KC Star writer praises Owsley's book, pans St. Louis jazz scene

The Kansas City Star has reviewed Dennis Owsley's new book City of Gabriels: A History of Jazz in St. Louis 1895-1973, and writer Joe Klopus had some nice things to say, noting that "There’s a lot of solid jazz history within these covers, presented with clarity and passion. It makes a remarkably full portrait of the musical soul of a major American city." You can read the whole review here, although registration (or the use of bugmetnot.com) may be required.

However, while he praises Owsley's book, the reviewer hits what many St. Louis jazz fans will hear as a sour note with the very beginning of the piece:

"Sure, St. Louis can show Kansas City a thing or two about building a pennant-winning team. But these days its once-mighty jazz scene pales next to Kansas City’s."

Now, I'll grant you that Mr. Klopus has every right to be bummed about the continued ineptitude of the Kansas City Royals, especially when compared to our World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. But all kidding aside, I'm not buying his contention that that KC scene is clearly superior to ours, at least not without some evidence, and so I've emailed him:

Hello, Mr. Klopus -

I enjoyed reading your review of Dennis Owsley’s book City of Gabriels: The History of Jazz in St. Louis 1895 –1973. However, I must take exception to the notion that the present-day jazz scene in St. Louis “pales” in comparison to that of Kansas City.

Yes, KC has a few things St. Louis doesn’t – for example, our daily newspaper doesn’t have a designated jazz columnist, though there is some coverage from the pop critic and others. The American Jazz Museum certainly looks like a nice asset to the community, and the KC Jazz Ambassadors seem to be a worthy organization, with a good- looking magazine and Web site.

Yet, looking through that Web site, as well your own paper’s entertainment listings and various other information available on the Web, I’m not seeing evidence of the sort of clear superiority that your phraseology implies. Both St. Louis and Kansas City have clubs, concert venues, and universities with active jazz programs. Both seem to have an ample supply of local musicians, and both have produced musicians who have had success on a national or international level. And both cities have a big jazz outdoor festival and several smaller ones.

Moreover, the St. Louis area does have some things Kansas City seems to lack, like a 24-hour jazz radio station (WSIE) and independent jazz labels (Maxjazz and Mel Bay Records) with diverse talent rosters and international distribution. And while KC’s Blue Room sounds like a swell joint, it doesn’t appear to offer the quantity or variety of touring jazz talent heard at St. Louis venues Jazz at the Bistro and Finale Music and Dining.

This should not be interpreted as a slam on Kansas City or its music scene. It’s a good town, and I’ve enjoyed my occasional visits and/or gigs there. And I’m certainly not claiming the St. Louis jazz scene is above reproach, or anywhere close to it. But if you’re going to claim superiority for Kansas City, please provide some evidence. Arguing by assertion, or assumption, just doesn’t cut it, and if I'm missing out on something with regard to the KC scene, I'd like to know about it.

Sincerely,
Dean Minderman
St. Louis Jazz Notes (http://stljazznotes.blogspot.com)

StLJN will let you know, O valued readers, if and when there's a response from Mr. Klopus. If you'd like to express your own opinion, you can call him at (816) 234-4751; send e-mail to jklopus@kcstar.com; or write 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108. (This information is published at the bottom of his column, so I'm taking that as an invitation for reader feedback. But please, do try to be civil and coherent.)

And in the meantime, feel free to use the comments here to expound on this topic. Is Kansas City's jazz scene clearly better than what we have in St. Louis? Is STL better than KC? Or are the two about the same, with some good points and some drawbacks? What do you think?

Tickets now on sale for November 30 benefit concert featuring Denise Thimes

The second annual concert benefiting the Mildred Thimes Foundation, established by singer Denise Thimes (pictured) in memory of her mother, will take place at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, November 30 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

By popular demand, this year's edition of "Saluting our Mothers-The Givers of Life" will feature Thimes reprising her tribute to the late Phyllis Hyman. Tickets are now on sale via Metrotix.

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: Kenny Burrell and Bill Evans, plus Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter

Reaching back into this past for this week's videos, we've got a couple of clips featuring pairings of well-known jazz performers. The first clip is from 1978 and features the legendary pianist Bill Evans and guitarist Kenny Burrell performing the Thad Jones standard "A Child Is Born" at the Montreaux Jazz Festival.

Down below is a clip shot in the mid-1960s during one of the famous "Jazz at the Philharmonic" series of jam session shows produced (and in this case, introduced) by impresario Norman Granz. The tune is "Blue Lou," and it features saxophone greats Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter, backed by a rhythm section including Teddy Wilson on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Louie Bellson on drums.

