It's the start of a new year and a new month, which means it's time once again to check in on StLJN's sibling site Heliocentric Worlds, where each day there's posted a new online music video, drawing on genres including jazz, blues, soul, funk, prog rock, classic rock, experimental, and more.
The most-viewed posts added to the site last month were:
Other recent posts have included videos of performances by the Gene Harris Quartet, Al Jarreau, Taj Mahal, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry, Return To Forever, The Surfrajettes, Cécile McLorin Salvant and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Andrew White Quartet, Eric Burdon & War, Roger Troutman & Zapp, The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Lightnin' Hopkins, Betty Carter, Procol Harum, David Bowie, Pat Metheny and Charlie Haden, Artemis, Rufus Harley, Steel Pulse, Clark Terry, Hot Tuna, Tom Waits, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, and Elvin Jones.
If you've missed out seeing and hearing all this until now, not to worry - you still can catch all these videos, plus thousands more from the archives, by going to https://heliocentricworlds.blogspot.com/.
For this final Saturday video post of 2020, we continue with the theme of last week's post, looking at performances from some of the winner's in this year's Readers Poll in DownBeat magazine.
The first video up above features singer Gregory Porter, who tied for first place in the poll's "male vocalist" category. Porter and his band, which includes St. Louis' own Jahmal Nichols on bass and Emanuel Harrold on drums, can be seen performing a full set in 2018 at the Rheingau Musik Festival in Germany.
After the jump, you can see a set by Kurt Elling, who tied with Porter as best male vocalist, from 2018 at the Jazz San Javier festival in Spain.
Next up is a video that showcases two of this year's poll winners, organist Joey DeFrancesco and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Their "Big Band B-3" concert was recorded in 2019 at Lincoln Center, and features music from "two classic records that defied the organ’s typical small group confines," Duke Ellington’s "New Orleans Suite," and St. Louis native Oliver Nelson's arrangements of "Peter and the Wolf," which originally were presented on record with the great organist Jimmy Smith as soloist.
That's followed by a video featuring Regina Carter, a perennial poll-winner who once again this year was named top violinist in the DB poll. In the only one of today's clips recorded in this pandemic-curtailed year, Carter can be seen with her husband, drummer Alvester Garrett, streaming an intimate duo performance from their home back in April.
The fifth video features percussionist Poncho Sanchez, another multiple winner in the DB polls, and his band, as recorded in 2014 for the Voice of America's program "The Hamilton Live."
And getting the last word today is another high-profile singer (and pianist), Diana Krall, who once again was chosen by DownBeat readers as favorite female vocalist. She's seen here as the featured guest on a 2015 episode of the online video series "Live@Home."
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of trumpeter and educator Clark Terry, who remains one of the most famous and significant jazz musicians to be born in St. Louis.
Clark Terry's career in jazz spans more than sixty years. He is a world-class trumpeter, flugelhornist, educator, and NEA Jazz Master. He performed for seven U.S. Presidents, and was a Jazz Ambassador for State Department tours in the Middle East and Africa. More than fifty jazz festivals in all seven continents still feature him. He received a Grammy Award, two Grammy certificates, three Grammy nominations, thirteen honorary doctorates, keys to cities, lifetime achievements and halls of fame awards. He was knighted in Germany and is the recipient of the French Order of Arts and Letters. Clark's star on the Walk of Fame, and his Black World History Museum's life-sized wax figure can both be visited in his hometown, St. Louis, Missouri.
Clark composed more than two hundred jazz songs, and his books include Let's Talk Trumpet: From Legit to Jazz, Interpretation of the Jazz Language and Clark Terry's System of Circular Breathing for Woodwind and Brass Instruments.
He recorded with The London Symphony Orchestra, The Dutch Metropole Orchestra, The Duke Ellington Orchestra and The Chicago Jazz Orchestra, at least thirty high school and college ensembles, his own duos, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets, octets, and two big bands — Clark Terry's Big Bad Band and Clark Terry's Young Titans of Jazz. His career as both leader and sideman with more than three hundred recordings demonstrates that he is one of the luminaries in jazz.
