With no touring jazz musicians coming to town this week, let's take the opportunity to tout some upcoming gigs from some of our fine St. Louis-based players.
On Friday, drummer Joe Pastor's group Jazz Trinity returns to Brandt's, the Dave Stone Trio will be doing their regular weekly show at Mangia Italiano, and Jazz Renaissance performs at Riddle's
On Saturday, you can catch master tenor saxophonist Willie Akins (pictured) doing his weekly gig at Spruill's.
On Sunday, Good 4 The Soul will do a set before Anita Rosamond and her band take the stage at at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups. Also, the St. Louis New Jazz Quartet, led by bassist Willem Von Hombracht, continue with their regularl Sunday night performances at Riddle's.
Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday the Sessions Big Band plays at BB's, and on Tuesday, singer and pianist Hugh "Peanuts' Whalum is at Brandt's while saxophonist Bennett Wood returns to The Gramophone for another show in the club's free Tuesday night jazz series.
(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.)
The online tour information service Pollstar has just added a listing showing a performance by singer Dianne Reeves (pictured) at the Sheldon Concert Hall on Sunday, October 19.
The concert is not yet listed on either Reeves' or the Sheldon's respective Web sites, and, as with all Pollstar listings, should not be considered confirmed until officially announced by the venue.
Reeves' most recent CD, When You Know, is a collection of love songs produced by George Duke that includes her interpretations of familiar tunes such as the Temptations' "Just My Imagination" and Minnie Ripperton's "Loving You." The singer also has a local connection though pianist and St. Louis native Peter Martin, who has served as her musical director for several years. You can see Reeves performing "Today Will Be A Good Day," one of the songs included on When You Know, in the embedded video window below.
Veteran saxophonist Red Holloway (pictured), lauded by fans and critics as a master of old-school bebop and blues, will be returning to St. Louis next month to perform a free concert at Kiener Plaza on Friday, August 29.
The concert will be the first production presented by St. Louis City Jazz, a not-for-profit organization founded last year. Their Web site says that group's mission is to "expand the culture of live entertainment by providing venues and events that will feature both local and national artists at all competitive levels. Allowing the history to come alive by bringing together the universal language of music to all cultural genres."
Over the course of his long career, Holloway has performed and recorded with a host of well-known blues and jazz artists, including Sonny Stitt, Clark Terry, Lionel Hampton, Memphis Slim, Brother Jack McDuff, Willie Dixon, Junior Parker, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Lloyd Price, John Mayall, and B.B. King. His most recent appearance in St. Louis was in July 2007 at Jazz at the Bistro.
The StLJN jazz site of the week is Downbeast, a blog affiliated with the adventurous jazz indie label Cryptogramophone. As you'd expect, the site offers information and updates on the various musicians who record for Cryptogramophone, but there's lots more, too, including coverage of the jazz scene in Los Angeles and links to other interesting jazz-related content from around the Web.
The site has an attractive design and makes good use of photos, but more important, there's enough quality material there to make it more than just another record company promotional vehicle. Written in an informal style with an occasionally skewed sense of humor, Downbeast is an entertaining read that's definitely worth a visit and/or a bookmark.
With alto saxophonist David Sanborn coming home to St. Louis in September to play a concert at The Pageant, it seems like a good time to feature him in our Saturday video showcase. There are many clips of Sanborn performances available online, but today we've got something different: a master class that Sanborn gave on June 30, 2008 for the Selmer Company.
There are five parts totaling just under 40 minutes, and during the class Sanborn touches on a lot of topics, including his preferences in saxophones, his sound concept and influences, former teachers, and more. He does some playing, too, with an assist from Gil Goldstein on piano. Look for some of those performance clips in a future installment, but for now, here's hoping you enjoy this opportunity to hear Sanborn talk about the concepts, techniques and processes behind the music.
An evening of music by Zimbabwe Nkenya and local high school musicians inspired by the traditions of the original Black Artists Group (BAG). Sunday, July 27th, from 8 – 10 PM at Scott Joplin House State Historic Site, 2658 Delmar Blvd. Free.
The Lemp Neighborhood Association, with support from the Regional Arts Council, offered a series of workshops this summer for high school musicians focusing on the Black Artists Group to enrich their understanding of the heritage of Jazz in St. Louis. Student participants had the opportunity to learn about the composition and performance of original creative music in the tradition of BAG. This Sunday, Zimbabwe Nkenya and the students will share music from those workshops.
