Sunday Session: August 22, 2021

John Coltrane

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest:

* Former Police Guitarist Andy Summers Reminisces On Montserrat Sessions In ‘Under The Volcano’ (Forbes.com)
* Angry concert-goer files complaint with Ohio Attorney General after missing James Taylor-Jackson Browne show at Blossom (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
* Highest Trane: John Coltrane’s World-Building Ascension (Jazz Times)
* Under The Volcano Review: Inside George Martin’s Musical Paradise (DenOfGeek.com)
* The Bad Plus Reformulates Again, Now as a Quartet with Ben Monder and Chris Speed (WBGO)
* A Guide to Free Jazz Drumming on Bandcamp (Bandcamp.com)
* At an Old Juke Joint in Mississippi, the Blues Are Alive (Smithsonian)
* If you take all the world’s emotions and put them into one sound, it’s Sérgio Mendes (San Diego Union Tribune)
* The Most Influential Pop-Rock Band Ever? The Monkees! (Vanity Fair)
* The history of electronic music is inside a warehouse in Harleysville, Pa. (WHYY)
* The Light At The End of The Tunnel is Fading (Offbeat)
* Meet the archivist who saved the historic footage that became ‘Summer of Soul’ (Los Angeles Times)
* How Respect Uses Design to Illuminate the Story of Aretha Franklin (Architechtural Digest)
* Marc Ribot Makes the Case for Loud Music (LitHub.com)
* Larry Harlow, Iconic Salsa Musician And Producer, Has Died At 82 (NPR)
* First Live Steely Dan Album in 25 Years Just Days Away (Guitar Player)
* Frank Zappa: ”I think my playing is probably more derived from folk music – Middle Eastern music, Indian music, stuff like that” (Guitar World)
* My musician friends in Afghanistan are hiding their musical instruments in fear of the Taliban: Young Afghan composer Arson Fahim (IndiaTimes.com)
* Country singer Tom T. Hall dies; wrote ‘Harper Valley PTA’ (Associated Press)
* ‘They deserve a place in history’: music teacher makes map of female composers (The Guardian)
* White out! Tony Herrington calls time on the monoculture that is the experimental sound and music industry (The Wire)
* The World's Most Famous Violins Were Treated With a Secret Chemical Mix, Study Shows (ScienceAlert.com)
* Philip Glass on Artificial Intelligence and Art (Auderdy.com)

Sunday Session: July 25, 2021

Terri Lyne Carrington

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest:

* The Strange Magic Of YouTube's '80s Remix Culture (NPR)
* Meet Terri Lyne Carrington (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Summer of Soul review – the best concert film ever made? (The Guardian)
* What Will Happen to My Music Library When Spotify Dies? (The Atlantic)
* The Sounds of Healing (ReasonsToBeCheerful.world)
* Pressing issues: vinyl revival held back by production capacity, Brexit and more (The Guardian)
* NEA Names Its 2022 Jazz Masters: Hart, Clarke, Wilson And Harrison (NPR)
* Billy Gibbons: storyteller, hot sauce merchant, lover of public transport (LouderSound.com)
* A Guide to the Early Music of John Coltrane on Prestige Records (Bandcamp.com)
* Are You Relivin’ the Years?: How Steely Dan Became a Cult Favorite for Millennials (TheRinger.com)
* The Essential Herbie Hancock (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* Thelonious Monk Estate Says Biopic Starring Yasiin Bey Is Unauthorized (Pitchfork.com)
* Yasiin Bey says he won’t play jazz legend Thelonious Monk in biopic since family disapproves (NME.com)
* Jazz Night's Favorite Grooves Of 2021, So Far (NPR)
* Funkadelic's 'Maggot Brain' At 50: R&B, Psychedelic Rock And A Black Guitarist's Cry (NPR)
* ‘My strength isn’t looking at a computer screen. I wouldn’t join the music business today, because I don’t want to be a typist.’ (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* From Soldier to Jazz Giant: The Life of Billy Bang (Bandcamp.com)
* Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram Reflects On Leaving – And Sharing – '622' (NPR)
* The greatest keyboard players of all time, revealed (MusicRadar.com)
* Monterey Jazz Festival Quickly Sells Out Despite No Vaccination Requirements (DigitalMusicNews.com)

Sunday Session: August 30, 2020

Gregory Porter

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest:

