StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/spring 2017 jazz preview, part four

Today, it's the fourth installment of StLJN's winter/spring 2017 jazz preview, presenting videos of the jazz and creative music artists who will be coming to our town to perform over the next few months. The preview posts are in chronological order of their appearances here; you can see part one here, part two here, and part three here.

Leading off today is pianist Laurence Hobgood, who will play with his trio on Wednesday, April 5 and Thursday, April 6 at Jazz at the Bistro. Hobgood, known for for his long association with singer Kurt Elling, has concentrated more on his own music since leaving Elling's band in 2013, and he's seen here playing solo back in August, 2014 for the Chicago Jazz Festival's "PianoForte Sessions" in a hour-long session that also includes interview segments with host Barry Winograd.

Next up, Jazz St. Louis will bring together four young jazz stars with Midwestern roots, as trumpeter Keyon Harrold, pianist Lawrence Fields, saxophonist Adam Larson, and drummer Kimberly Thompson join forces for two nights of performances on Friday, April 7 and Saturday, April 8 at the Bistro.

These dates should inspire a healthy turnout of hometown fans, as Harrold, Fields and Thompson all are originally from St. Louis, and Larson is from just up the the road in Bloomington, IL. All four will be working with local music students for the preceding week, then wrapping up their residencies with the weekend shows.

Since this a band brought together specifically for the occasion, there's no video of all four of them together; instead, they are featured here individually, starting with the first clip after the jump, a full set of Keyon Harrold and his band recorded in April, 2016 at the Boiler Room New York.

Below that, you can see Fields performing with trumpeter Christian Scott's band, playing John Coltrane's composition "Equinox" at the 2016 Montreux Jazz Festival. Fields is featured with a nice long solo that starts at about 6:50 into the clip and continues for more than three minutes. In addition to Scott and Fields, the rest of the ensemble includes Elena Pinderhughes (flute), Braxton Cook (alto sax), Kris Funn (bass), and Corey Fonville (drums).

The fourth clip features Larson, accompanied by pianist Fabian Almazan, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Jimmy Macbride, playing his composition "The Dope Pope" at Birdland in NYC. That's followed by Thompson showing off her chops and use of textures and space in an extended solo recorded during the "Hit Like A Girl" drum festival in April of last year.

The final two videos feature the following week's attractions at the Bistro, harmonica player Gregoire Maret and guest vocalist Alicia Olatuja, who will be in town to perform at the club starting Wednesday, April 12 through Saturday, April 15. Maret is seen here playing "The Gospel" at the 2016 Montreux Jazz Festival, followed by Olatuja singing her original composition "In The Dark" at a gig in August 2015 at Dizzy's Club in NYC's Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Look for the fifth part of StLJN's winter/spring 2017 jazz preview next week. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...