StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Fall 2013 jazz preview, part 4

Today, it's part 4 of StLJN's Fall 2013 jazz preview, in which we offer video samples of the various jazz and creative musicians coming to our town before the end of the year. (Here's part one, part two, and part three.)

Our preview resumes at the beginning of November with guitarist Peter Bernstein, who will be appearing with pianist Peter Martin on Saturday, November 2 at the Sheldon Concert Hall as part of Martin's eponymous concert series there. Bernstein, whose notable credits include stints with Diana Krall, Lou Donaldson, the all-star Blue Note 7, and many others, is seen in the first clip up above playing "Penthouse Serenade" in June 2012 at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music.

Down below, the next clip offers a look at trumpeter and pianist Ben Polcer, who will be leading the band providing music for this year's Nevermore Jazz Ball Saturday night dance, also on November 2. Polcer, who lives in New Orleans, will assemble a group specifically for the St. Louis gig; he's seen here with the band known as His Swingin' Six, including vocalist Mischa Lake, performing "24 Robbers."

The following week, singer and pianist Ann Hampton Callaway returns to St. Louis to perform Wednesday, November 6 through Saturday, November 9 at Jazz at the Bistro. Callaway, who last played the Bistro in 2011, is seen here in the studios of KPLU radio in Seattle, improvising song lyrics based on words and phrases suggested by the audience, which on this occasion included "sunshine in Seattle," "home for wayward girls," "basketball" and "snuffleupagus."

A couple of days later, Trombone Shorty and his band Orleans Avenue return to St. Louis to play Monday, November 11 at the Old Rock House. Shorty, aka Troy Andrews, last played here for the Bluesweek festival in May; in this clip, you can see him performing "Big 12."

Next up, it's violinist Regina Carter, who's returning to play Wednesday, November 20 throguh Saturday November 23 at Jazz at the Bistro. When she was here to play the Bistro a couple of years ago, Carter performed with the the band from her album Reverse Thread, with whom she can be seen here playing “Zerapiky,” a folk song from Madagascar. The quartet for this fall tour includes the drummer from that band, Alvester Garnett, as well as pianist Xavier Davis and bassist Jesse Murphy, which, absent Reverse Thread's accordion and kora, suggests at least a partial return to a more straight-ahead sound.

The week after Carter is town, trumpeter, singer and U City native Jeremy Davenport will return home from new Orleans to play his annual post-Thanksgiving dates here on Friday November 29 and Saturday, November 30 at Jazz at the Bistro. In today's sixth clip, shot by an audience member at the French Quarter Festival in April of this year, Davenport offers his version of the standard "Bourbon Street Parade."

The following week, guitarist Pat Martino will play Wednesday, December 4 through Saturday, December 7 at the Bistro. Martino, who's been to St. Louis many times and last played the Bistro in 2010, is seen in the sixth clip performing Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight" earlier this year at a jazz festival in Salerno, Italy.

The next show on the calendar is a bit harder to preview, as pianist Marc Copland, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Joey Baron aren't really a regular working unit and thus there's no video online of them all playing together. So, to give you at least taste of what to expect when they join forces to play Friday, December 6 at 560 Music Center, we've got two clips. The first features Copland and guitarist John Abercrombie dueting on "Speak to Me" at a concert last year in Vienna; the second is a profile of Baron, produced for German television.

Today's final video features two more musicians who should be quite familiar to local audiences, singer/guitarist John Pizzarelli, who's done more gigs here in the last decade than just about any other touring jazz musician, and his dad, the legendary guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli. For this visit to our town, the Pizzarellis will team up for performances on Wednesday, December 18 through Saturday, December 21 at Jazz at the Bistro. The video is a short feature story about them, with musical excerpts, produced by a New Jersey public TV station and filmed at the Shanghai Jazz Club in Madison, NJ.