* The Day Louis Armstrong Lost His Color: A Short Story (Jazz Times)
* A Tale Of Two Ecosystems: On Bandcamp, Spotify And The Wide-Open Future (NPR)
* Give & Take with Musician Sonny Rollins (Tricycle.org)
* Charli Persip, Virtuoso Drummer Who Cut a Swath Through Modern Jazz, Is Dead at 91 (WBGO)
* Steely Dan Engineer Finds Lost ‘Second Arrangement’ Tapes (UltimateClassicRock.com)
* 100 Reasons We Love Charlie Parker For His 100th Birthday (Discogs.com)
* The Best Batch Yet? Captain Beefheart's Doc At The Radar Station Revisited (TheQuietus.com)
* Vinyl sales rock on in spite of Covid-19 (QZ.com)
* Ambrose Akinmusire’s Pure Pursuit Of Sound (DownBeat)
* Billy Childs Reveals the Influences on His Album Acceptance (Jazz Times)
* ‘64% musicians considering leaving the music profession’ – survey (London Jazz News)
* Charlie Parker, the Birth of Bebop, and America’s Greatest Recording Session (Jazz Times)
* The Very Serious Art of Writing Music for Very Funny Cartoons (InsideHook.com)
* Dan Penn talks back (Offbeat)
* 50 Years Later, Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios Is Still An Artistic Haven (NPR)
* Oneness of JuJu’s Afrocentric and Avant-Garde Jazz (Bandcamp.com)
* Despite Streaming, US Recorded Music Revenues Still Down 50% From 1999 Peaks (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Terri Lyne Carrington Runs On Determination (DownBeat)
* Bird Lives! A Charlie Parker Centennial, With Strings Attached (NPR)
* Gregory Porter sings of love, but unspeakable grief and the scars of racism lie just beneath (Los Angeles Times)
* Roots in the Archive: Test Pressings Help Keep Robert Johnson’s Songs Alive (NoDepression.com)* The 25 greatest basslines of all time (MusicRadar.com)
* How Charlie Parker Defined the Sound and Substance of Bebop Jazz (The New Yorker)

Sunday Session: August 5, 2018

Gregory Porter

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:

* Sax player Charles Lloyd, Newport Jazz Festival’s artist-in-residence, is a ‘bluesman on a spiritual path’ (Providence Journal)
* A jazz legend’s Philadelphia home fading away (WHYY)
* Jazz.FM workers say the CEO harassed them. Now, they’re accused of plotting a coup (Toronto Star)
* The Top 10 Jazz Album Covers of All Time (Jazz Times)
* Where are musicians making money these days? On the road — and that’s about it (GlobalNews.ca)
* Why young people have fallen in love with jazz (The Telegraph)
* Lost Neil Young, Joni Mitchell Concert Recordings From 1968 Unearthed (Rolling Stone)
* Trumpeter Tomasz Stańko Dies at 76 (Jazz Times)
* Tomasz Stanko, A Trumpeter Whose Music Spoke To Freedom, Has Died (NPR)
* Gregory Porter: Soul Connections (SFJAZZ.org)
* Jazz and Pop Worlds Collide in Molde (DownBeat)
* How we made Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild (The Guardian)
* Berkeley’s famed Fantasy Studios set to close in September (SFGate.com)
* French Media Giant Vivendi Announces Plans To Sell As Much As Half Of Universal Music (NPR)
* Watch out Billboard: Variety and Rolling Stone owner buys into Nielsen rival BuzzAngle for ‘aggressive’ music charts push (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Bettye Lavette: Soul Survivor (Rolling Stone)
* The Alphabet Of Dewey Johnson 1939–2018 (The Wire)
* What’s Behind the New Jazz Resurgence? (Rolling Stone)
* The Rolling Stones curate album of inspirational blues classics (NME.com)
* Are Record Labels Facing an A&R Crisis? (Music Industry Blog)
* Reclaiming The Rhyme: How Black Women and Latinas Have Reshaped Pop Music (NPR)
* How Carol Kaye Became the Most Prolific Session Musician in History (OpenCulture.com)
* Broken Time - “Nardis” and the Curious History of a Jazz Obsession (The Believer)
* BeatCaffeine’s 100 Best Jazz-Funk Songs (BeatCaffeine.com)
* As Umbria Jazz Marks 45 Years, as Quincy, Iverson Evolve (DownBeat)
* Alan Braufman, Cooper-Moore, and Nabil Ayers: Return to the Valley (NationalSawdust.org)
* Work, Money Worries Leave Many Musicians Singing the Blues (UTexas.edu)
* Newport Festivals Sign 25-Year Agreement (Jazz Times)
* How Steely Dan Went Through Seven Guitarists and Dozens of Hours of Tape to Get the Perfect Guitar Solo on “Peg” (OpenCulture.com)

