Jazz this week: Made in St. Louis

While there are no major touring jazz or creative music headliners scheduled to be here for the next few days, St. Louis musicians will be filling a variety of local venues with all sorts of sounds. And so, as a way of demonstrating the wide variety of activity on our local scene, this week's picks consists of fifteen different bands and musicians playing at fifteen different locations over the next five days. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, guitarist Brian Vaccaro leads his trio in a free concert kicking off the winter/spring semester for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University. The group will perform their interpretations of music from the Beatles, with an emphasis on the Fab Four's later post-Revolver material.

Also tonight, up-and-coming Chicago saxophonist Christopher McBride is back in the area to play at the Cigar Inn; cellist Tracy Andreotti, percussionist Henry Claude and keyboardist Jim Hegarty will offer free improv and more at the Tavern of Fine Arts; and trombonist Doug Bert leads a quintet at the house-concert venue Joe's Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave in the Central West End..

Tomorrow night, multi-instrumentalist Lamar Harris (pictured) and trumpeter/singer Dawn Weber will join forces for the first of two evenings at Jazz at the Bistro. Although this is the first time the two have headlined together at the Bistro (or anywhere else), making it somewhat difficult to know exactly what their collaboration will sound like, both Harris and Weber have an affinity for danceable beats and electronic sounds that should make for a compatible pairing.

Update, 1 p.m. 1/24/13: Via the magic of Facebook, StLJN has just learned that Harris and Weber will be backed by the aforementioned Christopher McBride and his band, consisting of pianist Andrew Lawrence, bassist Bob Deboo and drummer Marcus Evans. While this could mean they're taking a more straightahead musical direction, rather than emphasizing the electronic elements that both Harris and Weber often deploy, there's really no way to know until the deal goes down on the bandstand.

Also Friday, saxophonist Jay Hutson plays R&B, funk and soul/jazz at Robbie's House of Jazz;  Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes will offer jump blues and swing just down the street at CJ Muggs in Webster Groves; and Miss Jubilee will perform at Flaco's Cocina in University City.

On Saturday, the Funky Butt Brass Band will play at The Gramophone; singing sisters Feyza Eren and Ayse Eren will team up for a performance at the Wine Press; and guitarist Dave Black plays solo at Mojo Tapas.

Then on Sunday, the Dave Dickey Big Band will celebrate a year of monthly gigs at Kirkwood Station Brewing Company. This show will feature a guest performance from the fine pianist Chip Stevens, who teaches at the University of Illinois, along with an intermission set from the All-Suburban Honor Jazz Band.

Also Sunday, jazz-fusion band The Freedom returns to the Level 2 Platinum Club, 7555 Olive St. Rd in University City.
 
Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday the group Two Times True, featuring pianist Carolbeth True, will perform in the first jazz faculty concert of the semester at Webster University's Moore Auditorium; and 
saxophonist "Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective will play at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups. 


For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, 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.)