As impressive as that list of achievements is, it omits a couple of yr. StLJN editor's favorite facts about Terry - namely, that he was one of a very few musicians to work with both Duke Ellington and Count Basie, both of whom called Terry the best trumpeter they ever employed; and that he was the first African-American musician to be a regular member of the orchestra led by Doc Severinsen on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, integrating that ensemble in 1962.
StLJN has been paying tribute to Terry this year with a series of Saturday video posts:
Also here in his hometown, presenting organization Jazz St. Louis staged their own tribute to Terry, featuring an ensemble of local musicians playing songs written by or associated with the trumpeter. The performance was streamed last Thursday night, and has been archived on YouTube.
After the jump, you can see some of the birthday tributes shared online by fans, DJs, critics, and fellow musicians including Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock. (This portion of the post will be updated several times throughout the day and evening.)
This week, let's take one more trip into the video vault of NYC's Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. While the twoprevious posts here featuring JaLCO have emphasized their capabilities as a repertory ensemble, this week's selection of videos is more of a grab bag, with three shows offering interpretations of familiar material and and three spotlighting original works by the orchestra's members.
To get things started, the first video up above, "Lush Life: Celebrating Billy Strayhorn," was recorded in June 2016 and surveys the sometimes-underappreciated career of the composer and arranger who served as Duke Ellington's right-hand man and rehearsal pianist, and also wrote many significant pieces of music for the Ellington band, including the signature song, "Take The A Train."
After the jump, you can see "Jazz in the Key of Life," a program from January 2016 in which the orchestra presents arrangements of
popular music from the 1960s to today, including songs by Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, The Beatles, Elton John, and more.
That's followed by, as the old saying goes, something completely different in the form of "Nursery Song Swing," which features JaLCO's original arrangements of various folk, traditional, and contemporary songs for children as recorded in March, 2018.
Next, it's "The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Songbook," a sampler of various original compositions and arrangements from Marsalis and other members of the orchestra, recorded in October 2017.
The fifth video, titled "Spiritual Sounds & The Jazz Age," features extended works from two longtime JaLCO members, saxophonist/clarinetist Victor Goines and trombonist Chris Crenshaw. Both Goines' "Untamed Elegance" and Crenshaw’s "God’s Trombones" were recorded as part of the same program in January of this year.
The final video, which documents Marsalis' original suite "The Abyssinian Mass," was recorded in November 2019 and featuring the Chorale Le Chateau along with the orchestra.
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
This week, let's go back into the video vaults of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to look at more examples of their work as a repertory ensemble. (Last week's post, which featured JaLCO's interpretations of music associated with six different jazz greats, can be seen here.)
Today's spotlight is on performances that dig into jazz repertory from the angles of era and genre, starting with the first video up above, which features works from two of the essential jazz big bands. The concert, recorded in April 2018 at JaLCO's home venue, the Rose Theater in their New York headquarters, starts with "The Best of Basie," which, as the name implies, is something of a live "greatest hits" presentation of music from Count Basie, followed by a performance of one of Duke Ellington's most celebrated extended works, "Black, Brown & Beige."
After the jump, you can see more interpretations of vintage music from big bands in the next two videos. A program called "Birth of the American Orchestra," recorded in January 2015, revisits the roots of the big band sound as developed by Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, Eddie Durham, and others.
Then "The Swing Era—Revolution in Rhythm" from November 2016 follows those developments into the 1930s with more from Ellington, Henderson and Benny Goodman, plus a new work inspired by the era that was composed by JaLCO trumpeter Marcus Printup.
Next up, "Handful of Keys: A Century of Jazz Piano" from September 2016 features guest pianists Helen Sung, Joey Alexander, Isaiah Thompson, Myra Melford, Larry Willis and Dick Hyman along with JaLCO's own Dan Nimmer presenting new arrangements of music associated with some of the greatest keyboardists in jazz.
The last two videos find the orchestra going beyond straight-ahead jazz to show how the music can mix with allied genres. In "The Music of Puente, Machito, and Henriquez" from June 2015, bassist Carlos Henriquez leads the orchestra through Latin jazz classics and a new work of his own, aided by guest percussionists Johnny Rodriguez, Jose Madera Jr., and George Delgado and vocalists Marco Bermudez and Nilsa Rodriguez.
