StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Catching up with Ravi Coltrane

This week, our video spotlight shines on saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, who's returning to St. Louis to perform Wednesday, January 18 through Saturday, January 21 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Coltrane, the son of legendary saxophonist John Coltrane and pianist/harpist Alice Coltrane, played here most recently in 2009 at the Sheldon Concert Hall as part fo the Blue Note Seven, and also performed with his quartet in 2008 at the Bistro. (For more on Coltrane's back story, check out the video showcase post than ran before that week at Bistro.)

Since then, he's put out his sixth CD as a leader, 2009's Blending Times, and has continued to work steadily with his band, which usually includes pianist Louis Perdomo, bassist Drew Gress and drummer E.J. Strickland. To catch up with what Coltrane and company have been into lately, today we've got videos from three different shows in 2011.

The first clip is from September, and shows Coltrane at an outdoor festival in High Point, North Carolina working out on his father's composition "Lonnie's Lament," accompanied by a rhythm section including drummer Gerry Gibbs, bassist Ugonna Okegwo and pianist David Virelles.

Down below, you can see an excerpt from another gig in September, featuring Coltrane with Perdomo, Gress and Strickland at the Peperoncino Jazz Festival in Calabria, Italy. The songs is called "Cs" and the performance is split into two parts.

Below that, there are two songs from Coltrane's gig in July at New Morning in Paris: "The Message," also split into two parts; and a tune labeled simply "Ballad" that's reportedly been a staple of his live sets for the past couple of years.