Sunday Session: May 23, 2021

Quincy Jones

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

* Pioneering composer Terry Riley finds himself comfortably marooned in Japan (ToysMatrix.com)
* Curtis Fuller (1932-2021) – A Tribute by Nils Wogram (London Jazz News)
* "Part of the Tradition is Tipping Your Hat": An Interview with Miguel Zenón (Popmatters.com)
* Sam Leak – Findings of the ‘Livestreaming Music’ survey – and a personal perspective (London Jazz News)
* Moers Festival Interviews: Fred Frith (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Long Hair And Lowriders: Latin Rock In 1971 (NPR)
* Making an Album About George Washington Carver Taught James Brandon Lewis About Himself (Bandcamp.com)
* María Grand Moves Her Music Closer to Nature (Jazz Times)
* The golden ratio: an ancient Greek formula could be responsible for most hit musicals (TheConversation.com)
* Bob Koester leaves a colossal legacy in Chicago jazz and blues (Chicago Reader)
* “Stay Literally Forever Young”: A Conversation with Irma Thomas, the Soul Queen of New Orleans (DwellerForever.blog)
* Mars Williams: The Albums That Shaped My Career (SomethingElseReviews.com)
* How a Favela Orchestra Brilliantly Used Soccer to Get Brazil Excited for Classical Music (Adweek)
* THR Icon: Quincy Jones Reflects on Career, Michael Jackson and Why He Wouldn’t Work With Elvis (Hollywood Reporter)
* Marking Legendary Golden-Age Pianist Erroll Garner's Centennial (NPR)
* Joni Mitchell’s First Song Made Her Piano Teacher Angry (UltimateClassicRock.com)
* Fifteen Questions Interview with Claire RousayFlawed, Unsure, and Deeply Human (15Questions)
* Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’ Is as Relevant Today as It Was in 1971 (Smithsonian)
* Bob Dylan at 80: in praise of a mighty and unbowed singer-songwriter (The Guardian)
* Linda May Han Oh: the Perth muso immortalised by Pixar (Sydney Morning Herald) * Wadada Leo Smith :: Transmissions (AquariumDrunkard.com)

Sunday Session: April 14, 2019

Amina Claudine Myers

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:

* Nenette Evans: My Life With Bill (AllAboutJazz.com)
* The Eclectic Mr. Klein (Jazz Times)
* Harold Danko: His Own Sound, His Own Time (AllAboutJazz.com)
* ECM @ 50 (AllAboutJazz.com)* “The most in depth concert in over 35 years”: Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck to reunite on stage (NME.com)
* Ed Palermo Enjoys a ‘Lousy Day’ with New Album (DownBeat)
* Alan Lomax’s Massive Music Archive Is Online: Features 17,000 Historic Blues & Folk Recordings (OpenCulture.com)
* Interview: Pianist Amina Claudine Myers (JazzRightNow.com)
* Knocking on doors in search of Philadelphia’s jazz history (WHYY)
* Jazz Heavyweights Herbie Hancock And Kamasi Washington Announce Joint Tour (NPR)
* Keystone Korner Club Revived in Baltimore (Jazz Times)
* Emmet Cohen Wins American Pianists Association Competition (DownBeat)
* Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks Dig Deep (DownBeat)
* George Benson talks back (Offbeat)
* Inside the Barry Harris Method (Jazz Times)
* Ambient in Outer Space: Seven Artists Exploring the Final Frontier (Bandcamp.com)
* Works of Wadada Leo Smith Celebrated at Third CREATE Festival (DownBeat)
* Four-year legal battle over estate of legendary blues musician Muddy Waters continues in DuPage courtroom (Chicago Tribune)
* AIM’s Gee Davy on the future of generative Artificial Intelligence in music (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Angel of Harlem: How a patron saint to a forgotten generation of musicians came to face her greatest challenge yet (ABC News)
* Space for the Wrong: An Interview with Frederic Rzewski (Atavist.com)
* Jazzman Dave Douglas finds inspiration in Dizzy Gillespie (Houston Chronicle)
* Hi-Fi Cocktail Bars Aren’t Just for Tokyo Anymore (Bloomberg.com)
* Holographic Frank Zappa Plays Guitar Solo in New Tour Promo (Rolling Stone)
* Berklee's Institute Of Jazz And Gender Justice Aims To Combat Sexism In Jazz (WBUR)
* The Songsmiths of Sesame Street (The Atlantic)
* Spotify, the Decline of Playlists and the Rise of Podcasts (Music Industry Blog)

Sunday Session: February 10, 2019

Archie Shepp

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:

* Alice Coltrane - Journey in Satchidananda (Pitchfork.com)
* 'Holy relic' blues guitar could sell for £120k (Gazette and Herald)
* Wadada Leo Smith Reflects on Civil Rights and Large-Scale Works (DownBeat)
* 'Green Book' doesn't do justice to Don Shirley's brilliant musicianship (Los Angeles Times)
* Roomful of Teeth Is Revolutionizing Choral Music (The New Yorker)
* SFJAZZ Honors Chucho Valdés at Annual Gala (DownBeat)
* 'American Pie' isn't a song about Buddy Holly, Don McLean says: 'It's about America' (Des Moines Register)
* "A Great Day In Harlem": Remembering the iconic 1958 photo of legendary musicians (CBS News)
* The One That’s Got the Mojo: The Ric and Ron Records legacy (Offbeat)
* Loop History: Skull Snaps’ “It’s A New Day” (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* Malaco Records: A soul survivor celebrates 50 years (MississippiToday.org)
* Bobbie Gentry's Box of Surprises (PopMatters.com)
* When Jazz Was a Public Health Crisis (JStor.org)
* The Divine Madness of Bill Laswell (JazzDaGama.com)
* How Did They Do That? The Extraordinary Story of Tomorrow’s Warriors. (Jazz in Europe)
* Lost in the woods with James Brown’s ghost (CNN)
* Musicians Attempt Class-Action Lawsuits Against UMG & Sony to Reclaim Rights to Recordings (Billboard)
* Andy Statman: Practical Mystic (BrooklynRail.org)
* Restoration of Nina Simone’s childhood home to begin this spring (GoUpstate.com)
* How Saxophone Player Jean-Baptiste Jacquet Integrated Houston Audiences (Houstonia)
* Prospectus Feature: Baseball and Jazz (BaseballProspectus.com)
* Joseph Jarman (1937–2019) (Art Forum)
* Folklore as a political act: William Ferris on preserving Mississippi Delta blues (CBC)
* Travels with Joni Mitchell - An oeuvre inaugurated by disavowal (NPlusOneMag.com)
* Marvin Gaye's Unreleased Album 'You're The Man' To See The Light Of Day (NPR)
* The Anger Inside Gary Clark, Jr. (Rolling Stone)
* Did academia kill jazz? (TheConversation.com)
* Trumpeter Marquis Hill Has a Message (DownBeat)
* At 81, jazz titan Archie Shepp’s legacy comes into clear focus (Washington Post)
* The New Cool: Ben Wendel talks about his album that's not an album, until now (KNKX)

Sunday Session: September 2, 2018

Wadada Leo Smith

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:

* Meet the Company Preparing to Be the Last CD Distributor Standing (Billboard)
* The 100 Best Selling Albums of All Time (Updated for 2018) (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* The World’s Greatest Living Jazz Composer Celebrates His Eighty-fifth Birthday (The New Yorker)
* ‘Go’: How Dexter Gordon Raced Into The Jazz History Books (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Esperanza Spalding Is The 21st Century's Jazz Genius (NPR)
* Walking to New Orleans: Davell Crawford's Tribute to Fats Domino (WNYC)
* Wadada Leo Smith's Defiant And Fearless Elegy For Emmett Till (In 360° VR) (NPR)
* Aretha Franklin Finally Gets Credit for the Term She Popularized (The Atlantic)
* Bob Dylan’s 2018 Setlists Are Starting to Get Interesting (Rolling Stone)
* 10 Afro-Latino Bands You Need to Check Out (OkayAfrica.com)
* Setting the Tempo (Slate)
* Alice Coltrane Concluded Trilogy with ‘Lord Of Lords’ (DownBeat)
* Flutist Nicole Mitchell uses music to map a possible paradise (Chicago Reader)
* 24-Carat Black Were Sampled by Pusha-T, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, JAY-Z—And They’re Still Broke (Pitchfork.com)
* New Orleans at 300: In Search of Jazz (Something Else)
* Hacking and 3D printing the future of violins, in a growing community (CDM.link)
* 'We're Not Just Bebop': Birdland Searches For Fresh Audiences With New 100-Seat Theater (Billboard)
* From musician to physician: Why medical schools are recruiting for musical ability (CBC)
* Bland on Blonde: why the old rock music canon is finished (The Guardian)
* “It Was Us Against Those Guys”: The Women Who Transformed Rolling Stone in the Mid-70s (Vanity Fair)
* Jazz's 'musical value is nil' (1918): An editorial we regret (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
* Show Tunes - Instead of selling albums, the music industry today sells fandom (RealLifeMag.com)
* Mondo Jazz Ep. 38: Aretha in Jazz & New Releases (AllAboutJazz.com)
* History of American Protest Music: Which Side Are You On? (LongReads.com)
* Pianist Randy Weston, An Eloquent Spokesman For Jazz's Bond with African Culture, Dies at 92 (WBGO)

Sunday Session: March 18, 2018

Charles McPherson

Here's the 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:

* Syrian refugees using music therapy to soothe the trauma of war (ABC.net.au)
* Meet the Electric Guitarist Who Gave Benny Goodman a Jolt (OZY.com)
* Inside the Gramercy: The Grit and Glamour of New York's Rock & Roll Hotel (Rolling Stone)
* The long, slow death of print music journalism (GlobalNews.ca)
* Dark and Deep Flows the River: An Interview with Wadada Leo Smith (PopMatters.com)
* The Treasured Preservation Hall Sousaphone Has Been Returned (Offbeat)
* Saudi Arabia's bootleg music shops (BBC)
* Why Labels Are Looking to Africa to Find the Next Global Pop Star (Billboard)
* Kurt Elling Remembers Jon Hendricks (Jazz Times)
* Blue Note Label Boss Don Was Is Not Ready to Give Up on Jazz (Forbes.com)
* The end of live music? (CompleteMusicUpdate.com)
* Kamasi Washington at Sydney Opera House: a defiant cry from a jazz star in his prime (The Guardian)
* Will Corporations Ruin Live Music in the Bay Area? (East Bay Express)
* Expert Introductions: The Quietus' Top 40 Genre Compilation Albums (TheQuietus.com)
* iHeartMedia Files for Bankruptcy (Variety)
* Charles McPherson: The Man and His Muse (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Chicago saxophonist Dave Rempis builds an intentional community in jazz (Chicago Reader)
* Q&A with Paal Nilssen-Love: In a Natural Way (DownBeat)
* The Residents pay tribute to Sun Ra (and Barry White) (DangerousMinds.net)
* Here's a Playlist of Songs You Know But You Can’t Name (Lifehacker.com)
* Reconsidering Gene Krupa, A Great Jazz Drummer Hiding in Plain Sight (WBGO)
* Bobby Previte: the Art of Travelling Trustingly (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Quincy Jones: 20 Great Productions (Rolling Stone)
* Which Cities Get the Most (and Least) Concerts? (Priceonomics.com)
* The Man Who Made Violins Out of New York City Buildings (AtlasObscura.com)
* Celebrating the Free Jazz Revolution, in Black and White (Village Voice)

Sunday Session: October 22, 2017

Abdullah Ibrahim

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

* Why are foreign bands being denied entry into the United States? (Alternative Press)
* Q&A with Don Was: Capturing the Blue Note Vibe (DownBeat)
* The Top Uses of Billie Holiday Songs in Movies or TV (TVOverMind.com)
* When Prince Asked Miles Davis to Play With Him (Diffuser.fm)
* Charnett Moffett: On Loss, Love & Vibrational Healing (Jazz Times)
* Critic's Notebook: Bill Murray, Classical Music's Unlikeliest Star (Hollywood Reporter)
* No alternative: how brands bought out underground music (The Guardian)
* Wadada Leo Smith continues to tinker with his masterpiece (Houston Chronicle)
* MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey stretches musical definitions (Chicago Tribune)
* Who Are the Best-Selling Artists of All Time? (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Star-Studded Concerts Planned in NYC to Aid Puerto Rico (DownBeat)
* Jazz Legend James “Blood” Ulmer Walks the Line Between Melody and Improv (Bandcamp.com)
* Why Is Sun Ra Suddenly Having His Moment? (Rolling Stone)
* Uber, But for Millennials Who Want Orchestras in Their Living Rooms (Wired)
* Thelonious Monk's Quiet, Slow Conquest of the World (The Atlantic)
* Which Sounds Better, Analog or Digital Music? (Scientific American)
* Abdullah Ibrahim: How Improvisation Saved My Life (NPR)
* Shaping the ’70s: Simon Draper and the Story of Virgin Records (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* David Torn: Making Records, Film Composition, and Working With David Bowie (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Could city takeover of embattled American Jazz Museum improve its fortunes? (Kansas City Star)
* Two months before the American Jazz Museum bounced checks to artists, it spent how much on a Learjet flight? (Pitch Weekly)
* Meet the Artist Single-Handedly Reviving a Dying Form of Music (Vice.com)
* Herbie Hancock riffs on the ‘ethics of jazz’ (Wisconsin Gazette)
* Philip Glass Reveals His Love for the Cello (The New Yorker)
* What’s actually going on when people talk about digital vs. analogue masters (TheVinylFactory.com)
* Sexism in Jazz, From the Conservatory to the Club: One Saxophonist Shares Her Story (WBGO)
* Perfect Pandemonium: The Art Ensemble Of Chicago At Cafe Oto (TheQuietus.com)

