Laurence Hobgood to perform Thursday, April 5 at Jazz at the Bistro

The Chicago-based pianist Laurence Hobgood (pictured), best known as the long-time accompanist to singer Kurt Elling, is coming to St. Louis with his own quartet to perform at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Thursday, April 5 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Hobgood has served as musical director for Elling since 1995 and "has played on, composed/arranged for and co-produced all of Elling’s CDs, each Grammy-nominated." Their 2009 release Dedicated To You: Kurt Elling Sings The Music Of Coltrane and Hartman won the 2010 Grammy Award for "Best Vocal Jazz Record."

Hobgood’s quartet will include bassist Matthew Rybicki; drummer Jared Schonig, who was just here this past weekend with The Wee Trio; and a saxophonist yet to be announced. Their appearance comes as part of a piano-centric weekend at the Bistro that also will include sets by veteran St. Louis pianist Dave Venn on Friday and the duo of pianist Brad Mehldau and saxophonist Joshua Redman on Saturday and Sunday.

Tickets for the Laurence Hobgood Quartet at Jazz at the Bistro are $25 for the general public, $10 for students with ID, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. next Tuesday, February 7 via Metrotix.

VLAA to present workshop on bookkeeping for artists next Monday, February 6

St. Louis Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts will present a workshop on "The Artist As Bookkeeper" from 7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. next Monday, February 6 at the Regional Arts Commission, 6128 Delmar.

Angie Fink of UHY Advisors Tax and Business Consultants will be the speaker, and will "guide you through the tax maze and offer suggestions that could save you money and a lot of aggravation." The cost of the workshop is $10 in advance, $15 at the door, and a registration form may be downloaded here.

StLJN Audio Archive: John Hicks - Hells Bells

For today's Audio Archive post, we feature Hells Bells, the very first session recorded as a bandleader by the late pianist and former St. Louisan John Hicks. Hells Bells - spelled without the apostrophe on the album cover (pictured), but sometimes with it in other references - was recorded in 1975 for trumpeter Charles Tolliver's Strata-East label, though it wasn't issued until 1978.

There was a CD reissue of the album in 2000 by the Charly label, which now is out of print. As of this writing, the one new copy that could be found for sale online has an asking price of $90, with used copies commanding nearly $30.

Hells Bells is a trio session featuring Hicks with Clint Houston (bass) and Cliff Barbaro (drums), performing four tracks: "Hell's Bells," "Avojca," "Yemenja," and "Angie's Tune." The .mp3 rip of the album linked to here today is from the blog Freedom Records; to download a free copy, go here and click the link labeled "Mediafire MP3," which will take you to, you guessed it, a Mediafire page with the download.

The StLJN Audio Archive links only to recordings that are out-of-print or that never have been commercially available. The purpose of the Audio Archive is to encourage discussion, appreciation and knowledge of St. Louis jazz artists, and we urge you to support them (or their estates) by purchasing authorized recordings and merchandise and, whenever possible, attending live performances.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Techniques of Advanced Organology with Dr. Lonnie Smith

There are a number of fine jazz organ players working today, but as one of the few remaining active veterans who started back in the 1960s, Dr. Lonnie Smith brings an appealingly authentic vibe whenever he sits down at the bench. Smith has played St. Louis several times in recent years, and he'll be back next week to perform from Wednesday, February 1 through Saturday, February 4 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Smith originally is from the Buffalo, NY, area, and first became widely known to jazz fans while working with guitar George Benson's band. Later, he established his reputation as a leader with a series of recordings for Blue Note, and has remained active ever since, touring or recording with musicians such as Grover Washington, Jr., Ron Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, and frequent collaborator Lou Donaldson as well as leading his own groups.

Today we've got several examples of the good Doctor demonstrating his techniques, starting up above with a version of "The Whip" recorded in 2007 in Amsterdam with a group of Dutch musicians.

Down below is "Frame For The Blues," recorded in June, 2011 in Szombathely, Hungary with Smith's current touring partners, guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and drummer Jamire Williams. Next, it's Smith, guitarist Russell Malone and drummer Herlin Riley in 2009 at The Iridium in NYC, dipping into the pop-rock songbook with an idiosyncratic take on Eurythmics' 1980s hit "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This."

Below that, the Dr. is teamed with Riley, guitarist Peter Bernstein and saxophonist Donald Harrison for another somewhat unlikely tune, a funked-up version of the Beatles' "Come Together" recorded at NYC's Jazz Standard. Finally, in a video from 2010, Smith walks a Dutch announcer though the basics of Hammond B-3 operations before playing "And The World Weeps" with drummer Victor de Boo and guitarist Jerome Hol.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short local news items of interest:

* Bassist Darin Gray talked with Terry Perkins for a St. Louis Beacon article about Saturday's New Music Circle concert featuring percussionist Chris Corsano (pictured), Gray, and saxophonist David Stone at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

* Perkins also has another piece up at the Beacon this week, about the closing of Webster Records.

* Meanwhile, Jason Rosenbaum of the Riverfront Times this week penned a birthday tribute to saxophonist Julius Hemphill.

