StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/spring 2015 jazz preview

Today, it's the first part of StLJN's winter/spring 2015 jazz preview, in which we bring you music videos from jazz and creative music performers who will be visiting our city in the first part of next year.

First up are The Bad Plus, who will be back in St. Louis from Wednesday, January 7 through Saturday, January 10 to play at Jazz at the Bistro. The group has been visiting the Bistro early in January for nearly a decade now, and since their last trip here, they've put out a new recording of all original music, Inevitable Western. In the video up above, you can see them playing a song from that album, "Gold Prisms Incorporated," during a gig in September at the Blue Note in Milano, Italy.

After the jump, you'll see the Stooges Brass Band playing "Hot." They'll be in town on Thursday, January 15 at the Broadway Oyster Bar; the video was recorded in July of this year in New Orleans for the web series "Jam in the Van."

Below that you can see their fellow New Orleanians Bonerama, who will be here the very next night, Friday, January 16, also at the Broadway Oyster Bar. The clip is an audience-shot video of them performing "Hey, Hey, What Can I Do" last month at the Cutting Room in NYC.

That same weekend, the Bistro will feature a band being billed as the Jazz at Lincoln Center Group, an ad hoc assemblage made up of musicians doing week-long educational residencies for Jazz St. Louis that will culminate in public performances on Friday, January 16 and Saturday, January 17. The front line features two familiar faces, trumpeter Terell Stafford and saxophonist/clarinetist Victor Goines - both of whom have fronted their own bands here - along with trombonist Chris Crenshaw, with Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra drummer Alvin Atkinson quarterbacking the rhythm section with a bassist and pianist TBA.

In the fourth clip, you can see Stafford performing a very nice version of Billy Strayhorn's "Day Dream" at the 2013 International Trumpet Guild convention, backed by pianist Bruce Barth. Below that, there's a clip of Goines working out on his composition "Turning Points" during a 2011 gig with pianist Aaron Diehl, bassist Phillip Kuehn, and drummer Marion Felder. Crenshaw is represented by a clip compiling excerpts from a concert for a Smithsonian traveling exhibit that the trombonist played in March 2013 in his hometown of Thomson, GA; the rhythm section is Josef Patchen (keyboard), Travis Shaw (bass), and Edwin G. Hamilton (drums).

Today's final video features the Arturo O'Farrill Sextet, who will visit St. Louis Wednesday, January 21 through Saturday, January 24 to play at Jazz at the Bistro. O'Farrill, a pianist, composer/arranger and son of the famous bandleader Chico O'Farrill, was here a decade ago with his Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra to play the long-defunct St. Louis Jazz Festival in Clayton, but this will be his first visit here since. To get an idea of what to expect, check out the video of O'Farrill's octet recorded in September 2013 for an NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert.

Look for the second part of StLJN's winter/spring 2015 jazz preview in this space next week. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...