Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Jazz this week: Rickey Woodard, Craig Russo Latin Jazz Project, Trio Trés Bien, Chamber Project St. Louis, and more

It's shaping up to be a fine weekend in St. Louis to get out and hear some live sounds, and fortunately, our local presenters of jazz and creative music would seem to have a variety of potentially worthy attractions in the offing. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight through Saturday, Cabaret St. Louis continues its season at the Kranzberg Arts Center with "A Salute to the Rat Pack" from the group Three Men and A Baby...Grand, aka singers Brian Lane Green, Lee Lessack and John Boswell.

On Friday, percussionist Craig Russo's Latin Jazz Project returns to Jazz at the Bistro to begin a two-night stand. Hailing from just up the road in the Champaign/Urbana area, the group includes several members of the jazz faculty at the University of Illinois, including saxophonist Chip McNeill, who spent time on the road with trumpeters Maynard Ferguson and Arturo Sandoval.

Also on Friday, guitarist Matthew Von Doran and his trio will play at Broadway Bean Coffee on the south side; and Robbie's House of Jazz will present pianist Heather Bosshardt's trio with bassist Nick Jost and drummer Marty Morrison.

On Saturday, saxophonist Rickey Woodard (pictured) will take the stage at Robbie's, backed by pianist Reggie Thomas, Jost and Morrison. Woodard, a Nashville native, has worked with Ray Charles, the Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra and drummer Frank Capp's Juggernaut, and also is a veteran studio musician with session credits ranging from Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra to the Temptations and the O'Jays. Woodard also has recorded nine CDs as a leader, the most recent being 2009's Pineapple Delight.

Also on Saturday, New Music Circle begins their 2010-11 season with a concert by Chamber Project St. Louis at Christ Church Cathedral. The group will celebrate contemporary American female composers with a program including works by Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdon and Grammy Award winner Libby Larsen. For this performance, CPStL members Adrianne Honnold (saxophone), Jennifer Gartley (flute), Dana Hotle (clarinet) and Laura Reycraft (viola) will be joined by pianist Amanda Kirkpatrick and cellist Valentina Takova.

On Sunday, Trio Trés Bien opens the 2010-11 St. Louis Jazz and Blues Vespers series with a free concert at Second Baptist Church, 9030 Clayton Rd. (at McKnight).

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday night the Sessions Big Band returns to BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups; and on Tuesday morning, the Sheldon Concert Hall begins its 2010-11 series of Coffee Concerts with an 11:00 a.m. performance by Cornet Chop Suey, which will be repeated at the same time on Wednesday morning

For more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on the StLJN Facebook page.

(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.)

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