The return of Zimbabwe Nkenya

Although it sounds like it could be the title for some sort of art-house suspense film, the headline above actually refers to the recent repatriation to the St. Louis area of bassist, composer and mbira player Zimbabwe Nkenya (pictured). StLJN got acquainted with Nkenya just recently, when he emailed with news of his return and some upcoming performances, and based on what we've learned so far, he seems like someone to keep both an eye and an ear on.

Although he grew up in the St. Louis area - specifically, Alton, Illinois - Nkenya has spent most of the last 30 years in the Southwest, where he became known as one of New Mexico's foremost creative musicians. His ensembles including Black Jazz Culture, ZIYA, Contrabass Quartet and African Space Project were regularly featured in venues throughout the state including the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe and the Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque.

Nkenya hasn't recorded all that often, but the sides he has cut seem to have made an impact. In 2005, he released a CD entitled Zimbabwe Nkenya and The New Jazz on the regional High Mayhem label to positive reviews from local and national press, and a copy of Time and Condition, his 1982 East St. Louis recording with Maurice Malik King's Emerging Force Art Trio, reportedly recently sold on Ebay for $300.

A bit more from Nkenya's bio:

"In addition to his active playing career for the past thirty years, he has also been a clinician and educator, playing concerts for school children throughout the state. For some 20 years, he hosted one of New Mexico’s most respected radio shows, KUNM’s Sunday night special, "The House that Jazz Built." In addition to his work in-state, Zimbabwe has performed with some of the finest internationally known musicians on the creative music scene, including Warren Smith, William Parker, Charles Gayle, Douglas Ewart, Julius Hemphill, Abdul Wadud, Frank Lacy, Rob Brown, Chris Jonas and more. He has performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center, Hunter College, the Painted Bride, the Knitting Factory, Detroit’s One World Festival and more.

He toured with the off-Broadway production of HALALA following a year at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre. He has been commissioned to write music for “For Black Boys Who Have Considered Homicide” as well as for the St Louis Children’s Theater. He has been a recipient of a Western States Arts Federation grant and has worked extensively with Very Special Arts New Mexico. In St. Louis, where Zimbabwe was active with the Black Artists’ Group (BAG), he served, along with Shirley Bradley LeFlore, as co-director of the music program at the Creative Arts and Expression Lab. Zimbabwe’s interest in African music runs deep and he has collaborated with many African performers including Chipo Wakatama, Thuli Dumakude, Mohamed Camara, Welcome Msomi, Abraham Adzenyah and more."

Having just resettled in Alton for family reasons in late 2006, Nkenya is already involved with the new Black Arts Group aka BAG II (see the previous post), and if his track record in New Mexico is any indication, could become a very active participant in the local music scene. StLJN looks forward to hearing what he has to offer.

St. Louis has a brand new BAG

Operating in St. Louis from 1968 to 1972, the Black Artists Group was a multidisciplinary arts cooperative that brought together music, poetry, dance, drama and visual arts, providing performance opportunities for local artists as well as educational programs for young people in the community.

Though coverage in local media was scant at the time, over the years BAG has come to be recognized as an historically significant organization that not only served as an important incubator for new artistic ideas but also helped launch the careers of a number of notable creative musicians, including Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill, Hamiet Bluiett, Baikida Carroll, Charles "Bobo" Shaw, Floyd LeFlore, J.D. Parran, Joseph Bowie and Luther Thomas.

The original BAG ended when the group's funding sources, primarily grant money, began to dry up and a number of the group's most active members left town for New York or Europe. But BAG's legacy has remained an important part of St. Louis' cultural history, and was celebrated in 2005 with a symposium and performances at Washington University.

Now some of the members of the original Black Artists Group, along with some new faces, have formed Black Arts Group (or BAG II for short). According to an email from bassist/composer/mbira player Zimbabwe Nkenya, the new organization's mission is "to present to the community music, dance, theatre, visual and literary arts and foster wholistic health practices, welcoming and appealing to all age groups and multicultural audiences. BAG II is working to revive the creative efforts of and expose audiences to BAG's musical, artistic and cultural legacy."

BAG II has scheduled several events in St. Louis over the next few weeks, all to be held at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site, 2658 Delmar Blvd in St. Louis (map).

The first will be at 6 p.m. this Saturday, January 13, when BAG II will present a program featuring music from the Creative Forces Ensemble, with Zimbabwe Nkenya on bass, Ariel Kenyatta on saxophone, and other guest musicians. Dr. Lee Blount will also be on the program, offering a presentation on wellness and fitness. The event is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served.

February's celebration of Black History Month provides an occasion for two additional events, starting at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 4, with "Men of Words," featuring Roscoe Crenshaw, Chris Mullin and David Jackson, with Nkenya performing solo on bass and mbira.

And at 6 p.m. on Saturday, February 24, BAG II will present another musical performance, this time featuring J. Dubbs (soprano and alto saxophones), Floyd LeFlore (trumpet), Jerome "Scrooge" Harris (drums), Zimbabwe Nkenya (bass and mbira) and Thomasina Clarke (spoken word).

