Jazz this week: "City of Gabriels," John Handy, Geri Allen and more

St. Louis jazz fans have several first-rate shows to choose from this weekend, starting Friday night when the Sheldon Concert Hall presents "City of Gabriels," a special concert tying in to Dennis Owsley's recently issued history of St. Louis jazz that bears the same name. Curated and hosted by Owsley, the presentation is an audio retrospective of music from 80 years of St. Louis jazz history, performed live on stage by members of Webster University's jazz faculty and guest stars including vocalist Jeanne Trevor, saxophoinst Willie Akins and singer/pianist Jean Kittrell. The show will start with a composition from ragtime pianist Tom Turpin, moving theourgh early jazz, swing and bop and into the modern era with music written by Miles Davis and Julius Hemphill.

In addition, two well-known musicians will also be making their respective St. Louis debuts that same night. Saxophonist John Handy (pictured) has been a major voice in jazz for nearly fifty years, both as a bandleader and composer of his own music and as a sideman to Charles Mingus, and he's coming here this weekend for the first time, performing two sets per night on Friday and Saturday at the Best Western Airport Plaza hotel ballroom. Handy first created a sensation as a solo artist in the mid-1960s with a big-selling live album recorded at the Monterey Jazz Festival, and has worked almost nonstop ever since as a recording artist, performer and teacher. This show is being presented by St. Louis jazz singer Ron Wilkinson's company Scratch Productions, and tickets can be obtained through their Web site or at the door.

The other major player making a St. Louis debut this weekend is pianist Geri Allen, who's playing Friday and Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. Emerging on to the scene in the early 1980s, Allen was part of Brooklyn's experimental M-Base collective and later served as the first pianist to play in Ornette Coleman's group in more than 30 years. She has also worked with a host of name-brand mainstream jazz players including Ron Carter, the late Tony Williams, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette, earning respect and acclaim as a composer and bandleader in her own right. The Detroit native has a new CD out, and recently premiered a "sacred jazz suite" dedicted to the victims and survivors of the 2001 terrorist attacks. You can read more about the CD and concert here and here.

UPDATE - 9/29/06, 10:30 a.m: The Critic's Pick I wrote about Allen for this week's Riverfront Times is now online, and you can read it here.

If you're looking for some after-concert listening, or if none of these shows pique your interest, there's also plenty of jazz happening on club stages all over town. You can see an expanded list of this week's local jazz events by visiting the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

(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. No attachments, please.)

(Post edited 9/27/06 to reflect the postponement of the Dianne Reeves concert originally scheduled this week .)