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: July 23, 2017

John Coltrane

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

* This conch shell trumpet would be heard far and wide in the ancient world (Science)
* Portrait of a jazz player: Remembering John Coltrane (Greensboro News-Record)
* John Coltrane: Beyond the Holy Mountain (Jazzwise)
* Marking the Death of John Coltrane, Through the Poetry of Amiri Baraka (WBGO)
* John Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' Is Still a Masterpiece After 50 Years (Newsweek)
* Alice Coltrane: “The Gifts God Gave Him” (Jazz Times)
* The John Coltrane Record That Made Modern Music (GQ)
* Where To Start... John Coltrane - Celebrating the work of a saxophone and spiritual giant (ClashMusic.com)
* Spotify Is Accused Of Creating Fake Artists — But What Is A Fake Artist? (NPR)
* Los Angeles Jazz Institute Festival "Big Band Spectacular" 2017, Part 1-4 (AllAboutJazz.com)
* In New Orleans, There's A Piece Of Music History Around Every Corner (NPR)
* SoundCloud tries to allay fears, but streaming needs a business model (CDM.link)
* On a scale of Monkees-to-Gorillaz, how should we evaluate fictional music? (Washington Post)
* Take a Cruise With Music’s Uncoolest People (TheDailyBeast.com)
* Can't Prog Rock Get Any Respect Around Here? (NPR)
* Fireside Chat: Wadada Leo Smith (RedBullRadio.com)
* 'It's like a Miles Davis trumpet solo': 'Swinging' birds are caught singing off-beat like jazz musicians (Daily Mail)
* Bill Laswell: Four Strings, Zero Limits (Premier Guitar)
* REPORT: Val Wilmer - The Wire Salon at Cafe Oto (London Jazz News)
* A Water Tank Turned Music Venue (The New Yorker)
* These super cool pictures show Frank Sinatra at his best in 1960s Miami (Timeline.com)
* Thelonious Monk's surreally strange and spartan genius gets its due (The Guardian)
* UCSD jazz haters prompt Brian Ross to move on (San Diego Reader)
* The Poetics of Jazz (The Nation)
* The Nels Cline Show (ForGuitarPlayersOnly.com)
* Jazz Legend Herbie Hancock Tells Us How He Wound Up In the Sci-Fi Epic 'Valerian' (Thrillist.com)
* Art Ensemble of Chicago Reunites in Norway (DownBeat)
* The 75 Moments That Defined the Decade in Music (So Far) (Billboard)
* 'Here Come The Girls'... Again (NPR)
* Editorial: Kansas City government can’t keep bailing out American Jazz Museum (Kansas City Star)
* Welcome to Moonlight Rollerway, Where Nothing Has Changed Since 1956 (Narrative.ly)

Sunday Session: April 30, 2017

Hugh Masekela

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

* UK music industry braced for Brexit (BBC)
* Nudity, chimps, and Dolly Parton's disembodied head: are these the worst album covers of all time? (The Telegraph)
* Trombone Shorty Pushes Tradition Forward (NPR)
* Preservation Propagation: Preservation Hall Jazz Band has left the museum behind (Offbeat)
* Hancock, Spalding, McBride Celebrate Shorter in Hometown (DownBeat)
* Review 'Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary' serves the jazz legend well (Los Angeles Times)
* Jazz Giant Wadada Leo Smith on Four Recent Collaborations (Bandcamp.com)
* Afrobeat Legend Tony Allen Honors Jazz Great With 'Tribute to Art Blakey' EP (Rolling Stone)
* Interview: Hugh Masekela on No Borders, Satchmo and reuniting the Jazz Epistles (BestOfNewOrleans.com)
* From the Magazine: Sipiagin Soars on New Sextet Album (DownBeat)
* Q&A: Henry Threadgill - Master improviser speaks on sustaining creativity (Austin Chronicle)
* Ella Fitzgerald: Beyond Words (Merriam-Webster.com)
* Duke Ellington And Copyright: Five Things You Should Know (JDSupra.com)
* Record Store Day Is Boon for Vinyl Sales (DownBeat)
* Remembering Ella Fitzgerald, Who Made Great Songs Greater (NPR)
* Stax Records Plots Massive 60th Anniversary Campaign (Rolling Stone)
* The Hidden Legacy of The Jazz Epistles, South Africa's Short-Lived But Historic Band (WBGO)
* What Controversial Changes at Harvard Mean for Music in the University (TheLogJournal.com)
* Ashok and Vijay Squeeze Blood from a Drum Machine (AAWW.org)
* The Story of Science Faction, the Company That Brought Lasers to Rock and Roll (Vice.com)
* A Jazz Classic Becomes a Picture Book (TabletMag.com)
* Q&A: Miles Mosley - The fiery, soulful bassist, singer and composer launches his Uprising (Jazz Times)
* Blue Note Jazz Festival Announces Lineup - Concerts by Metheny, Glasper, Collier, Hiromi, Tyner, Ponty and many more (Jazz Times)

Sunday Session: December 18, 2016

Dr. John

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

* Nile Rodgers Reflects on Working With Prince & David Bowie: 'Both Saw the World In Ways Unlike We See the World' (Billboard)
* Eating raccoon with Dr. John (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
* Chuck Jones’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” on Records (CartoonResearch.com)
* Before & After With Snarky Puppy's Michael League - Lots of insight, on little sleep (Jazz Times)
* Giving a Great Jazz Storyteller His Due (The New Yorker)
* Buddy Bolden house in danger (CradleOfJazzTour.com)
* Stanton Moore: Keeping Time and Making Time (JazzEdMagazine.com)
* WFMT expands, rebrands Jazz Network (RobertFeder.com)
* 'The Jingle King' Tracks Decline Of Original Music In Advertising (NPR)
* Jazz and Classical—Musical, Cultural, Listening Differences (New Music Box)
* High Notes: This Year Was Terrible, but at Least Local Jazz Labels Are Thriving (Village Voice)
* Wadada Leo Smith and Vijay Iyer: In Search of Cosmic Rhythm (TheLogJournal.com)
* Mack Avenue Expands Roster with Graves, Childs & DeFrancesco (DownBeat)
* Jazz Musicians the Beat Poets and French Existentialists Loved (KCRW)
* Picking Up the Piedmont Blues (Oxford American)
* John Luther Adams on Translating Birdsong and Paying Attention to the World’s Immensity (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* The Doors Reflect on Earliest Concerts, Jim Morrison's Genius (Rolling Stone)
* How ‘Mozart in the Jungle’ Brought an Obscure, Avant-Garde Piece of Classical Music to Rikers Island (FlavorWire.com)