The final video "South African Songbook" was recorded in September 2019, and features South African guest musicians who have chosen "essential" songs from their country to perform in new arrangements with the JaLCO.
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
As part of StLJN's continuing quest to bring you some sort of jazz-related content here each week (without being able to rely on this feature's primary raison d'etre of previewing upcoming shows in St. Louis), today let's take a look in the video vault of Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New York City-based presenter and producing organization headed by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.
The organization's Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, formed 32 years ago and still directed by Marsalis, takes on as one part of its artistic mission the role of a repertory group, performing new and classic arrangements of music by some of the most important innovators in jazz.
This post includes a half-dozen examples of the JaLCO's celebrations of jazz greats, starting up above with their tribute to the music of Miles Davis, recorded in November 2018 at the Rose Theater in the JaLC HQ in New York.
Along with Marsalis conducting and playing trumpet, the band at this juncture included longtime members such as saxophonists
Sherman Irby, Ted Nash and Victor Goines, trumpeters Ryan Kisor, Kenny Rampton, and Marcus Printup, and trombonist Vincent Gardner, plus rising star Camille Thurman on tenor sax, with the lineup rounded out by more top NYC players.
Most of those same musicians also were part of the ensemble for the first video after the jump, which documents the orchestra's tribute to pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, as performed in October 2018 at the Rose Theater.
Next, you can see a recording of a program called "Celebrating Ella: The First Lady of Jazz," recorded in April 2017 and featuring guest vocalists Kenny Washington and Roberta Gambarini plus tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano.
Given Marsalis' known musical conservatism, things take a somewhat unexpected turn in the next video, as JaLCO ofers big band arrangements of the music of Ornette Coleman, recorded in May 2018.
The orchestra is back on more familiar ground in the fifth video, which documents their tribute to the music of Dizzy Gillespie in January 2017.
Last but not least, JaLCO takes on a different kind of challenge in the form of the odd meters of the music of pianist and composer Dave Brubeck, in a program recorded back in April 2014 at Rose Theater.
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* The Jazz Journalists Association has named Gene Dobbs Bradford of Jazz St. Louis (pictured) as one of 27 local "Jazz Heroes" for 2020. The awards are given annually to "activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz" in different cities across the USA.
* Also on St. Louis Public Radio, Christian Frommelt, dance teacher and co-organizer of the Nevermore Jazz Ball, was the subject of a feature story about how local swing dancers are still pursuing their hobby during the COVID-19 shutdown.
* As many cultural organizations dig into their vaults for video and audio material to share during the shutdown, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis has posted to YouTube a full concert performance "The Music of Miles Davis," recorded in November 2018 at the Rose Theater inside Lincoln Center in NYC.
It's the start of a new month and a new year, and that means it's time to check in on StLJN's sibling site Heliocentric Worlds, when each day there's posted a new online music video, drawing on genres including jazz, blues, soul, funk, classic rock, prog rock, experimental and more.
The most-watched videos added to the site last month were:
Other recent posts have featured videos with performances by Fred Frith, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Gary Clark Jr, Tom Waits, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Bruce Springsteen, Magic Slim and the Teardrops, Sonic Youth, Pharoah Sanders & John Hicks, The Specials, Robert Cray, MC5, Philip Glass Ensemble, SFJAZZ Collective, Dweezil Zappa, Michael Brecker, Taylor Ho Bynum 9-tette, Bill Bruford's Earthworks, Johnny Shines & Robert Lockwood, Jr, Led Zeppelin, Gong, Bill Frisell, Johnny Guitar Watson, Joe Pass, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and Bernard Purdie.
To see all these videos, plus thousands more from the thoughtfully selected archives, just use your computer, tablet, phone or other Internet device to visit https://heliocentricworlds.blogspot.com/.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* The first episode of saxophonist David Sanborn's new web video series "Sanborn Sessions" went live online this week on Tuesday. You can see the episode, which features pianist and singer Kandace Springs, in the embedded video window up above or on YouTube.
* St. Louis Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts is co-sponsoring a workshop on "Understanding Taxes for Music Professionals" starting at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, Saturday, December 7 at the offices of TechArtista, 4818 Washington Blvd in the Central West End. See details and registration information here.
