Jazz this week: A new jazz interpretation of Porgy and Bess; Matthew Von Doran; and more

Both the Internet in general and Blogger in particular are acting rather spiteful and capricious right now, so this will be a short post.

Two particularly noteworthy gigs this weekend: First, the local debut of the new guy in town, guitarist Matthew Von Doran, as he plays a free concert and clinic tonight at Fazio's Frets and Friends with drummer Miles Vandiver and bassist Bob Deboo.

And on Sunday, the Ivory Perry Park summer concert series wraps up its season with a jazz version of Porgy and Bess, performed by a group led by saxophonist Aaron "Strayhorn" Parker and including Raymond Eldridge, Jr., Jerome "Scrooge" Harris, Clifton McBride, Mike Nelson and Dennis Block. The concert is free and open to the public; Ivory Perry Park is located at 800 Belt (at Cabanne) in west St. Louis.

In between those two shows, Jeff Anderson's Positive Energy Quartet is at Brandt's tonight; Dave Stone performs as usual at Mangia Italiano on Friday; and Willie Akins holds forth at Spruill's early Saturday evening. Meanwhile, Cookie's Jazz and More presents a trio of female vocalists over the weekend, with trumpeter Dan Smith and his quintet featuring singer Debby Lennon performing this evening, Kim Massie on Friday and Trio Tres Bien with Danita Mumphard (pictured) on Saturday.

For an expanded list of local jazz-related events, please see the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which will be getting some major updates over the next week, as September gig info arrives from bands and venues and presenters like Webster University and Washington University's Jazz at Holmes series announce their schedules for the rest of the year.

(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. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)