Jazz this week: Cyrus Chestnut; Peter Martin, Brian Owens & Terence Blanchard; and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features a couple of first-call piano players - one visiting, one home-grown - plus the usual assortment of performances in a variety of musical styles from the city's talented contingent of local players.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, January 31
Pianist Cyrus Chestnut returns with his trio for the first of four nights at Jazz at the Bistro.

Chestnut (pictured, top left) has applied his virtuoso technique to all sorts of material over the course of his career. He's recorded original compositions influenced by blues and gospel music, and plenty of standards drawn from the Great American Songbook, as well as "high concept" projects like an album of songs made famous by Elvis Presley, and a 21st century take on pianist Vince Guaraldi's music for A Charlie Brown Christmas.

With such a varied catalog, it's hard to predict precisely what Chestnut may get into over the course of four nights, but chances are he'll spotlight at least some of the music from his 2010 recording Journeys, which included nine of his own compositions. You can see and hear some video samples of Cyrus Chestnut playing with a trio and solo in this post from last Saturday.

Also on Wednesday, guitarist Dave Black plays at Evangeline's, and this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features guitarist Joe Park's trio at The Stage at KDHX, along with the jam session led by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor and his band at The Dark Room.

Thursday, February 1
Saxophonist Freddie Washington and guitarist Tom Byrne will lead a quartet in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, and percussionist Joe Pastor's trio returns to The Dark Room.

Friday, February 2
Saxophonist Dave Stone's trio will be joined by guitarist Eric Slaughter for a concert at Focal Point, and singer/guitarist Tommy Halloran continues his weekly gig at Das Bevo Underground.

Saturday, February 3
Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes will play a mid-day concert at The Sheldon, while The Sidemen perform for the brunch crowd at Evangeline's.

On Saturday evening, pianist Peter Martin (pictured, bottom left), singer Brian Owens and special guest trumpeter Terence Blanchard will headline a benefit concert for Metro Theater Company at the Grandel Theatre.

The company's production of Bud, Not Buddy, a "concert play" with a musical score by Blanchard that will be played live on stage by a 13-piece band, opens Sunday and continues through February 25 at the Grandel.

Sunday, February 4
The Bonbon Plot will play bossa nova and French-influenced jazz for brunch at The Dark Room, and the Friends of Scott Joplin will present their monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site's Rosebud Cafe.

Monday, February 5
Dizzy Atmosphere plays swing and Gypsy jazz for diners at The Shaved Duck, and Webster University presents drummer Nick Savage's quartet with singer Paige Alyssa Hegwood in a Black History Month tribute to "The First Ladies of Song" at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus.

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: January 28, 2018

Hugh Masekela

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* Never Alone: Reflections on the 2018 Winter Jazzfest (AllAboutJazz.com)
* World Music Influences on John Coltrane’s Music (KCRW)
* Havana’s acclaimed jazz festival sees big American presence (NBC News)
* Hear Lost Music from the Original Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (Garden and Gun)
* Where Are All the Female Music Producers? (Billboard)
* Fred Hersch And The Art Of Introspection (NPR)
* In Monterrey, Life Moves to the Rhythm of Cumbia (Vice.com)
* Geri Allen’s Spirit Fills Winter Jazzfest During All-Star Tribute (DownBeat)
* Questlove On The Benefits Of Silence, Controversy, And Chemistry (Fast Company)
* James Brown-Inspired Roller-Skating Is Alive and Well in Chicago (MelMagazine.com)
* Hugh Masekela obituary: South African jazz pioneer who fought the evil of apartheid (The Guardian)
* 20 Essential Hugh Masekela Songs (OkayAfrica.com)
* Hugh Masekela (04/04/1939 – 23/01/2018) (Jazzwise)
* 30 Fascinating Early Bands of Future Music Legends (Rolling Stone)
* From Sonic Youth to Sia, the surprising history of Starbucks’ record label (DazedDigital.com)
* What do smart speakers and voice assistants REALLY mean for music? (MusicAlly.com)
* 20 of the Most Innovative Musicians Working Today (Paste)
* After The Vinyl Revival, The Vinyl-Playing Jukebox Is Back (NPR)
* The Highlight Of My Career Is Still Being Out Here”: Dr Lonnie Smith On ‘All In My Mind’ (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* NMPA Claims Victory: CRB Raises Payout Rate from Music Subscription Services (Billboard)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Cyrus Chestnut

This week, our video spotlight is focused on pianist Cyrus Chestnut, who will be back in town next week with his trio to perform from Wednesday, January 31 through Saturday, February 3 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Chestnut, who last played St. Louis in May 2016 at The Sheldon, is in some ways a stylistic throwback as a pianist. At 55 years old, the Baltimore native is of the right generation to have been influenced by the major jazz pianists most prominent in the 1960s and 70s, such as Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Keith Jarrett, but his playing more often evokes that of older generations of piano players.

