Jazz St. Louis announces more 2017 bookings for Jazz at the Bistro

Jazz St. Louis today announced additional performances that will complete the winter/spring 2017 schedule at Jazz at the Bistro.

Most notably, drummer Jeff Hamilton (pictured) and his trio will play a one-nighter on Thursday, March 9 at the Bistro.

They're the only touring group added to the schedule; the rest of the new dates announced will feature St. Louis-based musicians, most making return visits to the venue, along with a few Bistro debuts.

The newly added shows, in chronological order, are:

Wednesday, January 11 & Thursday, January 12: Jazz St. Louis All-Stars Alumni Quintet
Thursday, January 26: Adam Maness, Bob DeBoo & Montez Coleman
Friday, January 27 & Saturday, January 28: Denise Thimes "Sings Nancy Wilson"

Wednesday, February 22 & Thursday, February 23: Rob Endicott Quintet
Saturday, February 25: Dave Venn with special guest Jeanne Trevor

Thursday, March 9: Jeff Hamilton Trio
Friday, March 10 & Saturday, March 11: Weather Forever
Wednesday, March 22 & Thursday, March 23: Two Times True with Larry Johnson
Friday, March 24 & Saturday, March 25: Funky Butt Brass Band & Friends
Sunday, March 26: Williams Brothers
Tuesday, March 28: Washington University Jazz Band

Tuesday, April 18: SIUE Concert & Alumni Jazz Bands
Wednesday, April 19 & Thursday, April 20: Saxquest Nonet
Friday, April 21 & Saturday, April 22: Ella Fitzgerald 100th Birthday Celebration featuring Anita Jackson, Montez Coleman, Adaron “Pops” Jackson, Bob DeBoo & Ben Reece

Wednesday, May 3 & Thursday, May 4: Ben Reece’s Unity Quartet
Friday, May 5 & Saturday, May 6: Kevin Bowers' NOVA
Wednesday, May 17: Route 66 Jazz Orchestra
Friday, May 19 & Saturday, May 20: Bosman Twins

Tickets for these shows are priced from $15 to $25 depending on the performer, $10 for students, and will go on sale to the general public at 10:00 a.m. next Wednesday, December 7 via the Jazz St. Louis website and box office.

Jazz this week: Vijay Iyer Trio, Dianne Reeves, Tomeka Reid's Artifacts Trio, and more

It's going to be a very busy few days for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with several noteworthy touring headliners in town, plus the beginning of our town's annual cornucopia of holiday-themed performances from both visiting and local musicians.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, November 30
Pianist Vijay Iyer returns with his longtime associates, bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore, to perform for the first of four nights continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro.

Iyer already was considered one of the fastest-rising stars in jazz when he last played here in St. Louis - in January 2010, also at the Bistro - and in the nearly seven years since, he's taken on a variety of new projects that have earned continued critical acclaim and growing public recognition.

For more about that, plus some recent video samples of Iyer's trio (pictured, top left) in action, check out this video post from a couple of Saturdays ago, as well as his recent interviews with St. Louis Public Radio's David Cazares and the Post-Dispatch's Calvin Wilson.

Thursday, December 1
Singer, educator and former St. Louisan Jan Shapiro, the longtime head of vocal music at Berklee College of Music, will return home to perform in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Also on Thursday, the student musicians of the North County Big Band, directed by saxophonist Harvey Lockhart, will present their semester-ending performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall; and pianist Carolbeth True and Two Times True will be joined by singer Erika Johnson for a concert presented by St. Louis Public Radio at UMSL at Grand Center.

Friday, December 2
Singer Dianne Reeves returns to St. Louis for the first time since 2013 with a holiday-themed concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

Reeves (pictured, center left) will offer her interpretations of seasonal favorites such as “Little Drummer Boy,” “Carol of the Bells,” “Christmas Waltz,” “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” “Let It Snow,” and more, accompanied by a band featuring two musicians from the St. Louis area - her longtime pianist and music director, U City native Peter Martin, and drummer Terreon Gully, who's originally from East St. Louis - plus bassist Reginald Veal and guitarist Romero Lubambo.

Also on Friday, The Fat Babies, a Chicago-based band specializing in vintage jazz of the 1920s and '30s will perform at Off Broadway in the first of three shows they'll be doing in St. Louis this weekend. The group also will play for dancers on Saturday night at Casa Loma Ballroom, then provide an opening set for the St. Louis Jazz Club on Sunday (see below) before heading home.

Saturday, December 3
Cellist and composer Tomeka Reid's Artifacts Trio with flute player Nicole Mitchell and percussionist Mike Reed will play a New Music Circle-presented concert at Joe's Cafe.