Sunday Session: August 28, 2016

Wadada Leo Smith

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

* Reimagining Josephine Baker's Music in the Era of Black Lives Matter (New York Times)
* Is Sleep Music a Real Genre? (The Daily Beast)
* How Bad Urban Planning Led To The Birth Of A Billion-Dollar Genre (TheFader.com)
* Harmonica Virtuoso Toots Thielemans Dies at 94 (DownBeat)
* “Champeta is liberation”: The indestructible sound system culture of Afro-Colombia (FactMag.com)
* Zorn & Collaborators Hold Court in Engaging Vanguard Residency (DownBeat)
* Remembering Lou Pearlman: The Ponzi Schemer Who Spawned the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC & More (Billboard)
* A Visual History of Rock and Roll, Room by Empty Room (The New Yorker)
* How Sam Phillips Invented the Sound of Rock and Roll (Popular Mechanics)
* Grandmaster Flash on ‘The Get Down’ and how he used science to pioneer DJ techniques (Washington Post)
* ‘Sunday Night at the Vanguard’ by Fred Hersch Review - Looking at the special bond between a club and a composer (Wall Street Journal)
* Photography Book Documents Young Sinatra in New York (DownBeat)
* Divine disco: the beatific sub-genre that delivered sermons on the dancefloor (The Guardian UK)
* Why Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else in the world (QZ.com)
* Sample Clearance Expert Pat “The Detective” Shannahan is The Avalanches’ Secret Weapon - The behind-the-scenes force for records by the Beastie Boys, Janet Jackson, Beck and more on 20 years of tracking down samples (RedBullMusicAcademy.com)
* See the Photographs That Captured the Icons of Jazz (TIME)
* Wadada Leo Smith Celebrates National Parks with Double Album (DownBeat)
* Legendary Jazz Recording Engineer Rudy Van Gelder Dies at 91 (DownBeat)
* Postscript: Rudy Van Gelder (1924-2016), Modern Jazz’s Listener of Genius (The New Yorker)
* Herb Alpert Foundation to donate $10.1 million to LACC — making studies for music majors tuition-free (Los Angeles Times)
* Watch Dr. John Praise James Booker's Piano Genius (Rolling Stone)
* Angelo Badalamenti Reveals How He and David Lynch Composed the Twin Peaks‘ “Love Theme” (OpenCulture.com)
* Keeping the Blues Alive (Smithsonian)
* The Ballad of Big Freedia: How the New Orleans Bounce Icon Was Betrayed By Her City’s Housing Crisis (Pitchfork.com)

Sunday Session: March 27, 2016

Arturo O'Farrill

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

* Malcolm McLaren's son to burn £5m of punk memorabilia (The Guardian UK)
* Vijay Iyer/Wadada Leo Smith: A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke (The Quietus)
* What Happens When Pop/Alternative Radio Runs Out of Alternatives? (Billboard)
* Coltrane Church to vacate Western Addition at end of April (San Francisco Chronicle)
* Ray Davies: The Lonely Kink (Rolling Stone)
* Historic days for US and Cuba, accompanied by jazz (Jazz Beyond Jazz)
* How we made Motown (The Guardian UK)
* Paul McCartney strikes out to gain control of his share of the Beatles catalogue (The Guardian UK)
* Concord to Release Lee Ritenour Vinyl Box Set (Jazz Times)
* 10 Records You Might Have Owned That Are Now Worth a Fortune (MentalFloss.com)
* Vinyl sales in 2015 worth more than Spotify Free and YouTube combined (FactMag.com)
* Verve to Release “Jazz at the Philharmonic: The Ella Fitzgerald Set” (Jazz Times)
* Cosmic Slop: Pedro Bell’s fantastic, far-out and funky Funkadelic album art (DangerousMinds.net)
* Jazz Record Mart collection is now in distinguished company (Medill Reports Chicago)
* For jazz pianist, Obama's trip to Cuba 'beyond what I'd ever thought I'd see' (PRI)
* Born To Be Blue: Chet Baker In 5 Songs (NPR)
* Uri Caine: In dialogue with music history (Stuff.co.nz)
* Blue Note Becomes Apple Music Curator, Reissues Gems on Vinyl (DownBeat)
* Award-winning Composer David Baker Dies At 84 (Indiana Public Media)