Eric Person, Kurt Rosenwinkel interviews now online

The Post-Dispatch/STLtoday now has online two short interviews with jazz musicians who will be performing soon in St. Louis. Pop critic Kevin Johnson's column this week features a conversation with saxophonist Eric Person, who's playing at Finale on Saturday night. And guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, who will be in town next week to perform at Jazz at the Bistro, talks to the Post's Calvin Wilson here.

Bode featured in Virginia newspaper

St. Louis singer Erin Bode is in Virginia this week to give a concert Thursday night at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts in Norfolk, and she was the subject of a very nice feature story in Portfolio Weekly, a local alternative newspaper. Read it here.

Jazz this week: Eric Person, Loren Pickford, Peter Martin and more

This week's jazz offerings in St. Louis are highlighted by appearances from a pair of well-traveled saxophonists. Native St. Louisan Eric Person (pictured) is making a stop in his hometown over the weekend, performing two sets on Saturday night at Finale Music and Dining as part of a national tour with his band Meta-Four. Person's a veteran performer who has toured and recorded with musicians such as Chico Hamilton, Dave Holland, McCoy Tyner and Ronald Shannon Jackson as well as leading his own groups. You can catch up on Person by reading some of StLJN's previous coverage of him here.

Also in town on Saturday is Loren Pickford, who left New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina but is currently winding his way back to the Crescent City via a tour of the Midwest and South. Pickford will be performing at Brandt's on Saturday night, blending New Orleans style jazz and blues with original compositions.

And let's not forget pianist Peter Martin, another St. Louis native who has made a name for himself on the national scene as music director for singer Dianne Reeves, Martin will team up with drummer Maurice Carnes to give a free concert Thursday night on the Washington University campus as part of the Jazz at Holmes series.

Jazz at the Bistro's featured act this week is singer Kim Massie, who will perform Friday and Saturday night, giving listeners a taste of holiday music from her upcoming CD as well as some blues, soul and yes, a bit of jazz, too. (Longtime readers may recall that yr. humble StLJN editor does some piano playing with Ms. Massie, and I'll be at the keyboard for this gig, so consider yourself warned.)

Elsewhere in town, the very fine pianist Dave Venn performs tonight at Finale; trumpeter Dan Smith and singer Debby Lennon bring their group to Cookie's Jazz and More on Thursday; and on Sunday, Webster University will present its semi-annual concert featuring works written by current faculty members, including pianist Kim Portnoy. For a more comprehensive listing of this week's jazz-related performances, please see the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

(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.)

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: "Zappa Plays Zappa," plus Peter White

Following more or less in the footsteps of the previous post, this week's Saturday video double feature once again utilizes the magic of YouTube to preview a couple of events that are coming soon to St. Louis. The first clip is some live performance footage of smooth jazz guitarist Peter White, who's bringing his Christmas show with Rick Braun and Mindy Abair to The Pageant on Wednesday, November 29 as part of Rick Sanborn's "Smooth Holiday Party".

Clip #2 is from the "Zappa Plays Zappa" tour, which features Frank's son Dweezil leading a repertory band augmented by special guests Steve Vai, Terry Bozzio and Napoleon Murphy Brock. The ZPZ tour hits The Pageant on Thuesday, December 14 and this clip, recorded on tour in June at the Manchester Apollo in Manchester, UK, blends the band's live performance with a rear-screen projection of some vintage footage of FZ soloing on "Chunga's Revenge." The present day composer refuses to die!

Piano phenom Eldar to perform at the Bistro on November 9

Jazz St. Louis has announced that 19-year-old piano phenom Eldar Djangirov, known professionally by just his first name, will come to St. Louis on Thursday, November 9 for a one-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro.

A native of Kyrgystan who was just 11 when he arrived in the United States in 1998, Eldar caused an almost immediate sensation, in short order appearing on pianist Marian McPartland's radio program Piano Jazz, CBS' Sunday Morning news program and the Grammy Awards telecast. He released his debut CD for Sony Classical in 2005 and a followup earlier this year, and also has been performing at major festivals, concert halls and clubs while continuing his education at the University of Southern California. Like his contemporary Taylor Eigsti, Eldar's style is rooted in some serious classical chops, and critics often have compared his playing to the florid, highly ornamented pianistics of musicians such as Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson and Phineas Newborn Jr.

