Jazz this week: The Bad Plus, Rob Voisey's 60x60, Andre Vida, and more

With the holidays behind us, touring artists are back on the road again, resulting in a couple of adventurous musical presentations coming to St. Louis this week.

The NYC-based group The Bad Plus (pictured) is in town for a four-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro, performing two sets a night through Saturday. They've been the beneficiaries of an awful lot of hype in the jazz press over the past several years, and though I'm not quite buying the prevailing notion that they've somehow reinvented or revolutionized the piano trio, they are certainly accomplished musicians who are worth hearing. You can catch up on some of the previous StLJN coverage of the group, including a couple of video clips of them in action, here. This week's Riverfront Times also has a piece about the band from freelancer Andrew Miller here.

On Sunday, New Music Circle is presenting a double bill at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium featuring electronic musician Rob Voisey and saxophonist/composer Andre Vida. Voisey's portion of the program will be devoted to a piece called "60 x 60," which features "60-second electronic works by 60 composers, creating a one-hour performance," while Vida will present something called "Vidatone 247.73" which uses a projected, animated score to guide an ensemble of improvising musicians that will include Vida on sax as well as the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Tim Meyers on trombone and Chris Woehr on electric viola.

As for our local musicians, Cookie's Jazz and More will feature Visions Jazz tonight and vocalist Danita Mumphard with Trio Tres Bien on Saturday, but, unfortunately, several other local nightspots have yet to get their January schedules out, either via email or on their Web sites, and so updating of the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar will be happening on an ongoing basis as the information comes in. Look for those updates over the next few days, or if you're the impatient sort, use the links on the sidebar for direct access to your favorite club's site.

(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.)