Thursday, November 11, 2010

Jazz this week: Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet, Victor Goines, Trio Tres Bien, and more

It's another busy weekend for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with a variety of styles, from traditional to experimental, on offer from both touring and local performers. Let's go to the highlights:

Cabaret St. Louis continues their fall season this week with singer Valerie Lemon, who will perform her show spotlighting the music of Marvin Hamlisch nightly through Saturday at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

On Thursday, the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University presents a tribute to Kind of Blue by a band fronted by trumpeter Danny Campbell and saxophonists Jeff Anderson and Jason Swagler. (Presumably, they'll have a rhythm section there, too, but the announcement from the Jazz at Holmes email listserv didn't say who else would be involved.)

On Friday, Trio Tres Bien open a two-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. Featuring pianist Jeter Thompson and his brothers Harold on bass and Howard on drums, the group's straight-ahead, swinging sound (with occasional touches of Latin and soul) has made them a popular and enduring attraction for local jazz fans.

Also on Friday, guitarist Matthew Von Doran is back at Broadway Bean Coffee on the south side for a free performance backed by bassist Bob Deboo and drummer Kyle Honeycutt; and singer Cherise Rise Laday takes the stage at Robbie's House of Jazz with a band including guitarist Chris Burchett, pianist Adaron "Pops" Jackson, bassist Jahmal Nichols and drummer Irvin Neal.

On Saturday night, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet performs at the 560 Music Center in a concert sponsored by New Music Circle. This is the St. Louis debut for the Golden Quartet, which also includes bassist John Lindberg, drummer Pheeroan akLaff and pianist Vijay Iyer, and the performance promises to be one of this fall's creative music highlights. You can read my Riverfront Times Critic's Pick on the concert here, and to see some video of Smith and the Golden Quartet in action, check out this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

UPDATE, 11:00 p.m. 11/11/10: Smith was interviewed by Terry Perkins for an informative article on the concert published today by the St. Louis Beacon.

UPDATE, 1:00 a.m. 11/12/10: Smith also talked with Calvin Wilson of the Post-Dispatch for a story that's just come online here.

That same evening, saxophonist Victor Goines will make it a "Sonny" evening at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Goines, who's known to many jazz fans for collaborating with Wynton Marsalis in both the trumpeter's small group and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, will play music associated with Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt.

The Sheldon and Metrotix are offering a two-for-one discount on tickets for the concert; for details on that, go here. Goines also is a noted jazz educator who currently directs the jazz studies program and Northwestern University, and while he's in town he also will present a free master class on Saturday morning at Saxquest.

Also on Saturday, the Tom Byrne Trio will be at Robbie's House of Jazz, featuring Byrne on guitar & guitar synth, Willem von Hombracht on bass and Philip Graves on drums.

Then on Sunday, Robbie's will celebrate a holiday event in the surrounding Old Webster business district with a jazz brunch/concert at 3:00 p.m. featuring singer Jeanne Trevor, pianist John Pyatt, and friends.

Also on Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis Jazz Club will present keyboardist Bob Row's group, featuring clarinetist Scott Alberici, at Doubletree Hotel & Conference Center in Chesterfield. Also, Tom Byrne is back in action Sunday night with his Pat Metheny tribute Have You Heard? at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday pianist Phil Gomez and Clave Sol will play Latin jazz at BB's, and on Tuesday morning, Elsie Parker & the Poor People of Paris will perform a Coffee Concert of their jazz-inflected, French cabaret-style music at the Sheldon. (As is customary with the Coffee Concerts series, they'll return to repeat the same program on Wednesday morning.)

For more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on 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.)

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