* The Sheldon Concert Hall staff has posted photos of Sunday's concert by Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo to an album on the Sheldon's Facebook page.

* Also, saxophonist Jeff Riley has put up some photos on his Facebook page of his recent concert at The Chapel.

* Guitarist Brian Vaccaro sends word that his CD Going Through the Motions was listed among the "Notable CD's of 2011" list of the venerable author, critic, and jazz historian W. Royal Stokes, who's written for the Washington Post, Down Beat and many other publications.

* Pianist Peter Martin is offering a "buy two, get two free" deal on tickets for his next concert at the Sheldon. The show will feature Martin, bassist Robert Hurst, drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. and guest vocalist Vivian Sessoms in the debut of Inner Circle, Martin's new band that "interprets classic pop and R&B songs and originals through a jazz lens." The four-for-two offer is good only through next Tuesday, January 31; to get the discount, go to Metrotix.com to purchase your tickets and, when prompted, enter the promo code: CIRCLE.

* In more Martin-related news, the pianist was among the honorees Monday at the annual Arts and Education Council awards dinner at the Chase Park Plaza, and you can read an account of the evening's events from the Post-Dispatch's Deb Peterson here. The ceremony also included short videos about all the award winners; you can see the one about Martin online here, and the video about Jason Brown, trumpet player, music teacher in the Riverview Gardens school district and Arts Educator of the Year, here.

Interview with the Wee Trio's Dan Loomis now online

The Wee Trio is in town this weekend to play at Jazz at the Bistro, and the group's bassist Dan Loomis, who's originally from St. Louis, took some time last week to talk on the phone with me about their new album Ashes to Ashes: A David Bowie Intraspective. You can read the interview with Loomis online at the Riverfront Times' RFT Music Blog here.

Jazz this week: The Wee Trio, Chris Corsano, "Jazz Under The Stars," Freddie Washington, and more

If there's a theme to this week, it would seem to be "youth," as the next few days' worth of jazz and creative music in St. Louis will feature a number of fresh faces (plus a few relatively grizzled veterans) performing in a variety of styles ranging from the traditional to the experimental. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, vibraphonist Peter Schlamb and his group will kick off the winter/spring 2012 Jazz at Holmes series of free concerts at Washington University.

Also tonight, up-and-coming young pianists Stephanie Trick and Paolo Alderighi will team up for a performance at Robbie's House of Jazz; and the Young Friends groups of Jazz St. Louis and the St. Louis Science Center will present their second "Jazz Under The Stars" event at the McDonnell Planetarium in Forest Park, featuring music from drummer Marty Morrison and Friends with guest vocalist Erin Bode.

On Friday, the Wee Trio (pictured) opens a two-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. The group, which features St. Louis native Dan Loomis on bass, New Yorker Jared Schonig on drums, and New Orleans' James Westfall on vibraphone, last played the Bistro in 2009. This time around, they're touring behind a new CD, Ashes to Ashes: A David Bowie Intraspective, which, as the name suggests, features their interpretations of six songs written by iconic rocker David Bowie.

Yr. humble StLJN editor spoke with Loomis last week about the project for an article that should go up on the Riverfront Times' RFT Music Blog some time on Thursday. Once it's online, we'll add a link here; in the meantime, for more about the Wee Trio and some video footage of them in action, see this post, which preceded their last visit here. UPDATE - 10:15 a.m., 1/26/12: The interview with Dan Loomis is online here.

Also on Friday, saxophonist Greg Lewis and his group Press Play return to Robbie's House of Jazz, and guitarist Tom Byrne's trio will be back at the Cigar Inn.

Then on Saturday night, the improvising percussionist Chris Corsano will be in town to perform with bassist Darin Gray and saxophonist Dave Stone in a concert presented by New Music Circle at Kranzberg Arts Center. For more about Corsano, including links to a couple of extended interviews and more than an hour of live performance video, check out this post from last Saturday. UPDATE - 10:30 p.m., 1/26/12: You can read my Critic's Pick about Corsano written for this week's print edition of the RFT here. (Musicians and music students take note: Corsano and Gray also will lead a free public workshop on improvisation and extended techniques from noon to 2:00 p.m. Saturday at Luminary Center for the Arts, 2900 Reber Pl.)

On Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis Jazz Club will present a stylistically diverse double bill featuring the traditional jazz sound of Banjos & Brass, plus Utter Chaos, a quartet of young musicians featuring a front line of baritone sax and trombone and drawing inspiration from 1950s cool jazz, at the Doubletree Hotel St. Louis at Westport.

That evening, saxophonist Freddie Washington will open a series of Sunday night shows presented by the Black Rep at the Grandel Theater.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday evening Dave Black and Bridge will perform at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium. The eclectic ensemble features Black on guitar along with violinist Asako Kuboki, cellist Tracy Andreotti, bassist Syd Rodway and percussionist Henry Claude, performing original compositions that draw on jazz, classical, world music and more.

Then on Tuesday, the St. Louis MetroBones, a new group that features 14 trombonists from area high schools and colleges under the direction of veteran trombonist and educator Dave Dickey, will play a concert at the Black Cat Theatre.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, 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.)