Sunday Session: November 26, 2017

Jon Hendricks

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have appeared in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Recording Sgt. Pepper's: Unpublished Conversations with George Martin, Geoff Emerick, and Ken Townsend (Reverb.com)
* Review: Berlin Jazz Festival 2017 (Jazz Journal)
* Bright Moments With Louis Hayes (Jazz Times)
* The music you didn’t realize you grew up with: Chip Tanaka’s 8-bit revolution (Japan Times)
* The Vast, Versatile Range Of Cécile McLorin Salvant (NPR)
* Bandcamp Is Bringing Back the Record Rack (Jazz Times)
* The New Golden Age Of Jazz (LNWY.co)
* Mick Goodrick: Six-String Theorist (Jazz Times)
* Steely Dan Singer Sues Bandmate's Estate (Billboard)
* Quietly successful: Meet the man behind ECM Records (Irish Examiner)
* The vinyl frontier: why do we keep sending music to outer space? (The Guardian)
* Epidemic Sound gives its side of the Spotify ‘fake artists’ controversy (Musically.com)
* Spotify’s Top ‘Fake Artists’ Make Six-Figure Salaries (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* The Inventive Traditions of South African Jazz (Bandcamp.com)
* Dickey Betts: The Lost Allman Brother (Rolling Stone)
* Jon Hendricks, Genre-Pushing Jazz Vocalist, Dead At 96 (NPR)
* Toledo jazz vocalist Jon Hendricks redefined jazz (Toledo Blade)
* George Avakian Dies at 98 - Groundbreaking producer and manager worked with Miles, Armstrong, Ellington, Lloyd, Jarrett and others (Jazz Times)
* George Avakian, Record Producer of Singular Influence, Dies at 98 (WBGO)
* The World of Captain Beefheart: An Interview with Gary Lucas and Nona Hendryx (Popmatters.com)
* Musicians Backstage in the 1970s: The Photos (Esquire)
* Clifford Brown - The Bach of Jazz (Jazz in Europe)
* George Clinton talks back (Offbeat)
* The Delights of Parsing the Beatles' Most Nonsensical Song (The Atlantic)
* The FBI's Long, Alarming History of Investigating Black Musicians (Pacific Standard)
* INTERVIEW: Reid Anderson of The Bad Plus (London Jazz News)

Sunday Session: November 5, 2017

Muhal Richard Abrams

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have appeared in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* John McLaughlin on His Final U.S. Tour, Revisiting Mahavishnu Orchestra (Rolling Stone)
* Jack DeJohnette is a Deluxe Drummer (Montreal Gazette)
* Donald Fagen: ‘With Steely Dan there was no career plan’ (The Times)
* 'I never envisaged what lay ahead’: the first issue of Rolling Stone (The Guardian)
* Music and space (Varsity.co.uk)
* Steely Dan reviewed, London O2 Arena, October 29, 2017 (Uncut.co.uk)
* Playlist: The Roots, And The Reach, Of Fats Domino (NPR)
* Russian Espionage and Electromagnetic Fields: The Story of the Theremin (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* Orrin Keepnews: Thelonious Monk—A Remembrance (Keyboard)
* Want to 'train your brain'? Forget apps, learn a musical instrument (The Guardian)
* When Bob Dylan Saw God (Esquire)
* Introducing: Quincy Jones’ Qwest TV (Jazzwise)
* Breaking: Florida Supreme Court Rules That Oldies Recordings are Public Domain (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Thelonious Monk: Tributes from Colleagues (Keyboard)
* Jazz Community Unites To Support Puerto Rico Relief Efforts (NPR)
* I can go for that: how soft rock finally got cool (The Guardian)
* Muhal Richard Abrams Dies at 87 - Hugely influential pianist-composer co-founded the AACM (Jazz Times)
* Muhal Richard Abrams, A Sweepingly Influential Jazz Artist, Has Died At Age 87 (NPR)
* Muhal Richard Abrams, jazz champion and innovator, dies at 87 (Chicago Tribune)
* Muhal Richard Abrams, An Artist Always Looking Forward, Leaves Us Behind (WBGO)
* The Musical Revolution of Muhal Richard Abrams (The New Yorker)
* Billie Holiday to perform live in Los Angeles 58 years after her death (The Independent)
* Chuck D of Public Enemy and Prophets of Rage opens up about the history of rap and hip-hop (Orange County Register)
* This Kennedy Center director is making performance art out of jazz. Can he bring fans along? (Washington Post)
* Sonny Rollins Spent A Mythical 'Night at the Village Vanguard' 60 Years Ago Today (NPR)
* Bad Plus thrills fans at SFJazz Center on last tour of original lineup (SFGate.com)
* Will Spotify Kill the Local Music Scene? (ElectricLiterature.com)
* How Advertisers Get Away With Using Fake Versions of Your Favorite Songs (Pitchfork)