The performance will feature compositions by Zimbabwe Nkenya from his CD The New Jazz (available at Vintage Vinyl and at the concert) as well as pieces dedicated to St. Louis trumpeter Bata Rutlin and saxophonist Maurice Malik King."
For more information, call the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site at 314-340-5790 or send an email to bag_blackartistgroup@yahoo.com.
Though things are starting to slow a bit as July winds down and we head toward the dog days of August, there are still a few noteworthy shows of interest to jazz fans in St. Louis this week. Let's go to the highlights:
On Thursday, the very busy drummer:Miles Vandiver gets a chance to lead his own group in a free concert as part of Washington University's Jazz at Holmes series. Vandiver will be joined by Nick Jost on bass, Peter Schlamb on vibes and Jason Schwagler on saxophones. Also on Thursday, Jazz St. Louis' Bob Bennett, who plays tenor sax in addition to serving as JSL's operations director, will team up with Good 4 The Soul for a free concert at St. Louis Place Park as part of the Whiatker Urban Evenings series.
On Friday, Rick Sanborn's Smooth Summer Party series at The Pageant continues with a show by R 'n R, featuring trumpeter Rick Braun and saxophonist Richard Elliot (pictured). (You can read more about Braun and Elliot in a preview story on the show written by Terry Perkings for the Post-Dispatch, available online here.)
On Saturday, the 2008 St. Louis Tap Festival concludes with the concert presentation All That Tap XVII at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. The event will feature more than a dozen pro tap dancers with experience in TV, movies and/or Broadway performing with musical accompaniment by the Carolbeth True Trio. The Post's Calvin Wilson interviewed festival director Robert L. Reed for a feature story that you can read right here.
Also on Saturday, singer Anita Rosamond is performing a concert at the Black Cat Theatre in Maplewood to celebrate the release of her latest CD. She talked with the Post's Kevin Johnson about the CD and the show for an article that's available online here.
(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.)
(Updated 7/23/08 to add two more events and links to three Post-Dispatch stories.)
This just in: Alto saxophonist and St. Louis native David Sanborn will return to his hometown for a concert on Friday, September 26 at The Pageant. Sanborn last performed in St. Louis at the 2006 St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival, and has a new CD, Here and Gone, set to be released on Tuesday, August 12.
Tickets for Sanborn's concert will go on sale at 5:00 p.m. this Friday, July 25 at The Pageant box office, ticketmaster.com and all Ticketmaster outlets.
Wolfgang's Vault has added four Miles Davis concerts from the early 1970s to its collection of free audio streams. The concerts includes two of the trumpeter's shows from 1970 at the Fillmore East, a 1970 performance at Tanglewood, and a 1971 concert at the Fillmore West.
Wolfgang's Vault began as an online archive of material from concert promoter Bill Graham, and has grown to encompass ten different archives, ranging from Crawdaddy magazine to the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio program. It offers "free music streaming online...hundreds of available concert recordings from the last 40 years, digital downloads and thousands of rock items including posters, photos and t-shirts available for purchase." You can find the free Miles Davis audio streams here.
The StLJN jazz site of the week is Restructures, which offers as its primary attraction an extensive - some might even say exhaustive - collection of links related to free jazz, improvisation and creative music. Sure, there's a measure of content right there on the site, including discographies of a handful of avant-garde jazz players, but the real action is in what the site's proprietor Jason Guthartz calls the "link library".
Categories include artists, essays, calendars, magazines, broadcasts, labels, retailers and miscellaneous, and depending on the artist or topic, the links can include artists' or organizations' Web sites, audio files, interviews, critical essays, discographies and more. Though the site design is about as basic as it gets, it's a very well-thought-out and researched directory. If you have any interest in adventurous jazz or creative music post-1960, chances are you'll find Restructures to be a highly useful resource.
The West End Word had a story this week previewing the "All That Tap" festival, which will be held all this week at the Sheraton in Clayton. After a week of classes, workshops and panel discussions, the festival will wrap up on Saturday, July 26 with a concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center featuring more than a dozen professional tap dancers from stage and screen performing with live musical accompaniment from pianist Carolbeth True and her trio. You can read the article online here.