Following in the footsteps of the founders who started Chicago's venerable Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the 1960s, Reid, Mitchell, and Reed (pictured, bottom left) represent what might be called the next generation of the AACM's leadership, having all served together on that organization's board at one point a few years back.

All three are active as bandleaders and collaborators in Chicago's busy jazz and creative music scene, and their shared musical history and the AACM connection eventually brought them together in 2015 under Reid's nominal leadership to record Artifacts, an album of new interpretations of music by AACM-affiliated composers. For more about that, and some video samples of various Tomeka Reid performances, take a look at the video post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, saxophonist Eric Marienthal will perform with St. Louis' Bach to the Future in a benefit concert for the adoption agency Dillon International at the Mandarin House Banquet Hall in U. City; and pianist Carolbeth True and multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman will reunite to revisit music from their 1998 album "New World Harmonica Jazz" at the Ozark Theatre

Sunday, December 4
The St. Louis Jazz Club's annual holiday party gets underway at an earlier-than-usual starting time with an opening set from Chicago's Fat Babies, followed by a full-length performance of traditional jazz and swing from St. Louis' own Cornet Chop Suey at the Moolah Shrine Center.

Also on Sunday afternoon, the Friends of Scott Joplin present their monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" at the  Scott Joplin House State Historic Site's New Rosebud Cafe; and music students at the University of Missouri St. Louis present "UMSL's Jazz For The Holidays" a free concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center featuring music from the UMSL Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Jim Widner, Vocal Point conducted by Jim Henry, and the University Orchestra.

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.)

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill to open Max & Louis Productions' 2017 season

Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, the award-winning musical drama about singer Billie Holiday, will be the opening production of St. Louis theater company Max & Louie Productions' 2017 season.

The play by Lanie Robertson first premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, GA, and went on to run Off-Broadway and in regional theaters soon after that, finally making it to Broadway in 2014.

The St. Louis production will run from Friday, February 17 through Saturday, March 4 at the Kranzberg Arts Center, with Alexis J. Roston playing Holiday. Performances will be at 8:00 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 2:00 p.m. Sundays, with one additional matinee at 4:00 p.m. onSaturday, March 4.

Roston (pictured), who won Chicago’s Jeff Award and Black Theatre Alliance Award for her portrayal of Holiday in a previous production of the play by that city's Porchlight Theatre Company, will be accompanied by pianist, composer and arranger Abdul Hamid Royal, with Leda Hoffmann of the Milwaukee Rep directing.

Described as "a moving portrait of Holiday’s struggles with addiction, racism, love and loss," Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill is set in a run-down bar in Philadelphia, circa 1959. Evoking Holiday's nightclub act, the play includes musical numbers such as “God Bless the Child,” “Strange Fruit,” and “What A Little Moonlight Can Do,” alternating with Holiday telling stories about her life.

General admission tickets for Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill are $45, or $35 for seniors 65 and older and students with ID, and will go on sale this Thursday, December 1 at www.maxandlouie.com; by phone via MetroTix at 314-534-1111; and in person at the Fox Theatre box office.

Tortoise to perform Thursday, January 12 at Old Rock House

The eclectic instrumental band Tortoise is returning to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m. Thursday, January 12 at the Old Rock House, with indie rock band Hope and Therapy as opening act.

Drawing on rock, jazz, dub, electronica, and minimalism, Tortoise (pictured) has recorded six albums in nearly 25 years together, the most recent being The Catastrophist, which came out in January and is their first studio album in almost seven years. The Chicago-based quintet last played in St. Louis in May of this year at the Ready Room.

Tickets for Tortoise with Hope and Therapy are $18 in advance, $20 day of show, and are on sale now.

