Music Education Monday: Guitar lessons from Pat Martino

If you had a chance to hear guitarist Pat Martino when he performed in St. Louis a couple of weeks ago, you may have wondered how he does what he does.

Today for Music Education Monday, you may get at least a partial answer to that question, as you can see Martino (pictured) explaining some of his concepts and musical ideas via a series of video lessons.

Excerpted from an "interactive video master class" called The Nature of Guitar, the lessons total more than 70 minutes of material spread across 11 individual videos.

The first clip, "A Compositional Journey," is the longest of the set at nearly 25 minutes, followed by segments titled "The Utensil & The Experience," "Seven Primaries: Triangle," "Chromatic Scale: Octavistics," and "'Stairways' & Chromaticism."

Next up is "Parental Forms Revealed," followed by "G7 Improv: Minor Form," "Diminished Parental Form: Dom7," an overview and breakdown of Martino's original "Welcome to a Prayer," and a performance of an improvised blues.

All 11 clips have been compiled into a YouTube playlist, which you can see in the embedded window below.

Music Education Monday: Six-month index, November 2015 - May 2016

It's now been a year and a half since StLJN's "Music Education Monday" feature began, spotlighting free music education resources available online.

To help keep the information easily accessible to as many people as possible, here's an index of posts from the last six months. (You can see indices of the first year's worth of posts here and here.)

The series will continue with a new entry next week. In the meantime, here's a chance to catch up with previous posts you may have missed:

* Developing a theme into a big band arrangement
* A master class with Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Threadgill
* An online course in improvisation from MIT, and more
* A master class with David Liebman's Expansions
* Summer 2016 jazz camps in St. Louis
* A master class with percussionist Airto Moreira
* Expand your musical mind with Brian Eno and John Cage
* A jazz trumpet clinic with Etienne Charles
* A jazz guitar workshop with Barney Kessel
* A master class in improvisation with Gary Burton
* Feeling the funk with Paul Jackson and Mike Clark
* Jazz drumming tips from Lewis Nash
* Workshops with saxophonist Steve Coleman
* A master class with pianist Bill Charlap
* Learning jazz violin with Christian Howes, and more
* A workshop with saxophonist Dewey Redman
* A master class with composer John Corigliano
* Yale University's open online course "Listening to Music"
* "Jazz Fusion Master Class" with Zakir Hussain
* Master classes with saxophonist Chris Potter
* A Latin jazz bass clinic with Oscar Stagnaro
* A master class with trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire
* Two Q&As with saxophonist Kirk Whalum
* B-3 for beginners, part 2
* Guitar lessons from John McLaughlin, and more

(All previous posts in this series also can be seen in reverse chronological order by clicking on the tag "Music Education Monday.")

Music Education Monday: A jazz trumpet clinic with Etienne Charles

Today for Music Education Monday, let's look in via video on a jazz trumpet clinic presented by  Etienne Charles.

Born in 1983 on the island of Trinidad, Charles (pictured) has a master's degree from Juilliard and a bachelor's from Florida State University, and currently serves as assistant professor of jazz studies at Michigan State University. 

As a sideman, he has performed and or recorded with Monty Alexander, Roberta Flack, Frank Foster, Ralph MacDonald, Johnny Mandel, Wynton Marsalis, Marcus Roberts, Maria Schneider, Count Basie Orchestra, and many others. As a bandleader and composer, Charles' Eastern Caribbean origins figure prominently in recordings such as 2013's Creole Soul, which incorporates grooves from throughout the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, and Kaiso, a 2011 release featuring jazz interpretations of popular calypso tunes. 

The video below was recorded in 2013 during the National Trumpet Competition at George Mason University in Virgina, and features Charles, a former NTC winner himself, talking about a variety of topics including practicing, developing a personal sound, and improvisation, and demonstrating with musical examples. .

Music Education Monday: A Latin jazz bass clinic with Oscar Stagnaro

Unless you follow Latin jazz and/or jazz education fairly closely, you might not know Oscar Stagnaro by name, but the veteran bassist has the knowledge and the chops to rank with the best in the business.