UNT One O'Clock Lab Band to play Thursday, February 23 at Webster Groves High School

The University of North Texas' One O'Clock Lab Band (pictured) is coming to St. Louis to perform at 7:00 p.m. , Thursday, February 23 in the main auditorium at Webster Groves High School, 100 Selma Ave. The Webster Groves High School jazz bands will open the show.

The One O'Clock Lab Band is directed by Steve Wiest and is considered the top band of the nine large jazz ensembles at UNT, which has one of the most famous and long-running collegiate jazz programs in the nation.

Their concert on February 23 at Webster Groves High School will be open to the public, with a $5 donation requested at the door.

Freddie Washington to open Black Rep concert series on Sunday, January 29

Saxophonist Freddie Washington (pictured) and his group will be the first performers for a Sunday night concert series being presented by the Black Rep. Washington will kick off the series at 7:00 p.m. this Sunday, January 29 at the Grandel Theater.

A mainstay on the local jazz scene from the 1960s through the mid-2000s, Washington recently returned to St. Louis after living in Dallas, Nashville and Atlanta. The Black Rep's marketing director Joe Hanrahan tells StLJN that Washington's concert is the first of a planned series of four or five Sunday night shows that will take place about once a month this winter and spring. (We'll have info on any further jazz-related performances right here when more details are revealed.)

Tickets for Freddie Washington at the Grandel Theater are $20, and can be reserved by calling the Black Rep box office at 314-534-3810.

Jazz at Holmes series announces winter/spring 2012 schedule

The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University today announced via email their schedule of free concerts for the winter/spring 2012 semester.

The series kicks off this Thursday, January 26 with a performance by vibraphonist Peter Schlamb (pictured) and his group, and continues through Thursday, April 12, when it will conclude with a show co-sponsored by the campus radio station KWUR featuring an artist yet to be announced.

Here's the complete schedule:

Thursday, January 26: Peter Schlamb Group
Thursday, February 2: Scott Jones
Thursday, February 9: Ken Kehner Trio
Thursday, February 23: Ptah Williams plays Herbie Hancock
Thursday, March 1: Steve Schenkel and Kim Portnoy play George Gershwin
Thursday, March 22: Paul DeMarinis Group
Thursday, March 29: WU Jazz Combo Students
Thursday, April 5: Vince Varvel Quartet
Thursday, April 12: KWUR-Sponsored Guest Artist

All Jazz at Holmes concerts are free and open to the public, and begin at 8:00 p.m. in Holmes Lounge, which is located in Ridgley Hall, on the west side of Brookings Quadrangle near the intersection of Brookings and Hoyt drives.

StLJN Audio Archive: Grant Green - Visions

Fortunately for fans of jazz guitar, much of Grant Green's output for the Blue Note label in the 1960s and 1970s remains in print today. One exception, though, seems to be Visions, a 1971 session that featured the St. Louis native's versions of some then-current pop hits along with a couple of originals and one classical piece.

Vinyl copies are scarce, as you'd expect for a 40-year old recording that probably got just one pressing back then. There apparently was a CD reissue a few years back that now is out of print too, with used copies fetching as much $85 online as of this writing. And so far, the powers-that-be don't seem even to have made the album available as a digital download.

That scarcity, plus the renewed interest in Green's music in recent years, would seem to make Visions (pictured) a good candidate for the network of music sharing blogs - and once again, fortune has smiled on guitar fans, for the proprietor of a site called Lost In Tyme has preserved the session online for all to enjoy.

Stylistically, the laid-back Visions definitely is a departure from Green's usual tendencies toward hard bop, blues and funk but, accompanied by a band featuring Chuck Rainey on bass and Idris Muhammad on drums, he manages to find something interesting in most of the tunes. The track listing includes "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" "Maybe Tomorrow," "Mozart Symphony #40 In G Minor, K550, 1st Movement," "Love On A Two Way Street," "Cantaloupe Woman," "We've Only Just Begun," "Never Can Say Goodbye" and "Blues For Abraham."

To download a free copy of Grant Green's Visions, go to the original blog post referenced above and scroll down to where it says "Get It Here." Click on one of the links immediately below that and follow the instructions. (For more on .rar files and how to use them, see this.)

The StLJN Audio Archive links only to recordings that are out-of-print or that never have been commercially available. The purpose of the Audio Archive is to encourage discussion, appreciation and knowledge of St. Louis jazz artists, and we urge you to support them (or their estates) by purchasing authorized recordings and merchandise and, whenever possible, attending live performances.

(Edited 1/29/12 to add the disclaimer paragraph.)

Peter Martin, Vivian Sessoms to perform Saturday, March 10 at the Sheldon

Pianist Peter Martin will resume his eponymous series at the Sheldon Concert Hall with a performance featuring guest vocalist Vivian Sessoms (pictured) at 8:00 p.m., Saturday, March 10. Bassist Bob Hurst and drummer Ulysses Owens will join Martin and Sessoms for the show.