Sunday Session: November 27, 2016

Andrew Cyrille

Some interesting music-related items that have landed in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Dap-Kings' Gabriel Roth recalls Sharon Jones' last days: 'She was blaming Trump' (Los Angeles Times)
* Bright Moments With Andrew Cyrille (Jazz Times)
* Review: Berlin Jazz Festival (Jazz Journal UK)
* The Truth About the Tower (Wall Street Journal)
* Exit Zero Festival Offers Global Tastes, Diverse Artists (DownBeat)
* The Forgotten Precursor to iTunes (Pitchfork)
* London jazz festival: Wayne Shorter review – living embodiment of jazz genius (The Guardian UK)
* ‘Look, they’re crucifying Him! And nobody cares!’: When Charlie Chaplin met Igor Stravinsky (DangerousMinds.net)
* The 15 Most Overlooked Albums of 2016 (VinylMePlease.com)
* The Broken Pop of James Bond Songs (LongReads.com)
* Vijay Iyer on Musical and Ethnic Identity (SPIN)
* How Chuck Berry Wrote “Johnny B. Goode” and Created the First Rock and Roll Guitar Hero (Guitar World)
* Why secret album-sharing forum What.CD was a music obsessive’s pirate paradise (FactMag.com)
* How Streaming Is Changing The Sound Of Pop Music (HypeBot.com)
* Sarah Vaughan Competition 2016 - London chanteuse Deelee Dubé takes top prize (Jazz Times)
* Leon Russell in the Dark (Village Voice)
* Rock photographer Michael Zagaris tells the stories behind his most famous shots (The Guardian UK)
* Open Space for Creativity: Cecil Taylor At Antioch (WYSO)
* ‘Alice’s Restaurant,’ an Undying Thanksgiving Protest Song (The Atlantic)
* To find success, soul singer Sharon Jones had to leave the US (PRI)
* Tyshawn Sorey: The Maestro (Jazz Times)
* How Sun Ra’s Definitive Singles Catalog Finally Saw The Light of Day (Bandcamp.com)
* Allison Miller: A Life Soaked in Music (Point of Departure)
* Pauline Oliveros Dead at 84 (Pitchfork)
* James Booker Was Hands Down the Greatest New Orleans Piano Player Ever (The Daily Beast)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Tomeka Reid

This week, let's get acquainted via video with the Chicago-based cellist and composer Tomeka Reid, who will perform in a concert presented by New Music Circle next Saturday, December 3 at Joe's Cafe.

Reid, who grew up in Maryland near Washington DC and is now in her late 30s, is an active participant in Chicago's busy jazz and improvised music scene, moving freely between various musical projects of her own and those led by others. She also has significant classical training, having earned music degrees at the University of Maryland, College Park and DePaul University, and currently is working on a doctor of music from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

In addition to leading several groups under her own name, Reid has worked with Dee Alexander's Evolution Ensemble, Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble/Strings, Mike Reed's Loose Assembly, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) Great Black Music Ensemble, and co-leads the string trio Hear in Now.

Reid's Artifacts Trio, the group she'll perform with here in St. Louis, takes its name from an album she recorded last year with flutist Nicole Mitchell and drummer Mike Reed. The three have known each other for 15 years, performing together in various combinations and all serving on the executive board of the AACM, so when Reid wanted to put together a program of music by composers associated with the AACM in conjunction with the organization's 50th anniversary, Mitchell and Reed were natural choices as collaborators.

Since the release of Artifacts, there's been a good deal of interest in the group, resulting in a number of festival dates overseas plus some one-off domestic gigs like the one they'll do in St. Louis. Unfortunately, none of those shows seem to have been captured on video and made available online yet.

So instead today, you can sample several recent performances by Reid in a variety of musical settings, starting up above and continuing after the jump with two excepts featuring what one might call an alternate version of the Artifacts Trio, with Reid, Mike Reed, and British pianist Alexander Hawkins, recorded in September at the Brighton Alternative Jazz Festival in England.

Below that, you can see two solo performances by Reid - one recorded in April at the Block Museum of Art, the other from a concert in July at the Lynden Sculpture Garden in which Reid combined composed and improvised materials in reaction to artist Fo Wilson’s installation "Eliza’s Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities."

The fifth clip features Reid's String Ensemble performing her extended work "Tokens" in September at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago, and the final videois an excerpt from a show by a quartet led by Reid, with bassist Silvia Bolognesi, vibraphonist Pasquale Mirra, and drummer Cristiano Calcagnile, recorded in September at a concert in Lafayette, IN.

For more about Tomeka Reid, check out the profile of her published in 2013 by the Chicago Reader; and her 2015 interview in Point of Departure.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Jazz this week: Jeremy Davenport, Kawabata Makoto & Tatsuya Nakatani, and more

This holiday weekend isn't a particularly busy one for the jazz and creative music calendar in St. Louis, but even so, there are some noteworthy shows happening around town over the next few days that you may want to know about.

Let's go to the highlights...

Friday, November 25
Trumpeter, singer and U City native Jeremy Davenport returns home for the first of two nights of his annual Thanksgiving weekend gig at Jazz at the Bistro.

Davenport (pictured), who spends most of the year leading the house band at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in New Orleans, frequently sells out these homecoming gigs, but as of this writing on Friday morning, there still seem to be some tickets available.

Also on Friday, guitarist Eric Slaughter leads a quartet at Cigar Inn, and the Funky Butt Brass Band plays their monthly show at Broadway Oyster Bar.