Singer Erin Bode and her band are headed east this week for a series of gigs at well-known jazz clubs in three cities. Bode, bassist Syd Rodway, pianist/guitarist Adam Maness and drummer Derek Phillips will play the Jazz Standard in New York City in Wednesday, July 23; Regatta Bar in Boston on Thursday, July 24; and Nighttown in Cleveland on Monday, July 28. Bode's new CD The Little Garden gets its official nationwide release on Tuesday, July 29.
This week, we continue our series of previews of this fall's coming attractions and shine the the Saturday video spotlight on Tony DeSare, a singer and pianist who will perform at Jazz at the Bistro from Wednesday, September 10 through Saturday, September 13. This actually will be DeSare's fourth gig for Jazz St. Louis in the last three years, as he made his debut at the Bistro two seasons ago; returned last September to kick off the 2007-08 season; and provided the entertainment for JSL's benefit gala this past spring.
The first clip is from Desare's appearance a couple of years ago on the CBS Saturday Early Show. The song is "We've Got A World That Swings," and DeSare is accompanied by Mike Lee on bass, Brian Czach on drums, and the great jazz veteran Bucky Pizzarelli on guitar.
In the second video, DeSare demonstrates his pianistic prowess in a performance of "Fly Me To The Moon" at the Jazz Arts Project's 2007 Summer Jazz Cafe in Red Bank, NJ. Given that DeSare is something of a Frank Sinatra aficionado, and even played the title role in the Off-Broadway musical Our Sinatra, one might expect him to offer a version not too different from Ol' Blue Eyes' rendition of the tune.
One would be wrong, as instead he goes in the opposite direction, performing the song as a piano-driven instrumental in a sort of mutant stride/Erroll Garner style. There's certainly room to debate whether or not this is a good and/or tasteful approach for this particular song...but there's no doubt it's different, and an impressive performance from a technical standpoint.
StLJN always tries to take notice when someone from the local jazz scene is mentioned in the national media, and so it is in that spirit that we report to you that Clayton McDonnell of MAXJAZZ was quoted this week in a story on the CNN/Money magazine Web site about the future of digital music service eMusic. Here's the relevant paragraph:
eMusic's customers think the site has a bright future. "Our outlets are becoming smaller and smaller especially with the decline of traditional retailers," says Clayton McDonnell, executive vice president of MAXJAZZ, a St. Louis-based jazz label. "So we look more and more to sites like eMusic to offer our music, not just our new releases but our catalogue."
Some non-StLJN deadlines are pressing yr.humble editor this week, so this post will have to be a relatively brief look at what's going on with jazz in St. Louis over the next few days. Let's go to the highlights, presented in chronological order:
On Thursday, there's another free concert, as guitarist Vince Varvel performs for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University. The Jazz at Holmes email list message for this week says Varvel will be joined by Paul DeMarinis on saxophones, Eric Stiller on bass and Miles Vandiver on drums.
Looking beyond the weekend, trumpeter Keith Moyer brings his group to BB's Jazz Blues and Soups on Monday night, and on Tuesday, keyboardist Ryan Marquez' trio will perform at The Gramophone as part of the free Tuesday night jazz series that the club is co-sponsoring with Jazz St. Louis..
(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.)
Single tickets for the Sheldon Concert Hall’s 2008-2009 season will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, August 9. Tickets can be purchased by calling MetroTix at 314-534-1111; online at the Sheldon’s Web site; or in person at The Fox Theatre Box Office, 534 N. Grand Blvd.
The Sheldon's jazz series for 2008-09 will include concerts by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Paula West, the Dave Holland Quintet, the John Jorgenson Quintet, and Rachael Price. Ticket prices vary by performance, and the hall also is offering a so-called “All-Access Ticket,” a premium package that includes preferred concert seating, complimentary parking, a cocktail and hors d’oeuvres reception before the concert and during intermission, and more. "All Access Tickets" may be reserved by calling the Sheldon's Development Department at 314-533-9900, but seating is limited, so (as the saying goes) act quickly for the best selection. .
StLJN's jazz site of the week is JazzCorner.com, which offers a couple of distinctive features - specifically, it serves as a convenient portal to the official sites of hundreds of jazz musicians and organizations, and it also includes one of the most active online message boards devoted to jazz, the "Speakeasy."
The site also has online jazz radio and video, a news section, podcasts featuring interviews with musicians, and more, presented with an mercifully uncluttered and easy-to-navigate design. The message board by itself makes JazzCorner.com worth a visit and/or a bookmark, but chances are that if you take some time to browse around the site, you'll find other content that's of interest as well.