Sessoms is a native New Yorker who's been performing professionally since she was a child, but got her first widespread exposure as a grown-up through working with film composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Since then, she's developed a solo career as a cabaret performer, and has recorded and/or toured as a background singer with the likes of P. Diddy, Michael Jackson, Donna Summer, Sinead O'Connor, Stevie Wonder and Lalah Hathaway. Sessoms also has sung on many national commericals as a session vocalist, and most recently has partnered in the neo-soul group Albright with multi-instrumentalist/producer Chris Parks.

Tickets are $50 for VIP seating, $30 orchestra, $25 balcony and $15 students, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. this Monday, January 23 via MetroTix.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Chris Corsano

This week, let's take a look at some video clips featuring percussionist Chris Corsano, who will be in St. Louis to perform Saturday, January 28 at the Kranzberg Arts Center in a concert presented by New Music Circle.

Corsano, a veteran free improvisor raised and still based in New England, has played and recorded with a wide variety of musicians over the past two decades, including improvisors like saxophonists Paul Flaherty and Evan Parker and multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, as well as Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Nels Cline of Wilco, rock singer Bjork, and groups such as Six Organs of Admittance, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Cold Bleak Heat, and Rangda. For his gig here, he'll be joined by two St. Louis musicians, bassist Darin Gray and bassist Dave Stone.

Today's clips offer excerpts from four relatively recent live performances that should serve to illuminate some of Corsano's techniques and tendencies as an improvising musician. First up, there's a part of a 2010 solo show at a house concert venue called The Nicolas Cage in New Brunswick, NJ.

Down below, there are parts of two more solo performances, one in October 2010 in Berlin and the in May, 2009 in Turners Falls, MA. We wrap up with a half-hour chunk of the recent concert by Corsano with his longtime collaborator, saxophonist Paul Flaherty, and guitarist Bill Nace last December at Flywheel Arts Collective in Easthampton, MA.

For more about Corsano, check out this interview he did with Perfect Sound Forever; and this one he did with the website Tiny Mix Tapes.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short local news items of interest:

* Jazz St. Louis' Devin Rodino was on the local cable program STL TV Live this week talking about next Thursday's "Jazz Under The Stars" event at the St. Louis Science Center. You can see the interview here.

* Pianist Peter Martin will be the recipient of an Excellence in Arts award at the 2012 St. Louis Arts Awards, which will be presented Monday by the Arts and Education Council at a fundraiser at the Chase Park Plaza. Martin will perform at the event with singer Dianne Reeves, for whom he serves as musical director. The evening also will include a performance by trumpet player Jason Brown, fine arts director for the Riverview Gardens School District and Arts Educator of the Year, with the Jazz Edge Big Band.

* The Post-Dispatch's Margaret Gillerman filed a final story on the impending closing of Webster Records

* Guitarist Matthew Von Doran (pictured) is at the winter National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show in Anaheim, CA this week, and will perform with his trio at the convention tonight.

* Also tonight, the St. Louis Artists Guild opens "Oh! You Pretty Things: Indie Music and Design," an exhibition exploring graphic design in the St. Louis indie music scene with an emphasis on the D.I.Y (do-it-yourself) aesthetic and philosophy. The exhibit is free and open to the public, and continues through Saturday, March 17.

Ravi Coltrane interview now online

Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, who's in St. Louis through Saturday to play at Jazz at the Bistro, kindly spent some time on the phone with me earlier this week for a brief interview that's now been published on the Riverfront Times' RFT Music Blog. You can read more about how in 2012 Coltrane is shaking up his band, his repertoire, and lots more, here.

Jazz this week: Ravi Coltrane, Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo, a new big band debuts, and more

The tenor sax plays a major role in this week's schedule of jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with two of the instrument's most prominent current exponents in town, plus several other noteworthy shows including the debut of a new big band as well. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane (pictured) opens a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. Coltrane, the son of legendary saxophonist John Coltrane and pianist/harpist Alice Coltrane, last played the Bistro with his own group in 2008, and then returned the following year to perform with the Blue Note 7 at the Sheldon. He's been through some changes since then, and talked about them a bit in an interview I did with him on Monday that should be going live on the Riverfront Times music blog any time now. (Update - 3:30 p.m., 1/19/12: The interview is online here.)

Until then, for more about Ravi Coltrane, check out this video showcase post from a couple of Saturdays ago; this St. Louis magazine blog post by Dennis Owsley, which compares Coltrane with his famous father; and this article by the Post-Dispatch's Calvin Wilson, which ponders the elder Coltrane's influence on his son and on Branford Marsalis (who will be here on Sunday - see below). Also, you can hear Coltrane's complete set from last summer's Newport Jazz Festival as archived online by NPR here.

Also tonight, Erin Bode is at Cyrano's; saxophonist Larry Johnson and singer Charlie B. will be playing their new weekly gig at Bartolino's near Hampton and 44; and singer Ralph Butler and pianist Gigi Darr perform in an early evening show at Jazz on Broadway in Alton.

On Thursday, Coltrane will be at Webster University's Community Music School to do a workshop with Webster students; the event, held in CMS room #10, also is open to the public, free of charge. Also on Thursday, the Dixie Dudes bring their traditional New Orleans jazz sound back to Jazz on Broadway.

