Jazz this week: trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, big bands on stage, and more

If you like your jazz brassy and your bands big, this would seem to be a good week in St. Louis to get out and hear some music.

The biggest name in town over the weekend is the young NYC-based trumpeter Jeremy Pelt (pictured), who has recorded for the St. Louis-based Maxjazz label and comes here to perform at Jazz at the Bistro on Friday and Saturday.

Although he's been on the scene for less than a decade, Pelt has an impressive list of sideman credits, including work with Roy Hargrove's big band, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess, Charli Persip, Keter Betts, Frank Foster, Ravi Coltrane, Winard Harper, Vincent Herring, Ralph Peterson, Lonnie Plaxico, Cliff Barbaro, Nancy Wilson, Bobby Short, Bobby "Blue" Bland, The Skatalites, Cedar Walton and more. In addition to leading his own group, he is a reglar member of the Lewis Nash Septet, Mingus Big Band, and The Cannonball Adderley Legacy Band featuring Louis Hayes.

UPDATE - 3/8/07, 1:15 p.m.: Our esteemed colleague Terry Perkins has a feature story about Pelt in today's Post-Dispatch, viewable online here. It turns out that Pelt will be showcasing his electric band, Wired, on this gig:

"Wired evolved from a band I had that I called Noise," he says. "I changed the name to Wired because it's an amplified band and we deal with groove-oriented music. I've got Frank Locrasto on Fender Rhodes and piano, Gavin Fallow on bass and Dana Hawkins on drums, and I do some electronic effects on trumpet as well."

You can see and hear a little bit of Pelt's trumpet work via the embedded video below, which shows him in 2004 at NYC's Birdland, soloing with Bob Belden's big band on an extended Belden arrangement of the Thelonious Monk standard "Round Midnight". Pelt's Web site also offers a lot of live recordings of his music as free downloadable MP3s.

Speaking of big bands, there are three different ones performing in St. Louis this week. On Thursday, the St. Louis Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Jim Widner takes the stage at the Bistro for the second in a series of monthly shows. On Friday, the Casa Loma Ballroom continues its ongoing series of big band dance concerts, this time featuring the Original Knights of Swing. And on Saturday night, the Tommy Money Orchestra, a 17-piece, 1940s style band that, according to its Web site, pays homage to Basie, Ellington and Sinatra, checks in for a one-nighter at Cookie's Jazz and More. That's going to be one crowded stage if they bring all 17 musicians.

On Sunday afternoon, the Saint Louis Jazz Club continues its matinee concert series with a performance by the traditional jazz group known as the You Can't Beat Experience Jazz Band at the Moolah Shrine Center.

However, if young trumpet virtuosi, big bands and/or traditional jazz are not your thing, you still have plenty of listening options available this weekend; just visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar and peruse the more expansive list of jazz gigs around town contained therein.

(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.)