Sunday Session: May 3, 2015

Esperanza Spalding

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

* The World Music Education of Philip Glass (NPR)
* Can Club Owners Make Musicians Play for Free? (The Daily Beast)
* How did Eddie Bo die? Six years later, the piano legend's son still wonders (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
* Selling the Blues - To draw tourists, the Mississippi Delta plays on its musical heritage (Al Jazeera)
* Spalding Combines Music, Theater, Poetry, Dance for New Production (DownBeat)
* Musicians Guild Sues Warner Bros, MGM, Paramount Over Film Scores (Hollywood Reporter)
* Why We Should Teach Music History Backwards (Smithsonian)
* Wadada Leo Smith Celebrates 50 Years of AACM with New York Residency (DownBeat)
* Steve Coleman, a Jazz Outlier, Rides a Wave of Acclaim (New York Times)
* How (not) to behave: Manners and the classical music audience (Washington Post)
* 2015 NEA Jazz Masters Awards Ceremony & Concert (Arts.gov)
* 50-plus recipes from New Orleans Jazz Fest vendors, musicians and chefs (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
* Herb Alpert talks music, Tijuana, more (San Diego Union Tribune)
* Louis Armstrong, the Real Ambassador (New York Times)
* How the Rich Stole Jazz Music (The Daily Beast)
* Concord to Reissue 15-CD Thelonious Monk Riverside Box Set (Jazz Times)

Notes from the Net: Miles biopic moves ahead, Oliver Lake's solo set, plus news, reviews, interviews, and more

Here's the latest compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* In recent Miles Davis-related news, Miles Davis Online looks at what's ahead for the trumpeter's legacy in 2011, and the proposed feature film biography of Davis now has a script and appears to be moving closer to reality. Meanwhile, Miles' producer Teo Macero was the subject of a roundtable discussion among contemporary DJs published by The Revivialist.

* Saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake (pictured) did a solo show last month in San Diego; via Avant Music News, here's a feature on Lake from the local paper, and here's a review from Robert Bush of AllAboutJazz.com.

* Speaking of AAJ, here's a review from that site's Clifford Allen of The Blue Mountain's Sun Drummer, the recently issued CD of a 1986 duet performance by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and drummer Ed Blackwell. Smith's Golden Quartet performed in St. Louis in November at 560 Music Center.

* In related news, Golden Quartet pianist Vijay Iyer has a new project, a trio called Tirtha that blends jazz and Indian music.

* Guitarist John McLaughlin, who played the Sheldon Concert Hall in November, recently talked to NPR about John Coltrane and spirituality in music.

* Singer Jane Monheit, who performed last month at Jazz at the Bistro, recently did an extended interview with AllAboutJazz.com's Esther Berlanga-Ryan.

* The Bad Plus just wrapped up their annual visit to St. Louis on Saturday to general acclaim, but the Chicago Tribune's Howard Reich felt their recent performance in Chicago, which preceded their gig here, could have been better.

Notes from the Net: Phil Perry's new collaboration; Mtume vs. Crouch; plus news, reviews, interviews, and more

Here's the latest compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* In this week's Miles Davis-related news, Davis' former percussionist James Mtume and journalist and critic Stanley Crouch recently debated the merits of the trumpeter's electric music of the 1970s, and their discussion was captured on video and posted online. Most opinions I've seen so far say Mtume schooled Crouch, but you can make up your own mind after watching the video clips here.

Meanwhile, Davis' iconic image remains as marketable as ever, with another recent example being Canada's jazz.fm using a limited edition print of a photo of Davis for a pledge premium.

* East St. Louis native Phil Perry (pictured) is the vocalist and co-writer on "Forever United," the first single released from Chicago flute player Nicole Mitchell's upcoming CD The Bi-Polar Music Project...Vol. 1: Licensed to Chill. Mitchell and Perry wrote the tune with Preston Glass, whose songs have been recorded by Aretha Franklin, Jermaine Stewart, Whitney Houston, Earth Wind and Fire, Kenny G, Lenny Williams and others. The single is showing on the Music Choice R&B/Soul channel and getting radio play in the U.K.

* In news of recent visitors to our town, the New Jersey public radio station WBGO's program The Checkout recently interviewed guitarist John McLaughlin, who was in St. Louis on Friday at the Sheldon Concert Hall as part of his current tour of North America. The guitarist also was interviewed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette before a show in that city, and is the subject of Follow Your Heart, a recently published book by music journalist Walter Kolosky that offers a song-by-song analysis of McLaughlin's recorded work.

* Violinist Regina Carter played Jazz at the Bistro earlier this month, and then went to Minneapolis to perform at the Dakota, where Pamela Espelund of the Twin Cities jazz blog Bebopified caught the show and wrote a enthusiastic review.

* Pianist Vijay Iyer, who was here the weekend before last with Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet, last week selected five of Smith's recordings for a sort of "intro to..." post about the trumpeter on NPR's A Blog Supreme.

* Saxophonist Victor Goines, who played the Sheldon that same weekend, just did a performance & lecture for the Chicago Humanities Festival exploring the standard "Body & Soul"

* Glancing quickly at the "coming attractions" file, The Bad Plus, who will be here in January at the Bistro, just played the London Jazz Festival

* Lastly, a few items of general interest to jazz fans: The Concord Music Group is offering 25% off the entire order when you spend at least $40 on recordings from the group's contemporary artists such as John Pizzarelli, Esperanza Spalding, Christian Scott, Stanton Moore, Stanley Clarke and others. Use the promo code NEWJAZZ to get the special pricing. There's also a free sampler album available for download, with tracks by Spalding, Scott, Mindi Abair, Fourplay, Hiromi, Lee Ritenour and Gerald Albright.

