Jazz this week: Dr. Lonnie Smith and more

After a couple of very busy weeks, things look a bit slower this weekend for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with just one well-known touring jazz musician passing through town.

All the more reason, then, to go check out the veteran organist Dr. Lonnie Smith (pictured) who's back with his trio for a four-night engagement that opens tonight and continues through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. For more on the good Doctor, please see last Saturday's video showcase post and/or read this interview that Smith did a few years ago with journalist Ted Panken for Down Beat.

On Thursday, clarinetist Scott Alberici is a late substitution as the performer for this week's free concert in the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, as the previously scheduled artist, guitarist Scott Jones, is unable to appear. Alberici will be aided and abetted by bassist Ric Vice, pianist Kim Portnoy, and drummer Marty Morrison. Also on Thursday, the Dixie Dudes will play traditional New Orleans favorites in an early-evening, no-cover-charge show at Jazz On Broadway in Alton.

On Friday, singer Cheryl Brown and keyboardist Tony Simmons will be at Robbie's House of Jazz; and trombonist/vocalist Doug Burns will lead a quartet with drummer Paul Shaw, guitarist Tom Byrne and bassist Willem von Hombracht at Cigar Inn.

Then on Saturday, the Funky Butt Brass Band will do a matinee at Blues City Deli and an evening performance at Broadway Oyster Bar; Jazz On Broadway will present saxophonist Michael Fitzgerald; and Robbie's will feature keyboardist Eddie Brown and Elements.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday saxophonist Willie Akins will perform at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium; and Byrne's Pat Metheny-inspired project Have You Heard? will be at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups. Then on Tuesday, there's more guitar at BB's, as Dave Black and Friends take the stage.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on the StLJN Facebook page.

(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. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)

(Edited after posting to add Saturday's shows by Funky Butt Brass Band.)

Laurence Hobgood to perform Thursday, April 5 at Jazz at the Bistro

The Chicago-based pianist Laurence Hobgood (pictured), best known as the long-time accompanist to singer Kurt Elling, is coming to St. Louis with his own quartet to perform at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Thursday, April 5 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Hobgood has served as musical director for Elling since 1995 and "has played on, composed/arranged for and co-produced all of Elling’s CDs, each Grammy-nominated." Their 2009 release Dedicated To You: Kurt Elling Sings The Music Of Coltrane and Hartman won the 2010 Grammy Award for "Best Vocal Jazz Record."

Hobgood’s quartet will include bassist Matthew Rybicki; drummer Jared Schonig, who was just here this past weekend with The Wee Trio; and a saxophonist yet to be announced. Their appearance comes as part of a piano-centric weekend at the Bistro that also will include sets by veteran St. Louis pianist Dave Venn on Friday and the duo of pianist Brad Mehldau and saxophonist Joshua Redman on Saturday and Sunday.

Tickets for the Laurence Hobgood Quartet at Jazz at the Bistro are $25 for the general public, $10 for students with ID, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. next Tuesday, February 7 via Metrotix.

VLAA to present workshop on bookkeeping for artists next Monday, February 6

St. Louis Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts will present a workshop on "The Artist As Bookkeeper" from 7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. next Monday, February 6 at the Regional Arts Commission, 6128 Delmar.

Angie Fink of UHY Advisors Tax and Business Consultants will be the speaker, and will "guide you through the tax maze and offer suggestions that could save you money and a lot of aggravation." The cost of the workshop is $10 in advance, $15 at the door, and a registration form may be downloaded here.

StLJN Audio Archive: John Hicks - Hells Bells

For today's Audio Archive post, we feature Hells Bells, the very first session recorded as a bandleader by the late pianist and former St. Louisan John Hicks. Hells Bells - spelled without the apostrophe on the album cover (pictured), but sometimes with it in other references - was recorded in 1975 for trumpeter Charles Tolliver's Strata-East label, though it wasn't issued until 1978.

There was a CD reissue of the album in 2000 by the Charly label, which now is out of print. As of this writing, the one new copy that could be found for sale online has an asking price of $90, with used copies commanding nearly $30.

Hells Bells is a trio session featuring Hicks with Clint Houston (bass) and Cliff Barbaro (drums), performing four tracks: "Hell's Bells," "Avojca," "Yemenja," and "Angie's Tune." The .mp3 rip of the album linked to here today is from the blog Freedom Records; to download a free copy, go here and click the link labeled "Mediafire MP3," which will take you to, you guessed it, a Mediafire page with the download.