For example, Oscar Peterson, and by extension, Art Tatum clearly are points of reference for Chestnut, as his prodigious technique allows him to execute the same sorts of split-second chromatic digressions and flourishes they often deployed.

Listening to some of Chestnut's solo work, it's also possible to hear echoes of Erroll Garner, Earl Hines, Teddy Wilson, and others whose careers bridged the swing and bebop eras, albeit filtered through a contemporary sensibility.

You can get an idea of how Chestnut plays in a trio setting in the first video up above, which is a full set of him with drummer Victor Lewis and bassist Buster Williams, recorded in September 2016 at public radio station WBGO's Yamaha Piano Salon in New York City.

After the jump, you can see Chestnut playing solo, starting with a version of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" from the 2017 Vitoria-Gasteiz Jazz Festival in Spain.

Below that, there's a solo mini-set recorded in June 2016 for Kansas Public Radio, starting with "I've Never Been In Love Before," continuing with a version of Vince Guaraldi's "Skating" from A Charlie Brown Christmas and wrapping up with "Tea for Two."

The last three videos all were made in June 2016 in the studios KNKX in Tacoma, WA, and feature Chestnut playing "It Could Happen To You," "The Door of No Return," and "I Cover the Waterfront."

For more about Cyrus Chestnut, check out his video interview from last September with the web series The Pace Report, and his interview from earlier in 2017 with Time Out Israel.

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

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:

* A public memorial gathering for the late pianist Nathan Jatcko will be held from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. tomorrow (Saturday, January 27) at Birger Hall on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

* The decaying building that once housed Club Imperial (pictured), home to historic performances by Chuck Berry, Ike and Tina Turner, and other important St. Louis musicians, is in the news after being purchased at a tax sale by a new owner seeking to facilitate redevelopment of the site.

Those plans were put on hold this week as the St. Louis Preservation Board upheld a decision to deny a demolition permit for the building - for now, anyway. Stay tuned for further news...

* UDiscoverMusic.com's just-published list of "The 50 Best Jazz Trumpeters Of All Time" has some St. Louis flavor, with Miles Davis ranked at #3 (behind Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie) and Clark Terry at #28 (just behind King Oliver and ahead of Cat Anderson). Let the clickbait-article-driven arguments begin!

* And speaking of Miles Davis, an article in the new issue of Jazz Times has more details on the forthcoming CD box set Miles Davis & John Coltrane’s The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6.

* The Baylor Project, led by drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor and his wife, singer Jean Baylor, performed Wednesday at the studios of WBGO in NYC, and the radio station has posted to YouTube videos of two songs from the session, "Tell Me A Bedtime Story" and "Afro Blue."

The Baylors, who are nominated for two Grammy Awards this year, also were profiled this week in the Asbury Park Press, and appeared on the CBS3 local newscast in Philadelphia. The 60th annual Grammy Awards ceremony will be broadcast starting at 6:30 p.m. Central time this Sunday, January 28 on CBS.

* "The Kennedy Dream," saxophonist, composer and St. Louis native Oliver Nelson's suite commemorating the life and words of President John F. Kennedy, will be the centerpiece of a performance next month paying tribute to Nelson on the closing night of the 48th annual Rowan Jazz Festival in New Jersey.

* The Sheldon has posted to Facebook an album of photos from last week's concert by Storm Large. Large's performance at The Sheldon also was reviewed by KDHX's Chuck Lavazzi.

* While The Bad Plus were in town last week to play at Jazz at the Bistro, Jazz St. Louis had them sit down for a video interview moderated by pianist Peter Martin.

* Gene Dobbs Bradford of Jazz St. Louis this week received a St. Louis Arts Award from the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis, accompanied by a brief video about Bradford that's now posted to the A&E Council's Facebook page.

* At last fall's Festival Of New Trumpet Music in NYC, St. Louis' own Keyon Harrold was part of a panel discussion with fellow trumpeter Charles Tolliver and others, and that talk now can be heard online as an episode of Greenleaf Records' podcast "A Noise From The Deep."

