Musicians who will be performing as part of Jazz at the Bistro's 2007-08 season will include,
from top, Roy Haynes, Jason Moran, Red Holloway, Mike Stern and Greg Osby.
Jazz St. Louis has announced the 2007-08 season schedule for Jazz at the Bistro, and it represents some major steps forward for the city's premiere jazz club.
For one thing, the Bistro is extending its season, adding programming in June and July (when the club used to go dark); taking August off; and then starting up again at the beginning of September. This means the club now will be operating 11 months out of the year, a change that Jazz St. Louis executive director Gene Dobbs Bradford says is permanent.
Then there's the musical lineup, which includes legendary elders such as Roy Haynes, the Heath Brothers and Jimmy Cobb as well as much-talked-about younger acts like The Bad Plus and Brad Mehldau. While there will be encores for some favorites like the Yellowjackets, Cyrus Chestnut and Kurt Elling, there also are, by JSL operations director Bob Bennett's count, at least 10 acts making their Bistro debuts.
Jazz St. Louis is also making some slight changes to the way tickets for the Bistro will be sold. Gone are the various named series, which were a little confusing anyway. Instead, there's one subscription series, which features touring acts playing multi-night stands at the club. Tickets for everything else, including weekend dates featuring local musicians and shorter runs by other touring groups, will be sold ala carte.
So, let's take a look at that schedule:
2007
June 8-9: THF Realty All Star Student Ensemble Reunion
June 15-16: Scott Alberici Quartet
June 22-23: Willie Akins Quartet
June 29-30: Ben Allison Quartet
July 6-7: Greg Osby Quartet
July 13-14: Red Holloway
July 20-21: Russell Malone Quartet
September 6: St. Louis Jazz Orchestra
September 7-8: Mary Stallings
September 14-15: Hamiet Bluiett's Birthday Party
September 19-22: Roy Haynes*
September 28-29: Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum
October 3-6: Delfeayo Marsalis Quintet*
October 11: St. Louis Jazz Orchestra
October 12-13: Musica Slesa
October 17-20: Frank Vignola's Gypsy Grass*
October 26-27: Esperanza Spalding
October 31-November 3: Stefon Harris*
November 8: St. Louis Jazz Orchestra
November 9-10: Paul DeMarinis Group
November 14-17: Kurt Elling*
November 23-24: Jeremy Davenport
November 28-December 1: Anat Cohen Quartet/Waverly Seven*
December 6: St. Louis Jazz Orchestra
December 7-8: Brian Owens
December 12-14: Kennedy Brothers featuring Ray and Tom Kennedy *
December 21-22: Good 4 the Soul
2008
January 2-5: The Bad Plus*
January 16-19: Javon Jackson w/George Cables & Jimmy Cobb*
January 30-February 2: Jason Moran*
February 13-16: Sara Gazarek*
February 22-23: Terell Stafford Quintet
February 27-March 1: Ravi Coltrane Quartet*
March 7-8: Cyrus Chestnut Trio
March 12-15: Mike Stern Trio with Dave Weckl & Tom Kennedy*
March 26-29: The Heath Brothers featuring Jimmy Heath and Albert "Tootie" Heath*
April 9-12: Brad Mehldau Trio*
April 16-17: Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival
April 23-26: Ray Brown Tribute Band w/Christian McBride, Benny Green & Greg Hutchinson)*
May 7-10: Karrin Allyson*
May 16-17: Open House
May 21-24: The Yellowjackets*
* Part of the Subscription Series. For information on subscription packages, visit the Jazz St. Louis Web site, call Bob Bennett at 314-289-4032, or email bob@jazzstl.org.
Now, a few thoughts: Overall, I'd say this is one of strongest, if not the strongest, season schedules ever for the Bistro, in part because the extra weeks of programming allow for added depth and experimentation. Stylistically, it covers a fairly wide variety of post-WWII jazz genres, and with some weekends in 2008 still open, there's room to add a few more artists, though one may presume that most of these slots will be filled by local acts.
I'm delighted to see Greg Osby finally get another gig as a leader in his hometown, and for the chance to see Haynes, perhaps the hippest octogenarian on the planet and a man who can claim to have played with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, among many others.