* Also as reported in the Post-Dispatch, the south side venue Foam, which over the last ten years has hosted free improv performances among its eclectic variety of live music, will close permanently on Sunday, December 29.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* Bassist, composer, former St. Louisan, and SIU Edwardsville alumnus Dan Loomis(pictured) has launched a crowd-funding campaign to pay for a recording of his jazz song cycle "Job's Trials." You can read more about the project and, if you like, pledge your support here.
* Voting in the 2019 DownBeat Readers Poll is open, and you can cast your ballot here.
* Multi-instrumentalist Lamar Harris is looking for young musicians in high school or their first year of college to participate in "From The Lab," a free educational program that will teach recording techniques, music business skills, and more. Applications for the first session starting in Fall 2019 are being accepted now on Harris' website.
Today, our video spotlight shines on pianist, composer and bandleader Arturo O'Farrill, who's coming to town to perform this coming Wednesday, May 1 and Thursday, May 2 at Jazz St. Louis.
The son of famed musician, arranger, bandleader and Afro-Cuban jazz pioneer Chico O'Farrill, Arturo O'Farrill was born in 1960 in Mexico City and moved with his family in 1965 to New York. He first gained wide exposure at age 19 as part of pianist and composer Carla Bley's band, and subsequently went on to work with musicians including Dizzy Gillespie, Howard Johnson, Steve Turre, and St. Louis' own Lester Bowie before landing a gig in 1987 as music director for Harry Belafonte.
O'Farrill got more involved in Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz in the 1990s, working as a substitute pianist Andy and Jerry Gonzalez's Fort Apache Band and with his father to revive the elder O'Farrill's career. Ultimately, after his father's death in 2001, Arturo wound up as the pianist and sole bandleader for what has come to be known as the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra.
During the 2000s, the group spent six years in residency at Jazz at Lincoln Center, which helped them reach larger audiences, get a recording contract, and begin touring to major jazz festivals and venues around the world. One of those stops in 2004 was at the long-defunct St. Louis Jazz & Heritage Festival in Clayton. Although that has been the orchestra's only local appearance here to date, O'Farrill also played here with his sextet for a week in January 2015 at Jazz St. Louis.
In all, Arturo O'Farrill has released more a dozen albums as a bandleader, earning a couple of Grammy Awards (plus four additional nominations) along the way. His most recent recording Fandango At The Wall came out in 2018, but even more recently, O'Farrill has just wrapped up a four-month residency at The Greene Space, the performance venue operated by radio stations WNYC and WQXR in New York.
The residency featured him performing in variety of contexts, both solo and with different ensembles, and it appears that many of the performances were recorded on video. That's provided a trove of recent material featuring O'Farrill, some of which you can see right now in this post, starting up above with "Invitation to Dance," a solo piano piece recorded at Greene Space in February 2019.
After the jump, you can see a couple of Afrobeat-influenced performances from January 2019 featuring O'Farrill and an expanded version of the Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble, with guest stars including singer and percussionist Tosin and guitarists Lionel Loueke and Bryan Vargas. Tosin takes the lead vocal on his composition "The Big Illusion," which is followed by another piece from the same performance, "Strugglettes And Struggles."
Next are two more performances from the residency, one featuring a smaller version of the Afro-Latin jazz ensemble, and the other marking the premiere of a new big band piece called "Gulab Jamon."
The final video, from October 2015, was produced by NPR in conjunction with the release of O'Farrill's then-new album Cuba: The Conversation Continues, and includes an interview with O'Farrill as well as live performances of music from the recording.
For more about Arturo O'Farrill, check out his interviews from 2018 with radio station KQED in San Francisco, NPR, and DownBeat.
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
This week, it's time to check out some videos featuring clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen, who's coming to St. Louis to perform with her quartet starting Wednesday, February 27 through Sunday, March 3 at Jazz St. Louis.
Born in Israeli and educated at Berklee, Cohen moved to New York after college and began her career by touring with the all-woman big band the Diva Orchestra and working with Brazilian groups. Over the past decade, she has become perhaps the most prominent clarinet player in jazz, building a reputation in part on her ability to play convincingly in a variety of styles, from vintage swing to modern jazz to Brazilian music.