* Pianist and St. Louis native Lawrence Fields appears in a new music video from the group Sound Prints, co-led by saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas. Fields gets a nice solo spot on "The Corner Tavern," a tune from the band's upcoming album Scandal, which will be released on Friday, April 6.

* "Jazz: A Language of Faith and Model for Ministry," a two-day conference exploring "the many possibilities of jazz as a contemporary faith language and creative vehicle for the Church’s ministry," will take place on Friday, March 2 and Saturday, March 3 at Eden Theological Seminary in Webster Groves.

The event will include presentations, talks, workshops, and a jazz concert featuring the Oikos Ensemble, led by Rev. Cliff Aerie and featuring guest saxophonist Rev. Ozzie Smith, pastor of Covenant UCC in South Holland, IL.

* The woodwind retailer, repair shop, and museum Saxquest is featured in an article in Webster University's campus paper, the Webster Journal.

* Also at Webster U. the student chapter of the Audio Engineering Society will be sponsoring the Central Region Audio Student Summit February 23-25 on the Webster campus. The event is open to students, teachers and "anyone interested in the subject of audio," and will include educational panels, a student mix competition, and more.

* Saxophonist "Raven Wolf" aka C. Felton Jennings II is the subject of a column this week by the West End Word's Dwight Bitikofer.

* Metro Theater Company's upcoming production of Bud, Not Buddy, a "concert play" for children that includes a musical score by trumpeter Terence Blanchard, is previewed briefly on BroadwayWorld.com.

Jazz this week: Maceo Parker, Barb Jungr & John McDaniel, Ryan Keberle, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features one of the godfathers of funk saxophone, cabaret interpretations of the music of the Beatles, the return of a popular free concert series, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, January 24
Saxophonist Maceo Parker opens a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro.

Parker (pictured, top left) made his reputation in the 1970s and '80s as a member of James Brown's band, the JBs. He went on to play with George Clinton's P-Funk organization and numerous others, and over the last 20 years has developed a busy solo career extending and adding his own flavor to Brown's funk legacy.

Listeners at the Bistro can expect to hear interpretations of material like "Cold Sweat" and "Pass The Peas" from Brown's catalog as well as originals featuring Parker's tart, angular alto solos.

Also on Wednesday, the Ambassadors of Swing provide the music for "Shake And Shout Wednesdays," the first of what's projected as a monthly series of swing dance events at Tin Roof St. Louis; and Miss Jubilee and The Gaslight Squares perform on a double bill at The Bootleg at Atomic Cowboy as part of the venue's week of shows with free admission.

Thursday, January 25
Saxophonist Richard Deja leads a quartet in the first free concert of the semester from the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, and singer Feyza Eren returns to Evangeline's.

Friday, January 26
Saxophonist Harvey Lockhart and The Collective play a late show at The Dark Room.

Saturday. January 27
Singer Barb Jungr and singer, pianist and Kirkwood native John McDaniel will present two performances of their cabaret show based on the music of The Beatles at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Sunday, January 28
Trombonist Ryan Keberle and his band Catharsis will perform at The Dark Room.

The NYC-based Keberle and band (pictured, bottom left) are in the Midwest for a week of one-nighters in support of their fourth album Find the Common, Shine the Light, which the Los Angeles Times called “a potent blend of cinematic sweep and lush, ear-grabbing melodies.”

Monday, January 29
Members of Webster University's jazz faculty will present a program called "As If It Were the Seasons" at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus. Singer Debby Lennon, saxophonist Paul DeMarinis, pianist Nick Schlueter, bassist Ben Wheeler and drummer Nick Savage will perform a "repertoire that reflects on the distinct character of each of the four seasons," drawing on songs including "You Must Believe in Spring," "Summer in Central Park," "Autumn Nocturne" and more.

Tuesday, January 30
"Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective play their monthly gig at BB's Jazz, Blues & 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.)

Diana Krall to perform Friday, June 15 at Peabody Opera House

Singer and pianist Diana Krall is returning to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m. Friday, June 15 at the Peabody Opera House.

Krall (pictured) is touring this spring and summer in support of her most recent album Turn Up The Quiet, a which was released last May and featured her return to a more jazz-oriented sound after 2012's eclectic Glad Rag Doll. She last performed in St. Louis in 2013 at the Fox Theatre.