A native of Peru, Stagnaro (pictured) has been a professor at Berklee College of Music since 1988, and has written three books and numerous magazine articles about Latin jazz bass techniques and concepts. He's also been the regular bassist for saxophonist and clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera since 1992, and has performed and recorded with many other well-known jazz and Latin musicians.

Earlier this month, Stagnaro visited the NYC "Artist Loft" of amp maker Aguilar to present a bass clinic, in which he demonstrated a variety of Latin feels and grooves and took questions from the audience. You can see that clinic in its entirety in the embedded video below.

Music Education Monday: A master class with trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire

Today for Music Education Monday, it's a master class from trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire.

A rising star in the jazz world, the 33-year-old native of Oakland, CA studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the University of Southern California, and in 2007 was the winner of both the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition and the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition.

Akinmusire (pictured) has performed and recorded as a sideman with musicians including Vijay Iyer, Esperanza Spalding, Jason Moran, and Aaron Parks, and was featured on the last track of hip-hop performer Kendrick Lamar's critically acclaimed 2015 release To Pimp a Butterfly. He's also released three albums as a leader, the most recent of which, The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint, came out in March 2014 on the Blue Note label.

The video below documents a master class that Akinmusire presented in 2012 to young musicians associated with the Monterey Jazz Festival's Next Generation orchestra.

For more from Akinmusire, you also may want to check out the "Before and After" feature that he did in 2012 for Jazz Times magazine, in which he listens to and comments on recording by a number of well-known trumpeters.

You can see the master class video after the jump...

Music Education Monday: Two Q&As with saxophonist Kirk Whalum

Saxophonist Kirk Whalum will be in St. Louis this Sunday to present his "Gospel According to Jazz" Christmas show at Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church, so today's Music Education Monday post seems like a good opportunity to share an educational video featuring the Memphis native, who's also a nephew of St. Louis pianist and saxophonist Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum.

In the first video, which Whalum (pictured) recorded in 2012 at Loyola University in Chicago under the auspices of Artists House Music, he gives a solo performance and answers questions about a variety of topics ranging from saxophone techniques to the music business.

Below that, as a bonus you can check out another Q&A that Whalum did in 2012 for Jazz Times magazine's "In Person with JazzTimes" series, in which he talks about his early musical development and education, first musical instrument, and first paying gig.

You can see both videos after the jump...

Music Education Monday: Six-month index, May 2015 - November 2015

It's now been slightly more than a year since StLJN's "Music Education Monday" feature began, spotlighting free music education resources available online.

To help keep the information easily accessible to as many people as possible, here's an index of posts from the last six months. (You can see an index of the previous six months of posts here.)

The series will continue with a new entry next week. In the meantime, here's your chance to catch up with any of the previous posts you may have missed:

* A master class with Michael Brecker, and more
* A master class with Ramsey Lewis
* A rhythm section workshop with Rufus Reid
* B-3 for beginners
* A master class with Tony Williams
* Pat Metheny and John Scofield on improvisation
* Paquito D'Rivera on composing and playing clarinet, and more
* Master classes with Wynton Marsalis
* A master class with trombonist Bill Watrous
* Saxophone workshops with Dave Liebman and Bill Evans
* Exploring world music
* New Orleans piano with Jon Cleary and Tom McDermott
* Drum clinics with Greg Hutchinson and Ralph Humphrey
* Master classes with saxophonist Ernie Watts
* Standard tunes every jazz musician should know
* A master class with Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer
* Songwriting with Jason Robert Brown
* Vocal tips from Kurt Elling and Frank Sinatra, and more
* The Purdie Shuffle
* Master classes with pianists Chick Corea and Kenny Werner
* Audio recording basics
* A drum lesson and conversation with Ginger Baker
* Electric bass lessons from Jaco Pastorius and Bob Babbitt
* Trumpet solos transcribed, plus master classes with Ingrid Jensen and Brian Lynch
* Summer jazz camps in St. Louis

Music Education Monday: Master classes with saxophonist Ernie Watts

For this week's Music Education Monday, you can take in a couple of master classes on video from the veteran saxophonist Ernie Watts.

