Stanley Jordan
This week's jazz and creative music menu offers a variety of tastes for the hungry ear, from guitar heroics to hard bop to multi-media performances and lots more.
Guitarist Stanley Jordan is the most notable touring act in town this week, performing at Finale in Clayton on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. You can read more on Jordan in my Critic's Pick article about him in this week's Riverfront Times.
Also on Thursday is the final night of Ancora il Più Estinto II, a sound art performance/installation at Dunaway Books on South Grand. There are a lot of familiar names from the local improv scene involved in this intriguing-sounding project, and admission is free.
Iin midtown's Grand Center, Jazz at the Bistro is holding their annual open house on Friday and Saturday. The event serves simultaneously as a "thank you" to listeners for attending the season that's winding down and as a way to promote the Bistro's schedule for next year. Admission is free, with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. and music at 8:30 p.m. by Bob Bennett's Swing and Soul, a band led by the Bistro's director of operations. I've never heard them before, so I can't tell you much about them. But I will hazard a guess that at some point this weekend, JATB head honcho Gene Dobbs Bradford will be coaxed on stage to play some blues harmonica.
Cookie's in Webster Groves will be bopping hard this weekend with the Freddie Washington Quartet on Friday and the Randy Holmes Quintet on Saturday. When he's on, Washington is a fine modern jazz player on both tenor and soprano, while Holmes pretty much sets the standard by which local jazz trumpeters are measured. Count on both men to have first-rate ensembles alongside.
In University City, Brandt's brings a little bit of Gaslight Square to the Loop with an appearance by Mae "Lady Jazz" Wheeler on Saturday night.
Meanwhile that same night, back downtown Tory Z. Starbuck and Thee State Machine will perform at the Studio Cafe, 1309 Washington, beginning at 10:00 p.m. Thee State Machine is described as an "abstract analogue synthesizer artist," and for this gig, Tory will be serving up "experimental Asian/Middle-eastern muzik with sitar, violin, saz, theremin, percussion, etc."
Some of you may know Tory for his Bowie-esque rock material, but he's also done experimental electronics and improv for years. Often, his work even has an element of conceptual art - for example, the notice for this show says, "You are instructed to sit in a chair and make animal sounds." (Actually, that sounds like a pretty typical Saturday night for some people I can think of.)
To round out the weekend, New Music Circle is presenting X-P.O.E. Anima(L), an experimental multi-media performance with shows at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.on Friday and Saturday night at the old Lemp Brewery complex. With a first-time event like this, it's hard to know in advance just what it will sound like, but with the Nuclear Percussion Ensemble and ex-Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra percussionist Rich O'Donnell performing, it is likely - indeed, almost certain - that plenty of drums will be involved.
Want me to write in this blog about your next gig or concert? Want a link for your band or club on the sidebar? I can't write about stuff I haven't heard about, so hurry up and send your news releases, links, love letters and/or hate mail to stljazznotes at yahoo dot com.
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