Sunday Session: September 10, 2017

Art Tatum

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have appeared in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Steely Dan Guitarist Walter Becker Dies at 67 (DownBeat)
* EWS: Walter Becker (1950-2017) R.I.P. (London Jazz News)
* Walter Becker Was A Master Of Musical Understatement (NPR)
* Vijay Iyer On Jazz's 'History Of Defiance,' His Influences And Playing In A Sextet (NPR)
* Gunter Hampel at 80: Still Ahead of Time (JazzDaGama.com)
* Every Night Perfect (Popular Mechanics)
* The Rise And Fall Of Tower Records (Flashbak.com)
* Wadada Leo Smith's Defiant And Fearless Elegy For Emmett Till (In 360˚ VR) (WBGO)
* Roscoe Mitchell, Who Helped Invent New Chicago Jazz Sound, Comes Home (Chicago magazine)
* Chicago Jazz Fest Shines Spotlight on Hometown Talent (DownBeat)
* Holger Czukay, sampling pioneer and co-founder of Can, has died at age 79 (FactMag.com)
* Holger Czukay obituary (The Guardian)
* Tower Of Power Singer Rick Stevens Dies (Pollstar.com)
* BassDrumBone and the New Haven Jazz Renaissance (AllAboutJazz.com)
* In Praise of Art Tatum, Stealth Radical in the Jazz Piano Pantheon (WBGO)
* Looking back at 20 years of neglected promise at 18th and Vine — and forward to 2020 (Pitch Weekly)
* Ella Fitzgerald Sings With London Symphony Orchestra On New Album (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Berklee To Turn A Legendary Recording Studio Into Its New York City Home Base (WBUR)
* Jimmy’s Blues (Los Angeles Review of Books)
* A Nation of Tinkerers: How a Canadian University Shaped Electronic Music in North America (Vice.com)
* The World’s Largest Music Publishers Just Declared War on Spotify — In No Uncertain Terms (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* We Talked to People at the Largest Free Jazz Festival on the Planet (Vice.com)
* Iggy Pop: Croon & Destroy - From his Stooges days to a surprising recent collaboration, the punk pioneer discusses his jazz past (Jazz Times)
* World’s oldest jazz band in Shanghai a rare constant amid China’s breakneck modernisation (South China Morning Post)
* Should Spotify Try to Become the 'Netflix Of Music'? Not So Fast (Billboard)
* 'Germans Love Their CDs': Universal Music Exec on How Germany's Music Market Is Transforming 'Differently' (Billboard)
* Two Years Later, Is New Music Friday Doing Its Job? (Forbes)
* What if you used synthesizers to emulate nature and reality? (CDM.link)
* Why Esperanza Spalding Is the Most Audacious Innovator in Jazz (Time)
* How We Can Support the World’s Rich Musical Diversity (Smithsonian)
* Review: Detroit Jazz Festival 2017 - Artist-in-residence Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and others impress at this outstanding free fest in the Motor City (Jazz Times)

