Sunday Session: November 15, 2020

Herbie Hancock

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

* Lakecia Benjamin: The future of jazz is now (Bay State Banner)
* What’s in a Name? (Jazz Times)
* Forgotten protest icon Odetta Holmes lives on in modern Black Americana (ScalawagMagazine.org)
* Live Nation expects that “shows at scale” will return next summer (NME.com)
* Review of Jazzfest Berlin 2020 (London Jazz News)
* Sun Ra's Cosmic Keys (Reverb.com)
* Tomeka Reid Looks For Challenging Situations (DownBeat)
* Sleeping Giants: The Brief Reign and Brilliant Legacy of Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi Band (WBGO)
* Alone Together: A Q&A with Tabla Master Zakir Hussain (SFJAZZ.org)
* Mayfield and Markham Plead Guilty in a Plea Deal (Offbeat)
* 50 Years Later: The Surprising Memphis Roots of “Led Zeppelin III.” (MemphisMagazine.com)
* Israeli researchers create AI capable of writing personalized jazz solos (Jerusalem Post)
* Alfredo Rodríguez Deploys Abundant Technique (DownBeat)
* 'It's the screams of the damned!' The eerie AI world of deepfake music (The Guardian)
* Shabaka Hutchings - The Future of Afrofuturism (SFJAZZ.org)
* For The Rolling Stones’ 60th Anniversary, Keith Richards Says “The Plans Are to Still Actually All Be Alive” (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Guitarist Steve Hunter on His Journey From ‘Berlin’ to ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ (Rolling Stone)
* Emerging Opera Singers Now Pay for Online Auditions. Are Companies Watching Them? (MiddleClassArtist.com)
* Joel Ross Doesn’t ‘Do The Obvious Thing’ (DownBeat)
* Meet the guardians of the world’s earliest musical recordings (Los Angeles Times)
* Volcanic drummer and MacArthur ‘genius grant’ winner Tyshawn Sorey premieres new work with Seattle Symphony (Seattle Times)
* Sonny Rollins on Jazz as a Music of Freedom (LitHub.com)
* A Brief Guide to the Shape of “Jazz Rap” Today (Bandcamp.com)
* Bassist Eric Revis Revels In Curiosity, Versatility (DownBeat)
* The Experimental Edge of the “New Weird South” (Bandcamp.com)
* Christian Sands Relies On Adaptability (DownBeat)
* State of Play: the rise of in-game concerts (DJMag.com)
* Ronnie Scott understood that for some people music is the only outlet – so he opened a club (New Statesman)
* Seated gigs, no moshing and 'brutally exhausting' sets: the strange new world of live music (The Guardian)
* How Ticketmaster Plans to Check Your Vaccine Status for Concerts: Exclusive (Billboard)
* Inside Sun Ra’s 1971 trip to Egypt (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Big Breaks - What’s Behind Orpheus Classical? (Atavist.com)
* Andrew White, Prolific Multi-Instrumentalist, Scholar and Washington, D.C. Legend, Dies at 78 (WBGO)
* Electrophone: the Victorian-era gadget that was a precursor to live-streaming (TheConversation.com)

