Jazz this week: New Year's Eve jazz in St. Louis, and more

While New Year's Eve isn't usually a particularly big night for live jazz in St. Louis, there seem to be slightly more than the usual number of jazz-related options out there this year.

Among the more noteworthy revels occurring this Thursday evening:

* Singer Erin Bode (pictured) and her band will be doing two performances at the Joe Buck Show Room, which is part of the sportscaster's JBuck's restaurant downtown on Clark St.;
* The Robert Edwards Big Band will play at Robbie's House of Jazz;
* Singer Kim Massie will be at Brandt's;
* Singer Cherilyn Evans & CEE JazzSoul are performing at Smoking Joe's Bar-Be-Que downtown on Washington Ave;
* Singer/pianist Anita Rosamond teams up with guitarist Grant Krener at Chandler Hill Wineries in Defiance.

As has been the case for the last few years, the city's premiere jazz room, Jazz at the Bistro, will be dark on New Year's Eve, yielding the streets in the immediate neighborhood to Grand Center's annual First Night event, which usually features a variety of music in addition to dance, theater, visual arts and family oriented activities.

Acts scheduled to perform at this year's First Night include singers Wendy Gordon and Jeannie Trevor; multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman's gypsy-jazz band Hot Club Caravan; singer Brian Owens; Le Jazz Hot (with pianist Ptah Williams, saxophonist Chad Evans, bassist Daryl Mixon and drummer Bensid Thigpen); Wackadoo (with singer Valerie Tichacek); and Jazz St. Louis executive director Gene Dobbs Bradford's blues band, the Blues Inquisition. For a complete schedule of performances, visit the First Night website.

Beyond New Year's Eve, it looks to be a relatively uneventful few days for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, save for some regular weekly standing gigs carrying over into the new year. That's not unusual - the first couple of weeks of the year are usually a slow time for live music, and with many people still on holiday, a lot of January schedule information from musicians and clubs has yet to arrive here at StLJN HQ.

As that info comes in, I'll be updating the the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar - which can be found on the left sidebar, or by clicking here - with the latest information on more jazz and creative music events this weekend and beyond. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or by becoming a "fan" of the StLJN Facebook page.

(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.)