In addition to his own recordings as a leader, Watts (pictured) has played with an exceptional range of jazz, rock and soul musicians and groups, including Buddy Rich, Bobby Hutcherson, Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show band, bassist Charlie Haden's Quartet West, Marvin Gaye, the Rolling Stones, and many more.

He last performed in St. Louis with Severinsen and the Tonight Show alumni band in 2013 at the Touhill, and also was heard here in 2012 with pianist Laurence Hobgood's quartet at Jazz at the Bistro.

In today's first master class video, recorded in 2012 at the Jazz Education Network conference in Louisville, KY, the saxophonist offers his thoughts on "A Melodic Approach to Improvisation." The second video also was recorded in 2012, at the Mariachi Sax Boutique in Moscow, which seems to be the Russian equivalent of St. Louis' Saxquest.

You can see both videos after the jump...

Music Education Monday: Saxophone master classes with Greg Osby

For this week's "Music Education Monday," we've got some ideas and information for saxophonists in both video and audio form, courtesy of St. Louis native Greg Osby.

Osby (pictured), now 54 years old, attended Howard University and Berklee. Moving to NYC, in the early years of his career he performed and/or recorded with many jazz greats active in the 1980s, including Jack DeJohnette, Jim Hall, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, and many more.

Osby also worked closely with fellow alto saxophonist Steve Coleman and other colleagues developing the concepts for what came to be known as M-BASE (which probably deserves a "Music Education Monday" post of its own one day).

More recently, after recording 13 albums as a leader for Blue Note, Osby formed his own label, Inner Circle Music, to release his recordings as well as music from others. Through the label and live performances, he also has emerged as a significant mentor to younger musicians, having already provided early professional experience in his bands for current stars such as pianist Jason Moran and drummers Eric Harland and Nasheet Waits.

Osby often does master classes in conjunction with his gigs, and after the jump, you can see an embedded video of one he recently did in Moscow, Russia. It's a long session, nearly two hours and 45 minutes, and though it's extended quite a bit by the need to translate from English to Russian, there's still a lot of material there.

After that, there's an audio-only recording of another master class he did in October of last year at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. (Note that the embedded SoundCloud player used to deliver the audio occasionally can be a bit glitchy; if you don't see it when you click through, try reloading the page.)

As lagniappe, there are a couple of short videos Osby recorded as part of his endorsement deal with saxophone maker P. Mauriat. In the first, he talks about intonation and the difference in sound and approach between jazz and classical saxophone; in the second, he demonstrates a special limited edition signature model alto made for him by the company.

Reflecting his interest in sharing musical information, Osby's website has a "Resources" section that includes sheet music and MIDI files for a number of his original compositions. He also shares some interesting thoughts about music in a couple of interviews, done in 1995 and 2008, with journalist Ted Panken, which are archived together on Panken's website.

You'll find the video and audio material after the jump...

Dave Weckl to present drum clinic Monday, October 13 at Airport Hilton

Drummer and St. Charles native Dave Weckl is coming home to present a drum clinic at 7:00 p.m., Monday, October 13 at the St. Louis Airport Hilton, 10330 Natural Bridge Rd.

The event is sponsored by Fred Pierce Studio Drum Shop, which was a frequent hangout for Weckl (pictured) during his teenage years. It's one of a series of clinics Weckl will be doing next month, and will be followed by stops in New York, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.

Weckl's latest recording, Of The Same Mind, was released earlier this month, and features an acoustic band with bassist and fellow St. Louisan Tom Kennedy, keyboardist Makuto Ozone and bassist Gary Meek.

Tickets for the Dave Weckl drum clinic are $20 each and can be purchased at Fred Pierce's and, if seats are still available, at the door.