Sunday Session: April 8, 2018

Cecil Taylor

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:

* Spotify Is Killing Song Titles (Medium.com)
* Branford Marsalis talks jazz, classical and playing with Miles Davis, Grateful Dead, Public Enemy (San Diego Union Tribune)
* Did Simon & Garfunkel Write The Jewish ‘Sgt. Pepper?’ (The Forward)
* Arcade Fire: 'People have lost the ability to even know what a joke is. It’s very Orwellian (The Guardian)
* You Can’t Find What You Don’t Look For: Spotify, Google, Pandora Can’t Find Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry–but what about Martha Stewart (MuscTechPolicy.com)
* The Festival Legend: George Wein – 64 Years Of Producing Festivals From Newport To New Orleans And Far Beyond (Pollstar.com)
* At Roulette, Admirers Gather To Honor John Abercrombie (DownBeat)
* The Lofty Optimism of Spotify and the Influence of the Streaming Revolution (The New Yorker)
* Instrumental Listens to 30,000 New Songs a Day to Find the Next Hit. So Why Do We Need A&R People, Again? (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* The sample legacy of Sly And The Family Stone (TheVinylFactory.com)
* The Day Herbie Hancock Met the Electric Piano (OZY.com)
* Q&A with Norma Winstone: The Consummate Voice (DownBeat)
* Stream a 144-Hour Discography of Classic Jazz Recordings from Blue Note Records: Miles Davis, Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman & More (OpenCulture.com)
* How a Calypso Anthem Became the Surreal Centerpiece of Beetlejuice (Pitchfork)
* Inside Jimi Hendrix’s blood-spattered record collection (NME)
* Venture Beyond a Walking Bass Line with the All-American Walter Page, in Deep Dive (WBGO)
* Can Biomusic Offer Kids With Autism a New Way to Communicate? (Smithsonian)
* Love, London, and an enormous Moog: how Simon & Garfunkel made Bookends (The Telegraph)
* How much will artists get paid from the major labels’ Spotify profits? (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Avant-Garde Pianist Cecil Taylor Dies at 89 (DownBeat)
* Cecil Taylor Dies at 89 - Piano titan pioneered the jazz avant-garde with an utterly unique sound, technique and approach to improvisation (Jazz Times)
* Cecil Taylor (1929 - 2018) (The Free Jazz Collective)
* Cecil Taylor, Jazz Icon Of The Avant-Garde, Dies At 89 (NPR)
* Cecil Taylor, Pianist Who Defied Jazz Orthodoxy, Is Dead at 89 (New York Times)
* How The #VinylRevival Is Paradoxically Threatening Record Shop Survival (TheQuietus.com)
* What’s Up Tiger Lily?: The wild story of the tax scam record label run by the notorious Morris Levy (DangerousMinds.net)

Miles on Monday: Elevator to the Gallows reconsidered, Miles' style, and more

This week in Miles Davis news:

* Davis' score for Louis Malle's 1958 film Elevator to the Gallows was the subject of a feature story in Popmatters.

A newly restored version of the film, which starred Jeanne Moreau (pictured with Davis), will be screened starting this Wednesday, August 3 through Thursday, August 11 at The Film Forum in New York City.

* The trumpeter's sartorial style was the subject of an essay on the men's fashion website Mnswr.com.

* More than 40 years after Davis compared his earning potential as a musician unfavorably to that of the mercurial rock star Sly Stone, a blog post at the Bay Area public radio station KCRW suggests that "Miles Davis Wouldn’t Have Envied Sly Stone Later On."

* The recently released "lost album" produced by Davis in 1969 for his wife at the time, funk singer Betty Davis, was the subject of a feature story in The Guardian. The album also was reviewed by the website BlackGrooves.org.