This week's videos feature a couple of musicians who will be performing in St. Louis at Lucas School House in the next couple of months. Up top, there's a clip of the Stanton Moore Trio, featuring Moore on drums along with guitarist Will Bernard and keyboardist Wil Blades. It was recorded in May of this year at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle, and shows the band playing a new tune called "5-7-1," which is taken from Moore's forthcoming CD with Bernard and keyboardist John Medeski. The Stanton Moore Trio will be in St. Louis on Wednesday, September 3.
The video down below depicts a mostly unaccompanied solo from saxophonist Jeff Coffin, who comes to town on Thursday, August 21. It's from a performance at Beavercreek High School in Ohio, and shows Coffin going pretty far outside to deploy some extended techniques, followed by a demonstration of his prowess at playing two saxophones at once. Coffin does a lot of school performances and clinics for young musicians, and assuming this clip is any indication of what he's teaching, it's good to see someone exposing the youth of America to some good old-fashioned free-jazz skronk.
Lucas School House has scheduled two shows in September that may be of interest of St. Louis area jazz fans. Drummer Stanton Moore (pictured), best known as a founding member of the New Orleans funk/jam band Galactic, will bring his Trio to the venue for a concert on Wednesday, September 3, followed by the Chicago Afrobeat Project on Saturday, September 6.
Moore's recent trio CD Emphasis (on parenthesis), which features guitarist Will Bernard and keyboard player Robert Walter, has received good notices from the New York Times, AllAboutJazz.com, JazzReview.com and other media outlets. Moore has done a number of tour dates with the Trio this year in between gigs with Galactic, and the St. Louis show comes at the end of a string of dates for the group, so they should be well in the groove by the time they get to the Gateway City.
The Chicago Afrobeat Project is a nine-piece band that "keeps true to the mix of respect to the tradition and forward-thinking experimentation," incorporating influences from funk, rock, jazz, afro-cuban, highlife and juju music. Group members include Graham Czach (bass), Kevin Ford (keyboards), Angelo Garcia (tenor sax), David Glines (guitar), Marshall Greenhouse (drum set), Garrick Smith (baritone sax), Mark Thomson (trombone) and Danjuma Gaskin (percussion). You can see and hear a sample of their work in the embedded video window below, which has a rough-but-watchable clip of them performing Fela Kuti's "Palmwine Sound," recorded just a couple of weeks ago on June 25 at a show in Boise, Idaho.
The band Orange, which includes Erin Bode Group members Adam Maness on keyboards and Syd Rodway on bass, is the featured attraction this weekend at Jazz at the Bistro, and Maness talked about the group with freelance jazz journalist Terry Perkins for a preview story in the Post-Dispatch. You can read the article online here.
Over the last three weeks, StLJN's sibling site Heliocentric Worlds has featured music videos starring Ella Fitzgerald, Average White Band, the Ensemble InterContemporain, Miles Davis, John Tchicai and Tony Marsh, John Abercrombie and Greg Osby, Charles Lloyd and Billy Higgins, Nucleus Revisited, Archie Bell and the Drells, Thelonious Monk, Maceo Parker, Traffic, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, George Duke and Billy Cobham, Aretha Franklin, Howlin' Wolf, Archie Shepp, Al Kooper, Jeff Beck and Tower of Power.
There's a different music video every day, selected from genres including jazz, blues, soul, funk, classic rock, prog rock and experimental music, and you can still see all the clips mentioned above, plus hundreds more from the archives, any time you like. To check them out, please visit http://heliocentricworlds.blogspot.com/.
It may be midsummer, but even during vacation season there's still a nicely varied menu of jazz and creative music on St. Louis stages. The biggest name in town this week is saxophonist Boney James (pictured), who tonight will bring his popular mix of smooth jazz, funk, and instrumental R&B to the stage at the Bottleneck Blues Bar of the Ameristar Casino in St. Charles.
There's also a free concert tonight in the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, as drummer Bensid Thigpen, bassist Darrrell Mixon and painist Ptah Williams will perform a program devoted to the music of Wayne Shorter. And not far from the Wash U. campus, you can catch the world-Latin-jazz of Farshid Etniko at Brandt's.
On Friday and Saturday, the band Orange will perform at Jazz at the Bistro. Orange features keyboardist Adam Maness and bassist Syd Rodway of the Erin Bode Group teamed with Miles Vandiver on drums and Peter Schlamb on vibes, performing "original music by Maness and fresh takes on modern songs by such artists as Joni Mitchell and the Flaming Lips."