Then on Friday, trumpeter Randy Holmes' quintet (aka Hard Bop Heritage) will play at Robbie's House of Jazz; saxophonist Rod Tate returns to the Halls Ferry Inn Jazz Cafe; and drummer Paul Shaw's trio with pianist Ptah Williams and bassist Bob DeBoo is back at the Cigar Inn.

Saturday evening, the Funky Butt Brass Band will perform at the new multi-genre venue Plush, which is located at 3222 Locust in Midtown. (For a bit more about this venue, which seems to be booking mostly rock, blues and R&B so far, see this blog post from the RFT's Kiernan Maletsky.)

On Sunday, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and pianist Joey Calderazzo will be in St. Louis to perform as a duo at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Both were here last for a Marsalis quartet show at the Touhill in February 2010, but this tour is a follow-up to the duo album Tales of Mirth and Melancholy released last year by Marsalis and Calderazzo. For more about that, see this video showcase post from last Saturday.

Also on Sunday, trombonist Dave Dickey, a veteran musician but relatively recent transplant to the area who's played with a host of name jazz and Latin artists, debuts the new St. Louis version of his Big Band at the Kirkwood Station Brewing Company; and the Webster Groves middle and high school jazz bands will perform their annual "Cool Nights, Hot Jazz" concert over at The Pageant.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday saxophonist "Blind" Willie Dineen brings his Broadway Collective back to the stage of BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, 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.)

Recently on Heliocentric Worlds

If you've been reading this site for any length of time, you probably already know that this post is nothing but another shameless plug for StLJN's sibling site Heliocentric Worlds, where each day we offer a different online music video for your listening and viewing enjoyment.

Drawing on genres including jazz, blues, soul, funk, classic rock, prog rock and experimental, recent posts have included clips featuring Steely Dan, B.B. King, Nina Simone, Greg Osby, Oscar Peterson, Memphis Slim, Chick Corea, the Spinners (with Joni Sledge), Van Morrison, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Booker T and the MGs, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Gerry Mulligan, Frank Zappa, Jim Hall, Charles Lloyd, and Joe Henderson.

If you've somehow missed all this genre-spanning goodness, don't be dismayed. You still can see all those clips, plus hundreds more from the carefully curated archives, by visiting http://heliocentricworlds.blogspot.com/.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Mirth and Melancholy with Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo

This week, our video spotlight shines on saxophonist Branford Marsalis and pianist Joey Calderazzo, who will be in St. Louis for a duo performance on Sunday, January 22 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

In June of last year, Marsalis and Calderazzo released Songs of Mirth and Melancholy, a duo CD on the saxophonist's Marsalis Music label. This tour essentially is a followup to that recording, which received favorable reviews such as this one from Jazz Times' Jeff Tamarkin and this one from AllAboutJazz.com's Mark F. Turner.

However, although Marsalis and Calderazzo have worked together in the former's quartet for nearly 14 years now, their duo project is new enough that there's not much video documentation of it online. They did make a series of promotional clips, featuring interview footage and some audio excerpts, in conjunction with the release of Mirth and Melancholy, and you can see the first of those, "Inspirations and Methods," in the embedded window up above.

Two more of those promo clips, "Focus on What the Song Requires" and "Playing Together is Enough Inspiration" can be seen down below. (A fourth clip, about the material selected for the album, already was featured in this space as part of the recent winter/spring 2012 jazz preview.)

Performance clips from the duo's concerts to date seem mostly limited to short snippets of a minute or two, but there is one full length performance online of a song from the CD, a version of "Hope" recorded in 2010 at the Detroit Jazz Festival. (The gig was actually a show for Marsalis's quartet, but although bassist Eric Revis and drummer Justin Faulkner are present on stage, their contributions to "Hope" are brief and limited to some discreet swells under Calderazzo's piano.) You can find "Hope" in the fourth window, and to round things out, there's an audio-only clip of another piece from the album, "La Valse Kendall," in the fifth and final embed window.

For more about Branford Marsalis and additional clips of the quartet in action, see this video showcase post that ran before his last St. Louis gig in February 2010 at the Touhill.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short local news items of interest:

* There's good news in this week's blog entry from Gwen Terry, wife of legendary trumpeter and St. Louis native Clark Terry. After spending three months in the hospital and having his right leg amputated below the thigh, Terry (pictured) has improved enough that doctors are about to let him return home.

In related news, Terry will be the subject of a tribute this Sunday night on Canada's Jazz.FM91. The 30 minute program will air at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time (9:00 p.m. here in St. Louis) and will be hosted by Celine Peterson, daughter of the legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson as part of the station's “Host Your Own Radio Show” series. The program can be streamed from anywhere in the world via http://www.jazz.fm.

* Speaking of radio, St. Louis' Smooth 96.3 HD-3 and its sister station KFTK-HD2 recently were featured in an article in Radio World, highlighting a promotion the stations did in conjunction with a concert last year by Steve Tyrell at the Sheldon. Smooth 96.3's main man Jason Church also tells StLJN that they've recently set up a Facebook fan page to keep listeners informed about what's going on at the station.

* One of The Bad Plus' sets last week at Jazz at the Bistro was reviewed for the Riverfront Times by Ryan Wasoba. Jazz St. Louis also has posted TBP's setlist from the week.

