Jazz this week: Dave Holland Quintet, Jimmy Cobb, Harry Connick Jr. and more

With spring in the air and St. Patrick's Day coming up, it's not just a great time to be Irish - it's also a fine week to be a jazz fan in St. Louis, with three major names in the jazz world performing in town and several other interesting events going on as well.

Let’s take the headliners in chronological order of shows, starting with the Dave Holland Quintet, who will be playing at Jazz at the Bistro for two sets a night starting tonight and running through Saturday. Holland, who broke into the big time in the late 1960s as a member of Miles Davis’ band, has gone on to become one of the most important bassists, bandleaders and composers in jazz. He also leads a very accomplished and critically acclaimed band, making this gig stand out as a potential highlight of the year. For a preview of Holland’s Bistro appearance, go here, and to see all of StLJN’s previous coverage of Holland, go here.

As fate would have it, another jazz legend known for performing with Miles Davis is also in town this week. Of course, drummer Jimmy Cobb has played with many other giants of the music, but I’m sure his work on Miles’ Kind of Blue is bound to come up when he speaks Thursday afternoon at an open forum/discussion on the SIU-Edwardsville campus. That night, Cobb will give a free concert on campus, playing with some of the local pros from the SIU-E jazz faculty. For more about his talk and the performance, see this post.

The third headliner is singer and pianist Harry Connick Jr. (pictured), who’s bringing his big band to the Fox Theatre on Saturday night as part of a tour supporting two recently released CDs devoted to the music of his hometown, New Orleans.

While I can take or leave him as an actor and/or crooner, Connick is at his best as a pianist, bandleader and advocate for New Orleans music and culture, and it seems as if the format for this show will allow him ample opportunity to showcase his considerable skills in those areas. Connick also hires good players, including St. Louis native Neal Caine, who’s been a mainstay on bass for Connick’s large ensemble over the last ten years or so. Given Connick’s crossover popularity, I’m sure the Fox has sold a lot of tickets for this show, but as of this morning, there still seem to be ducats available via their official source, Metrotix, as well as the inevitable high-markup offerings from various brokers.

UPDATE - 8:04 a.m., 3/15/07: The always astute Daniel Durchholz has an article in today's Post-Dispatch about Connick's recent New Orleans-themed CDs, making the case that the pianist's post-Katrina advocacy for his hometown has given his work additional gravitas. Read the whole thing here.

While these three musicians are justifiably the focus of much attention this week, there are, as mentioned above, some other noteworthy events of interest to St. Louis jazz fans. On Thursday, saxophonist Chip McNeil, who teaches jazz up at the University of Illinois’s Champaign/Urbana campus, comes to town to play two shows at Finale Music and Dining. McNeil has worked extensively with Maynard Ferguson’s band as well as many others, and currently gigs and records with trumpeter Arturo Sandoval in addition to teaching.

Also worth noting are some locals who are headlining special concerts over the next several days. On Sunday, longtime St. Louis favorite Jeanne Trevor will sing with the Webster Symphony Orchestra in a performance at the Community Music School in University City, and on Monday night, saxophonist Mike Karpowicz will lead his group in a performance at Webster University’s Winifred Moore Auditorium.

Going even farther beyond the weekend, on Tuesday night the Nuclear Percussion Ensemble will join Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra music director David Robertson and SLSO percussionists John Kasica and Tom Stubbs for an all-percussion concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center, performing “music from Africa, Cuba, Burma, Bulgaria and the United States.” NPE leader/co-founder Henry Claude is a very creative and resourceful musician, as are his colleagues in the group, and it’s good to see NPE getting a high-profile showcase like this. I just wish they’d perform a bit more often.

That’s certainly a lot of music to absorb in a few days, but if you’d like to know what else is coming up in St. Louis, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, where you’ll find an extensive list of concerts, club dates and more.

(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.)