Saturday, Nov 26
Drummer Marty Morrison leads a group in concert at The Dark Room, and jazz/fusion group Spaceship plays at Evangeline's.

Monday, November 28
Fans of free improv and/or noise will want to check out a rare early-week gig featuring the duo of Kawabata Makoto, guitarist for Japanese psychedelic rock band Acid Mother Temple, and improvising percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani at Foam, with Vernacular String Trio and Oxherding opening.

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.)

Sunday Session: November 20, 2016

Mose Allison

Some interesting music-related items that have landed in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Leon Russell Dies; Southern-Rock Legend Was 74 (NPR)
* The Verdict on Stravinsky (Jazz Journal UK)
* London jazz festival review – a dazzling display all across the musical spectrum (The Guardian UK)
* Behind the Scenes With Janis Joplin and Big Brother, Rehearsing for the Summer of Love (Collector's Weekly)
* At 75, Chick Corea Still Has That Magic Touch (NPR)
* Identifying the Musical Tastes of Birds (Hyperallergic.com)
* Jazzman John Thomson's guide to jazz: 'If you can’t swing, you’ve got no soul' (The Guardian UK)
* In Memoriam: DownBeat Bids Farewell to Four Great Artists (DownBeat)
* The Design + Music Industries are BFFs—They Just Don’t Know it Yet (AIGA.org)
* Intersections: 8 Classical Musicians Killing It Right Now Using Live Electronics (Soundfly.com)
* Micro-ritmos turns bacteria and machine learning into spatialized sound (CDM.link)
* How the Hidden Sounds of Horror Movie Soundtracks Freak You Out (Atlas Obscura)
* 10 addictive browser instruments for making music on your lunch break (FactMag.com)
* Harpsi-Gourd Gets You Into Thanksgiving Spirit (HackADay.com)
* Composing An Otherworldly And Intimate Soundtrack To 'Arrival' (NPR)
* Pianist/Vocalist Mose Allison Dies at 89 (DownBeat)
* Ireland's oldest blues/jazz venue J.J. Smyths to close (RTE.ie)
* Robert Glasper: Battling 'the jazz police' (BBC)
* Amazon files its first-ever lawsuits against alleged sellers of counterfeit goods (GeekWire.com)
* The Death Of A Disco Host (NPR)
* A History of Music Bootlegs, Told Through 25 of the Most Significant Recordings (Vulture.com)
* Sharon Jones, Soul and Funk Singer With Dap-Kings, Dead at 60 (Rolling Stone)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Vijay Iyer's continuing evolution

This week, let's peruse some videos featuring pianist Vijay Iyer, who will return with his trio to perform Wednesday, November 30 through Saturday, December 3 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Iyer, who last played St. Louis in January 2010 at the Bistro, has become one of the most acclaimed jazz musicians of the last decade, having won DownBeat's "Artist of the Year" award in 2016, 2015 and 2012, plus a whole trophy room's worth of other prizes.

One of those honors was a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship (the so-called "genius grant"), which, along with Iyer's appointment in 2014 as a professor at Harvard University and his participation in various challenging multi-disciplinary projects, has earned him a reputation as one of the more cerebral performers in jazz, even as his albums Historicity (2009) and Accelerando (2012) have enjoyed strong sales - for jazz, anyway - and popular approval.

The pianist's most recent recordings include 2015's Break Stuff, which showcases his long-running trio with bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore (drums), and this year's A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke, a collaboration with trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith.

Since his last St. Louis appearance, Iyer also has expanded his horizons with works such as Mutations, a 2014 recording featuring Iyer’s music for piano, string quartet and electronics, and Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi, a score to a film by Prashant Bhargava that was performed by the new music group International Contemporary Ensemble.

You can see the Vijay Iyer Trio in action up above in a video performance they did last year for NPR's "Tiny Desk Concert". After the jump, there are two clips recorded earlier this year at Bimhuis Amsterdam, in which Iyer and company perform "Combat Breathing" and "Taking Flight/Wrens."

That's followed by a complete show recorded in May 2015 at NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art for NPR's "Jazz Night in America".

The last two videos, both from 2014, feature extended interviews with Iyer. The first shows the pianist conversing with Monica Hairston O'Connell, the executive director of the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago. In the second, Iyer is interviewed by Matei Georgescu, a Romanian psychologist and educator with an interest in zen Buddhism.