* Once again this year, Jazz St. Louis is polling fans about who they'd like to see perform next season at Jazz at the Bistro. Choices in this year's poll include trumpeters Arturo Sandoval and Dave Douglas; saxophonist Joe Lovano; pianists Jason Moran and Hiromi Uehara; singers Gregory Porter, Gretchen Parlato, Karrin Allyson, and Sachal Vasandani; and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. You can cast your ballot on the Jazz St. Louis Facebook page or on the front page of the JSL website. (Look on the right-hand side of the page for the poll.)

* Following up on last week's story that Webster Records will close on January 31, the RFT's Diana Benanti filed a report that added a key bit of info, namely that the proximate cause for the closing would seem to be that the store's lease is up at the end this month. Other coverage of the shuttering of the long-running retailer came from the Webster-Kirkwood Times, St. Louis Business Journal, KSDK, the Webster Groves site for Patch.com, and even a brief mention as part of larger trend story on NPR about the difficulties facing niche stores in the Internet age.

Jazz this week: Legacy Jazz Quintet plays Art Blakey, a tribute to Fran Landesman, and more

Assuming that drivers in the St. Louis area recover from the havoc caused by today's snowstorm, there are a number of jazz and creative music performances happening over the next few days that may reward those who choose to venture out into the mid-January cold. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, pianist Ken Kehner, who teaches at UMSL and plays with bassist Jim Widner's big band, the Poor People of Paris and others, celebrates the release of his new CD From The Moment On with two sets at the Bistro at Grand Center. (That's the same venue used by Jazz at the Bistro, but Jazz St. Louis is not involved with presenting Kehner's performance, and so tickets for the show are available for purchase by cash only at the door.)

Also tonight, Latin jazz group Clave Sol is the house band for a "World Jazz Jam" at Club Dantes, which is in midtown at 3222 Olive. (For those of you keeping track of the local jam session scene, this event apparently is now running weekly, and has been added to the StLJN site calendar.)

Tomorrow night, the Legacy Jazz Quintet, which is led by pianist Phil Dunlap of Jazz St. Louis and serves as a de facto repertory ensemble for JSL, returns to the Bistro for a two-night stand playing the music of Art Blakey.

Also on Friday, saxophonist Jeff Riley will perform at The Chapel; saxophonist Jerry Greene leads a quintet with singer Tony Viviano at Robbie's House of Jazz; and vibraphonist Dustin Sholtes brings his quartet to the Cigar Inn.

On Sunday, singer, pianist and songwriter Bob Dorough returns to St. Louis to perform a tribute to songwriter Fran Landesman at the Bistro. Like the Ken Kehner show, this is an independent production not presented by Jazz St. Louis; for ticket information, call 314-968-1898.

Also on Sunday, pianist Carolbeth True (pictured) and her trio will be joined by singer Christi John Bye for a free concert at Second Baptist Church as part of the St. Louis Jazz and Blues Vespers series; and keyboardist Brock Walker plays an early show at BBs Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday the Sessions Big band will play their first gig of the year at BB's, and on Tuesday, the St. Louis Low Brass Collective will do their annual concert as part of the Notes From Home series at The Sheldon.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, 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.)

Ligertwood, Garfield and Stevens to perform Thursday, February 9 at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups

Singer Alex Ligertwood, who's worked with big names including Santana and Brian Auger's Oblivion Express, is coming to St. Louis to perform with keyboardist David Garfield and saxophonist Jim Stevens at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, February 9 at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Garfield, a St. Louis native who's lived in Los Angeles since the 1970s, was in town most recently in October to perform with George Benson at the Touhill, and stuck around to play with Stevens the next night at BB's. The two first met a couple of years ago when Garfield was home for a visit and played a gig at Mineo's restaurant that Stevens attended based on a tip from a mutual friend.

"I went over and checked it out, and he just blew the roof off the place," said Stevens. They struck up a friendship, resulting in Stevens sitting in on another Garfield gig at Mineo's and then their subsequent move to a larger venue, namely BB's, for the keyboardist's last visit home.

In addition to working with Benson, Garfield has led his own bands in Los Angeles, including the fusion group Karizma, which has released six CDs. He's also put out nine CDs under his own name, and toured and/or recorded with a number of musical notables, including Boz Scaggs, Larry Carlton, The Manhattan Transfer, The Rippingtons, Smokey Robinson, Earl Klugh, Michael McDonald and Nancy Wilson. His ongoing collaboration with Ligertwood led to the singer's inclusion on three Midwest dates with this particular ensemble, starting in Indianapolis the night before the BB's gig and moving on to Cleveland afterward.

The band also will include drummer James Jackson and bassist John King, who both work with Stevens as well as with their own group Good 4 The Soul. As for what they'll be playing, Stevens says he hasn't seen a set list yet, but expects some funk and soul covers, some Garfield originals, and perhaps a tune or two from Ligertwood's tenure with Santana.

Tickets for the Ligertwood/Garfield/Stevens show will be $10 general admission at the door; Stevens also is arranging for advance sales by email at thejimstevensgroup@aol.com.