Cohen released her most recent recording, a live album of duos with pianist Fred Hersch, in 2018, after putting out three albums - two of Brazilian music, and one with her Tentet - in 2017.
Today's collection of clips shows off at least some of Cohen's versatility in dealing with a variety of settings and styles, starting with the first video up above, in which Cohen plays the swing-era staple "China Boy" in 2018 with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
After the jump, you can see a full set by Cohen fronting a quartet with Jason Lindner (piano) Joe Martin (bass) and Daniel Freedman (drums), recorded in 2013 at the Istanbul Jazz Festival.
Next, it's Cohen and pianist Fred Hersch teasing and tumbling their way through a discursive version of Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz," recorded in 2016 in the studios of public radio station KNKX in Tacoma, WA.
After that, you can check out a couple of performances of Brazilian music by Cohen. The first is a duet with guitarist Marcello Gonçalves (with whom she recorded the 2017 album Outra Coisa), playing Moacir Santos' "Coisa No. 5/ Nanã," recorded in 2017 at the Buffet Crampon showroom in Paris.
That's followed by "Espinha de Bacalhau," recorded in October 2014 at Jazz at Lincoln Center with Choro Aventuroso, which also includes accordionist Vitor Gonçalves, guitarist Cesar Garabini, and pandeiro player Sergio Krakowski.
The final video shows Cohen with her brothers, saxophonist Yuval Cohen and trumpeter Avishai Cohen, performing as the 3 Cohens Sextet and playing Ellington's "The Mooch" in 2018 at the Jazz à La Villette festival in Paris.
It's the start of a new year and a new month, and so it's time once again to check in on StLJN's sibling site Heliocentric Worlds, where each day there's posted an online music video, drawing on genres including jazz, blues, soul, funk, classic rock, prog rock, experimental, and more.
The five most-watched videos added to the site last month were:
Other recent posts have featured performances on video by Postmodern Jukebox, Etta James, Soul Coughing, The Comet Is Coming, Charlie Musselwhite, Kenny Barron, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Chicago, Manhattan Transfer, Pharoah Sanders, Larry Carlton, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, Wayne Cochran, Isaac Hayes, Allison Miller's Boom Tic Boom, Tower of Power, Robert Palmer, Kermit Ruffins, Hubert Laws, Pat Metheny Group, Eric Person & Houston Person, Wild Bill Davis, Gladys Knight, Rahsaan Roland Kirk Quartet, Randy Weston, Gentle Giant, and Johnny Otis.
If you've missed out on all this until now, you still can see all these videos, plus thousands more from the archives, by going to https://heliocentricworlds.blogspot.com/
Today, it's the second installment of StLJN's winter/spring 2019 preview, featuring videos of noteworthy jazz and creative music performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the next few months. You can see part one here.
Picking up chronologically where last week's post left off, the first video up above features singer, actor and Belleville native Lea DeLaria, who will bring her cabaret show back home for performances on Friday, January 25 and Saturday, January 26 at Jazz St. Louis. The clip shows DeLaria doing an acapella version of "Cool" from West Side Story, as recorded earlier this year in a stairwell before her concert at City Recital Hall in Sydney, Australia.
After the jump, you can see videos featuring the members of the Bistro All-Stars, an ad hoc band featuring trumpeter Sean Jones, saxophonist Tia Fuller, vibraphonist Warren Wolf and St. Louis own Peter Martin on piano that will play Wednesday, January 30 through Sunday, February 3 at Jazz St. Louis.
The first of the four clips features Jones playing a piece called "The Ambitious Violet" with the Jazz at Lincoln Center-affiliated NYO Jazz orchestra at a concert on August 10, 2018 at Konzerthaus in Berlin, Germany.
Next, it's Fuller and her Diamond Cut Band playing "Svae Your Love For Me" at the 2018 Monterey Jazz Festival, followed by Wolf and his band Wolfpack playing Miles Davis' "Four" in 2017 at Dizzy's in Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Martin doing a solo version of "Sophisticated Lady" recorded this year at the HQ of his company Open Studio.
Today's final video features the Cuban-born pianist Chucho Valdes, who will bring his "Jazz Bata" quartet to St. Louis for performances on Tuesday, February 5 through Thursday, February 7 at Jazz St. Louis. Valdes and his group are seen here performing his composition "CongaDanza" in January 2018 at the Panama Jazz Festival.