For his St. Louis gig, he'll perform sets at the Bistro's usual times of 8:30 p.m. and 10:15 p.m.. Tickets are on sale now. In the meantime, you can get a little preview of Eldar by checking out the two video clips accompanying this post. The first shows the young pianist and his trio performing "Point of View," a song from his first CD, at a concert last year in Moscow, Idaho, and the second is from March 2006 and was recorded in Amsterdam.

Jazz this week: Luciana Souza's Brazilian duos and more

With the Cardinals facing off with the New York Mets for the National League championship and a possible trip to the World Series, baseball-loving St. Louisans - and that's a fairly substantial portion of the city's population, your humble editor included - are understandably in the full grip of pennant fever. However, it should be noted that there's plenty of good music happening in St. Louis this week, too.

Brazilian singer Luciana Souza (pictured) is the main touring jazz attraction visiting the Gateway City, performing two sets a night through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. Souza is working with just her longtime collaborator and guitarist Roberto Lubambo on this tour, exploring the same format used on her most recent Grammy nominated CD, Duos II, which itself was a sequel to her 2002 CD Brazilian Duos. She's a critical favorite, having earned two previous Grammy nominations as well as awards from the Jazz Journalists Association, the Down Beat Critic's Poll, and others. As good as Souza is, some might find the duo format a bit monochromatic. But if you like the more subtle, intimate side of Brazilian music, this show should be right up your alley.

As for St. Louis-based musicians, there are a number of noteworthy shows this week, starting on Thursday when singer Valerie Tichacek and Friends are at Cookie's Jazz and More and the always suave Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum holds forth at Brandt's. On Friday, tenor sax master Willie Akins gets a relatively rare club date in his hometown of Webster Groves as he performs with bassist Willem Von Hambrecht at Crossings Taverne and Grille, while fellow saxophonist Tim Cunningham will be bringing his smooth jazz sound to Finale Music and Dining.

Finale sticks with a contemporary flavor on Saturday, presenting the funk and hip-hop-inflected sounds of multi-instrumentalist Lamar Harris. If you're more in the mood for a piano trio that night, head to Brandt's for mainstream favorites Trio Tres Bien or to Crossings to catch Carolbeth True.

As usually happens, time and space limit us to listing just a few of the available options for St. Louis jazz fans, but you can see a more complete menu of this week's gigs by visiting the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

(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.)

Trading trumpets: Payton out, Douglas in for SF Jazz Collective's Spring 2007 tour

Call it a classic bad news/good news scenario. The bad news, as passed along to StLJN by Jazz St. Louis operations director Bob Bennett, is that the very fine trumpeter Nicholas Payton (pictured at left) will not be appearing with the SF Jazz Collective when they perform in St. Louis at Jazz at the Bistro next spring.

The good news? The adventurous and acclaimed trumpeter Dave Douglas (pictured below) will be filling the trumpet chair for the band on the entire tour, including their St. Louis dates. From the information sent to JSL by the SF Jazz Collective's booking firm, International Music Network:

"We regret to inform you that Nicholas Payton will be not be a part of the SFJAZZ Collective tour this March.

But we are pleased to announce that we have added trumpet virtuoso Dave Douglas in his place. Dave won best trumpeter this year in the Down Beat magazine readers poll. Dave Douglas is widely recognized as one of the most important and original American musicians to emerge from the jazz and improvised music scene of the last decades.

We are very excited to have Dave on the tour and look forward to his contributions to this incredible ensemble of musicians."

For me, this makes what was already a must-see gig into even more of a must-see, if that makes any sense at all. While I'll admit to being familiar with only a small fraction of Douglas' extremely large recorded output, I was most impressed with his quintet's performance at the 2005 US Bank St. Louis Jazz Festival, and look forward to the chance to see him perform live again, especially with a group of excellent musicians like those who make up the SF Jazz Collective.

Finale presenting Person, Jordan, Chestnut and Adair this fall

Since our last "coming attractions"-type post, Finale Music and Dining has confirmed bookings this fall for several touring acts, starting with saxophonist and St. Louis native Eric Person (pictured), who will appear at Finale with his band Meta-Four on Saturday, October 28.

Following Person in quick succession are guitarist Stanley Jordan, who's playing on Wednesday, November 1 and Thursday, November 2, and pianist Cyrus Chestnut, who will perfom on Friday, November 3 and Saturday, November 4. Finale has also confirmed another date for pianist Beegie Adair, who will return to St. Louis to play the club on Saturday, December 9.