Sunday Session: September 20, 2020

Tomeka Reid

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

* Hawaii Passes the ‘Truth in Music Advertising Act’ to Prevent ‘Imposter Performers’ That Claim to Be Classic Bands (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Book Review: Crime and Espionage — to the Sounds of Jazz (ArtsFuse.org)
* Discovering—and Preserving—the Earliest Known Stereo Recordings (Pro Sound News)
* Chick Corea bonus Q&A: What he learned playing with Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Stan Getz and others (San Diego Union Tribune)
* New Billie Holiday Documentary to Open in November (VIDEO) (Jazz Times)
* Why the struggle of small venues will affect the entire music industry (MidiaResearch.com)
* LJ Talks to Ricky Riccardi, Author of "Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong" (Library Journal)
* 55 Years Ago: Otis Redding Sets a New Standard With ‘Otis Blue’ (UltimateClassicRock.com)
* Visa fees for foreign artists touring the US to increase by over 50% (NME.com)
* The Thrills and Frustrations of a Rediscovered Thelonious Monk Recording (The New Yorker)
* Remembering Bassist Gary Peacock, with a Recent Conversation on The Checkout (WBGO)
* Fridays at Five: A Look Behind the Scenes (SFJAZZ.org)
* Stanley Crouch, Towering Jazz Critic, Dead At 74 (NPR)
* Bootsy Collins Collaborates With George Benson, Branford Marsalis And More On ‘The Power Of The One’ (DownBeat)
* Is Richard Wagner Simultaneously the Most Controversial and Influential Composer Ever? (Pitchfork.com)
* How South Africa’s Blue Notes Helped Invent European Free Jazz (Bandcamp.com)
* Stanley Crouch 1945–2020 (Jazz Times)
* Musicians Are Surviving the Pandemic by Giving (and Receiving) Virtual Lessons (Pitchfork.com)
* Vinyl frontier: The story behind one of the rarest records in the universe (TheVinylFactory.com)
* I saw a different side of Stanley Crouch (TheUndefeated.com)
* Late Night TV Show Musicians Sign Open Letter to Networks Asking for "Economic Parity" (Hollywood Reporter)
* Jazz cellist Tomeka Reid to make debut as Mills professor with virtual show (San Francisco Chronicle)
* Toto, ELO, Queen ... why hits from happier times top Covid lockdown playlists (The Guardian)
* The Sheer Force Of Artemis (DownBeat)
* The Greenwich Village jazz scene is scrambling to stay alive (Time Out New York)
* Beyond High Concept, Beyond Algorithms: Classical Recording Artists Go “Off the Leash” (WQXR)
* Retired Victoria broadcaster finds long-lost tapes of Joni Mitchell recording session (Victoria Times Colonist)
* Meet the NEA Jazz Masters, Class of 2020 (NPR)

Sunday Session: July 12, 2020

Jason Moran

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

* Buddy Guy on Weathering the COVID Storm and the Road Ahead (Rolling Stone)
* Watch Exclusive uDiscover Music Interview With Jazz Saxophonist Azar Lawrence (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* The Story of Louis Armstrong’s Final Tape (LouisArmstrongHouse.org)
* Terri Lyne Carrington Tops 2020 DownBeat Critics Poll (DownBeat)
* Talking Heads Drummer Chris Frantz on His New Memoir and the Last Time He Saw David Byrne (Rolling Stone)
* Ennio Morricone: 10 of his greatest compositions (The Guardian)
* How Ennio Morricone Changed the Way Movies Sound (Pitchfork.com)
* Remembering Ennio Morricone: His 10 most mind-blowing film scores (Los Angeles Times)
* The Great Reformatting (TheAmericanScholar.org)
* The Pedal Steel Guitar Slides Into Jazz (Jazz Times)
* Gearhead: Ralph Towner’s Acoustic Arsenal (Jazz Times)
* Empire at 40 | How Ben Burtt Turned a Bathtub of Raccoons and Industrial Noise into a Star Wars Soundscape (StarWars.com)
* 50 years ago Hendrix, the Allman Brothers and B.B. King played the Byron Pop Festival (Macon Telegraph)
* Krautrock, communism and chaos: the anarchic story of Can (LouderSound.com)
* Joni Mitchell, Isle of Wight 1970: the day the music nearly died (The Guardian)
* The Mid-Atlantic’s Flourishing Jazz, Funk And R&B Scene Spotlit By Black Fire Records (DownBeat)
* Lady A, Formerly Lady Antebellum, Sue Seattle Blues Singer Lady A (Pitchfork.com)
* Anita ‘Lady A’ White Will Not Be Erased (Vulture.com)
* Pop music is getting faster (and happier) (BBC)
* Jason Moran Journeys to the Dawn of Jazz Cinema (Criterion.com)
* France’s Future Jazz Revival Is Built on House and Hip-Hop Grooves (Bandcamp.com)
* Music Maven Steve Stoute’s Pitch for Artists: Keep All the Money (Bloomberg.com)
* Wire Playlist: Musician-Owned Record Labels in Jazz in the 1940s–60s (The Wire)
* ‘I Don’t Think Anybody Alive Can Tell Me What to Do’ Willie Nelson at his most Willie Nelson (Vulture.com)
* The Many Electronic Surprises To Be Found In The Nation's Vast Archive Of Folk Music (NPR)
* Cleve Eaton 1939–2020 (Jazz Times)
* Just for Us (Chamber-Music.org)

