"Peanuts" Whalum signed to Dave Koz' Rendezvous label

Completing our round-up of recent items from the Post-Dispatch: In Thursday's column, P-D pop music critic Kevin Johnson reports that pianist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum, a St. Louis mainstay since the Gaslight Square era, has been signed to saxophonist Dave Koz' Rendezvous Music label.

An astute businessman, Koz is practically a one-man smooth jazz money machine, and his imprint has had success with recordings by Whalum's nephew, saxophonist Kirk Whalum, as well as with Mark Antoine, Jonathan Butler and other smooth jazz artists, so this would seem to be a fairly significant development. There's nothing yet on Rendezvous' Web site about the signing, but we'll try to get more details on this once the work week begins.