Sunday Session: May 8, 2016

Alice Coltrane

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

* Despite recognition, jazz sax player Steve Coleman finds respite in Allentown (Allentown Morning Call)
* Founding Fathers, A Documentary Narrated By Public Enemy’s Chuck D, Presents the True History of Hip Hop (OpenCulture.com)
* Architecture and explosion: Cecil Taylor, the composer (Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches)
* A conversation with Wayne Shorter, jazz’s patron bodhisattva (CapitalBop.com)
* How to Sound Check the World’s Most Powerful Rocket (Vice.com)
* 2016 Ertegun Hall of Fame Voting Ballot (Jazz at Lincoln Center)
* Jazz Fest Day 7: Dancing Across the Water (Offbeat)
* New York Is Killing Me: Albert Ayler’s Life and Death in the Jazz Capital (Pitchfork.com)
* Why Jazz Musicians Can Be The Biggest Jerks (LearnJazzStandards.com)
* Field Notes: Jazz at the White House - The Obamas host jazz greats to celebrate International Jazz Day (Jazz Times)
* Prince versus the internet: The love-hate relationship that predicted the future (FactMag.com)
* Kamasi Washington on the Pressures of Being Called Jazz's Savior (Esquire)
* The 30 best jazz films (The Telegraph UK)
* Why the Death of Greatest Hits Albums and Reissues Is Worth Mourning (Pitchfork.com)
* Radiohead erases internet presence – is it a cryptic message? (The Guardian UK)
* At 83, Bob Koester opens his newest record store (and how it compares to Jazz Record Mart) (Chicago Tribune)
* More Photos from the 2016 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest (DownBeat)
* Little Richard Denies Near-Death Rumors: 'I'm Still Singing' (Rolling Stone)
* Soul Survivor - The revival and hidden treasure of Aretha Franklin (The New Yorker)
* We should celebrate greats like Sly Stone while they're still with us (The Guardian UK)
* Spirits Loom Large at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest (DownBeat)
* Gorillas make up ‘little food songs’ while they eat: Listen to them here (DangerousMinds.net)
* Universal Consciousness: The Spiritual Awakening of Alice Coltrane (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* Red’s Bells (Do The Math)
* Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously. (VellumAtlanta.com)
* Cuneiform Records – Thirty-plus Years of Essential Listening (Goldmine)
* Why Jazz Will Always Be Relevant (TheFader.com)
* Memes, MP3s and the explosion of album art (The Guardian UK)
* Wadada Leo Smith and Don Cheadle to Receive Honorary Degrees From CalArts - Awards to be given out May 13 (Jazz Times)
* Anthony Braxton: Ghost Trance Music - Mapping the Systems of the Jazz Musician’s Sound (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* How to Pick Music for People on LSD, From a Scientist Whose Job That Is (Vice.com)

Sunday Session: December 20, 2015

Brian Blade

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

* Why Sly Stone still can't collect royalties from his classic songs (Los Angeles Times)
* Frank Sinatra’s Drummer Tells the Story of His Final Concert (Vanity Fair)
* 'World-class' $7.5-million jazz hub set for Wayne State (Detroit Free Press)
* Prayers for Richard (Oxford American)
* Classic Rock Radio at 30: The Songs Change, So Does the Vibe Remain the Same? (Billboard)
* Jazz Musician Herbie Hancock Added to Luc Besson’s ‘Valerian’ Cast; Nothing Impossible (ScreenCrush.com)
* My 13-Year Mission to Save Jazz Photography (Medium.com)
* The Inventor of Auto-Tune (Priceonomics.com)
* Green Rooms Is a Hotel Specifically Designed for Musicians (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Why I've Fallen Out of Love With Shopping for Vinyl (LA Weekly)
* Weezer's Bizarre Copyright Crackdown on 'Hash Pipe' (Vice.com)
* “Ornette at Prince Street”: A Glimpse from the Archives (Point of Departure)
* Grateful Dead Bio-Series in Development at Amazon (Rolling Stone)
* David Bowie Fulfills His Jazz Dream (NPR)
* ‘Baker Street’: The Mystery of Rock's Greatest Sax Riff (The Atlantic)
* Not in a Shy Way: Sizing up the Sinatra legacy, one hundred years on (BookForum)
* Film Review: ‘Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story’ (Variety)
* Spirit of jazz, soul of a man - Fellowship Band leader Brian Blade on playing with Joni Mitchell, Wayne Shorter and the Hallelujah Train (Colorado Springs Independent)
* Beijing bebop: Once scorned, jazz is suddenly thriving in the Chinese capital (CNN)
* Our culture loves music. Too bad our economy doesn’t value it. (Washington Post)
* A Jazz Raconteur’s Parting Words (DownBeat)