And speaking of Person, the versatile saxophonist seems positively psyched about how things are going on his current tour, which is winding its way through the Midwest and Southwest this month and next. From an email he sent on Tuesday:

"My band Meta-Four had an exciting masterclass and concert at Knox College. It so exciting to hear this music transform itself from nite to nite. On Thursday we were at Bard College doing the tune-up to the tour. Saturday was Indianapolis.The surprises seem endless. This is what great music is all about. The experience, magic, passion and the flight to another place. This band has it all.

Many of you saw the band last year during our Midwest Tour 2005. That was just the beginning, cause in 2007 (sic) we ventured out to Cali, and then back to the Midwest. Now we have a new piano player. A fantastic player named Jarod Kashkin. He replaces Meta-Four's longtime pianist John Esposito. We had some great gigs over the years with John, but this is a new era. There's a new vibe in the air."

To see a complete list of Person's tour dates, visit his Web site.

MAXJAZZ releases new Russell Malone CD

The St. Louis-based label MAXJAZZ has a new release this week, Live at the Jazz Standard, Volume One by guitarist Russell Malone. Malone is familiar to St. Louis audiences from his appearances in recent years at Jazz at the Bistro - he even recorded a live CD there for another label with pianist Benny Green - and this is his second CD for MAXJAZZ, following up on 2004's Playground. The label is offering some sample excerpts from the new CD in an online "E-card," which can be accessed here.

MAXJAZZ also continues to offer a discount on purchases made via the Web. If you buy one CD at the regular $16.99 price, you can get up to four more at $12.99 each and get free shipping in the U.S.. For details, visit the MAXJAZZ Web site

Free downloads of Bowie, Davis and Zorn included in "Beginner's Guide To Free Jazz"

The fine folks who run the avant-jazz weblog Destination Out are offering free downloads of tracks by the Art Ensemble of Chicago (with St. Louis' Lester Bowie, pictured at left), Miles Davis and John Zorn as part of their "Beginner's Guide to Free Jazz."

The Guide is described by the authors as "our humble attempt to make Free Jazz (aka Avant Garde Jazz aka Adventurous Jazz aka That Horrible Racket) more understandable to folks who don’t normally listen to much jazz at all," and they've included some good stuff from the likes of Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, Herbie Hancock and many others as well. Download the tracks, read the commentaries, and/or follow the supporting links offered here.

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: A little Night Music from Dizzy and David

This week, we're featuring a couple of clips from the television series Night Music (aka Sunday Night), a late night program that originally aired on NBC for two years in the late 1980s and has since attained near-legendary status for its eclectic mix of musical guests. St. Louis native David Sanborn was one of the hosts of the program, and in the first video you can see him performing "Ooh Shoobie Doobie" with trumpeter (and, not incidentally, entertainer extraordinaire) John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie. This one is worth watching just to see Dizzy's facial expressions as he delivers the nonsensical yet catchy lyric and the band members grinning maniacally as they join in on the chorus.

The second clip features Diz clowning a bit with co-host Jools Holland before settling in for a version of his bebop-era classic "Tin Tin Deo". Sanborn and Gillespie are backed on both numbers by the program 's house band, which at this juncture consisted of Omar Hakim on drums, Marcus Miller on bass, Phillipe Saisse on keyboards and Hiram Bullock on guitar.

With so many old television programs being reisussed on DVD these days, I find it hard to understand why Night Music has languished in the vaults. Perhaps there are clearance or rights issues with some of the performances or compositions; perhaps there are other business reasons for not issuing the shows on DVD. I don't know enough about the economics of DVD sets to guess at how many units a Night Music/Sunday Night set would need to sell to turn a profit, but given how fondly the program is remembered by those who saw it when it first aired originally, it would seem that there's definitely some sort of market for the material. In the meantime, it's nice to have clips like these which, though they may have a few technical flaws, are still fun to watch and give those who missed it a reasonably good idea of what the program was like.

Jazz this week: Good 4 The Soul, San Gabriel Seven and more

Apologies to regular readers for the relative dearth of posts recently. Various personal and business concerns and some computer problems here at StLJN HQ have conspired to cut severely into my Internet time, but things should be easing up a bit soon, allowing for more discretionary posts as well as breaking news.

In the meantime, let's consider what's happening in St. Louis jazz his weekend. While the past two weeks were filled with various headliners and special events, things are a bit quieter this week on the touring artist front.

Jazz at the Bistro is spotlighting Good 4 The Soul, a group of veteran musicians from East St. Louis who will be playing at the club in Grand Center on Friday and Saturday. I've not heard them perform in this particular configuration, but have been impressed by the work of the individual players, particularly keyboardist Adaron Jackson, when I've heard them with other groups.