Cory Pesaturo to play Friday, February 17 at Cyrano's

Jazz accordionist Cory Pesaturo (pictured) is coming to St. Louis to perform at 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Friday, February 17 at Cyrano's, 603 E. Lockwood in Webster Groves.

Based in Boston, Pesaturo is a 24-year-old graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music. He performs and has recorded two CDs with saxophonist George Garzone and his band The Fringe, and according to his press materials, is "the only person to win world championships on Digital, Acoustic and Jazz Accordion." Tickets are $5 and are available in advance via the website kmkmusic.com or at the door.

(For those who might be wondering about the viability of accordion as a jazz instrument, you can read up on the relevant history here, and see and hear Pesaturo performing the standard "Autumn Leaves" in the embedded video window below.)

Steve Tyrell to perform in benefit concert on Thursday, April 26 at The Sheldon

Singer Steve Tyrell (pictured) is returning to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m., Thursday, April 26 at the Sheldon Concert Hall. The event is a benefit for Hope Happens, which raises money for research at the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders at Washington University.

Tyrell, a former record company and film executive turned performer who's become popular for his versions of well-known jazz and pop standards, last played in St. Louis in May, 2011 at the Sheldon.

Tickets for the "Evening of Hope" benefit are priced from $40 to $250, and go on sale at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, January 11. Patron tickets include cocktails, dinner, the concert and a dessert reception with Tyrell and his band, and are available only through Hope Happens at 314-725-3888; other tickets will be sold via Metrotix.

StLJN Audio Archive: Quartette Trés Bien - Kilimanjaro

Our first Audio Archive post of 2012 comes courtesy of the music-sharing blog Soundological Investimagations, and features Quartette Trés Bien's Kilimanjaro, originally issued on LP by Decca in 1965 as a follow-up to their major label debut Boss Trés Bien.

Kilimanjaro features the classic QTB lineup of Jeter Thompson on piano, Richard Simmons on bass, Albert St. James on drums and Percy James on percussion, performing the title track, "I Left My Heart In San Francisco," "Secretly," "I Didn't Know What Time It Was," "My Favorite Things," "My One And Only Love," "Ramblin' Rose" and, fittingly enough, "You Came A Long Way From St. Louis."

To download a copy, go to the original post here, scroll down and look for the sentence "You can climb Kilimanjaro's snow-capped peak with your Soundological sherpa HERE or HERE," which includes links to the file on both Megaupload and Sharebee.

The StLJN Audio Archive links only to recordings that are out-of-print or that never have been commercially available. The purpose of the Audio Archive is to encourage discussion, appreciation and knowledge of St. Louis jazz artists, and we urge you to support them (or their estates) by purchasing authorized recordings and merchandise and, whenever possible, attending live performances.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Catching up with Ravi Coltrane

This week, our video spotlight shines on saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, who's returning to St. Louis to perform Wednesday, January 18 through Saturday, January 21 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Coltrane, the son of legendary saxophonist John Coltrane and pianist/harpist Alice Coltrane, played here most recently in 2009 at the Sheldon Concert Hall as part fo the Blue Note Seven, and also performed with his quartet in 2008 at the Bistro. (For more on Coltrane's back story, check out the video showcase post than ran before that week at Bistro.)

Since then, he's put out his sixth CD as a leader, 2009's Blending Times, and has continued to work steadily with his band, which usually includes pianist Louis Perdomo, bassist Drew Gress and drummer E.J. Strickland. To catch up with what Coltrane and company have been into lately, today we've got videos from three different shows in 2011.

The first clip is from September, and shows Coltrane at an outdoor festival in High Point, North Carolina working out on his father's composition "Lonnie's Lament," accompanied by a rhythm section including drummer Gerry Gibbs, bassist Ugonna Okegwo and pianist David Virelles.

Down below, you can see an excerpt from another gig in September, featuring Coltrane with Perdomo, Gress and Strickland at the Peperoncino Jazz Festival in Calabria, Italy. The songs is called "Cs" and the performance is split into two parts.

Below that, there are two songs from Coltrane's gig in July at New Morning in Paris: "The Message," also split into two parts; and a tune labeled simply "Ballad" that's reportedly been a staple of his live sets for the past couple of years.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short local news items of interest:

* Saxophonist, composer and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake (pictured) is the latest musician to go the crowd-funding route to finance his next project. Lake is using the website IndieGoGo to attempt to raise $6,000 between now and April 1 to pay for a new album by his big band. The budget includes rehearsal, recording, musician fees, mixing, mastering and pressing.

IndieGoGo functions much like Kickstarter, the site that saxophonist Eric Person recently used successfully to raise money for his next recording project; for more details on how it works, go here. Depending on the amount pledged, contributors to the project will receive premiums ranging from a copy of the finished CD to concert tickets or even a piece of Lake's original visual artwork. Lake plans to complete the big band album by early summer and release it on his own Passin' Thru label.

* Jazz On Broadway has posted a photo album from New Year's Eve on their Facebook page.

* The Missouri History Museum is looking for young musicians from a variety of genres, including jazz, to take part in a concert on March 19 at the Museum that will "reflect the diversity of Missouri and the strength of its young musicians." For more info, see here (.pdf file).