For more about Vijay Iyer, read the interviews with him published this year in The New Yorker, Guernica, and Keyboard magazine.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Jazz this week: Catherine Russell, Mardra Thomas, Brooke Michael Smith, and more

This week's calendar of jazz and creative music in St. Louis features a pleasing variety of female vocalists, both visiting and local, as well as a tribute to saxophonist Dexter Gordon's work in the 1986 film Round Midnight, and more. Let's go the the highlights...

Wednesday, November 16
Singer Catherine Russell (pictured, top left) will perform for the first of four nights continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro.

Russell, the daughter of pianist and bandleader Luis Russell and singer/guitarist Carline Ray, is known for interpreting vintage jazz and blues material, and recently released her sixth solo album Harlem On My Mind. For more about that, and some videos of Russell performing some songs from the album, see this post from last Saturday.

Thursday, November 17
The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University will present a free program called "Jazz and Film: 30th Anniversary of Bernard Tavernier's Round Midnight." The event features multi-instrumentalist Jeff Anderson on tenor sax, with Adam Maness on piano, Darrell Mixon on bass, and Maurice Carnes on drums. They'll interpret some of the music from Round Midnight that originally was performed on the soundtrack by Dexter Gordon (who also gave an Academy Award-nominated starring performance in the film.) .

Also on Thursday, students in the UMSL Jazz Combos will give a free concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

Friday, November 18
Former St. Louisan Mardra Thomas (pictured, bottom left) will be back in town to perform a free concert at St. Peter's United Church of Christ, and singer Wendy Gordon, pianist Carolbeth True, and friends will present an "Ebony and Ivory Tribute to Divas of Song" at the Ozark Theatre.

Elsewhere around town, Second Generation Swing will play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; saxophonist Austin Cebulski leads a trio at Cigar Inn; and San Francisco-based cabaret singer Brooke Michael Smith will perform for the first of two nights at The Emerald Room at The Monocle. While Smith's Friday show is already sold out, as of this writing some tickets remain for Saturday.

Saturday, November 19
The vintage swing and Americana band Wack-A-Doo return to Evangeline's, and percussionist Herman Semidey and Orquesta Son Montuno will play salsa, Latin jazz, and more at Club Viva.

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.)

Sunday Session: November 13, 2016

Some interesting music-related items that have landed in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* When Bob Dylan Practiced Downstairs (Village Voice)
* Searching for Albert Ayler (Jazz Times)
* What Sun Ra's Poetry Can Teach Us About Afrofuturism (Vice.com)
* Marshall Allen: Son of Ra (Jazz Times)
* The Story of ‘Ella and Louis,’ 60 Years Later A century-defining album’s improbable genesis. (LongReads.com)
* Adobe’s “Photoshop for audio” mimics human voices to add words someone never said (FactMag.com)
* Saint John Coltrane Church Finds A New Groove In NoPa (Hoodline.com)
* Vijay Iyer on Musical and Ethnic Identity (SPIN)
* How Abbey Road got game: the invasion of the video-game soundtrack (The Guardian UK)
* A new injection-moulded vinyl technology promises to slash costs and improve sound quality (FactMag.com)
* Injection Moulded Records – Vinyl Of The Future? (Discogs.com)
* The Man Who'll Make a Gorgeous Guitar Out of Anything (Popular Mechanics)
* My Job At A Record Label Makes Me Cry — But I Won't Quit (Refinery29.com)
* Music technology needs internationalism, safe expression (CDM.link)
* Why The Rebirth Of Liner Notes Matters For Music (HypeBot.com)
* Musical Cannibalism With Cyro Baptista (NPR)
* The Future 50: The Rising Stars To Look Out For (The Guardian UK)
* Bassist Victor Bailey Dies at 56 (Jazz Times)
* How Newark became one of the greatest jazz cities in the world (The Guardian UK)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Catherine Russell has Harlem on her mind

This week, StLJN's video spotlight shines on singer Catherine Russell, who will be returning to St. Louis to perform Wednesday, November 16 through Saturday, November 19 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Russell, lauded as one of the most gifted contemporary interpreters of vintage jazz and blues songs, will be making her first St. Louis appearance since her debut as a headliner here in 2014 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

It's been an eventful year for Russell, who in July released her sixth album as a leader, Harlem On My Mind, which is "comprised of songs from artists who played at The Apollo in Harlem, where all African American artists of note appeared."

In addition to touring this summer and fall in support of the new album, she was featured in an episode of the public TV series American Songbook and performed at the 2016 Brit Awards as part of a tribute to the late David Bowie, with whom she toured as a backup singer for nearly a decade. Russell also performed at the 2016 NEA Jazz Masters award ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in April was featured on NPR’s “Jazz Night In America.”