Shows by the Heath Brothers, Mike Stern (with St. Louis homeboys Dave Weckl and Tom Kennedy), Javon Jackson (with the excellent pianist George Cables and drum legend Jimmy Cobb), and Jason Moran also seem especially promising, and I've liked singer Sara Gazarek ever since I heard her debut CD. Finally, before we leave the subject of hometown love, it's good to see JSL showing some for Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum, Hamiet Bluiett, and pianist Ray Kennedy, who'll be doing a week in December with brother Tom on bass.
There are some relatively unknown quantities in the mix, too, including bass prodigy Esperanza Spalding; the newly formed Waverly Seven, who, as it turns out, will be splitting their week with saxophonist Anat Cohen's quartet; guitarist Frank Vignola's Gypsy Grass project, which, as the name implies, marries gypsy music and bluegrass; and Musica Slesa, about whom I know nothing and who don't show up in either Google or Yahoo searches. (Not to worry, dear readers, for StLJN will be tracking down the details on he/she/it/them ASAP.)
While there's always room for a few minor quibbles, all in all, I'd say Bradford, Bennett and the rest of the Jazz St. Louis staff have done a fine job booking the Bistro's 2007-08 season. It's a very impressive lineup that, as Bradford remarked to me this evening, is aimed at the jazz enthusiast, and one that ought to reaffirm the Bistro's place as one of the top jazz rooms in the nation.
UPDATE - 5/19/07, 3:06 a.m.: The Post-Dispatch's Calvin Wilson has a story about the Bistro's upcoming season online here. The story says that "Subscriptions are available now, ranging from $100 to $460. Single tickets for June and July shows go on sale June 1. Single tickets for shows September through May 2008 go on sale Aug. 14."
UPDATE 2 - 5/19/06, 3:10 p.m.: This post was written rather quickly late at night, so there were a couple of sentences that were garbled and that now have been fixed. Also, an email exchange with JSL's Bob Bennett has yielded some additional info:
- Musica Slesa (note the corrected spelling) is a Latin jazz group of St. Louis musicians led by percussionist Matt Henry, who teaches at UMSL and has worked with the Nuclear Percussion Ensemble. The band is brand new, so that's why there's nothing about them on the Web (or anywhere else, for that matter).
- Regarding the week in November devoted to the Anat Cohen Quartet and Waverly Seven, the two groups have overlapping personnel and will share stage time each night (in a manner yet to be determined) during their St. Louis run.
- Greg Osby has indeed led a gig at the Bistro before, in February 2002, according to Bennett, and so I've corrected the reference in the text above. That said, it's worth noting that Osby publicly lamented the lack of work in his own hometown in a June, 2005 message board thread at AllAboutJazz.com: "In fact, since my departure (from St. Louis) in 1978 I have only performed in my hometown once with my own group. All requests by my agent to present my band have been repeatedly declined. Go figure."
- Bookings for the remaining open dates in early 2008 likely will be announced in mid-December, Bennett said.
Finally, I neglected to mention in my earlier comments that the St. Louis Jazz Orchestra's monthly big band gigs will be an ongoing affair for the forseeable future. Bradford says the Thursday night shows gained a substantial following sooner than expected after being introduced this spring.
And now that those monthly big band gigs are established, perhaps JSL's management will be emboldened to try some more new ways of presenting St. Louis musicians and/or different jazz genres outside of the Friday-Saturday weekend format.
So, here's a thought: Given the relatively limited number of local outlets for pre-World War II jazz styles, I'd like to see Jazz St. Louis try booking a monthly night of traditional jazz at the Bistro. St. Louis is already home to several accomplished bands that are popular on the traditional jazz festival circuit, including Cornet Chop Suey, the St. Louis Stompers and Jean Kittrell's band, so the idea could be tried with relatively little financial risk. These groups do seem to have significant fan followings, and opening the Bistro stage to them would be a nice step towards bringing together the local audiences for traditional and modern jazz, a reconcilation that seems long overdue.
(Edited after posting to fix the photo caption.)
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