Sunday Session: March 17, 2019

Tomeka Reid

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:

* Lennie Tristano at 100 — Scenario for a Jazz Legend (Town Topics)
* First Listen: The Comet Is Coming, 'Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery' (NPR)
* Separated by 50 Years, Israels, Diehl Find Common Ground (DownBeat)
* More evidence of sound waves carrying mass (Phys.org)
* In Focus: Joe McPhee (NTS.live)
* Deep Dive: Odds 'n' Ends About Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Lester Young and "Jazz" Itself (WBGO)
* Makaya McCraven: The Brain Behind The Mind-Bending Beats (NPR)
* Hal Blaine, Drummer Behind the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” Dead at 90 (Pitchfork.com)
* Delfeayo Marsalis bringing everything from New Orleans but the cuisine to Lied Center (Lincoln Journal Star)
* How we made Booker T and the MGs' Green Onions (The Guardian)
* Fort Apache: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful (Jazz Times)
* On the Road with Cellist Tomeka Reid (DownBeat)
* Blue Note Launches Vinyl Reissue Series (Keyboard)
* Joe Lovano: The intimate moment of now (SFJAZZ.org)
* Lambert, Hendricks & Ross: Four Classic Albums (Jazz Journal)
* Sidewinder: The Murder of Lee Morgan (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Rebuilding the ARC: America’s Largest Music Collection Needs Your Help (Rolling Stone)
* No Man's Band: All-Female Jazz Orchestras Then and Now (NPR)
* A Short History of… The Legend of Buddy Bolden (Jazziz)
* Wearing headphones at a concert isn’t as weird as I thought it would be (Engadget.com)
* Welcome to Birdpunk: A Subculture of a Subculture (Audubon)
* A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music (RootsMusic.ca)
* How the 45 RPM Single Changed Music Forever (Rolling Stone)

Jazz this week: Vijay Iyer Trio, Dianne Reeves, Tomeka Reid's Artifacts Trio, and more

It's going to be a very busy few days for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with several noteworthy touring headliners in town, plus the beginning of our town's annual cornucopia of holiday-themed performances from both visiting and local musicians.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, November 30
Pianist Vijay Iyer returns with his longtime associates, bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore, to perform for the first of four nights continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro.

Iyer already was considered one of the fastest-rising stars in jazz when he last played here in St. Louis - in January 2010, also at the Bistro - and in the nearly seven years since, he's taken on a variety of new projects that have earned continued critical acclaim and growing public recognition.

For more about that, plus some recent video samples of Iyer's trio (pictured, top left) in action, check out this video post from a couple of Saturdays ago, as well as his recent interviews with St. Louis Public Radio's David Cazares and the Post-Dispatch's Calvin Wilson.

Thursday, December 1
Singer, educator and former St. Louisan Jan Shapiro, the longtime head of vocal music at Berklee College of Music, will return home to perform in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Also on Thursday, the student musicians of the North County Big Band, directed by saxophonist Harvey Lockhart, will present their semester-ending performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall; and pianist Carolbeth True and Two Times True will be joined by singer Erika Johnson for a concert presented by St. Louis Public Radio at UMSL at Grand Center.

