Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Jazz this week: The Bad Plus, Nathaniel Bartlett plays Stockhausen, Lina Koutrakos, and more

As St. Louis continues to dig out from the big storm, it looks like this week's jazz and creative music performances around town should go on as scheduled.

Should the weather turns nasty again, however, we encourage you to call ahead before heading out to your venue of choice, and this site will be updated with any cancellation info received at StLJN HQ. Hoping for warmer temperatures soon, let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, The Bad Plus returns to St. Louis for the eighth consecutive year in January to open a four-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. At this point, most StLJN readers likely will be familiar with the critically acclaimed trio, but if you're not, you can check out our extensive previous coverage, including a couple of compilations of live performance video clips, here.

Since The Bad Plus have signed a new record deal with Sony, with their first album back on the label scheduled for release later this year, it seems likely the crowd at the Bistro will get a taste of some of that new material as well as selections from their back catalog. Given the possibility of new sounds in the offing, plus the group's extensive existing fan base here, advance reservations are strongly suggested.

Also tonight, percussionist Henry Claude and cellist Tracy Andreotti will bring their alternate identities The Steve and Jennifer Project to the Tavern of Fine Arts for an evening of improvised music.

Tomorrow night, Good 4 The Soul will make their monthly appearance at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups; saxophonist "Blind" Willie Dineen will perform at the new south side venue The Engine Room; and Miss Jubilee plays swing, jump blues and more at Thaxton Speakeasy.

On Friday, the Knights of Swing will play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes trio will perform at Thurman Grill; and bassist Darrell Mixon will lead a trio at Cigar Inn.

Then on Saturday, percussionist Nathaniel Bartlett, who also was here in St. Louis last weekend, will be coming back through town after playing several other shows in the interim for another performance at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center. This time, Bartlett will perform two works from Stockhausen and an original piece by LNAC's Mark Sarich.

Elsewhere around town on Saturday night, singer Lina Koutrakos presents her cabaret show "Shades of Blue" at the Kranzberg Arts Center; singer Joe Mancuso and guitarist Dave Black return to Chaser's Lounge at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel; singer Chuck Flowers fronts a trio at Robbie's House of Jazz; and guitarist Brian Vaccaro and his trio will play at the house concert venue KindaBlue, 6101 1/2 Idaho.

On Sunday, the "Inner Jazz" series at Kirkwood United Church of Christ continues with a free concert by trumpeter/pianist Tim Osiek and his quartet.

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.)

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