The StLJN Audio Archive links only to recordings that are out-of-print or that never have been commercially available. The purpose of the Audio Archive is to encourage discussion, appreciation and knowledge of St. Louis jazz artists, and we urge you to support them (or their estates) by purchasing authorized recordings and merchandise and, whenever possible, attending live performances.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Techniques of Advanced Organology with Dr. Lonnie Smith

There are a number of fine jazz organ players working today, but as one of the few remaining active veterans who started back in the 1960s, Dr. Lonnie Smith brings an appealingly authentic vibe whenever he sits down at the bench. Smith has played St. Louis several times in recent years, and he'll be back next week to perform from Wednesday, February 1 through Saturday, February 4 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Smith originally is from the Buffalo, NY, area, and first became widely known to jazz fans while working with guitar George Benson's band. Later, he established his reputation as a leader with a series of recordings for Blue Note, and has remained active ever since, touring or recording with musicians such as Grover Washington, Jr., Ron Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, and frequent collaborator Lou Donaldson as well as leading his own groups.

Today we've got several examples of the good Doctor demonstrating his techniques, starting up above with a version of "The Whip" recorded in 2007 in Amsterdam with a group of Dutch musicians.

Down below is "Frame For The Blues," recorded in June, 2011 in Szombathely, Hungary with Smith's current touring partners, guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and drummer Jamire Williams. Next, it's Smith, guitarist Russell Malone and drummer Herlin Riley in 2009 at The Iridium in NYC, dipping into the pop-rock songbook with an idiosyncratic take on Eurythmics' 1980s hit "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This."

Below that, the Dr. is teamed with Riley, guitarist Peter Bernstein and saxophonist Donald Harrison for another somewhat unlikely tune, a funked-up version of the Beatles' "Come Together" recorded at NYC's Jazz Standard. Finally, in a video from 2010, Smith walks a Dutch announcer though the basics of Hammond B-3 operations before playing "And The World Weeps" with drummer Victor de Boo and guitarist Jerome Hol.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short local news items of interest:

* Bassist Darin Gray talked with Terry Perkins for a St. Louis Beacon article about Saturday's New Music Circle concert featuring percussionist Chris Corsano (pictured), Gray, and saxophonist David Stone at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

* Perkins also has another piece up at the Beacon this week, about the closing of Webster Records.

* Meanwhile, Jason Rosenbaum of the Riverfront Times this week penned a birthday tribute to saxophonist Julius Hemphill.

* The Sheldon Concert Hall staff has posted photos of Sunday's concert by Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo to an album on the Sheldon's Facebook page.

* Also, saxophonist Jeff Riley has put up some photos on his Facebook page of his recent concert at The Chapel.

* Guitarist Brian Vaccaro sends word that his CD Going Through the Motions was listed among the "Notable CD's of 2011" list of the venerable author, critic, and jazz historian W. Royal Stokes, who's written for the Washington Post, Down Beat and many other publications.

* Pianist Peter Martin is offering a "buy two, get two free" deal on tickets for his next concert at the Sheldon. The show will feature Martin, bassist Robert Hurst, drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. and guest vocalist Vivian Sessoms in the debut of Inner Circle, Martin's new band that "interprets classic pop and R&B songs and originals through a jazz lens." The four-for-two offer is good only through next Tuesday, January 31; to get the discount, go to Metrotix.com to purchase your tickets and, when prompted, enter the promo code: CIRCLE.

* In more Martin-related news, the pianist was among the honorees Monday at the annual Arts and Education Council awards dinner at the Chase Park Plaza, and you can read an account of the evening's events from the Post-Dispatch's Deb Peterson here. The ceremony also included short videos about all the award winners; you can see the one about Martin online here, and the video about Jason Brown, trumpet player, music teacher in the Riverview Gardens school district and Arts Educator of the Year, here.

Interview with the Wee Trio's Dan Loomis now online

The Wee Trio is in town this weekend to play at Jazz at the Bistro, and the group's bassist Dan Loomis, who's originally from St. Louis, took some time last week to talk on the phone with me about their new album Ashes to Ashes: A David Bowie Intraspective. You can read the interview with Loomis online at the Riverfront Times' RFT Music Blog here.

Jazz this week: The Wee Trio, Chris Corsano, "Jazz Under The Stars," Freddie Washington, and more

If there's a theme to this week, it would seem to be "youth," as the next few days' worth of jazz and creative music in St. Louis will feature a number of fresh faces (plus a few relatively grizzled veterans) performing in a variety of styles ranging from the traditional to the experimental. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, vibraphonist Peter Schlamb and his group will kick off the winter/spring 2012 Jazz at Holmes series of free concerts at Washington University.

Also tonight, up-and-coming young pianists Stephanie Trick and Paolo Alderighi will team up for a performance at Robbie's House of Jazz; and the Young Friends groups of Jazz St. Louis and the St. Louis Science Center will present their second "Jazz Under The Stars" event at the McDonnell Planetarium in Forest Park, featuring music from drummer Marty Morrison and Friends with guest vocalist Erin Bode.