On Saturday, the Todd Mosby Group and students of master Indian musicians Imrat Khan will perform a benefit concert for Nature Conservancy at Lucas School House, Check out the embedded video window below to see Mosby, bassist Carl Casperson and drummer Ron Carr performing "Country Song," one of the original compositions the Mosby Group will be doing at the benefit. Also on Saturday, the versatile drummer Joe Pastor, always worth a listen, is fronting a band called Jazz Trinity at Brandt's.
On Sunday, there's another benefit show, this one featuring singer Erin Bode and group performing for St. Vincent DePaul Parish and its social ministries to the poor, which provide meals, clothing, food, personal grooming kits, sewing and other services. The event begins at 4:00 p.m. at St. Vincent de Paul Parish, 1408 South 10th St at Park Avenue. Cabaret seating is $35 per person, VIP seating is $75 per person. For reservations, call 314-231-9328 or 314-776-3152.
(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.)
An image of Josephine Baker is part of a new series of stamps honoring Vintage Black Cinema being issued this month by the United States Postal Service. The Baker stamp (pictured) features a reproduction of the poster artwork for the 1935 movie Princess Tam-Tam, one of four feature films to star the St. Louis native.
All five stamps in the series are based on vintage movie posters. The USPS' news release says, "Whether spotlighting the talents of entertainment icons or documenting changing social attitudes and expectations, these posters now serve a greater purpose than publicity and promotion. They are invaluable pieces of history, preserving memories of cultural phenomena that otherwise might have been forgotten."
To mark the occasion in Baker's hometown, the USPS and The Sheldon are holding a First Day of Sale Event at 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, July 16 at the The Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries, 3648 Washington Blvd. Admission is free.
The Sheldon Art Galleries presented a major exhibition devoted to Baker's life and work in 2006, the 100th anniversary of her birth. The Sheldon's email didn't specify exactly what will take place at the July 16 event, but presumably there will be some sort of ceremony; plus the opportunity to purchase first-day issues of the stamp, which usually are of interest to collectors.
In the Middle, the most recent CD from the Craig Russo Latin Jazz Project, just got a favorable review from the Web site Latin Jazz Corner, which you can read right here. Russo, a percussionist and composer, is based just up the road in the Champaign/Urbana, IL area, and he and the LJP will perform in St. Louis on September 5 and 6 at Jazz at the Bistro.
The StLJN jazz site of the week is Jazz Standards.com, a site " dedicated to the preservation of information for the musical compositions known as jazz standards," which are defined as compositions "held in continuing esteem and...commonly used as the basis of jazz arrangements and improvisations."
Compiling information from reference books and historical documents with commentary by jazz performers, historians, and musicologists, the site includes a list of the 1000 most-frequently recorded jazz standard compositions, detailed information on the top 100 jazz standards including origins, historical notes, musical analyses and CD suggestions, plus biographies of songwriters and performers, a historical timeline, and links to further references.
Whether you're looking for information on a specific song, or seeking to explore and learn more about jazz by studying its most enduring and popular compositions, JazzStandards.com is well worth a look and/or a bookmark.
This just in: The jazz-fusion group Oasis, which featured keyboard player Reggie Thomas and bassist John King (of Good 4 the Soul) and was a regular Sunday night attraction at the old Cicero's basement, is doing a one-off reunion show at 7:00 p.m. this evening, Monday, July 7 at the Bistro, 3536 Washington Ave. From King's MySpace page:
"I don't how many of you remember the days of Cicero's basement...this was the place to see upcoming national artists and local artists who were getting off the ground. One my favorite nights was Sunday. This was jazz night. For years it featured the group Tracer with Ptah Williams, Darryl Mixon, Tony Saputo, Tom Byrne. What a group. Later towards the end of the basement bar days before they moved up the street, another band crept on the scene and played there carrying the torch of great jazz on Sundays. "OASIS". The group originally featured Reggie Thomas, Tom Byrne on guitar, John King on bass, the late Tony Saputo on drums, and the late Gerald DeClue on saxes. We first lost Tony to the success of getting a gig with Reba McIntire and subsequently the airplane crash that took the lives of some her band. We lost Gerald DeClue in a tragic car accident... We went on to get John "Puncho" Williams on drums and Scott Alspach on trumpet. We had some awesome times in the basement and the though the group hasn't been together for awhile we still often are confronted by fans and friends who haven't forgotten...Thank you so very much. Finally, Reggie is pulling it together for one more go round. Come out and help us bring back some of the memories. It won't be as awesome without ya."