* Want to follow your favorite jazz artist(s) on Twitter? Donna, the single-named proprietress of the blog Elements of Jazz, has put together a handy yet comprehensive list of Twitter addresses for jazz musicians, receord labels, presenters, journalists, organizations, and so on.

* And from the "Handy Things You Can Do On The Internet" file, have you ever wanted to save the audio from a YouTube video as an .MP3 file for later reference? Turns out there are a number of websites created specifically for this purpose, and yr. humble StLJN editor recently has used two of them - http://www.video2mp3.net/ and http://www.listentoyoutube.com/ - with quite satisfactory results. Both sites are free, and neither requires registration. They do serve some pop-ups and interstitial ads, but if you don't mind clicking through that stuff, both seem to handle the conversion quickly and easily.

Jazz this week: Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet, Victor Goines, Trio Tres Bien, and more

It's another busy weekend for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with a variety of styles, from traditional to experimental, on offer from both touring and local performers. Let's go to the highlights:

Cabaret St. Louis continues their fall season this week with singer Valerie Lemon, who will perform her show spotlighting the music of Marvin Hamlisch nightly through Saturday at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

On Thursday, the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University presents a tribute to Kind of Blue by a band fronted by trumpeter Danny Campbell and saxophonists Jeff Anderson and Jason Swagler. (Presumably, they'll have a rhythm section there, too, but the announcement from the Jazz at Holmes email listserv didn't say who else would be involved.)

On Friday, Trio Tres Bien open a two-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. Featuring pianist Jeter Thompson and his brothers Harold on bass and Howard on drums, the group's straight-ahead, swinging sound (with occasional touches of Latin and soul) has made them a popular and enduring attraction for local jazz fans.

Also on Friday, guitarist Matthew Von Doran is back at Broadway Bean Coffee on the south side for a free performance backed by bassist Bob Deboo and drummer Kyle Honeycutt; and singer Cherise Rise Laday takes the stage at Robbie's House of Jazz with a band including guitarist Chris Burchett, pianist Adaron "Pops" Jackson, bassist Jahmal Nichols and drummer Irvin Neal.

On Saturday night, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet performs at the 560 Music Center in a concert sponsored by New Music Circle. This is the St. Louis debut for the Golden Quartet, which also includes bassist John Lindberg, drummer Pheeroan akLaff and pianist Vijay Iyer, and the performance promises to be one of this fall's creative music highlights. You can read my Riverfront Times Critic's Pick on the concert here, and to see some video of Smith and the Golden Quartet in action, check out this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

UPDATE, 11:00 p.m. 11/11/10: Smith was interviewed by Terry Perkins for an informative article on the concert published today by the St. Louis Beacon.

UPDATE, 1:00 a.m. 11/12/10: Smith also talked with Calvin Wilson of the Post-Dispatch for a story that's just come online here.

That same evening, saxophonist Victor Goines will make it a "Sonny" evening at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Goines, who's known to many jazz fans for collaborating with Wynton Marsalis in both the trumpeter's small group and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, will play music associated with Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt.

The Sheldon and Metrotix are offering a two-for-one discount on tickets for the concert; for details on that, go here. Goines also is a noted jazz educator who currently directs the jazz studies program and Northwestern University, and while he's in town he also will present a free master class on Saturday morning at Saxquest.

Also on Saturday, the Tom Byrne Trio will be at Robbie's House of Jazz, featuring Byrne on guitar & guitar synth, Willem von Hombracht on bass and Philip Graves on drums.

Then on Sunday, Robbie's will celebrate a holiday event in the surrounding Old Webster business district with a jazz brunch/concert at 3:00 p.m. featuring singer Jeanne Trevor, pianist John Pyatt, and friends.

Also on Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis Jazz Club will present keyboardist Bob Row's group, featuring clarinetist Scott Alberici, at Doubletree Hotel & Conference Center in Chesterfield. Also, Tom Byrne is back in action Sunday night with his Pat Metheny tribute Have You Heard? at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday pianist Phil Gomez and Clave Sol will play Latin jazz at BB's, and on Tuesday morning, Elsie Parker & the Poor People of Paris will perform a Coffee Concert of their jazz-inflected, French cabaret-style music at the Sheldon. (As is customary with the Coffee Concerts series, they'll return to repeat the same program on Wednesday morning.)

For more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, 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: Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet

This week, let's take a look at some video clips featuring trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet, who will be in St. Louis on Saturday, November 13 to perform at the 560 Music Center under the auspices of New Music Circle.

Given that Smith, bassist John Lindberg and drummer Pheeroan akLaff all are long-established, well-respected performers in the field of creative improvised music, and pianist Vijay Iyer is one of the most talked-about jazz musicians of recent years, it's tempting, though perhaps a bit glib, to call the Golden Quartet an "avant-jazz supergroup." But don't call their music "free jazz."

