Jazz this week: Lou Donaldson's 80th birthday celebration, and more

After a couple of busy weeks featuring a number of well-known musicians passing through town , there's just one touring jazz headliner in St. Louis this week, as alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson returns to Jazz at the Bistro for two sets a night through Saturday.

Donaldson (pictured at left) turned 80 on November 1, and his gig at the Bistro is billed as a "birthday celebration." I'm not sure exactly what that entails, but with any luck, cake will be involved. And even without the added incentive of buttercream frosting and/or devil's food, Donaldson is certainly worth hearing - he's both an old-school bebopper, capable of running the changes like Bird, and a progenitor of the soul-jazz genre, as demonstrated on his many recordings for Blue Note and other labels, including hits like "Alligator Boogaloo" and "Blues Walk."

In tribute to the still very active octogenarian, we offer a couple of video clips along with this post. The first is a short live performance excerpt from from a show last month in Amsterdam featuring Donaldson and his working band, including Dr. Lonnie Smith on organ. The video quality isn't great, but I thought it worth including if for no other reason than it's such a recent sample of Donaldson's work. The second clip from a 1993 live performance in Japan, and features Donaldson as part of a sort of all-star soul-jazz ensemble including Bernard Purdie, Chuck Rainey and David T. Walker, performing Marvin Gaye's soul classic "What's Going On."

Other noteworthy sounds this week: Thursday's picks include the Curt Landes Trio at Crossings Taverne and Grille; Valerie Tichacek and Friends at Cookie's Jazz and More; and "Peanuts" Whalum at Brandt's. On Friday, New Music Circle is sponsoring "Grand Eloquence," a multimedia performance piece incorporating paintings done by the late Bill Kohn and the music of NMC's Rich O'Donnell that will take place at the Bruno David Gallery, 3721 Washington in midtown.

On Saturday, trumpeter Jim Manley brings the extroverted sound of Wild, Cool & Swingin' to Cookie's, and on Sunday, Webster Records is presenting another free in-store matinee performance, this one featuring clarinetist Scott Alberici, who will play for about an hour beginning at 1 p.m. (According to a recent email, the store will be doing live in-store concerts every Sunday through the holidays. However, no schedule of performers was included, so I guess they'll be releasing that information on a week-by-week basis.)

Beyond the weekend, on Monday the Webster University student Big Band and Mini Big Band will perform at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus. And on Tuesday, guitarist Todd Mosby brings his trio to the Sheldon for a "Notes from Home" concert featuring music from his upcoming CD. Many of Mosby's recent compositions involve a fusion of jazz and Indian influences, performed on the imratgitar, an new instrument invented by Imrat Usted Khan that combines aspects of an acoustic guitar and a sitar.

As always, you can see a more extensive list of the week's jazz related events by consulting 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.)