Joining former members Thomas, King, Williams and Alspach, alto saxophonist Jason Swagler will be sitting in for DeClue at tonight's show. Tickets are $10 each and will be available at the door.
Jazz at the Bistro has made St. Louis magazine's annual "A-List" as "Best Jazz Club" in St. Louis. You can read the entire article in the mag's July issue, now on sale, or peruse the Bistro-related parts online here.
This week, let's take a look at a couple of videos featuring musicians who will be playing this month in the Tuesday night jazz series at The Gramophone, for which the club is partnering with Jazz St. Louis. One of the precepts of the Tuesday night series seems to be the presentation of new talent, such as the Chicago-based band Algernon and saxophonist Bennett Wood.
Algernon, led by guitarist Dave Miller, plays instrumental music that draws on a number of influences, including jazz, rock, and contemporary classical. They've been placed by some critics into the "post-rock" category, evoking comparisons to their fellow Chicagoans in the band Tortoise, but since forming four years ago, they have performed in settings ranging from jazz festivals to indie rock clubs.
Algernon have put out two independently released CDs, and they'll be playing at The Gramophone on Tuesday, July 15 with their current lineup, which includes Miller and fellow guitarist Nick Fryer, Katie Wiegman on vibraphone, Cory Healey on drums and Tom Perona on bass. The video clip above was recorded in February 2007 at the House Cafe in DeKalb, IL, and shows the band playing Miller's composition "Transmission Received."
As for Bennett Wood, who will be performing at The Gramophone this Tuesday, July 8, he's a native of Hannibal, MO who was schooled at SIU-Edwardsville and now resides in St. Louis. The video clip below was recorded at SIU-E in April of this year, and it features Wood on alto sax, bassist Nick Jost and drummer Sean Mullins performing an original composition by Jost called "Henry." I have no idea if what's depicted in this video has anything to do with what Wood's going to play on Tuesday, but it sounds good to these ears, and at the very least shows that the young saxophonist has a nice even tone and good facility on his chosen instrument.
There's no cover charge for the Tuesday night jazz shows at The Gramophone, and the music starts at 9:00 p.m. For more information or directions, see their Web site.
To help call attention to his upcoming benefit concert for the Nature Conservancy, guitarist Todd Mosby is offering a free .mp3 download of a track from his upcoming CD. "Missouri Folk Song" was written by Mosby as part of a group of songs intended to evoke the feeling of rural Missouri and the Ozark region, and he'll perform those tunes at the benefit show at Lucas School House on Saturday, July 12.
In the meantime, you can get a preview of the show and/or the CD by downloading a free copy of "Missouri Folk Song" here. In his bio, Mosby cites a number of varied musical influences, ranging from Miles Davis to master Indian musician Imrat Khan; I'd add that jazz fans who enjoy the Pat Metheny Group and/or Bill Frisell's Americana material also may find Mosby's work to be of interest.
You can hear him discuss the "Concert for Conservation" in an interview on the radio program "Cityscape," which will air on KWMU (90.7 FM) at 11:00 a.m. Friday, July 4. (If you can't listen in live, "Cityscape" also is available from the KWMU site as a download/podcast.)
Also, Mosby and representatives of the Nature Conservancy will be on KDHX (88.1 FM) on Tuesday, July 8, with the Conservancy's folks featured on the station's environmental-issues talk show "Earthworms" at 7:00 p.m. that night, followed by a performance by the guitarist and his band on the "Stumble In The Dark" program at 8:00 p.m.
Once again this year, DownBeat magazine has opened its annual Readers Poll to online voting. The Readers Poll is a long-running tradition for the jazz journal, and usually provides some good discussion fodder and an interesting snapshot of tastes and trends. To vote for your favorite musicians, groups, recordings, and so on, go to the online ballot for the 2008 poll here. (While you don't have to be a DB subscriber to vote, the online ballot does require a name and email address, so as to discourage any potential ballot box stuffing.)
With Independence Day falling on Friday, there are plenty of non-musical distractions to be had over the next few days, and the most prominent jazz venue in town, Jazz at the Bistro, is taking a break in its summer schedule for the holiday weekend. Nevertheless, there are several noteworthy shows of potential interest to jazz fans happening around town.