To wrap up the year, next month she'll serve as guest vocalist for Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on their annual "Big Band Holidays" tour, which won't make it to St. Louis but will include a stop in Columbia, MO for a performance presented by the We Always Swing concert series.

Right now, though, you can take a look at some videos of recent Russell performances recorded since her last St. Louis appearance, starting with some material from Harlem On My Mind.

Today's first three clips come from Russell's visit last month to the studios of radio station KNKX in Tacoma, WA, beginning up above with "Swing Brother Swing," originally made famous by Billie Holiday, and followed after the jump by "You've Got The Right Key But The Wrong Keyhole" and "You're My Thrill" from the same session.

Below that, you'll find two songs that Russell recorded during a previous visit to the station in 2015, "Bring It Back" and "Darktown Strutters' Ball".

The final two clips, recorded in 2014 at Berklee School of Music in Boston, show Russell interpreting some Chicago-style blues as she sings Howlin' Wolf's "Spoonful" and Muddy Waters’ “Trouble No More”.

For more about Catherine Russell, check out London Jazz News' review of Harlem On My Mind; her performance earlier this year on "Jazz Night in America"; and this recent Q&A with Hollywood Soapbox.com.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Jazz this week: Chucho Valdés & Joe Lovano, Jen Shyu, "Jazz Explosion," and more

Here's what's happening with live jazz and creative music over the next few days in St. Louis...

Wednesday, November 9
Keyboardist Adaron “Pops” Jackson takes a seat behind the Hammond organ as he and guitarist Eric Slaughter co-headline a two-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro themed "To B3 or Not To B3."  Saxophonist Jason Swagler and drummer Miles Vandiver will complete the ensemble.

Also on Wednesday, The 442s will perform in a public concert at St. Vincent Home for Children.

Thursday, November 10
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu (pictured, top left) will present a free, public artist's talk and workshop at the Lewis Center, the Washington University School of Art building located off-campus at 721 Kingsland Ave in U City. (For info on Shyu's New Music Circle concert, see Friday's listing.)

Also on Thursday, Native American flute player Mark Holland and his band will play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; singer Joe Mancuso performs at The Monocle; and fusion band Spaceship and the Liberation Organ Trio sill share a double bill at the Old Rock House.

Friday, November 11
Jen Shyu performs in a concert presented by New Music Circle at Kranzberg Arts Center. For more about Shyu and some video samples of her work, see this post from last Saturday. 

Also on Friday, trumpeter and singer Dawn Weber performs for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro; and the Gaslight Cabaret Festival resumes with stride and ragtime pianist Judy Carmichael. Carmichael,  who's also an engaging storyteller thanks to her experience hosting radio programs for NPR and Sirius XM, will play for one night only at the Gaslight Theater.

Elsewhere around town, the Gateway City Big Band plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; and trumpeter Jim Manley returns to Thurman's in Shaw

Saturday, November 12
Pianist Chucho Valdés and saxophonist Joe Lovano (pictured, bottom left), who are collaborating this year for a series of dates, will play the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Based on the reviews of the tour so far, this has the potential to be one of the top shows of the fall. Lovano, last seen here in 2014 at the Bistro with his band Us Five, is one of the top tenor players working today, while Valdés has helped shape Afro-Cuban music and Latin jazz for decades as a founding member of Irakere and a solo artist and bandleader.

And if you need more incentive, the Sheldon and Metrotix yesterday announced a "buy one, get one free" offer for online purchases of the remaining tickets for the show. To access the offer, go here and enter the promo code CHUCHO16.

Also on Saturday, trumpeter Randy Holmes and his quintet will present a "Tribute to Clifford Brown" at the Ozark Theatre.

Sunday, November 13
The St. Louis Jazz Club hosts a matinee performance by the Funky Butt Brass Band at the Moolah Temple.

Sunday evening, "Jazz Explosion" with Pieces of A Dream, saxophonist Marion Meadows, and keyboardist Mark Harris II, comes to the Emerson Theater at Harris Stowe State University.

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.)

