STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: "Showtime" with the Soul Rebels
This week, our video spotlight focuses on the New Orleans brass band the Soul Rebels, who will be in St. Louis this coming Thursday, May 23 for a gig at the Old Rock House. Formed in the mid-1990s by ex-members of the Young Olympia Brass Band to offer an updated take on the brass band tradition, ...
STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Vintage Tenor Time with Harry Allen
Today, let's take a look at some video clips featuring tenor saxophonist Harry Allen, who will team up with pianist and singer Freddy Cole for a four-night run starting Wednesday, May 22 through Saturday, May 25 at Jazz at the Bistro. Given his generation, Allen, 46, is something of a musical throwback, as he's been heavily ...
STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: A Snarky Puppy Sampler
This week, let's take a look at some clips featuring Snarky Puppy, the Texas-born, Brooklyn-based funk/jazz/world music band who are coming back to St. Louis to perform this coming Thursday, May 9 at The Demo. Three-time winners of “Best Jazz Act" in the the Dallas Observer's Music Awards, Snarky Puppy is a loosely structured collective led ...
Short: Stan Kenton in 1945
Friday is as good as a day as any for Stan Kenton. The following Warner Bros. biographical short was filmed in December 1945 and released in '46. Here's the band personnel in October '45: Buddy Childers, John Anderson, Russ Burgher, Bob Lymperis (tp) Ray Wetzel (tp,vcl) Fred Zito, Jimmy Simms (tb) Milt Kabak (tb,arr) Bart Varsalona ...
STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: From Benin to Berklee and Beyond with Guitarist and Singer Lionel Loueke
Thie week, let's peruse some video clips from guitarist and singer Lionel Loueke, who's coming to St. Louis to play Wednesday, May 8 through Saturday, May 11 at Jazz at the Bistro. Born in the west African nation of Benin, Loueke studied starting in 1990 at the National Institute of Art in Ivory Coast and from ...
STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: An Evening with Dianne Reeves
Today, let's take a look at some videos of singer Dianne Reeves, who's coming back to St. Louis to perform next Saturday, April 27 at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Reeves has been a frequent visitor here in recent years. She appeared at the Sheldon in December 2005 as part of a large cast of musicians at ...
Do You Miss Erroll Garner?
Sometimes I get buried in deadline work and through neglect or “a kind of monumental inefficiency” (to borrow a favorite Paul Desmondism), I let a day or two go by without putting something new on Rifftides. Then, it gets to be ‘round midnight and it occurs to me that I have committed what my blog guru ...
STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Dr. Lonnie Smith and James Carter
Organist Dr. Lonnie Smith and saxophonist James Carter both have played St. Louis multiple times before with their own bands, but for their next visit here, they'll be teaming up for a series of performances starting Wednesday, April 24 through Saturday, April 27 at Jazz at the Bistro Smith's back story was covered here at StLJN ...
Documentary: Ronnie Scott's
Maybe you've visited Ronnie Scott's on vacation in London. If you're a musician, maybe you've played there. Or you probably have albums that were recorded live there. Whatever your relationship with the fabled club, odds are you know virtually nothing about its history. That ends today. Here's a terrific BBC documentary on the jazz establishment—co-founded by ...
Audiosocket and YouTube Network Stylehaul Provide Indie Music Licensing to Videomakers
Indie music licensing service Audiosocket today announced a partnership with Stylehaul, a fashion-focused YouTube Multi-channel Network (MCN), to provide easy licensing of indie music for producers' videos. It's a bit different from February's announcement of a deal between Universal Music Publishing and YouTube MCN's in that it features direct licensing through a StyleHaul-branded Audiosocket music store. ...
Sarah Vaughan and Joe Louis in Chicago
Here’s a followup to the Sarah Vaughan birthday post of March 27. In his Crown Propeller’s Blog, Armin Büttner published a picture of the great singer in interesting company at the Crown Propeller Lounge in Chicago. The club thrived as one of the city’s most vital nightspots from the late 1940s through the 1950s. It specialized ...
Breakfast at Tiffany's: Real Theme
Like many of you, I love the glitter and shimmer of 1961 New York in Breakfast at Tiffany's. But I must confess I've never cared much for Moon River, the movie's official theme. Oh, it's a great song and all, but I've always found it maudlin and misplaced for the Kennedy-era film. It's just too rural-sounding given ...
STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: "Seeing Sound" with New Music Circle
Next Friday, April 5, New Music Circle will present a program in conjunction with the Webster University Film Series called “Seeing Sound: Visual Music Films." Curated by Cindy Keefer of the Center for Visual Music in Los Angeles, the event will feature 15 short abstract and experimental films that blend audio and visual elements in a ...
Beverly Kenney After Dark
As you'll soon see, only Playboy's Hugh Hefner could pour out champagne and then rest his forearm across the top of the bottle. On Hef's Playboy's Penthouse TV show in late 1959 or early 1960, one of his guests was singer Beverly Kenney. Amazing Kenney could remember the lyrics with her host staring at her so ...