Sunday Session: October 23, 2016

Terrace Martin

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

* Artists Spanning Generations Infuse BRIC JazzFest with Soul (DownBeat)
* The 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees Show a Changing Institution (Esquire)
* The Timeless Modernism of "Shuffle Along" - A Broadway sort-of-revival may have tapped out early, but its beauty and importance remain undiminished (Jazz Times)
* Why Chuck Berry Is Even Greater Than You Think (Rolling Stone)
* ‘We smuggled Michael Jackson out in a room-service trolley’ – celebrity bodyguards tell their stories (The Guardian UK)
* 'Love For Sale': A History Of Pop Music That's As Personal As It Gets (NPR)
* ‘Tilted Axes‘ and ‘Rushing Past Willow’: Classical, Jazz or Rock? (Wall Street Journal
* Google and Amazon Leverage Copyright Loophole to Use Songs Without Paying Songwriters (MusicTechPolicy.com)
* The Record Labels Of The Future Are Already Here (Forbes)
* Universal caught up in $125m lawsuit as Spinal Tap star accuses Vivendi of fraud (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* How De La Soul producer Prince Paul continues to rewrite the rules (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Steely Dan Returns to Beacon Theatre for Nostalgic Aja Show (DownBeat)
* Calling on a higher power to save a jazz landmark: Buddy Bolden’s home (ThisIsNOLA.org)
* Blues Run The Game (MTV)
* Herbie Hancock's Latest Voyage (NPR)
* Killer Riffs: A Guide to Parody in Popular Music (Pitchfork.com)
* 11 Artists You Still Can't Find on Any Major Streaming Service (Billboard)
* On His 90th Birthday, Chuck Berry Announces His Final Album (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Phil Chess, Pioneering Blues and Rock Exec, Dead at 95 (Rolling Stone)
* Q&A with Terrace Martin: From Hip-Hop to Herbie Hancock (DownBeat)
* A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism (LitHub.com)
* Experimental Pioneer Pauline Oliveros Still Wants You to Listen Closely (Vice.com)
* Concert hall acoustics in the 21st century: Interview with Sam Berkow (BachTrack.com)

Sunday Session: June 19, 2016

Henry Grimes

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

* Sound in the City (Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique)
* Stax Records and the Making of Blaxploitation Soundtracks (Ebony)
* Music distributor lays off 'dozens' of employees, keeps CDs from labels (Portland Oregonian)
* Publishers: can we work together? (KateRomano.co.uk)
* The Devil's Horn asks: is the saxophone cursed? (Georgia Straight)
* Grimes Celebrates Lifetime of Achievement at Vision Festival 21 (DownBeat)
* Digital Music Era Ushers In New Rights for Veteran Studio Musicians (BusinessWire.com)
* From YouTube to the blockchain: how music and tech are colliding in 2016 (The Guardian UK)
* The Last Word: Donald Fagen on Right-Wing Paranoia, Steely Dan's Future (Rolling Stone)
* Music titan ‘Chips’ Moman is dead at 79 (Memphis Commercial Appeal)
* Musician ‘kicked off’ United Airlines flight for attempting to stow her violin safely (TheStrad.com)
* 2017 NEA Jazz Masters Announced (Jazz Times)
* Music in the age of the algorithm (FT.com)
* Thirty years later, Green Mill owner Dave Jemilo thrives at his jazz club (Chicago Tribune)
* How to remake a Blue Note jazz album – in pictures (The Guardian UK)
* Behind the Scenes Photos of NYC's Steinway Piano Factory (AtlasObscura.com)
* Boomer Rock Icons Are Back, and Their Albums Aren’t Bad (Vulture.com)
* The Soulful Crossover of Kamasi Washington (Jazz Times)
* Recording Academy Embraces Streaming with Changes to Grammy Rules (Billboard)
* Apple's Brain Trust -- Iovine, Reznor, Cue and Kondrk -- on Streaming's New World Order and Why 'We All Should Be' Worried (Billboard)
* Why it matters that AFI's Lifetime Achievement Award is going to 'Star Wars' composer John Williams (Los Angeles Times)
* Morris 'Moe' Jennings, studio drummer at Chess Records, dies at 77 (Chicago Tribune)
* Jazz Icon Charles Lloyd on Memphis, The Elixirs Of Gotham, and Bob Dylan (WBGO)
* Bernie Worrell’s Wife Shares Update On Legendary Keyboardist’s Health (JamBase.com)
* Kamasi Washington's Father Helped Mold Him into a Jazz Master (Vice.com)
* Two unreleased Frank Zappa albums will emerge from the vaults this July (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Jazz Drummer Matt Wilson's 'Big Happy Family' Is Heartfelt And Harmonious (NPR)
* You Don’t Know the Real Beatles Until You’ve Heard Sgt. Pepper’s in Mono (New York Observer)
* Catching Up With Ken Vandermark (Jazz Times)
* Upgrading a Traditional Javanese Instrument to Run on an Algorithm (Hyperallergic.com)
* The Secret Life of Foley (Vimeo.com)
* Appreciative Hart Spotlighted at Healdsburg Jazz Festival (DownBeat)
* A Twist in the Zappa vs. Zappa Spat (New York Times)