Friday, December 2
Singer Dianne Reeves returns to St. Louis for the first time since 2013 with a holiday-themed concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

Reeves (pictured, center left) will offer her interpretations of seasonal favorites such as “Little Drummer Boy,” “Carol of the Bells,” “Christmas Waltz,” “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” “Let It Snow,” and more, accompanied by a band featuring two musicians from the St. Louis area - her longtime pianist and music director, U City native Peter Martin, and drummer Terreon Gully, who's originally from East St. Louis - plus bassist Reginald Veal and guitarist Romero Lubambo.

Also on Friday, The Fat Babies, a Chicago-based band specializing in vintage jazz of the 1920s and '30s will perform at Off Broadway in the first of three shows they'll be doing in St. Louis this weekend. The group also will play for dancers on Saturday night at Casa Loma Ballroom, then provide an opening set for the St. Louis Jazz Club on Sunday (see below) before heading home.

Saturday, December 3
Cellist and composer Tomeka Reid's Artifacts Trio with flute player Nicole Mitchell and percussionist Mike Reed will play a New Music Circle-presented concert at Joe's Cafe.

Following in the footsteps of the founders who started Chicago's venerable Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the 1960s, Reid, Mitchell, and Reed (pictured, bottom left) represent what might be called the next generation of the AACM's leadership, having all served together on that organization's board at one point a few years back.

All three are active as bandleaders and collaborators in Chicago's busy jazz and creative music scene, and their shared musical history and the AACM connection eventually brought them together in 2015 under Reid's nominal leadership to record Artifacts, an album of new interpretations of music by AACM-affiliated composers. For more about that, and some video samples of various Tomeka Reid performances, take a look at the video post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, saxophonist Eric Marienthal will perform with St. Louis' Bach to the Future in a benefit concert for the adoption agency Dillon International at the Mandarin House Banquet Hall in U. City; and pianist Carolbeth True and multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman will reunite to revisit music from their 1998 album "New World Harmonica Jazz" at the Ozark Theatre

Sunday, December 4
The St. Louis Jazz Club's annual holiday party gets underway at an earlier-than-usual starting time with an opening set from Chicago's Fat Babies, followed by a full-length performance of traditional jazz and swing from St. Louis' own Cornet Chop Suey at the Moolah Shrine Center.

Also on Sunday afternoon, the Friends of Scott Joplin present their monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" at the  Scott Joplin House State Historic Site's New Rosebud Cafe; and music students at the University of Missouri St. Louis present "UMSL's Jazz For The Holidays" a free concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center featuring music from the UMSL Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Jim Widner, Vocal Point conducted by Jim Henry, and the University Orchestra.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on the StLJN Facebook page.

(If you have calendar items, band schedule information, news tips, links, or anything else you think may be of interest to StLJN's readers, please email the information to stljazznotes (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Tomeka Reid

This week, let's get acquainted via video with the Chicago-based cellist and composer Tomeka Reid, who will perform in a concert presented by New Music Circle next Saturday, December 3 at Joe's Cafe.

Reid, who grew up in Maryland near Washington DC and is now in her late 30s, is an active participant in Chicago's busy jazz and improvised music scene, moving freely between various musical projects of her own and those led by others. She also has significant classical training, having earned music degrees at the University of Maryland, College Park and DePaul University, and currently is working on a doctor of music from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

In addition to leading several groups under her own name, Reid has worked with Dee Alexander's Evolution Ensemble, Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble/Strings, Mike Reed's Loose Assembly, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) Great Black Music Ensemble, and co-leads the string trio Hear in Now.

Reid's Artifacts Trio, the group she'll perform with here in St. Louis, takes its name from an album she recorded last year with flutist Nicole Mitchell and drummer Mike Reed. The three have known each other for 15 years, performing together in various combinations and all serving on the executive board of the AACM, so when Reid wanted to put together a program of music by composers associated with the AACM in conjunction with the organization's 50th anniversary, Mitchell and Reed were natural choices as collaborators.