Smith makes that clear in a short quote seen at the beginning of the first clip up above, part of a film called Eclipse recorded in 2004 at Festival Banlieues Bleues in Paris. Though this version of the group included Ronald Shannon Jackson on drums instead of akLaff, what the trumpeter says in the introduction about their modus operandi - that the music is based on systems, and therefore cannot been considered free - presumably still applies.

Indeed, if you look closely, you'll see that all the musicians have music stands in front of them, and there are even a couple of quick glimpses of the score they're working from, which appears to contain a mix of standard notated passages, graphic scoring, and written instructions. You can also see Smith giving cues in a couple of these clips, another signpost of a structured improvisation in which the musicians have a great deal of freedom to improvise and invent, but do their improvising within a predetermined form or sequence of events.

Down below, the second clip, which features the current lineup of the Golden Quartet including akLaff, was recorded in 2009 at a Festival in Sardinia, Italy. Below that, there's an excerpt from the band's performance this past July in San Sebastián, Spain. (The music kicks in after a short introduction from an on-camera presenter.)

Batting cleanup is a video recorded in 2008 at the Vision Festival in NYC, in which the Golden Quartet is expanded to a quintet with the addition of drummer Famoudou Don Moye of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. They're performing an excerpt of "Al-Shadhili's Litany of the Sea: Sunrise," from the 2009 CD Spiritual Dimensions.

For more about Wadada Leo Smith and the Golden Quartet, check out this review of their April 2010 show in Los Angeles, by the Los Angeles Times' Chris Barton, and this 2008 interview with Smith, done by Josef Woodard for Jazz Times.

A sneak peek at New Music Circle's 2010-11 season schedule

If you've visited the New Music Circle website recently, you may have noticed what's labeled a "preview" of the presenting organization's 2010-11 season. While some of NMC's events for the coming year still are yet to be confirmed, NMC board member Jim Hegarty last week was able to provide a few additional details about the season for StLJN's readers.

For jazz fans, the biggest news probably is that NMC will present the Golden Quartet on Saturday, November 13 at the 560 Music Center in University City. Led by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith (pictured), the Golden Quartet is a sort of avant-jazz supergroup featuring pianist Vijay Iyer, bassist John Lindberg, and drummer Pheeroan AkLaff. While Iyer performed here with his trio in January at Jazz at the Bistro and Lindberg has played St. Louis before with the New York String Trio, it appears that this show will be the first St. Louis appearance ever for Smith and AkLaff, both of whom have had long careers of some significance in jazz and improvised music.

Also on tap for the fall: "Visual Music Improv," a performance on Saturday, October 23 at the Mildred E. Bastian Performing Arts Center at St. Louis Community College - Forest Park featuring work from video artist Zlatko Cosic and musicians John Consiglio and Brad Decker; and
a "New Music Circle Showcase" (date and venue TBA) featuring Ron Coulter (percussion, electronics, voice, and self-built instruments), Lauri des Marais (sound designer and choreographer), BaBa Mike Nelson (percussion, vocals), and Eric Hall (electronics and processed instruments).

The new year will bring a concert from the Bloom Project, with pianist Thollem McDonas and saxophonist Rent Romus, on Saturday, January 22nd at the Kranzberg Arts Center. McDonas has has played a number of St. Louis gigs in recent years, including at least one show with the Bloom Project, which features "free improvisations as well as interpretations of numerous textual and graphical scores ...combining disparate and divergent stylistic histories with a sense of immediacy, intensity, and spontaneous inventiveness."

Also returning in 2011 are the duo of violist LaDonna Smith and guitarist Davey Williams, both veteran free-improvising musicians based in Birmingham, AL who have played here before under NMC's auspices. Smith and Williams will be in St. Louis in February, venue TBA, while cellist and fellow Birminghamian Craig Hultgren also will be back next year for a performance in April at the Kranzberg.

New to NMC next spring will be Trio Kinsella, a Kansas City–based ensemble featuring pianist Brendan Kinsella, cellist Ben Gitter and flute player Jonathan Borja. They'll perform original compositions on a date and at a venue TBA.

St. Louis-based pianist Peter Henderson, who's earned a reputation as a compelling interpreter of 20th century and contemporary composers, also will do a concert for NMC next spring, date and venue TBA, performing Frederic Rzewski's "The People United Will Never Be Defeated", and Fred Onovwerosuoke's "24 Studies In African Rhythm."

Also still awaiting a date and venue is Hegarty's own Laptop Orchestra Project, "a performance by a laptop computer ensemble consisting of originally composed works created by the participants and featuring soloists on acoustic instrument or voice in a large, open venue." The project also will include "an education component that provides interested participants and auditors instruction in the laptop orchestra software/hardware system, building of speaker systems, and the special considerations of composing for this ensemble."

Tickets for most New Music Circle shows are $15 regular admission, $7 for students/artists with a valid ID, and NMC also offers season memberships that include tickets to all concerts. StLJN will have more on New Music Circle's 2010-11 season as shows are confirmed and further announcements are made, and of course you also can visit NMC's website for more information.