At Finale, singer Erin Bode performs tonight and Friday night, and on Saturday the club will host the St. Louis debut of the San Gabriel Seven (pictured), a Latin/jazz/funk band out of Pasadena, CA. With a couple of Berklee grads in the lineup and three band members who have day jobs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, one is tempted to make some sort of crack about "space age jazz," but judging from the sound samples on their Web site, they're a bit more conventional than that, often taking a brassy, mini-big band approach that, for fans of the genre, is no less enjoyable for being somewhat derivative.

Elsehwere in town, there's live jazz on stage this weekend at Cookie's, Brandt's, Crossings Taverne and Grille, Spruill's, Mangia Italiano and a number of other spots. For a more extensive listing, please consult the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

Smooth jazz holiday shows coming to the Pageant

Smooth jazz radio personality and promoter Rick Sanborn is following up on his "Smooth Summer Party" from earlier this year by presenting two more smooth jazz shows, this time with a holiday theme, at The Pageant.

"A Peter White Christmas," featuring the popular guitarist performing on a bill with saxophonist Mindy Abair and trumpeter Rick Braun, will play the Pageant on Wednesday, November 29, followed by "A Soulful Christmas" featuring multi-instrumentalist Brian Culbertson, guitarist/vocalist Bobby Caldwell, saxophonist Warren Hill, guitarist and singer Ray Parker Jr.(pictured), and saxophonist Eric Darius on Sunday, December 3.

Tickets for Sanborn's "Smooth Holiday Party" are $60 for reserved seating at both concerts, or $35 per reserved seat for one show, and are on sale now at the Pageant box office and through Ticketmaster.

Jackson's CD, Owsley's book reviewed

Following up on a couple of previous StLJN stories, the newly issued Dewey Jackson CD Live at the Barrel is reviewed by the music blog Bagatellen here, and (with a hat tip to The Commonspace, which had the item first) Dennis Owsley's book City of Gabriels: The History of Jazz in St. Louis, 1895-1973 is reviewed here and here.

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: Miles Davis and Gil Evans do the "New Rhumba"plus Thelonious Monk's "Blue Monk"

This week's video clips showcase a couple of vintage performances from two of the greatest jazz innovators of all time. The first clip is a Miles Davis performance of "New Rhumba" from a 1959 television appearance, featuring John Coltrane on tenor sax, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and drummer Jimmy Cobb, plus Gil Evans and his Orchestra.

The second video is a performance of the Thelonious Monk classic "Blue Monk," filmed in 1966 at a concert in Oslo, Norway. The composer's distinctive piano stylings are supported on this occasion, as on many others, by Charlie Rouse on tenor sax, Ben Riley on drums and Larry Gales on bass.

Documentary about St. Louis jazz history will debut November 2 on HEC-TV

Back in February, StLJN told you about filmmaker Christian Cudnik's efforts to make a documentary on the history of St. Louis jazz. Well, Cudnik has been hard at work over the intervening months, and the fruit of his labors, a film called Collective Improvisation: The Story of Jazz in Saint Louis, is now in post-production, with the debut airing set for 8 p.m., Thursday, November 2 on HEC-TV (sometimes known as the Higher Education Channel).

The documentary features new interviews with a number of musicians, DJs, journalists, presenters and others involved with the St. Louis jazz scene, including Dennis Owsley, Prince Wells, Don Wolff, Richard Henderson, Erin Bode, Jerome Harris, Jeremy Davenport, Bob Bennett, Terry Perkins, Roscoe Crenshaw, Martha Stitzel and Paul Demarinis, as well as archival footage of interviews with Miles Davis, Clark Terry, Eddie Randle, George Hudson and others.

If you can't catch the first showing, don't fret; Cudnik says the film also will be replayed on HEC at the same time every Thursday and Saturday in November. HEC is on cable channel 13 in the city of St. Louis and channel 26 in St. Louis County.

Fred Tompkins releases new CD

St. Louis composer Fred Tompkins, who's been exploring the intersections of jazz, new music and contemporary classical since the late 1960s, has just released a new CD entitled Curve Extended.

The album includes nine pieces composed by Tompkins between 2002 and this year, ranging from ensemble works to electronic music to settings for the words of St. Louis poet Michael Castro. Tompkins plays flute, piano and E-mu sampler on the CD, aided by vocalist Debby Lennon, Paul DeMarinis on saxophones, Dave Black on guitar and Charles Dent on drums. You can find out more about Tompkins, hear samples of the music and, if you like, purchase a copy of the CD by visiting his Web site.