Tickets for Diana Krall at the Peabody Opera House are priced from $42 to $122 plus service charges, and will go on sale to the general public at 10:00 a.m. this Friday, January 26 via Ticketmaster and the Scottrade Center box office or by phone at 800-745-3000.

Sunday Session: January 21, 2018

Charles Mingus

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* Interview: Paul McCartney On His Life as a Bassist | Bacon's Archive (Reverb.com)
* 25 Essential Jazz Soundtracks You Should Own (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* At Umbria, Multi-Media and Perfect Pitch (DownBeat)
* Johnny Cash's 'At Folsom Prison': Rosanne Cash Recalls Iconic Live Album (Rolling Stone)
* Too Much Music: A Failed Experiment In Dedicated Listening (NPR)
* Jimi Hendrix Collaborators on Assembling Guitarist's Long-Awaited New LP (Rolling Stone)
* Two Views From the Winter Jazzfest Marathon, Where Clamor and Conviction Abound (WBGO)
* Anchorage author chronicles 8-year friendship with Dizzy Gillespie (AlaskaPublic.org)
* For Wynton Marsalis, forgetting the roots of jazz is forgetting the history of race in America (The Undefeated.com)
* How Benny Goodman Orchestrated 'The Most Important Concert In Jazz History' (NPR)
* Notations: John Cage Publishes a Book of Graphic Musical Scores, Featuring Visualizations of Works by Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky, The Beatles & More (OpenCulture.com)
* Winter Jazzfest Gilded With Guitarists and Vocalists (DownBeat)
* Get The Lawyers In! Experts On The Del Rey vs Radiohead vs Hollies Case (TheQuietus.com)
* Interview: Vijay Iyer on Bay Area ties and how he’s not really that famous (San Jose Mercury News)
* 2018 Winter Jazzfest NYC - An overview of the marathon of jazz concerts and events during the 2018 Winter Jazzfest NYC (Jazz Times)
* Marching The Tradition Forward: Celebration of Preservation Hall Jazz Band (SFJAZZ.org)
* Swinging Along the Border: Charles Mingus' Album 'Tijuana Moods' Finds New Resonance (WBGO)
* Interview: Milford Graves (BombMagazine.org)
* Where To Start: The Cosmic Genius Of Sun Ra (ClashMusic.com)
* London’s young jazz heroes are crafting their own sound (HuckMagazine.com)

Jazz at Holmes series announces winter/spring 2018 concert schedule

The Jazz at Holmes series of concerts at Washington University has announced their schedule for the winter/spring semester of 2018.

Here's the entire lineup in chronological order:

Thursday, January 25: Richard Deja Quartet

Thursday, February 1: Freddie Washington/Tom Byrne Quartet
Thursday, February 8: Steve Davis Band
Thursday, February 15: Tony Viviano (pictured)
Thursday, February 22: Eileen G'Sell (poet) with Jay Oliver, William Lenihan & Steve Davis

Thursday, March 1: Kara Baldus-Mehrmann Trio
Thursday, March 8: "Women's Voices in Music" with Washington University student musicians & singers
Thursday, March 22: "52nd Street/To Be Or Not To Bop" with Randy Holmes Quintet & a pre-show lecture by Patrick Burke
Thursday, March 29: Washington University jazz studies students

Thursday, April 5: Brianna Black Band

All concerts are free and open to the public. Concerts begin at 8:00 p.m. and are presented in Holmes Lounge, Ridgley Hall, which is located on Washington University’s campus at the west end of the Brookings Quadrangle, near the intersection of Brookings and Hoyt drives.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/spring 2018 jazz preview, part six

Today, it's the sixth and final part of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview, featuring videos of jazz and creative music performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the first few months of the new year. (If you missed the previous installments, you can see part one here, part two here, part three here, part four here, and part five here.)

Resuming in chronological order where we left off last week, today's first video features the John Scofield - Joe Lovano Quartet, who will be returning to St. Louis to perform starting Wednesday, April 25 through Saturday, April 28 at Jazz at the Bistro. They're seen here performing a full set at the 2015 Leverkusener Jazztage festival in Leverkusene, Germany.

The next weekend, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will be in town for three performances of Marsalis' “Swing Symphony” with the St. Louis Symphony on Friday, May 4; Saturday, May 5; and Sunday, May 6 at Powell Hall.

Unfortunately, though "Swing Symphony" has been performed a number of times in the USA and Europe, the only good video of the work is stuck behind a paywall. So instead, after the jump, you can see a clip of Marsalis discussing "Swing Symphony" with conductor Simon Rattle, recorded at the Berlin Philharmonie in June 2010.