Sunday Session: November 6, 2016

Bob Cranshaw

Some interesting music-related items that have landed in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* What Lady Gaga Finds Appealing in Reel-to-Reel (The New Yorker)
* How TV Is Making Us Hear ’80s Music in a Whole New Way (Vulture.com)
* 35 Greatest Horror Soundtracks: Modern Masters, Gatekeepers Choose (Rolling Stone)
* Esperanza Spalding Wins 2016 MOBO Award for Best Jazz Act (Jazz Times)
* Phil Ranelin revisits ‘Vibes From the Tribe’ on its 40th anniversary (Detroit Metro Times)
* Wayne Shorter: 'Jazz isn’t chewing gum – you can’t market it' (The Telegraph UK)
* Corea Assembles Supergroup for Miles Tribute at Blue Note NYC (DownBeat)
* Anthony Braxton still knows no boundaries (HeraldScotland.com)
* 15th Annual "A Great Night in Harlem" Honoring Dr. John and McCoy Tyner (Jazz Times)
* Roli Blocks are expressive multitouch musical instruments for everyone (Ars Technica)
* 23% Of CDs Sold On Amazon Are Counterfeit, Say Investigators (HypeBot.com)
* Marsalis & Friends Honor the Jazz Spirit of Ralph Ellison at NJPAC (DownBeat)
* Kamasi Washington Has Conquered the Jazz World. What Does He Do Next? (LA Weekly)
* The Way Forward: An Interview With Electronic Music Pioneer Richard Pinhas (SubRewind.com)
* Beyoncé and Dixie Chicks incited a country music civil war (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Bassist Bob Cranshaw Dies at 83 (Jazz Times)
* Tribune Literary Prize winner Philip Glass reflects on his life, music (Chicago Tribune)
* Dynamic Duo of Jazz Piano Improvisation: Herbie Hancock Converses Musically With Chick Corea in His Birthday Engagement at the Blue Note (ZealNYC.com)
* Natural Selection: How a New Age Hustler Sold the Sound of the World (Pitchfork.com)
* A subsidised critic is the thin end of a dangerous wedge (The Guardian UK)
* Rolling Stone Magazine Faces Shutdown Over Fake Gang-Rape Story; $7.5 Million Defamation Ruling (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh On The Synths That Changed Pop Forever (NPR)
* In the key of zzz: the concerts intended to send you to sleep (The Guardian UK)

* Composing Paranoia: A Conversation With Darcy James Argue (HeavyBlogIsHeavy.com)
* The Greatest Invention of One Thousand Years Ago (Fee.org)
* Coltrane Crumbles: The jazz legend's neglected house in Philly (Philadephia Weekly)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Jen Shyu's "Solo Rites: Seven Breaths"

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu, who's performing here in St. Louis in a concert presented by New Music Circle next Friday, November 11 at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Shyu, who's now in her late 30s, was born in Peoria, IL to parents who immigrated to the US from Taiwan and East Timor. She was something of a child prodigy, winning many piano competitions and performing a Tchaikovsky piano concerto with the Peoria Symphony Orchestra when she was just 13.

After graduating from Stanford University, Shyu first gained wide attention in the jazz world in the early 2000s for her singing with saxophonist Steve Coleman's band. She also has worked collaboratively with jazz and creative musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Mark Dresser, Bobby Previte, Chris Potter, Michael Formanek, and more.

Currently based in New York City, Shyu has recorded six albums as a leader, the most recent being the critically acclaimed Sounds and Cries of the World, which came out in 2015 and showed up on a number of critics' "best album" lists for the year.

Her compositions reflect her studies of regional music, languages, literature and dance in countries including Cuba, Taiwan, Brazil, China, South Korea, East Timor, and Indonesia. Much of this research was incorporated into her extended 2014 work "Solo Rites: Seven Breaths," which, according to New Music Circle's publicity, will be what she'll perform here in St. Louis.

In the first video up above, you can see Shyu doing a shorter piece called "Song for Naldo," recorded in 2014 in the New York City studios of radio station WNYC. After the jump, there's another track from the same session, Shyu's arrangement of "Qemaiaqaiam: Taiwanese Women's Song of the Pinuyumayan people."

Below that, there's a recording from March of this year featuring Shyu performing music from Sounds and Cries of the World and "Solo Rites: Seven Breaths" at NYC's Rubin Museum, with some help from violist Mat Maneri, drummer Dan Weiss, and dancer Satoshi Haga,

That's followed by an another, earlier version of "Solo Rites," recorded in 2014 at the 1816 House Gallery in Philadelphia, and then a more recent solo performance, captured on video this year at Judson Memorial Church in NYC.

The final video clip is an interview with NewMusicBox editor Molly Sheridan, in which Shyu talks about how her studies overseas have influenced her music. You can read the full version of Shyu's interview with NMB's Frank Oteri here.