(Note: In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I've known Tompkins for about 15 years, and worked with him as an event producer and a musician on several projects during the mid-to-late 1990s.)

Jazz this week: World Saxophone Quartet, Kevin Mahogany, Tierney Sutton and more

There's lots of jazz worth hearing at local venues this week, so let's dispense with the preliminaries and get right to the highlights.

Tonight, singer Anita Rosamond appears at the Sheldon Concert Hall in the first concert in a special "Notes From Home" series of jazz performances associated with Dennis Owsley's City of Gabriels book and the exhibit of the same name at the Sheldon Art Galleries. Backing Rosamond will be a fine crew of players including Tom Kennedy (bass), Miles Vandiver (drums), Jason Swagler (saxes), Keith Moyer (trumpet) and Nathan Jatcko (piano).

On Wednesday, the World Saxophone Quartet returns to St. Louis to begin a four-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro. The WSQ's new CD, Political Blues, previewed for the St. Louis audience during their last gig here in February, is now on sale, so I'd expect them to play some of that material this week as well as some of the older stuff. And the band's lineup will be a bit different this time out as well, with St. Louis native Greg Osby on alto sax alongside core members Hamiet Bluiett and Oliver Lake and tenor man James Carter, who once again will sub for founding member David Murray as he did the last time the WSQ came to St. Louis.

On Thursday, pianist Linda Presgrave, another St. Louis expatiriate, returns to the Gateway City to perform a free concert as part of Washington University's Jazz at Holmes series. Presgrave will perform a couple of new compositions during the show, the first being "The Bird of Ceret," inspired by her trip to France this summer, and the second being "Randy Holmes," a tribute to the St. Louis trumpeter. Bassist Ric Vice and drummer John Brophy will complete the ensemble with Presgrave and Holmes.

On Friday night, singer Kevin Mahogany takes the stage at the Sheldon in a tribute concert dedicated to the late jazz singer/balladeer Johnny Hartman. Mahogany's big, warm baritone voice seems like a good match for the type of material Hartman performed, and the Kansas City-born singer is always an engaging presence on stage. I've been told by the promoter that there are still tickets available, so if you're a fan of Mahogany, Hartman, or fine jazz singing in general, carpe diem.

Singer Tierney Sutton (pictured) caps off the weekend with a concert performance at the Sheldon on Saturday night. While I'm not that familiar with Sutton's music, she seems to be held in high esteem by the national jazz press, and I 've heard good things about here from people whose taste and judgment I trust. You can read more about Sutton here and here.

For more on who's playing where this week in St. Louis, please consult the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

(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.)

City of Gabriels reviewed

Reviews are starting to come in for City of Gabriels: The History of Jazz in St. Louis, 1895-1973, the new book by St. Louis DJ, photographer and historian Dennis Owsley. In an article now online at jazzreview.com, contributor Lee Prosser calls the book "a well-written and entertaining look at jazz in St. Louis," while, writing in this weekend's Post-Dispatch, reporter and critic Calvin Wilson says it's "a richly entertaining cornucopia of facts, anecdotes and perspectives -- and a good companion to a new jazz exhibit at the Sheldon Art Galleries."

Owsley has also been doing a number of signings and lectures in conjunction with the book's release, including a recent talk at the University of Missouri-St. Louis that was covered in an article in the student newspaper The Current.

(And speaking of book reviews, jazzreview.com also has a review of Josephine Baker: Image and Icon, the volume edited by the Sheldon Art Galleries' Olivia Lahs-Gonzalez to accompany the Baker exhibit that ran earlier this year at the Sheldon. )

Marsalis, Morton's to present "virtual concert"

Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and Morton's, a nationwide chain of upscale steakhouses, are teaming up this Friday and Saturday, October 6 and 7, for "In Higher Definition," a concert presentation featuring Marsalis that will be simulcast via HD audio and video to more than 50 Morton's restaurants across the country, including the St. Louis area location at 7822 Bonhomme in Clayton.

For a cool $250 per person, you get cocktails, wine, a four-course meal and the concert satcast. Of course, the idea of a private satellite telecast is nothing new, having been used for years for everything from boxing matches to rock concerts, but this is the first time I can recall seeing a jazz musician involved in this type of endeavor. If you'd like to attend, you can reserve a place by calling 800-891-2440 or going to www.velocityboxoffice.com.