Jazz this week: Keith Fullerton Whitman, Scratch, Mark O'Connor, a tribute to women in jazz, and more

There's an eclectic selection of jazz and creative music coming up on St. Louis stages over the next few days, from classic bop to contemporary electronics. Let's go to the highlights:

Tonight, the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University presents a free concert by an ad hoc ensemble dubbed "St. Louis Bebop," featuring trumpeter Randy Holmes, saxophonist Jason Swagler, pianist Ken Kehner, bassist Bob DeBoo and drummer Marty Morrison playing music associated with bop pioneers Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

Also tonight, the Chicago-based saxophonist Mark O'Connor is in town, playing at Robbie's House of Jazz to promote his new CD release Suspended Reality. O'Connor will be joined by pianist Lara Driscoll, trumpeter Chris Davis, drummer Todd Howell and bassist Willem von Hombracht.

On Friday, the Crusaders tribute band Scratch performs for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro, featuring a lineup of St. Louis area players including trombonist and arranger Cody Henry, saxophonist Ben Reece and pianist Adaron "Pops" Jackson.

Also on Friday, saxophonist Jerry Greene and his group perform at Robbie's, and vibraphonist Dustin Sholtes leads a quartet at the Cigar Inn in Belleville.

On Saturday afternoon, there are a ouple of free educational opportunities for local musicians, as saxophonist Bob Reynolds gives a free master class at Saxquest, and electronic musician Keith Fullerton Whitman (pictured) will present a free workshop at the Luminary Center for the Arts.

Then on Saturday evening, Whitman will perform at White Flag Projects in a concert presented by New Music Circle. For more about Whitman and some performance videos of him in action, see this post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, Robbie's will present a concert paying tribute to "women in jazz," featuring three performers visiting from Indiana: pianist Monika Herzig, singer Janiece Jaffe and violinist Carolyn Dutton. Herzig, who teaches at the University of Indiana, was in St. Louis most recently for a couple of gigs last May; Jaffe and Dutton will making their local debuts.

On Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis Jazz Club presents the Funky Butt Brass Band at the SLJC's customary east side venue, Bel-Air Bowl in Belleville.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday the Sessions Big Band plays at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups, and student jazz combos from the music program at Webster University will perform at Webster's Community Music School.

Then on Tuesday, the SIUE Concert Jazz Band, under the direction of trombonist Brett Stamps, will play at Dunham Hall on the SIU-Edwardsville campus. The set list will include music from the Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Clayton-Hamilton, Rob McConnell, and Tonight Show big bands, with featured performances from SIUE vocal jazz majors Zelina Bott-Goins and Nicole Jonas.

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.)