a new duo recording called Ghost Note. The album (pictured), which features a series of improvised duets, will be released by the Personal Archives label as a vinyl LP and to digital music services on Friday, June 4.

* Drummer Dave Weckl's new album Live in St. Louis at the Chesterfield Jazz Festival was reviewed by Modern Drummer magazine. The album also is featured this month in a Jazziz magazine article, "Crate Digging: 10 Albums You Need to Know for April 2021."

* An essay by bassist and Wash U faculty member Paul Steinbeck about composer George Lewis has been republished on the website of the CTM Festival in Berlin

* Bassist Tom Kennedy's forthcoming album Stories was previewed in an article on BroadwayWorld.com.

* Across the state in Sedalia, MO, the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival has announced that while there will be no festival in 2021 due to COVID concerns, the annual event will return on June 1-4, 2022.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Veteran drummer Gary Sykes (pictured), who plays with pianist Ptah Williams' trio, the STL Free Jazz Collective and others, is ailing with heart- and blood-related issues, and has missed some recent gigs and spent time in the hospital as a result.

While he's on the mend, pianist Jim Hegarty, his bandmate in the Collective, has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for Sykes'  living expenses during his recovery. Find out more and, if you can, donate at https://www.gofundme.com/support-gary-sykes.

* Miles Davis' ex-wife Frances Davis talks about her life before, during and after her marriage to the famed trumpeter in a new 50-minute video documentary.

* Meanwhile, They Say I'm Different, a new documentary film about another of Miles' exes, singer Betty Davis, was covered recently in stories from both The New Yorker and the New York Times.

* A celebration of the legacy of Scott Joplin, held in Queens, NY near where the pianist and composer is buried, was described in a feature story last week in the New York Times.

* Videographer James Ross, known for his YouTube channel featuring up-close recordings of jazz and R&B performances in St. Louis, was the subject of a profile by KSDK's Art Holliday.

* The Kranzberg Arts Foundation has acquired an option to purchase 24 properties in the south St. Louis neighborhood Gravois Park as part of a plan to develop affordable housing and studio space for artists.

* And in a bit of coincidence involving participants in the previous two items, Art Holliday this week also did a story about the Kranzberg Arts Foundation's new artists-in-residence program. 

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Attention donut lovers: The pastry devotees and baked-goods aficionados at Jazz St. Louis will celebrate National Donut Day once again this year with a morning of festivities at Jazz at the Bistro.

The free, public event, scheduled for 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on Friday, June 2, will feature free donuts from 14 local shops, plus complementary beverages, live music from students in JSL's JazzU program, a "Best Donut" competition, activities for kids, and more.

* Speaking of the Bistro, thanks to radio station WBGO,  you can get a first listen to trumpeter Sean Jones' new "live" album on Mack Avenue Records, which was recorded last year at the club.

* A crew from the Japanese documentary TV series Yume No Tourimichi has been in Missouri this month, shooting footage in St. Louis and Sedalia for an upcoming episode about ragtime pianist and composer Scott Joplin.

* And speaking of ragtime, the Goldenrod Showboat - which for 50 years hosted ragtime and vintage jazz festivals while moored on the St. Louis riverfront - finally has been declared beyond all hope by preservationists after recent flooding on the Illinois River where the boat's remains had been stored.

* Today is the 91st anniversary of the birth of Miles Davis, and should you be looking for a thoroughly annotated list of 10 noteworthy Latin jazz interpretations of Davis compositions, it turns out that Chip Boaz of the website Latin Jazz Corner has you covered.

In other Miles-related news, the London Vocal Project last week performed for the first time singer and lyricist Jon Hendricks’ vocalese version of the Davis/Gil Evans orchestral album Miles Ahead. Hendricks (pictured, with the album's reissue cover) has been working on this project since the late 1960s, and you can read reviews of the London production here and here.

To commemorate the trumpeter's natal day, you also can read a retrospective look at Davis' album E.S.P. from Stereophile's Fred Kaplan, occasioned by the 45th anniversary of its release; listen to the most recent episode of the "Night Lights" program from Indiana public radio station WPIU, which covers "Final Miles," as represented by the trumpeter's late-career recordings for Warner Brothers; and watch StLJN's video tribute to Davis from last Saturday. 

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* The Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden has announced its schedule for 2017, with ten free concerts in total, including performances from the trad jazz band Gaslight Squares on Wednesday, June 14 and pianist Ptah Williams on Wednesday, July 12.

* Kneebody keyboardist Adam Benjamin was interviewed for a brief article by St. Louis magazine's Erin Williams. The group continues their run at Jazz at the Bistro through Saturday night.

* Riverbend Restaurant and Bar, the Richmond Heights spot that featured live jazz from trumpeter Jim Manley every Tuesday night alongside its creole and Cajun cuisine, has closed permanently.

* An album of pictures from percussionist Poncho Sanchez' shows last week at Jazz at the Bistro has been posted to Facebook by St. Louis trombonist Dave Dickey, who's friends with Sanchez and several members of his group and sat in with them at the Bistro.

* Electronic musician Nathan Cook (aka NNN Cook) was interviewed about his Rhizomatic series of recordings featuring St. Louis experimental musicians by Willis Ryder Arnold of St. Louis Public Radio.

* The website St. Louis Musicians Unite has a short feature about this weekend's events celebrating composer Scott Joplin, and also has put together a Spotify playlist collecting recordings by St. Louis jazz musicians.