A couple of days after Marsalis and company leave town, guitarist Dweezil Zappa will be back for a performance on Tuesday, May 8 at The Ready Room.

Given his ongoing legal dispute with the Zappa Family Trust, it's unclear at this time what material DZ will be performing on this year's tour. However, the next clip, a full show recorded in July 2016 at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY, features material spanning several decades of his dad Frank Zappa's career, and though the video (shot by an audience member) is a bit shaky, the audio is solid and serves as a good demonstration of his touring ensemble's capabilities.

That same week, trumpeter Terell Stafford will be here with his quintet to play Wednesday, May 9 through Saturday, May 12 at the Bistro. Stafford, who at one time recorded for the St. Louis based MAXJAZZ label and has performed frequently here over the last decade, probably needs to introduction to local audiences.

Nevertheless, he and his band can be seen in today's fourth video, performing a tribute to the late Lee Morgan in October 2016 at Dizzy's Club in New York City. Along with the leader on trumpet and his fellow Philadelphian Tim Warfield on tenor sax, this edition of Stafford's group featured another MAXJAZZ alumnus, pianist Bruce Barth, along with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Billy Williams.

Next up, it's multi-instrumentalist Brian Culbertson, who will visit St. Louis on Saturday, May 12 for a show at The Pageant. He's seen here performing "Been Around The World" in October 2016 at the Aliante Casino in Las Vegas.

The following week, trumpeter Terence Blanchard will return for a concert on Sunday, May 20 at the Grandel Theatre. Blanchard will be accompanied by his band The E-Collective, which includes Charles Altura (guitar), Fabian Almazan (keyboards), Donald Ramsey (bass), and Oscar Seaton (drums). They're seen here performing a full set at the 2015 North Sea Jazz Fest in Rotterfam, Netherlands.

Today's final video features another familiar face, percussionist Poncho Sanchez, who's developed a following here over the years and will return for a four-night engagement from Wednesday, May 23 through Saturday, May 26 at the Bistro. The clip shows Sanchez and his band playing what he calls the "Poncho Sanchez Medley" at a show in December 2017 in Las Vegas.

That wraps up StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview, although if/when any other performers of interest are booked for concerts here in St. Louis, you'll find the latest news here. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:

* Can't make it to Jazz at the Bistro this week to hear the new lineup of The Bad Plus? You can see a free online video stream of tonight's first set starting at 7:30 p.m. via Jazz St. Louis' Facebook page.

* Saxophonist David Sanborn (pictured) was interviewed last week on NYC public radio station WBGO.

* Metro Theater Company, the long-running local troupe specializing in theater for children, will take over the Grandel Theater for most of February with two jazz-related events.

They'll present a benefit concert with music from Peter Martin, Brian Owens, and Terence Blanchard on Friday, February 3 at the Grandel, followed by a three-week run of Bud, Not Buddy, a "concert play" that is based on a Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winning children's novel and will feature a live, 13-piece jazz band on stage.

* The film Django was reviewed for KDHX.org by film critic Diane Carson. In French with English subtitles, the movie dramatizes the life of jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt during World War II, and will play tonight through Sunday, January 21 at 7:30 p.m. each evening at Webster University's Winifred Moore auditorium.

* The death of pianist Nathan Jatcko was covered in stories written by Daniel Hill of the Riverfront Times and Nassim Benchaabane of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

* Drummer and St. Louis native Kimberly Thompson has posted to her YouTube channel a video of a full set by the Mike Stern Band recorded live at Jazz at the Bistro during their appearance there in February, 2017. Along with Thompson on drums and Stern on guitar, the band included tenor saxophonist Bob Franceschini and bassist Teymur Phell.

Search for missing pianist Nathan Jatcko ends with family's announcement

St. Louis jazz pianist Nathan Jatcko, who went missing last week and inspired a search that has received extensive media coverage in the area, has died.

On Wednesday night, family members posted a message to a Facebook group dedicated to the search that read as follows:

"We are heartbroken to announce the passing of Nathan Jatcko on 1/17/2018. He took his life. He leaves behind a loving family and wide community of friends. We are at a loss for words, but appreciate all of the love, kindness, and prayers communicated to us over the past five days. Thank you.

As we are grieving, the family asks for privacy at this difficult time."