BAG II doesn't have a Web site yet, but if you'd like more information on these programs or the group, you can call Thomasina Clarke at 314-249-0363 or email bag_blackartistsgroup (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Whether you call it a rebirth, a remix or a resurgence, the return of BAG in any form is a welcome development, and StLJN definitely will have more coverage of this story and future developments as they unfold.

(Edited after posting to add contact info.)

Recently on Heliocentric Worlds

If you haven't visited StLJN's sister site, Heliocentric Worlds, in the last week or so, you've missed music videos featuring John Coltrane, The Rascals, Weather Report, Joe Pass, Charles Mingus, King Crimson, Gil Scott-Heron, Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. But never fear, they're all still there waiting for you, along with lots of other good stuff, so go ahead - click on this link (or the one above) and check it out.

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: "Just Friends" featuring Oliver Nelson with Art Farmer and Lee Konitz, plus Brubeck's "St. Louis Blues"

This week's videos feature, respectively, a St. Louis-born performer and the most famous song ever written about our city, and to provide a little contrast with last week's clips of a performance less than a month old, both are of the vintage variety. These performances were recorded in the Netherlands, and have recently resurfaced thanks to a Dutch TV program called Jazz Cellar that mines archival material recorded in the 1950s and 1960s in the Netherlands.

The first clip, filmed in 1966, is from a 20th anniversary concert for a Dutch TV station, is of an ensemble directed by St. Louis native Oliver Nelson and featuring Lee Konitz on alto sax, Art Farmer on fluegelhorn, Swedish trombonist Ake Persson, and a Dutch rhythm section led by pianist Pim Jacobs. The second clip is from 1961, and features pianist Dave Brubeck and his famous quartet with Paul Desmond on alto sax performing "St. Louis Blues."

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Riverfront Times article features guitarist Todd Mosby

From the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion: I've got an short article in this week's Riverfront Times about guitarist Todd Mosby and his imratgitar, a new stringed instrument that combines aspects of guitar and sitar. You can read the story online here.

Jazz this week: The Bad Plus, Rob Voisey's 60x60, Andre Vida, and more

With the holidays behind us, touring artists are back on the road again, resulting in a couple of adventurous musical presentations coming to St. Louis this week.

The NYC-based group The Bad Plus (pictured) is in town for a four-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro, performing two sets a night through Saturday. They've been the beneficiaries of an awful lot of hype in the jazz press over the past several years, and though I'm not quite buying the prevailing notion that they've somehow reinvented or revolutionized the piano trio, they are certainly accomplished musicians who are worth hearing. You can catch up on some of the previous StLJN coverage of the group, including a couple of video clips of them in action, here. This week's Riverfront Times also has a piece about the band from freelancer Andrew Miller here.

On Sunday, New Music Circle is presenting a double bill at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium featuring electronic musician Rob Voisey and saxophonist/composer Andre Vida. Voisey's portion of the program will be devoted to a piece called "60 x 60," which features "60-second electronic works by 60 composers, creating a one-hour performance," while Vida will present something called "Vidatone 247.73" which uses a projected, animated score to guide an ensemble of improvising musicians that will include Vida on sax as well as the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Tim Meyers on trombone and Chris Woehr on electric viola.

As for our local musicians, Cookie's Jazz and More will feature Visions Jazz tonight and vocalist Danita Mumphard with Trio Tres Bien on Saturday, but, unfortunately, several other local nightspots have yet to get their January schedules out, either via email or on their Web sites, and so updating of the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar will be happening on an ongoing basis as the information comes in. Look for those updates over the next few days, or if you're the impatient sort, use the links on the sidebar for direct access to your favorite club's site.

(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. No attachments, please.)

More "Best of 2006" lists

Since the post here a few days ago rounding up various "Best of 2006" lists from jazz journalists and blogs, I've run across (or had recommended to me) a few more:

• Jazz and Blues Reviews 10 Best of 2006
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Calvin Wilson's 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2006
• Avant Front's Best of 2006 list
• 2006 Favorites from Just Outside
• About.com's John Matouk names his favorite jazz CDs of 2006
• About.com's Top 10 jazz downloads of 2006
• NPR's Kevin Whitehead selects best jazz box sets of 2006
• The Best of the Year in Jazz from WBGO
  
  

(Edited 1/4/07 to add a couple more lists.)

Sheldon offering online presale for Victor Goines concert

If you're interested in hearing (and getting the best available seats for) saxophonist Victor Goines and the Juilliard Jazz Small Ensemble when they perform at the Sheldon Concert Hall on February 9, you should know that the Sheldon is offering a one-day, online-only advance presale of tickets for the show starting at 10 a.m. this Friday, January 5. (Regular single ticket sales begin the next day.) To order, go to metrotix.com/promotions and enter the password NEWSHE07.