Look for part three of the winter/spring 2019 jazz preview next week in this space. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
Today, it's part two of StLJN's Fall 2018 jazz preview, featuring videos from the jazz and creative music performers who will be visiting here between now and the end of the year.
Picking up chronologically when part one left off, today's first video features longtime local favorite Ann Hampton Callaway and her sister Liz Callaway, who are coming here to perform on Wednesday, September 26 and Thursday September 27 at Jazz St. Louis as part of JSL's new slate of co-productions with Cabaret Project of St. Louis.
The clip features the Callaways in 2014 singing "Our Time," a song from the musical Merrily We Roll Along that was part of the first version of their show "Sibling Revelry."
A few days later, saxophones-and-drums trio Moon Hooch will be in town for a show on Sunday, September 30 at the Old Rock House. In the first video after the jump, you can see their performance from this year's Jazz à Vienne festival in France.
Next up, it's pianist Kenny Barron, who will lead a trio in performances starting Wednesday, October 3 and continuing through Sunday, October 7 at Jazz St. Louis. The video features Barron playing "Autumn Leaves" for a 2016 TV appearance in Detroit.
The following week, teenage piano phenom Joey Alexander will take the stage on Friday October 12 and Saturday, October 13 at Jazz St. Louis. He can be seen in the next video playing Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy" with bassist Charnett Moffett aand drummer Ulysses Owens Jr last October at the Jazz Standard in New York City.
Speaking of New York, on that same weekend, Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will return to perform on Friday, October 12 at the Sheldon Concert Hall for The Sheldon's annual benefit gala. You can see them in the next-to-last video, playing Duke Ellington's "Portrait of Louis Armstrong" at the 2017 Essentially Ellington competition in NYC.
The final video features organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, who's scheduled to play Wednesday, October 17 through Sunday, October 21 at Jazz St. Louis. Smith is featured in the clip performing "Backtrack" with guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and drummer Joe Dyson during a show in 2017 at Ronnie Scott's in London.
Look for part three of StLJN's Fall 2018 jazz preview next week in this space. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
* Speaking of the Post-Dispatch, the paper has published its annual "Go List" issue, which identifies reader and staff favorites in local attractions and festivals, music and the arts, bars and restaurants, and more.
In addition, Erin Bode won first place in "Best singer" and second place in "Best original band," with Joe Mancuso scoring second place in "Best singer."
* Meanwhile, as part of the run-up to this year's ShowcaseSTL festival, the Riverfront Times this week began publishing a series of brief articles about the "STL 77," their "list of 77 acts who did big things in the last twelve months" which so far has included profiles of multi-instrumentalist Lamar "DJ Nune" Harris and keyboardist Mo Egeston.
* Saxophonist David Sanborn will be one of the headliners and pianist Lawrence Fields one of the featured performers on the 2019 "Blue Note at Sea" cruise, which will take place from January 26 through February 2 and is presented by St. Louis-based Entertainment Cruise Productions.
The third symphonic work written by Marsalis, "Swing Symphony" was commissioned jointly by the New York Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and London’s Barbican Center and was premiered in June, 2010 by the Berlin Philharmonic. It received its US premiere in September 2010 in a performance by the New York Philharmonic in conjunction with Jazz at Lincoln Center that was televised live on PBS.
In the first video up above, you can see Marsalis talking about the process of composition for "Swing Symphony" in a brief interview recorded for the New York Philharmonic at the time of the US premiere in 2010.
After the jump, you can see a more extensive interview with the composer about the work, recorded a few months later by Jazz at Lincoln Center in March 2011, and divided into four parts.
The final two videos are performances of "Swing Symphony," the first recorded by Marsalis, the JaLCO, and the Ceska Philhamonic with Wayne Marshall conducting in July of last year in Prague, Czech Republic. The second was recorded earlier this month by the Frankfurt (Germany) Radio Symphony and Frankfurt Radio Big Band, with Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducting.
While both performances no doubt have some differences in interpretation and feel from what the audience at Powell Hall will hear next weekend, the two versions - one with the composer and his hand-picked band, the other an interpretation by musicians with no prior connection to the work - should provide some good opportunities for comparing and contrasting.