Tonight, the jazz-fusion/jam/world music ensemble Garaj Mahal, featuring guitarist Fareed Haque, comes to town to perform at Lucas School House, while singer Anita Rosamond will do a free concert as part of the Whitaker Music Festival at Missouri Botanical Garden. Look for Rosamond to do at least few selections from her new live album, backed by a band that includes Bill Elrod on saxophone and EWI, Ron Carr on drums, Carl Casperson on bass, Mike Carosello on keyboards and Grant Krener on guitar, plus three backup singers.
On Thursday, there's another free concert, as perennial local favorite and tenor sax titan Willie Akins opens this week's Whitaker Urban Evenings show for singer Erin Bode at St. Louis Place Park. Bode also has a new CD, The Little Garden, and perhaps if the fates align, Akins will sit in with her for a tune or two, adding his take on some of that saxophonic flavor that was provided the recording by John Ellis.
On Sunday, the New Orleans-based funk band Bonerama (pictured), which features a front line of four trombone players, will perform at the Broadway Oyster Bar, while just up the block, BB's Jazz Blues and Soups will feature two bands, with Good 4 the Soul taking the early slot and Rosamond and band performing from 9:30 until closing.
Looking beyond the weekend, on Tuesday the veteran singer, pianist and saxophonist Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum will perform at Brandt's, while up-and-coming saxophonist Bennett Wood takes the stage for a no-cover-charge show at The Gramophone.
(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.)
Saxophonist Jeff Coffin (pictured) is returning to St. Louis for another performance at the Lucas School House on Thursday, August 21. Coffin, best known as a member of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, played the same venue last May with his band, the Mu'Tet.
He's currently doing some emergency substitute work on tour with the Dave Matthews Band, filling in for the DMB's regular saxophonist LeRoi Moore, who was injured on Monday in an all-terrain-vehicle accident on his farm in Virginia.
If you follow local restaurant news, you already may have seen the items last week on the Sauce magazine Web site (scroll down to the entries from 6/27/08) and in Deb Peterson's column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch announcing that Savor, the swanky eatery at 4356 Lindell in the Central West End, would close its doors for the final time this past Saturday night.
Unfortunately, the restaurant's closing also means the end of the Cabaret at Savor, which operated under separate management in the same building. Here's the email announcement from producer Jim Dolan:
"Closing Was Sudden, Unexpected
I am writing to tell you that The Cabaret at Savor is closed.
The Cabaret at Savor presented its last show on Saturday, June 28. The 64-seat room opened as a cabaret in October of 2006, and presented some of the top names in Manhattan cabaret, including Steve Ross, Maude Maggart, Paula West, Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano, Mary Cleere Haran, Craig Rubano, Jeff Harnar, Barbara Brussell, John McDaniel and many others. It had also become a favorite venue for cabaret singers and musical theatre artists from St. Louis.
It's a loss, for me personally and for all here who love cabaret. The room was a terrific cabaret space, and both the singers and the audiences liked its elegant and cozy design. Unfortunately, I learned just 48 hours prior that Savor, the restaurant, was closing over the weekend. I have been working with the building owners to keep the cabaret space upstairs open, but at this time that appears not to be an option. I am looking for a new space, and hope to have an announcement soon. My thanks to all the wonderful singers and musicians, to those who did sound and lights, and especially to our audience. You made it a great room."
Here's hoping Dolan is successful in finding another space. StLJN will have updates on his progress as the situation develops.
Singer Anita Rosamond is releasing a new CD entitled Keep Liftin' Me Higher - LIVE!. Recorded in April during a gig at Harrah's casino in St. Louis, the disc features Rosamond's interpretations of well-known songs recorded during the 1960s and 1970s by female vocalists such as Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Rita Coolidge, Etta James, Natalie Cole, Dionne Warwick, Karen Carpenter and Donna Summer.
Copies of the CD will be available for purchase next week from Webster Records, Euclid Records, Vintage Vinyl, all St. Louis area Borders stores and from Rosamond's Web site. Rosamond also plans a CD release event on Saturday, July 26 at the Black Cat Theatre, 2810 Sutton Blvd. in Maplewood.
With no touring jazz musicians coming to town this week, let's take the opportunity to tout some upcoming gigs from some of our fine St. Louis-based players.