* Trumpeter and St. Louis native Ally Hany has won second place in the jazz division of the 2017 National Trumpet Competition, held earlier this month at Metropolitan State University in Denver, CO. Hany, a graduate of Webster Groves High School and University of North Texas, currently is living in NYC, working on a master's degree at Manhattan School of Music and performing with ensembles including the MSM Jazz Orchestra and Sherrie Maricle and the DIVA Jazz Orchestra.

* Pianist Makini Morrison, a senior at University City High School, is one of 17 finalists in the Fox Performing Arts Charitable Foundation's 2017 St. Louis Teen Talent Competition. Morrison (pictured) has been part of Jazz St. Louis' JazzU program and also has played with the North County Big Band. The competition finals will take place Saturday, April 8 at the Fox Theatre.

* Jack Snelling, a senior at Webster Groves High School, has won first place in the high school jazz division of the Mizzou New Music Initiative's 2017 Creating Original Music Project (COMP), a statewide competition for Missouri student composers in grades K-12. Snelling's winning work "Lovesick" will be performed along with this year's other winning compositions as part of the COMP Festival on Saturday, April 15 on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia.

* Worship Jazz, the St. Louis-based publisher of jazz arrangements of sacred music, has added a collection of 12 "jazz liturgies" to the five volumes of jazz hymns already in their catalog. The liturgical resources are "intended to help church musicians create their own jazz worship services, with each focused on a specific liturgical theme with a complete worship format."

* The Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville is looking for a new production manager. If you're interested, you can find more information about the job and how to apply at http://www.cityofedwardsville.com/.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* A new effort aimed at restoring Miles Davis' childhood home in East St. Louis for use as a museum was the subject of feature stories on St. Louis Public Radio and in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch/STLtoday.com.

The restoration is the work of the not-for-profit organization House of Miles East St. Louis (HOME), which also plans to use the building (pictured, in a recent photo and in an artist's rendering of the finished project) for music education activities and as an event space for rent. They've started a crowd-funding campaign with a goal of raising $50,000 toward the costs of the renovations; as of this writing, 21 days in, they've collected $255 in pledges.

* Speaking of Miles Davis, the trumpeter's version of "My Funny Valentine" was among the tracks included on President Barack Obama's personal summer playlist, as released this week by the White House.

* And speaking of fundraising efforts, the Belleville News-Democrat has a feature story about the latest attempts to raise the $150,000 needed to make radio station WSIE self-sustaining within the next 18 months. The station, which broadcasts a mix of jazz, blues and R&B plus university news and sports from the campus of SIU Edwardsville, will lose funding from the state of Illinois after 2017 due to budget cuts.

* Drummer and songwriter Kevin Bowers' new album Nova was the subject of a brief feature story by Christian Schaeffer of the Riverfront Times.

* King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era, a newly revised biography of the famed pianist and composer, was reviewed by the journal The American Interest..

Scott Joplin House to host free ragtime concert on Wednesday, June 12

The Scott Joplin House State Historic Site and the Friends of Scott Joplin will present a free concert of ragtime music from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 12 in the New Rosebud Cafe at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site (pictured), 2658 Delmar at Beaumont.

The event will feature performers drawn from the lineups of this year's Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival, to be held June 5 - 8 in Sedalia, and the Blind Boone Ragtime and Early Jazz Festival, which will take place June 11-13 in Columbia. Featured players will include pianists Andrew Barrett, Max Keenlyside, John Reed-Torres, William McNally, and more.

In addition to the live performances, concertgoers also will get a chance to hear five new player piano rolls of tunes by Joplin, Tom Turpin, and Louis Chauvin created especially for the Scott Joplin House. A limited number of the rolls will also be available for purchase.

The concert is free and open to the public. Soft drinks and snack items will be available for sale, and according to the press release, concert goers may "feel free to bring your own as well."

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Miles Davis Online's Jeffrey Hyatt has a new post up looking at the current state of the Miles Davis biopic starring Don Cheadle.

* Meanwhile, Columbia Legacy has announced the January release of Miles Davis Quintet Live In Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2.

* A short essay on the Blue Note Records site about guitarist Grant Green (pictured) spotlights some of the recordings the St. Louis native made for the Blue Note label.

* Electronic musician Joseph Raglani is all over the famed indie music site Pitchfork.com this week, with a review of his new album Real Colors of the Physical World and a music video of "Trampoline Dream."

* Jazz St. Louis has posted on their Facebook page some photos documenting saxophonist Chris Potter's second set on Wednesday at Jazz at the Bistro. Potter continues at the Bistro through tomorrow night.

* Music from flute player Fred Tompkins and pianist Jim Hegarty is featured on the latest installment of Taran Singh's Free Jazz Hour podcast.

* The city of Sedalia needs $4,000 to restore a mural commemorating pianist and composer Scott Joplin.

* Fundrasising for the proposed National Blues Museum in downtown St. Louis got a jumpstart this week with the announcement of a $6 million gift from Pinnacle Entertainment Inc., which operates the Lumière Place casino downtown and River City casino in Lemay. The gift, part of more than $11 million given to organizations in the the city, fulfills part of the redevelopment agreement between Pinnacle and St. Louis. Coverage from local media included stories from the Post-Dispatch and St. Louis Business Journal.

* The December episode of HEC-TV's I Love Jazz, featuring music from saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett recorded live this past summer at the Missouri Botanical Garden, is airing now on the cable network (check the program guide for your TV provider) and also is available for viewing online.