This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis and the Uptown Jazz Orchestra, who will be in St. Louis to perform next Saturday, March 3 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.
Born in New Orleans into one of that city's most famous musical families, Delfeayo Marsalis is the son of pianist Ellis Marsalis, younger brother of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and saxophonist Branford Marsalis, and older brother to percussionist Jason Marsalis. Now 52 years old, he's a graduate of Berklee College of Music, earned an MA in jazz performance from the University of Louisville in 2004, and, with his father and brothers, received the NEA Jazz Masters Award in 2011.
If he's not quite as well known to the casual jazz listener as his older brothers, it may be in part because Delfeayo has done a lot of his work behind the scenes as a producer, overseeing recordings for his dad and his brothers Wynton and Branford; musicians from their orbit including pianists Marcus Roberts and Kenny Kirkland and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts; and many others, including Terence Blanchard, Ruth Brown, Irvin Mayfield, Donald Harrison, Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Harry Connick Jr., Mingus Dynasty, the late Elvin Jones (who also employed Marsalis in his band for several years), and more.
He's also the founder of the New Orleans-based Uptown Music Theatre, which over the past 18 years has trained hundreds of young people while staging original musicals based on a mission of "community unity."
Marsalis formed the Uptown Jazz Orchestra in 2008 to help introduce New Orleans students to the city's musical traditions, with a membership drawn from the substantial local contingent of working jazz players, often including baritone saxophonist Roger Lewis of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. In recent years, they've become a touring attraction as well, and in 2016 released their first album, Make America Great Again. In addition to the UJO's album, Marsalis has recorded six albums as a bandleader, the most recent being Kalamazoo, which came out in 2017.
You can get a feel for Marsalis and the UJO's sound in the first video up above, which shows an extended excerpt from their performance at the 2013 New Orleans French Quarter Festival.
After the jump, you can see them performing the title song from their debut album Make America Great Again, complete with sardonic commentary from Marsalis, as recorded on February 15, 2017 at Dizzy's Club in NYC.
Next, there are three songs recorded earlier this month by an audience member at the Frank Mantooth Jazz Festival at New Trier Township High School in Winnetka, IL, starting with "Put Your Right Foot Forward" from their debut album, followed by “Vine Street Rumble” and a version of Charles Mingus' “Moanin’.”
Last but not least, there's a promotional clip for the UJO from 2013, with some musical excerpts and Marsalis speaking about the band's purpose and approach to music.
Today, it's the sixth and final part of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview, featuring videos of jazz and creative music performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the first few months of the new year. (If you missed the previous installments, you can see part one here, part two here, part three here, part four here, and part five here.)
Resuming in chronological order where we left off last week, today's first video features the John Scofield - Joe Lovano Quartet, who will be returning to St. Louis to perform starting Wednesday, April 25 through Saturday, April 28 at Jazz at the Bistro. They're seen here performing a full set at the 2015 Leverkusener Jazztage festival in Leverkusene, Germany.
Unfortunately, though "Swing Symphony" has been performed a number of times in the USA and Europe, the only good video of the work is stuck behind a paywall. So instead, after the jump, you can see a clip of Marsalis discussing "Swing Symphony" with conductor Simon Rattle, recorded at the Berlin Philharmonie in June 2010.
A couple of days after Marsalis and company leave town, guitarist Dweezil Zappa will be back for a performance on Tuesday, May 8 at The Ready Room.
Given his ongoing legal dispute with the Zappa Family Trust, it's unclear at this time what material DZ will be performing on this year's tour. However, the next clip, a full show recorded in July 2016 at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY, features material spanning several decades of his dad Frank Zappa's career, and though the video (shot by an audience member) is a bit shaky, the audio is solid and serves as a good demonstration of his touring ensemble's capabilities.
That same week, trumpeter Terell Stafford will be here with his quintet to play Wednesday, May 9 through Saturday, May 12 at the Bistro. Stafford, who at one time recorded for the St. Louis based MAXJAZZ label and has performed frequently here over the last decade, probably needs to introduction to local audiences.