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 13, 2015

Rahsaan Roland Kirk

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

* Key Igor Stravinsky work found after 100 years (The Guardian UK)
* Bassist Gary Peacock Is At The Soloist's Service (NPR)
* Concert review: Saxophonist Phil Woods ends playing career on a high note (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
* Why Niche Is The Next Streaming Frontier (Music Industry Blog)
* Crossing The Bridge: The Return Of Sonny Rollins (WFIU)
* How Signing A Major Record Deal Nearly Destroyed My Music Career (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Review: The 2015 Chicago Jazz Festival - AACM's 50th anniversary dominates the 37th edition (Jazz Times)
* How Steely Dan Created ‘Deacon Blues’ (Wall Street Journal)
* Sounds like a hit: the numbers game behind Spotify cover songs (TheVerge.com)
* Shack Up: A Loop History - Nate Patrin traces the path of this influential break (Red Bull Music Academy)
* In praise of cheap box sets (The Spectator UK)
* Celebrating Rahsaan Roland Kirk (NPR)
* Long-Delayed Nina Simone Biopic Sets December Release (Rolling Stone)
* The Hi-Fi DIY of Colombia's Bass Lords (Vice.com)
* Frank Zappa’s Long-Awaited ‘Roxy’ Movie Coming: Watch the Trailer — Video (Guitar World)
* New Book Illuminates Playboy Magazine’s Impact on Jazz History (DownBeat)

Sunday Session: July 26, 2015

Kamasi Washington

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

* After 20 Years, New Orleans Band Galactic Lifts Off With New Voices (NPR)
* This Year’s DownBeat Critics Poll Kerfuffle (Outside-Inside-Out)
* Digitized and Now Available: Mahler’s Marked Score of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony (New York Philharmonic)
* 'Inside Out' composer Michael Giacchino is on a roll (Los Angeles Times)
* The key to perfection: how a Steinway piano is made (Financial Times)
* How Hip-Hop Is Becoming the Oldies (New York Times)
* Swing It Loud: Duke Ellington’s Early Black-Pride Music (WFIU)
* How MTV Is Trying to Reinvent Itself to Combat Sinking Ratings and Disinterested Teens (Billboard)
* 'Kid Charlemagne': A Close Reading Of Steely Dan's Ode To Haight Street's LSD King (SFist)
* To Stream or Not to Stream? That is the Wrong Question (New Music Box)
* How Music Magazines Are Changing to Stay Alive (Billboard)
* Why do pop singers like Lady Gaga keep releasing jazz albums? The upsides are tremendous. (Washington Post)
* Apple Music is a nightmare and I'm done with it (The Loop)
* SpokFrevo Orquestra, Redman Spark North Sea Jazz Festival (DownBeat)
* LA jazz: how Kamasi Washington and Thundercat are breathing new life into the west coast scene (The Guardian UK)
* Impulse To Release Haden-Rubalcaba Duo Album (DownBeat)
* Zappa Family Gives Access For New Frank Zappa Documentary (JamBase.com)

Metrotix, Fox Theatre offering presale of Steely Dan tickets on Friday, March 4

Metrotix and the Fox Theatre are offering online buyers a presale of tickets to the concert by Steely Dan on Wednesday, August 24 at the Fox. Tickets go on sale to the general public at 10:00 a.m. this Saturday, March 5; the presale begins at 10:00 a.m. Friday, March 4 and continues until 10:00 p.m. that evening. To access the presale, go to the Metrotix site and use promo code HEY19.

For a band whose musical output is usually categorized as "rock," Steely Dan has always had considerable numbers of fans among jazz listeners, too. Both pianist/vocalist Donald Fagen and bassist/guitarist Walter Becker have spoken frequently in interviews of their appreciation for jazz, and early in their career they paid direct homage to jazz heroes like Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington, recording the original song "Parker's Band" and a cover of Duke's "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" on the Pretzel Logic album.

Over the years, Steely Dan also have used well-known jazz players such as Phil Woods, Wayne Shorter and Larry Carlton as guest soloists on record, and employed numerous other jazz musicians as part of their touring band. Their 2011 tour group includes Jim Beard (keyboards), Keith Carlock (drums), Jon Herington (guitar), Michael Leonhart (trumpet, keyboards), Jim Pugh (trombone), Roger Rosenberg (baritone sax), Freddie Washington (bass), Walt Weiskopf (saxophone), and Catherine Russell, Cindy Mizelle and Carolyn Leonhart-Escoffery (backing vocals).