On Friday, the Wee Trio (pictured) opens a two-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. The group, which features St. Louis native Dan Loomis on bass, New Yorker Jared Schonig on drums, and New Orleans' James Westfall on vibraphone, last played the Bistro in 2009. This time around, they're touring behind a new CD, Ashes to Ashes: A David Bowie Intraspective, which, as the name suggests, features their interpretations of six songs written by iconic rocker David Bowie.

Yr. humble StLJN editor spoke with Loomis last week about the project for an article that should go up on the Riverfront Times' RFT Music Blog some time on Thursday. Once it's online, we'll add a link here; in the meantime, for more about the Wee Trio and some video footage of them in action, see this post, which preceded their last visit here. UPDATE - 10:15 a.m., 1/26/12: The interview with Dan Loomis is online here.

Also on Friday, saxophonist Greg Lewis and his group Press Play return to Robbie's House of Jazz, and guitarist Tom Byrne's trio will be back at the Cigar Inn.

Then on Saturday night, the improvising percussionist Chris Corsano will be in town to perform with bassist Darin Gray and saxophonist Dave Stone in a concert presented by New Music Circle at Kranzberg Arts Center. For more about Corsano, including links to a couple of extended interviews and more than an hour of live performance video, check out this post from last Saturday. UPDATE - 10:30 p.m., 1/26/12: You can read my Critic's Pick about Corsano written for this week's print edition of the RFT here. (Musicians and music students take note: Corsano and Gray also will lead a free public workshop on improvisation and extended techniques from noon to 2:00 p.m. Saturday at Luminary Center for the Arts, 2900 Reber Pl.)

On Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis Jazz Club will present a stylistically diverse double bill featuring the traditional jazz sound of Banjos & Brass, plus Utter Chaos, a quartet of young musicians featuring a front line of baritone sax and trombone and drawing inspiration from 1950s cool jazz, at the Doubletree Hotel St. Louis at Westport.

That evening, saxophonist Freddie Washington will open a series of Sunday night shows presented by the Black Rep at the Grandel Theater.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday evening Dave Black and Bridge will perform at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium. The eclectic ensemble features Black on guitar along with violinist Asako Kuboki, cellist Tracy Andreotti, bassist Syd Rodway and percussionist Henry Claude, performing original compositions that draw on jazz, classical, world music and more.

Then on Tuesday, the St. Louis MetroBones, a new group that features 14 trombonists from area high schools and colleges under the direction of veteran trombonist and educator Dave Dickey, will play a concert at the Black Cat Theatre.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on the StLJN Facebook page.

(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. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)

UNT One O'Clock Lab Band to play Thursday, February 23 at Webster Groves High School

The University of North Texas' One O'Clock Lab Band (pictured) is coming to St. Louis to perform at 7:00 p.m. , Thursday, February 23 in the main auditorium at Webster Groves High School, 100 Selma Ave. The Webster Groves High School jazz bands will open the show.

The One O'Clock Lab Band is directed by Steve Wiest and is considered the top band of the nine large jazz ensembles at UNT, which has one of the most famous and long-running collegiate jazz programs in the nation.

Their concert on February 23 at Webster Groves High School will be open to the public, with a $5 donation requested at the door.

Freddie Washington to open Black Rep concert series on Sunday, January 29

Saxophonist Freddie Washington (pictured) and his group will be the first performers for a Sunday night concert series being presented by the Black Rep. Washington will kick off the series at 7:00 p.m. this Sunday, January 29 at the Grandel Theater.

A mainstay on the local jazz scene from the 1960s through the mid-2000s, Washington recently returned to St. Louis after living in Dallas, Nashville and Atlanta. The Black Rep's marketing director Joe Hanrahan tells StLJN that Washington's concert is the first of a planned series of four or five Sunday night shows that will take place about once a month this winter and spring. (We'll have info on any further jazz-related performances right here when more details are revealed.)

Tickets for Freddie Washington at the Grandel Theater are $20, and can be reserved by calling the Black Rep box office at 314-534-3810.

Jazz at Holmes series announces winter/spring 2012 schedule

The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University today announced via email their schedule of free concerts for the winter/spring 2012 semester.

The series kicks off this Thursday, January 26 with a performance by vibraphonist Peter Schlamb (pictured) and his group, and continues through Thursday, April 12, when it will conclude with a show co-sponsored by the campus radio station KWUR featuring an artist yet to be announced.