Nevertheless, he and his band can be seen in today's fourth video, performing a tribute to the late Lee Morgan in October 2016 at Dizzy's Club in New York City. Along with the leader on trumpet and his fellow Philadelphian Tim Warfield on tenor sax, this edition of Stafford's group featured another MAXJAZZ alumnus, pianist Bruce Barth, along with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Billy Williams.
Next up, it's multi-instrumentalist Brian Culbertson, who will visit St. Louis on Saturday, May 12 for a show at The Pageant. He's seen here performing "Been Around The World" in October 2016 at the Aliante Casino in Las Vegas.
The following week, trumpeter Terence Blanchard will return for a concert on Sunday, May 20 at the Grandel Theatre. Blanchard will be accompanied by his band The E-Collective, which includes Charles Altura (guitar), Fabian Almazan (keyboards), Donald Ramsey (bass), and Oscar Seaton (drums). They're seen here performing a full set at the 2015 North Sea Jazz Fest in Rotterfam, Netherlands.
Today's final video features another familiar face, percussionist Poncho Sanchez, who's developed a following here over the years and will return for a four-night engagement from Wednesday, May 23 through Saturday, May 26 at the Bistro. The clip shows Sanchez and his band playing what he calls the "Poncho Sanchez Medley" at a show in December 2017 in Las Vegas.
That wraps up StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview, although if/when any other performers of interest are booked for concerts here in St. Louis, you'll find the latest news here. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
Today, it's part three of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview, featuring videos of the jazz and creative music performers who will be visiting St. Louis in the first few months of the new year. (The series features these coming attractions in chronological order; you can see part one here, and part two here.)
Picking up where we left off last week, the first video features trumpeter and St. Louis native Keyon Harrold, who's set to perform on Wednesday, February 7 and Thursday, February 8 at Jazz at the Bistro.
These shows will be Harrold's first in his hometown since releasing his second album as a leader, The Mugician, in September, and no doubt he'll be including material from that recording in his sets at the Bistro. You can hear live versions of some of that same music in the video up above, an episode of BRIC TV's program B-Side devoted to Harrold that was recorded in October 2017 in New York City.
After the jump, there's a clip of another St. Louis native who's now a rising star on the international jazz scene: singer Alicia Olatuja, who was known as Alicia Miles while growing up in St. Louis and attending the University of Missouri.
Now married to bassist Michael Olatuja, who also leads her band, she made her Bistro debut last April as a guest star with harmonica player Gregoire Maret, and is set to headline her own shows at the venue starting Wednesday, February 14 through Saturday, February 17. She's seen here performing "Love Me Still," first made famous by R&B diva Chaka Khan, in August 2015 at Dizzy's in NYC.
The third video features pianist Benny Green, who will perform with his trio from Wednesday, February 21 through Saturday, February 23 at the Bistro. Green spent nearly a decade as part of bassist Ray Brown's latter-day trio, emphasizing the mainstream swing and bop that's continued to be foundational to his playing, and in this clip, recorded in 2016 at the University of Michigan, you can hear those roots as Green plays a solo version of Bud Powell's "Hallucinations."
That same week, electronic musician and multi-media artist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe will be in town for a performance presented by New Music Circle on Saturday, February 23 at Urb Arts in the Old North neighborhood. Today's fourth video shows a full set of Lowe performing live as part of the 2017 Brighton Modular Meet at the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, University of Sussex, Brighton, England.
Next, it's trumpeter Sean Jones, who will be back with his quartet to perform Wednesday, February 28 through Saturday, March 3 at the Bistro. Jones has been a frequent visitor to the Bistro in recent years, even recording his most recent album there. The penultimate clip shows Jones in an episode of the web series "The Pace Report" from June 2017, discussing that recording, his long-running quartet, influences, and his role as an educator at Berklee.
Son of Ellis Marsalis, younger brother to Wynton and Branford Marsalis, and older brother to Jason Marsalis, Delfeayo leads a big band stocked with musicians from New Orleans, often including baritone saxophonist Roger Lewis of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and multi-reedman Victor Goines. Both Lewis and Goines are on hand for this video, a full set recorded in February 2017 at Dizzy's Club in NYC's Lincoln Center.
Look for part four of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview next week in this space. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
