So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Saxophonist David Sanborn has released the fourth episode of his web series "Sanborn Sessions," with saxophonist and keyboard player Terrace Martin as the featured guest.

You can see Sanborn and Martin (pictured) in this latest episode via the embed at the bottom of this post, or visit the "Sanborn Sessions" YouTube page to catch the entire series to date.

* Pianist Peter Martin and multi-instrumentalist and singer Tonina Saputo were among the performers interviewed for a St. Louis Public Radio story about how local musicians are coping with the COVID-19 shutdown.

* And speaking of Peter Martin, the pianist took questions from fans, friends, music students, and miscellaneous onlookers in a Reddit-style "Ask Me Anything" video recorded this past Tuesday.

* Drummer Dave Weckl now is offering private drum lessons for a limited number of students online via Zoom.

Sunday Session: January 1, 2017

Alphonse Mouzon

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

* The Year Jimi Hendrix Spent in Nashville (Nashville Scene)
* Jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd on his lifelong intoxication with music (PBS)
* The music theory principle that unifies 2016’s radio hits (Vox.com)
* Crowdsourcing Meets Music for Symphonies of the Future (US News)
* How Kafundó Records is Preserving the Marginalized Cultures of Brazil in a Changing Political Climate (Bandcamp.com)
* Q&A with Terrace Martin: From Hip-Hop to Herbie Hancock (DownBeat)
* A Man at Home On the Road—Remembering Mose Allison (1927-2016) (New Music Box)
* In Gritty Sao Paulo, Samba Reinvents Itself With An Introspective Sound (NPR)
* Mourning Stars Through Streams, Screens And Communities (NPR)
* 5 Ways to Make Opera More Appealing to Young People (Paste)
* Music streaming hailed as industry's saviour as labels enjoy profit surge (The Guardian)
* George Clinton on funk, touring and staying relevant at 75 (The Guardian)
* R.I.P. Alphonse Mouzon, prolific jazz fusion drummer has died at 68 (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Before he won Oscars for his music, composer Howard Shore helped kick off SNL (Washington Post)
* What Happened to Rock Music? (The New Republic)

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: August 21, 2016

Bobby Hutcherson

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

* British Airways stops musician from flying with cello as 'it didn't have a visa' (The Independent UK)
* Hancock & Martin Explore Fusion Frontier in Brooklyn (DownBeat)
* Archivists Grapple With Problems Of Preserving Recent Culture Held On Tape Cassettes And Floppy Drives (TechDirt.com)
* Mashup Weaves Together 57 Famous Classical Pieces by 33 Composers: From Bach to Wagner (OpenCulture.com)
* Bobby Hutcherson: 1941-2016 (SFJAZZ.org)
* Bay Area jazz legend Bobby Hutcherson dies at 75 (San Jose Mercury News)
* Appreciation: Bobby Hutcherson connected some of the highest points in jazz (Los Angeles Times)
* A not so mixed music - What kind of culture allows composers to flourish and what kind of composers do flourish? (NuminousMusic.com)
* Henry Kaiser - Clouds of colored light (Innerviews.org)
* Algorithm and blues: Putting a Google-written song to the test (Toronto Star)
* Inside Carlos Santana's New Jazz-Rock Supergroup (Rolling Stone)
* First Listen: The Bad Plus, 'It's Hard' (NPR)
* The new wave of new age: How music’s most maligned genre finally became cool (FactMag.com)
* OP-ED: (not just) White Boy Music — the very punk rock history of Bad Brains, Fishbone and Living Colour (Afropunk.com)
* Life With Bird, By Charlie Parker’s Stepdaughter (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Tomorrow's Musical Instruments Look Like Lightsabers and Metal Detectors (Vice.com)
* Is Bandcamp the Holy Grail of Online Record Stores? (New York Times)
* How Bad Urban Planning Led To The Birth Of A Billion-Dollar Genre (TheFader.com)
* I Am The Blues Documents America’s Last Generation of Blues Legends (DownBeat)

Miles on Monday: Betty Davis' lost sessions released, reissue news, and more

With no post here last Monday due to the Independence Day holiday, here's an extra-large serving of Miles Davis news from the last two weeks:

* Perhaps the biggest story of the fortnight involving the trumpeter was the news that a set of previously unreleased recording sessions he produced for his ex-wife, singer Betty Davis, has been issued as Betty Davis: The Columbia Years 1968-1969 by the label Light In The Attic Records.

Co-produced by Davis and his longtime collaborator Teo Macero, the album (pictured) features much of the band that would appear a couple of years later on Davis' album Bitches Brew, including guitarist John McLaughlin, keyboardist Herbie Hancock, bassist Harvey Brooks, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and organist Larry Young, plus two of Jimi Hendrix' musical associates, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Billy Cox.

Press coverage of the release has been extensive, with stories and reviews appearing everywhere from NPR to the alt-rock magazine Pitchfork to AllAboutJazz.com.

* Meanwhile, a box set of Davis' own music, Miles Davis At Newport 1955–1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4, was named the winner in the Historical Album category of the 2016 DownBeat Critics Poll.

* The recent reissue of Davis' album Agharta on LP by the label Music on Vinyl was reviewed by London Jazz News.

* Also in London, theater artist Robert Lepage's performance piece Needles and Opium, a surreal meditation from 1991 about Miles Davis, Jean Cocteau and various types of addiction, was revived for a production at the Barbican that featured actor Wellesley Robertson III as Davis.

* Also revived is Elevator to the Gallows, the 1958 Louis Malle film that features a soundtrack by Davis, as a newly restored version will be shown next month at Film Forum in New York City in advance of a potential wider release.

* In other Davis-on-film news, Elmore magazine reviewed Everything's Beautiful, keyboardist Robert Glasper's tribute to Davis that serves as a companion piece to his work on the score for Don Cheadle's movie Miles Ahead; and the Massillon, OH Independent ran a feature story about the experiences of an local Davis fan who worked as an extra on the film, which was shot in Cincinnati. Miles Ahead comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray on Tuesday, July 19.

* Last but not least, "Miles in May," an episode of All Music Television's program The Jazz Creative recorded earlier this year in Los Angeles and featuring Glasper and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin, has been posted online, and can been seen in the embedded video window below.

Miles on Monday: Wayne Shorter talks Miles Davis, TV tribute debuts Friday, and more

This week in Miles Davis news:

* The soundtrack album for Don Cheadle's film Miles Ahead and pianist Robert Glasper's tribute/remix album Everything's Beautiful were reviewed for Jazz Times magazine Mac Randall.

* Miles and Me, the TV special paying tribute to Davis with music from a recent concert in Los Angeles by Glasper and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin will debut this Friday, June 24 on ASPiRE TV.

* SFJAZZ this fall will present a class in their "Discover Jazz" series focusing on four of Davis' most important albums, "considering the recordings as they were meant to be considered - as complete and dynamic works of art created by a visionary like no other.

* The Australian Broadcasting Company's radio network recently interviewed saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and has put on YouTube two brief video clips in which Shorter (pictured) talks about being part of Davis' "Second Great Quintet" in the 1960s and his experiences recording with the trumpeter.

* Reviews of Miles Ahead were published by The Australian newspaper and the website StartsAt60.com.