Here's the complete schedule:

Thursday, January 26: Peter Schlamb Group
Thursday, February 2: Scott Jones
Thursday, February 9: Ken Kehner Trio
Thursday, February 23: Ptah Williams plays Herbie Hancock
Thursday, March 1: Steve Schenkel and Kim Portnoy play George Gershwin
Thursday, March 22: Paul DeMarinis Group
Thursday, March 29: WU Jazz Combo Students
Thursday, April 5: Vince Varvel Quartet
Thursday, April 12: KWUR-Sponsored Guest Artist

All Jazz at Holmes concerts are free and open to the public, and begin at 8:00 p.m. in Holmes Lounge, which is located in Ridgley Hall, on the west side of Brookings Quadrangle near the intersection of Brookings and Hoyt drives.

StLJN Audio Archive: Grant Green - Visions

Fortunately for fans of jazz guitar, much of Grant Green's output for the Blue Note label in the 1960s and 1970s remains in print today. One exception, though, seems to be Visions, a 1971 session that featured the St. Louis native's versions of some then-current pop hits along with a couple of originals and one classical piece.

Vinyl copies are scarce, as you'd expect for a 40-year old recording that probably got just one pressing back then. There apparently was a CD reissue a few years back that now is out of print too, with used copies fetching as much $85 online as of this writing. And so far, the powers-that-be don't seem even to have made the album available as a digital download.

That scarcity, plus the renewed interest in Green's music in recent years, would seem to make Visions (pictured) a good candidate for the network of music sharing blogs - and once again, fortune has smiled on guitar fans, for the proprietor of a site called Lost In Tyme has preserved the session online for all to enjoy.

Stylistically, the laid-back Visions definitely is a departure from Green's usual tendencies toward hard bop, blues and funk but, accompanied by a band featuring Chuck Rainey on bass and Idris Muhammad on drums, he manages to find something interesting in most of the tunes. The track listing includes "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" "Maybe Tomorrow," "Mozart Symphony #40 In G Minor, K550, 1st Movement," "Love On A Two Way Street," "Cantaloupe Woman," "We've Only Just Begun," "Never Can Say Goodbye" and "Blues For Abraham."

To download a free copy of Grant Green's Visions, go to the original blog post referenced above and scroll down to where it says "Get It Here." Click on one of the links immediately below that and follow the instructions. (For more on .rar files and how to use them, see this.)

The StLJN Audio Archive links only to recordings that are out-of-print or that never have been commercially available. The purpose of the Audio Archive is to encourage discussion, appreciation and knowledge of St. Louis jazz artists, and we urge you to support them (or their estates) by purchasing authorized recordings and merchandise and, whenever possible, attending live performances.

(Edited 1/29/12 to add the disclaimer paragraph.)

Peter Martin, Vivian Sessoms to perform Saturday, March 10 at the Sheldon

Pianist Peter Martin will resume his eponymous series at the Sheldon Concert Hall with a performance featuring guest vocalist Vivian Sessoms (pictured) at 8:00 p.m., Saturday, March 10. Bassist Bob Hurst and drummer Ulysses Owens will join Martin and Sessoms for the show.

Sessoms is a native New Yorker who's been performing professionally since she was a child, but got her first widespread exposure as a grown-up through working with film composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Since then, she's developed a solo career as a cabaret performer, and has recorded and/or toured as a background singer with the likes of P. Diddy, Michael Jackson, Donna Summer, Sinead O'Connor, Stevie Wonder and Lalah Hathaway. Sessoms also has sung on many national commericals as a session vocalist, and most recently has partnered in the neo-soul group Albright with multi-instrumentalist/producer Chris Parks.

Tickets are $50 for VIP seating, $30 orchestra, $25 balcony and $15 students, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. this Monday, January 23 via MetroTix.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Chris Corsano

This week, let's take a look at some video clips featuring percussionist Chris Corsano, who will be in St. Louis to perform Saturday, January 28 at the Kranzberg Arts Center in a concert presented by New Music Circle.

Corsano, a veteran free improvisor raised and still based in New England, has played and recorded with a wide variety of musicians over the past two decades, including improvisors like saxophonists Paul Flaherty and Evan Parker and multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, as well as Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Nels Cline of Wilco, rock singer Bjork, and groups such as Six Organs of Admittance, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Cold Bleak Heat, and Rangda. For his gig here, he'll be joined by two St. Louis musicians, bassist Darin Gray and bassist Dave Stone.

Today's clips offer excerpts from four relatively recent live performances that should serve to illuminate some of Corsano's techniques and tendencies as an improvising musician. First up, there's a part of a 2010 solo show at a house concert venue called The Nicolas Cage in New Brunswick, NJ.

Down below, there are parts of two more solo performances, one in October 2010 in Berlin and the in May, 2009 in Turners Falls, MA. We wrap up with a half-hour chunk of the recent concert by Corsano with his longtime collaborator, saxophonist Paul Flaherty, and guitarist Bill Nace last December at Flywheel Arts Collective in Easthampton, MA.

For more about Corsano, check out this interview he did with Perfect Sound Forever; and this one he did with the website Tiny Mix Tapes.