Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short local news items of interest:
* Drummer and St. Louis native
Mark Colenburg, currently working with pianist Robert Glasper, is
featured in the current issue of Yamaha's promotional magazine All Access.
* Saxophonist
David Sanborn's next album
Enjoy The View, a collaborative effort with mallet percussionist Bobby Hutcherson, organist Joey DeFrancesco, and drummer Billy Hart
is coming out Tuesday, June 24 on Blue Note Records. The album marks Hutcherson's return to the label for which he did some of his most widely recognized recordings in the 1960s and 70s.
* Pianist
Peter Martin will travel next week to NYC's Jazz at Lincoln Center to lead
a restaging of The Real Ambassadors, the musical that was created in 1961 by Dave Brubeck and Louis Armstrong to spread American culture around the world.
The work was recorded for Columbia in 1961, but was performed live only once, at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival. Other participants in the revival will include bassist Robert Hurst, drummer Ulysses Owens, vocalist Roberta Gambarini and trumpeter James Zollar, plus Yolande Bavan, who took part in the 1962 performance, as the narrator.
* Saxophonist and jazz educator Ronald Carter
(pictured), who trained many local musicians while he was band director at East St. Louis' Lincoln HS, is
retiring this spring from his job as head of jazz studies at Northern Illinois University. A concert paying tribute to Carter will take place next Thursday, April 10, in the Duke Ellington Ballroom of the Holmes Student Center on the NIU campus.
* Pianist
Stephanie Trick's performance last month for the Roosmoor Jazz Club in Walnut Creek, CA was
captured on video and is featured on the blog Jazz Lives.
* New music ensemble
Alarm Will Sound has posted to their Facebook page
an album of photos from their performance Tuesday at the Pageant
* Saxophonist
Oliver Lake is set to take part in a tribute to Eric Dolphy next month in Montclair, NJ that will feature some Dolphy compositions never before recorded or performed in public. Drummer Pheeroan akLaff is organizing the show, which also will include luminaries such as Richard Davis, Gunther Schuller, Don Byron, Vernon Reid, and Henry Threadgill, and is
raising funds via a page on IndieGoGo.
* Speaking of fundraisers, trumpeter
Terence Blanchard still has a long way to go in his effort to gather $140,000 to record
Champion, his "opera in jazz" that premiered last summer at Opera Theatre St. Louis. With 19 days to go,
the project's IndieGoGo page puts the contributions to date at $13,035.
Coincidentally, Blanchard this past week also was involved in paying tribute to the St. Louis area's most famous jazz musician, performing
the music of Miles Davis and Gil Evans in a concert at the University of Miami.
* And speaking of Davis, reviews are coming in for the new box set of material he recorded at the Fillmore from publications ranging from the
New York Times to the
San Antonio Current, to online outlets including
PopMatters,
Pitchfork,
The Arts Desk, and
AllAbout Jazz.com.
* Congratulations to Jon Poses of the
"We Always Swing" jazz series in Columbia, who was
named one of 24 local "Jazz Heroes" for 2014 by the Jazz Journalists Association.
*
Vintage Vinyl marketing manager Jim Utz was
profiled in an article this week's St. Louis Business Journal, though alas, the full text is for subscribers only.
*
St. Louis Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts will present their next "Business Edge" workshop on Monday, April 7 at the Regional Arts Commission offices on Delmar. Titled "Square Feet," the session will provide information on real estate contracts aimed at artists contemplating leasing living or working space. The cost is $10 per person in advance, and you can register by sending an email to vlaa at stlrac dot org.
*
Jazz radio update: On this Saturday's edition of Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis'
"Somethin' Else," host Calvin Wilson will showcase "new standards" from current popular artists from OutKast to Oasis as performed by musicians including trumpeter Wallace Roney, singer-pianist Patricia Barber, and bassist Ben Allison.
After that,
The Jazz Collective's host Jason Church will celebrate the program's one-year anniversary with a re-broadcast of his very first episode, featuring music from Chris Standring, Bob James, Ronny Jordan, Tia Fuller, Miles Davis, Ben Williams, Funky Butt Brass Band, Tommy Halloran, Dawn Weber, and Robert Silverman.
Wilson's program airs at 8:00 p.m. Saturdays, followed by Church at 9:00 p.m., on 107.3 FM, 96.3 HD-2, and online at
http://www.rafstl.org/listen.
