Kemper Museum announces fall concert series

As mentioned here back in June, this fall the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum is presenting an exhibition entitled Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, accompanied by a series of free jazz concerts.

Now the Kemper Museum has announced the lineup for the concert series, which will begin on Saturday, September 27 with the BAG Trio, led by bassist Zimbabwe Nkenya (pictured). Guitarist William Lenihan and his Quartet will perform on Saturday, October 25, followed by singer/guitarist Teddy Presberg and the Red Note Revivalists on Saturday, November 22. The series concludess with trumpeter Randy Holmes' Trio on Saturday, December 27.

Each of the participating groups will present a program ostensibly inspired by a musician from the era of "cool jazz," with the BAG Trio drawing on the work of Miles Davis, Lenihan looking to Wes Montgomery, and Holmes basing his show on Chet Baker. However, the concept seems to break down a bit with Presberg's show, which supposedly will be inspired by "the Birth of the Cool era" rather than by a specific musician. (This sounds like a rather awkward attempt to shoehorn Presberg into the pre-existing concept. Will his guitar-bass-drums trio be offering compressed arrangements of the harmonically complex scores of, say, "Jeru" or "Darn That Dream"? I think not; a 15-minute funk vamp on the two chords of "So What" seems much more likely...)

All the concerts are free and open to the public, and will take place from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, located on the Washington University main campus near the northwest corner of the intersection of Forsyth and Skinker.