For more about Jen Shyu, read her interview on the website MUSEUM, and the 2014 feature about her published on JazzSpeaks.org.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Jazz this week: Jimmy Greene, The Wee Trio, Nevermore Jazz Ball, and more

This weekend will see swing dancers from all over the country converging on St. Louis for the annual Nevermore Jazz Ball, plus the local debut of a Grammy nominated saxophonist, a homecoming gig for a St. Louis expat with a new recording to promote, and much more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, November 2
Saxophonist Jimmy Greene (pictured, top left) makes his St. Louis debut as a bandleader with the first of four nights of performances at Jazz at the Bistro.

The 41-year-old Connecticut native has appeared on more than 75 recordings with well-known artists such as Freddie Hubbard, Horace Silver, Harry Connick, Jr., and Jackie McLean. He has also recorded eight albums as a leader, including his latest Beautiful Life, released in 2015 and nominated for two Grammy Awards this year.

Inspired by his six-year-old daughter Ana, who was killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the album incorporates the influence of traditional spirituals and contemporary Christian music into Greene's jazz sound.

Also on Wednesday, the Sidney Street Shakers will celebrate the release of their debut CD Laugh My Weary Blues Away with a performance at The Stage at KDHX.

Thursday, November 3
The Wee Trio plays a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Featuring St. Louis native Dan Loomis on bass, The Wee Trio (pictured, center left) currently are touring in support of their recently released album Wee + 3. For more about that, and some video previews of some of the material on the album, see this video post from last Saturday.

Elsewhere around town, the aforementioned Nevermore Jazz Ball gets underway with music from New Orleans-based singer Meschiya Lake and The Little Big Horns at 2720 Cherokee. Though festival passes for the Nevermore Jazz Ball have been sold out for some time, tickets are available for most of this year's individual events; see their website for details.

Also on Thursday, guitarist Dave Black will feature singers Feyza Eren and Joe Mancuso in his final Thursday night gig at Nathalie's, which is closing permanently after service on Saturday.

Friday, November 4
Nevermore Jazz Ball continues with Miss Jubilee playing for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom, followed by an early morning show by the Sidney Street Shakers at the South Broadway Athletic Club.

Also on Friday, the Gaslight Cabaret Festival resumes with actor and singer Karen Irwin performing the first of two nights of "A Janis Joplin Tribute" at the Gaslight Theater.

Saturday, November 5
The Nevermore Jazz Ball presents the Cherokee Street Jazz Crawl, featuring free performances starting at noon and continuing into early evening, featuring more than a dozen local acts at various venues along Cherokee Street.

The festival continues Saturday evening with Michael Gamble and the Rhythm Serenaders (pictured, bottom left), a swing band from Asheville, NC, at the Casa Loma Ballroom, followed by late night/early morning sounds from Los Angeles-based guitarist Jonathan Stout's Midnighters at the South Broadway Athletic Club.

Also on Saturday, trumpeter Jim Manley and guitarist Randy Bahr will lead their All-Star Band for one last performance at Nathalie's; the Liberation Organ Trio plays at The Dark Room; and The WirePilots will be joined by multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman to play some original jazz-fusion at 1900 Park.

Sunday, November 6
The St. Louis Record & CD Collector Show presents their last event of 2016 at the American Czech Hall; the Friends of Scott Joplin will host the duo Ivory and Gold at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site; and the Jim Widner Big Band will be joined by singer Brian Owens for "A Tribute to Ray Charles" at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

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.)

Recently on Heliocentric Worlds

It's the first of the month, which means it's time for another shameless plug for StLJN's sibling site Heliocentric Worlds, where each day there's a new online music video drawing on genres including jazz, blues, soul, funk, classic rock, prog rock, experimental, and more.

The five most-watched videos added to the site last month were:

Buddy Rich Big Band - Live in Prague
Doug Sahm - "She's About A Mover"
Ray Barretto - "Manos Duras/Canto Abacua"
Little Richard - "Send Me Some Lovin"
Airto Moreira & Flora Purim - Live on Ohne Filter

Other recent posts have included videos featuring Bobby "Boris" Pickett, Mingus Big Band, Dexter Gordon, The Rolling Stones, Diana Krall, Taj Mahal, Charles Lloyd Quartet, Brecker Brothers Band, Hot 8 Brass Band, Bobby Hutcherson & Joey DeFrancesco, Mulgrew Miller, Snarky Puppy, Esperanza Spalding, Jimi Hendrix, Kamasi Washington, Ralph Towner, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Maceo Parker, Los Lobos, Jason Moran Trio, Vijay Iyer Trio, Donny McCaslin Quartet, Magic Slim and the Teardrops, Mal Waldron & Jackie McLean, Albert King, and John Scofield.

If you've somehow missed out on all this up until now, you can see all of the videos mentioned above, plus thousands more from the archives, by visiting http://heliocentricworlds.blogspot.com/.