Since the release of Artifacts, there's been a good deal of interest in the group, resulting in a number of festival dates overseas plus some one-off domestic gigs like the one they'll do in St. Louis. Unfortunately, none of those shows seem to have been captured on video and made available online yet.

So instead today, you can sample several recent performances by Reid in a variety of musical settings, starting up above and continuing after the jump with two excepts featuring what one might call an alternate version of the Artifacts Trio, with Reid, Mike Reed, and British pianist Alexander Hawkins, recorded in September at the Brighton Alternative Jazz Festival in England.

Below that, you can see two solo performances by Reid - one recorded in April at the Block Museum of Art, the other from a concert in July at the Lynden Sculpture Garden in which Reid combined composed and improvised materials in reaction to artist Fo Wilson’s installation "Eliza’s Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities."

The fifth clip features Reid's String Ensemble performing her extended work "Tokens" in September at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago, and the final videois an excerpt from a show by a quartet led by Reid, with bassist Silvia Bolognesi, vibraphonist Pasquale Mirra, and drummer Cristiano Calcagnile, recorded in September at a concert in Lafayette, IN.

For more about Tomeka Reid, check out the profile of her published in 2013 by the Chicago Reader; and her 2015 interview in Point of Departure.

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

New Music Circle announces 2016-17 season schedule

New Music Circle has announced their 2016-17 season schedule.

The organization's 58th season will include nine events at a half-dozen venues around town, starting with a duo performance from pianists Craig Taborn and Kris Davis (pictured) on Saturday, October 1 at the 560 Music Center.

Taborn and Davis, who are doing a series of concert dates together in the fall, will perform on two grand pianos on the stage at the venue's E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall. The concert will be recorded for possible release on a CD documenting their joint tour.

In addition to Taborn and Davis, both of whom have performed in St. Louis under NMC's auspices in recent years, the lineup also will include return visits from musicians such as percussionist Hamid Drake, electronic musician Ikue Mori, and percussionist Tomas Fujiwara, whose group The Hookup includes his collaborators from the band Thumbscrew, guitarist Mary Halvorson and bassist Michael Formanek, plus saxophonist Brian Settles and trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson.

Performers making their St. Louis debuts will include Chicago-based cellist Tomeka Reid, who will play in a trio with two other buzzworthy Chicago musicians, flute player Nicole Mitchell and drummer Mike Reed; trumpeter Nate Wooley, who will work in a duo with Mori; and French flute player and composer Sylvaine Hélary, who will play with her Spring Roll Quartet.

The complete season schedule (pending confirmation of details for a couple of shows later in the season) is:

Saturday, October 1 at 560 Music Center: Craig Taborn and Kris Davis

Saturday, October 22 at The Stage at KDHX: Sylvaine Hélary's Spring Roll Quartet

Friday, November 11 at the Kranzberg Arts Center: Jen Shyu

Saturday, December 3 at Joe's Cafe: Tomeka Reid Trio

Saturday, January 21 at Joe's Cafe: Iva Bittová and Hamid Drake

Saturday, February 18 at The Luminary: Ikue Mori and Nate Wooley

Thursday, March 16 at The Stage at KDHX: Erik Friedlander's Black Phoebe Trio

Friday, April 28 or Saturday, April 29 at The Stage at KDHX: Tomas Fujiwara's The Hook Up

May 2017, date and location TBA: New Music Circle Showcase

Most of the performers also will do some sort of free public workshop, master class or other event during their visits to St. Louis, with details on those TBA.

Tickets for NMC shows are $20 for regular admission, $10 for "students or struggling music supporters," and can be purchased in advance online or at the door. In the past, they've also offered a subscription package that includes "flex" tickets that can be used for any show(s) in any combination, plus other benefits. For details on that, or to purchase single tickets, see NMC's website.