* The online concert information Pollstar has released their list of the Top 100 club venues worldwide based on total ticket sales during 2011, and The Pageant in St. Louis once again was among the leaders, coming in at number five.

Webster Records to close January 31

According to a story by Deb Peterson published Wednesday on STLtoday.com, Webster Records will close permanently on January 31.

The story says the store has been in operation for 58 years, which would make it St. Louis' longest-running independent music retailer and one of the more long lived businesses in the Old Webster business district of Webster Groves. It's been a haven for local jazz fans throughout the years, stocking recordings from smaller labels that were hard to find elsewhere, and presenting occasional in-store events with local jazz musicians.

The story also said, "Until the shop is shuttered, remaining inventory will be on sale, store manager Jim Lovins said in an email. Starting today it's 30 percent off of retail and prices will be discounted through the month, he added."

Although no specific reasons for the closing were cited, and current owner Jennifer Bellm was not available for comment, one can surmise that the store, like many other indie music retailers, just couldn't survive both the long current economic downturn and the drastic ongoing changes in the music business brought on by the advent of digital distribution.

Unknown at this time is whether the store's closing will have an effect on the Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival, for which Bellm has been a prime mover in recent years. StLJN will have more on that if and when there are any developments.

A personal note: Yr. humble editor grew up in Webster Groves and went to Bristol Elementary just a couple of blocks away, so while I can't be absolutely certain, I think Webster Records probably was the first music store I ever visited on my own, without parental supervision.

This was when the store was in its original location, across the street and down the block from the current address. Original owners Roy and Dorothy Gleason built their business primarily on classical, jazz, Broadway cast albums and pre-rock-era pop music, along with an apparently profitable niche business in square dance records, which had their own little section in the store. Eventually they began to stock more rock records as well, but most of my purchases were jazz records out of the bargain bin at the front of the store, which held both cut-outs and LPs that had been marked down for clearance.

Since the Gleasons' clientele tended more toward trad jazz, big bands and swing, whatever avant-garde jazz stuff found its way into the store - presumably through some sort minimum-order arrangement with distributors - often languished for a long time before being relegated to the bargain bin.

And so by the time I was in high school and starting to investigate the various styles of jazz in earnest, I occasionally was able to make some sweet scores there, grabbing Impulse LPs by Archie Shepp, Elvin Jones, Marion Brown and others for cheap prices, even by 1970s standards. Webster is also where I scored my prized vinyl copy of Sun Ra's Heliocentric Worlds Volume 2, a record on the rather spottily distributed ESP-Disk label that I hunted for two years before finally finding it there, albeit at full price, probably a then-outrageous-seeming six bucks or so. Although I haven't shopped at Webster Records since moving away from Webster Groves in the 1980s, I'll always have fond memories of the store for those experiences, and I'm sorry to see it close.

(Edited after posting to fix a typo.)

Jazz this week: The Bad Plus and more

The week after New Year's can be a slow one for the bar business, what with people being tired and/or tapped out financially after the holidays. Not only that, as of this writing several local night spots that present jazz haven't even updated their websites with January schedules yet. Combine that with the fact that some of St. Louis' not-for-profit jazz presenters won't be back in action until later in the month, and the local menu of live jazz and creative music is looking a bit sparse for the next few days, though there still are several noteworthy shows coming up:

The big news of the week is that tonight the distinctive piano trio The Bad Plus (pictured) returns to Jazz at the Bistro, kicking off a four-night run at the club to open the New Year here in St. Louis for the fifth consecutive time. After a busy 12 months that included the debut of their version of Stravinsky's iconic The Rites of Spring, TBP reportedly are readying another album of new original material to follow up on 2009's Never Stop, so don't be surprised if there's some new stuff mixed into their sets at the Bistro among the more familiar numbers.

For more about The Bad Plus, see this review I wrote for the Riverfront Times about one their Wednesday night sets last year at the Bistro; this video showcase post from before that same run of shows; and this weeks' Critic's Pick from my RFT colleague Ryan Wasoba.

Elsewhere around town, on Friday vibraphonist Peter Schlamb leads a group for an early evening set at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups; and the Yard Dawgs Jazz Quartet plays at Cigar Inn.

On Saturday, Latin jazz band Clave Sol plays the early show at BB's.

Then on Sunday, the first St. Louis Record Collector and CD Show of the year will take place at the American Czech Center on the south side.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday BB's has a double bill of guitar-centric groups, with the Dave Black Group in the early slot and Tom Byrne's Pat Metheny inspired ensemble Have You Heard? playing later on.

For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, 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.)

U City Jazz Festival seeks young musicians for 2012 event

As organizers gear up for a second year, the U City Jazz Festival is looking for young musicians who want to take part in its Young Lions Jazz Education initiative for 2012. Festival co-founder Mike Silverman, who's also the keyboardist for Bach to the Future, is seeking jazz groups whose members are all under the age of 21 to perform at the second UCJF, which will be held in September.

The group selected will get $500 for their performance. If you're interested, or know a young jazz musician from the St. Louis area who might be, you can contact Silverman and submit website information, sound clips and so on via email to mike @ silvermanmusic.com.