Jazz this week: Special "dog days" edition

It's the dog days of August here in St. Louis, and so we've got at least one more comparatively slow weekend in store before jazz concert and club activity begins to ramp up again. Next weekend brings "A Night of Jazz Greats" to Harris Stowe State University; Jazz at the Bistro resumes Labor Day weekend with clarinetist Scott Alberici, and after that, we're into September, with a number of shows scheduled that have already stirred up lots of interest, including Sonny Rollins at the Touhill and Chris Botti at the Fox.

But let's get back to this weekend. With many summer series wrapped up, fall series yet to begin, and no touring performers of note scheduled here for a few days, it's a good time to check out one or more of the recurring weekly gigs around town, like Dave Stone's Friday night hit at Mangia Italiano, Willie Akins' long running Saturday matinee at Spruill's, or the New St. Louis Jazz X-Tet's regular Sunday night session at Riddle's. You'll find all of these and a bunch more recurring gigs featuring local musicians listed on the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

Note: If you should encounter a minor glitch in calendar operations, it may be because yr. humble editor will be taking advantage of this relative lull in jazz concert action over the next several days to update the calendar with all the fall-season schedule information received so far here at StLJN HQ. In the meantime, as always, if you're wondering what's going on with a particular venue or musician, you can always check out their site directly by following the links over on the sidebar.

Once the calendar mega-update is complete, I hope next week to have not only the regular weekly highlights post, but also another post with a sort of preview/overview of upcoming jazz and creative music for the entire fall season. Stay tuned.