Confirmation: Weekly News & Notes

*Will Friedwald covered the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival in Harlem. Robert Glasper, Vanessa Rubin, Rashied Ali and other performed. Here's a snippet from Randy Weston's set. And a blogger shares some instructive shots.

*An exhibition titled Charlie Parker, From Birth To Death (no web site) opens Friday, August 29, at Penn Valley Community College. A press release promises "rare photographs depicting his musical life mixed with commentary by jazz greats who offer their views about his greatness." Try contacting the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Center for more information.

*A jazz musician asked me to look into the jazz bookings at Sullivan's Steakhouse in Leawood. The new restaurant's manager offered the following reply to an email request for a performance calendar: "We should have a schedule to post by mid-September."

*Bar Natasha is closing. Although it was more a cabaret than a jazz venue, a number of jazz musicians frequently found work there.

*"Clubs are closing, musicians are changing their work and the surviving clubs are suspending their vision in lieu of the commercial, easy, and boring.. I feel like something new is on the horizon for this city I'm in..." Megan Birdsall confided in a blog post on August 22.

*Joe Klopus wrote an excellent appreciation of Charles Perkins (no web site). Perkins' sultry saxophone is heard on this video of a Fringe Festival performance. Jazz poet Dan Jaffe is also featured.

*Here's great news for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum: A benefit CD featuring many of hip hop's top stars will be released October 21. Any money raised will be great, but the international awareness it will bring to the 18th & Vine institution will be invaluable.

*I intend to dedicate a full post to it later, but the new Jammin At the Gem season has been formally announced. Check it out here.

*Hey! There's now a web page for the Kansas City Blues & Jazz Juke House! There's nothing there, but it's a start anyway...

*Jazz photography by Bevery Rethkop (no web site) will be displayed at St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Prairie Village. Details are on this church bulletin.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)