Although this year's edition of the St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival has been cut back to a single day, it's still one of the major jazz events of the year. And there's still enough other music happening in town to provide a full and varied weekend of jazz if that's your pleasure.You can get started on Thursday night, when trombonist Brett Stamps and his quartet take the stage for two sets at Finale Music and Dining. Then on Friday night, the Black Arts Guild aka BAG II concludes its spring season at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site with a free concert highlighting original music from the organization's "house band," The Group, which features bassist Zimbabwe Nkenya, percussionist Glenn "Papa" Wright and saxophonist Jerome "Jay-Dubz" Williams.
On Saturday, the headliners for the 2007 Jazz and Heritage Festival will be guitarist/vocalist George Benson (pictured), pianist Ramsey Lewis and percussionist Poncho Sanchez; local acts will include Latin jazz band SL Son, vocalists Kim Massie and Jeanne Trevor, trombonist Lamar Harris, and the SIU-Edwardsville Big Band.
The grounds in Clayton's Shaw Park will open at 11:30 a.m., and the music gets underway at noon. For those who are primarily interested in the national acts, you're in luck - this year they're scheduled sequentially on the same stage, with Sanchez will take the main stage at 4:30 p.m., followed by Benson at 6:30 p.m. and Lewis at 8:30 p.m.. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at Borders locations in the St. Louis area, all MetroTix outlets, or at the festival gate on the day of the event.
(Since this year's festival is just one day, StLJN's coverage won't be quite as extensive as it has been the last two years. However, I'll have some video previews of some of the musicians in an upcoming post and, barring inclement weather, plan to take in and review as much of the event as I can.)
Benson and Lewis would be the biggest jazz names in town most weeks of the year - but not this particular week, because on Sunday night, legendary pianist and composer Dave Brubeck will appear at the Sheldon Concert Hall in a benefit performance for the Friends of the Sheldon.
Brubeck's current quartet includes Randy Jones on drums, Michael Moore on bass and Bobby Militello on saxophone and flute, and it's safe to assume that they'll be offering up such favorites as "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo A La Turk" as part of a musical menu that might also include a rendition of "St. Louis Blues," a longtime Brubeck favorite. This review of a Brubeck show last month in San Francisco may provide more of an idea of what to expect.
Though the patron seats are all sold, Metrotix still has regular tickets on sale at $45 for orchestra seats (the floor) and $40 for balcony seats. If you have any interest in seeing Brubeck, who's 87, in concert, you're probably not going to get a better chance than this.
If that's not enough music for you, on Monday evening the SIU-E jazz faculty will be giving a free concert at Durham Hall on campus, and the Sessions Big Band returns to the recently expanded stage at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups downtown.
As always, these highlights represent just a portion of the what's going on in St. Louis this weekend. For a more complete listing of local jazz events, please check the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.
UPDATE - 10:20 p.m., 5/31/07: I've got a Critic's Pick on the Dave Brubeck show in this week's Riverfront Times, now online here, while my RFT colleague Christian Schaefer has written one on George Benson, available here. Also, Terry Perkins did a story for the Post-Dispatch/STLtoday that previews the Jazz and Heritage Festival and examines the reasons why this year's event is one day instead of two. Read it online here.
(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.)
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