Sandy Weltman
With a varied menu of music, Edenic surroundings and free admission, the Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden is usually one of the most popular annual summer concert series in the city. This year's edition includes several concerts that will be of interest to jazz listeners.
The series kicks off Wednesday, June 1 with the James Matthews Trio. I've briefly met Mr. Matthews, a genial gentleman to be sure, but don't know his music. However, my buddy Gus Thornton, esteemed bassist who's played with some fine pianists including Johnnie Johnson and Katie Webster and thus knows his stuff, says Matthews is a good piano player who's worth hearing.
The always listenable Reggie and Mardra Thomas are up next on Wednesday, June 8, and then on Wednesday, June 15, bassist Neal Caine (scroll down for bio) returns to his hometown with a quartet. Caine, who grew up in University City, is one of a number of St. Louis musicians now living in New Orleans, and he's racked up some impressive credits as a sideman, including stints with Elvin Jones, Diana Krall, Harry Connick, Betty Carter, Ellis Marsalis and more. St. Louisans always like to see a local boy who's made good, so expect an especially big crowd for this one.
Guitarist Corey Christiansen performs on Wednesday, June 22, and then the focus shifts to other musical genres, with concerts by Wil Maring and Shady Mix (bluegrass, folk and western music) on June 29 and the Augusta Bottoms Consort (Missouri-inspired acoustic music) on July 6.
On July 13, one of my favorite St. Louis musicians will take the stage. Sandy Weltman is a multi-stylistic virtuoso on both banjo and harmonica; he can and does play jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, klezmer, classical, Latin and a half-dozen other musical genres, sometimes all in the same concert, and somehow makes it all work together.
Sandy is a terrific musician, skilled entertainer, and a heck of a nice guy, and it's a mystery to me why he is not better known on a national scale. Even though he's not strictly a jazz artist, I can heartily recommend him without reservation to any open-minded jazz fan.
The 2005 Whitaker series closes out with a couple more local favorites, the soulful rock band Fairchild on July 20 and blues/rock guitar hero Billy Peek on July 27.
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