Jatcko (pictured) grew up in Highland, IL and studied music at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He moved to St. Louis after graduation, and regularly performed solo as well as with trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's band, singer Christy Coleman, the Liberation Organ Trio, and others.

He was last seen at around 1:30 a.m. Friday, January 12 at his apartment in south St. Louis, and was reported missing after failing to show up for a recording session and performance later on Friday.

Social media posts seeking information about Jatcko's whereabouts were shared thousands of times, and the search for him was covered extensively by local media, including the Riverfront Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, KTVI-Fox 2, KSDK, Belleville News-Democrat, KMOX, RiverBender.com, KMOV, and Patch.com.

This story will be updated if and when more information becomes available.

Our condolences go out to Nathan Jatcko's family, friends, and musical colleagues.

Update, 11:30 p.m. 1/22/18: A public memorial gathering for Nathan Jatcko will be held from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Saturday, January 27 at Birger Hall on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Jazz this week: The Bad Plus v 2.0, Storm Large, "Winter Jazz Fest," and more

It's a big week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with one performance that's literally drawing international attention, the debut of a new festival, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...


Wednesday, January 17
The gig making headlines all over the globe is the live debut of the revised lineup of The Bad Plus, who will be doing their first-ever performances with new pianist Orrin Evans starting Wednesday night and continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro.

Evans, who replaces founding member Ethan Iverson, already has recorded an album with the group, which is being released this week and was spotlighted last week by NPR's "First Listen" feature. (NPR also will be recording The Bad Plus during their stay in St. Louis for a future episode of the network's "Jazz Night In America" program.)

While that live stream of the new album may have expired by the time you read this, those who are curious about The Bad Plus v 2.0 (pictured, top left) but can't make it to the Bistro this week can watch a live online stream of Friday night's first set for free, starting at 7:30 p.m. on Jazz St. Louis' Facebook page.

Also on Wednesday, singer Storm Large returns, this time with her band Le Bonheur, for a performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall. While her several previous appearances here in recent years have been in a cabaret setting and with the dance orchestra Pink Martini, this show will offer Large a chance to show off more of her rock-oriented material with a full band.

Thursday, January 18
Guitarist Todd Mosby's New Horizons Ensemble performs at Sky Music Lounge; The People’s Key will play at the Chase Club; and saxophonist Ben Reece‘s Unity Quartet returns to The Dark Room.

Friday, January 19
Saxophonist Kendrick Smith begins a new weekly residency, leading a trio every Friday starting this week at Thurman's in Shaw; and the Ambassadors of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday,
January 20
The first-ever "Winter Jazz Fest," headlined by jazz/fusion band Yellowjackets, will take place at the Grandel Theatre.

Unlike the long-established, week-long, multi-venue New York City event with which it shares a name, this fest is a single-night, single-location concert, with an emphasis on electric contemporary jazz.

In addition to Yellowjackets (pictured, bottom left), the show also will feature saxophonist Eric Marienthal, Bach to The Future, Tracer (aka pianist Ptah Williams' trio in fusion mode), pianist Royce Martin, and the adjacent Dark Room's regular Saturday night performer, keyboardist Mo Egeston.

If you're thinking about going but don't yet have tickets, Metrotix is offering a "buy one ticket, get the second at half-price" discount to online buyers. To access the offer, go to this page and enter the promo code WINTERJAZZ.

Also on Saturday, saxophonist Dave Stone's begins a new weekly gig at Thurman's in Shaw; Miss Jubilee returns to the Casa Loma Ballroom; and the Funky Butt Brass Band will do their monthly performance at the Broadway Oyster Bar.

Sunday, January 21
The Dave Dickey Big Band performs in the first of a projected series of gigs this year at the Grandel Theatre, with the Lindbergh HS Jazz Ensemble as opener and intermission act.

Monday, January 22
Dizzy Atmosphere plays swing and Gypsy jazz for diners at The Shaved Duck, and singer and impressionist Dean Christopher will present his "Rat Pack and More" show at One 19 North Tapas & Wine Bar.

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: January 14, 2018

The Bad Plus

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* Jazz, but not as you know it (Vice.com)
* Record Bin: How Herbie Hancock subverted jazz traditions and asserted his funk dominance on “Head Hunters” (Nooga.com)
* And Look—She’s a Star! (The Nation)
* Music fans bought a lot of cassettes last year (NME.com)
* Why I Still Buy Music in the Age of Spotify (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Wes Gets Royal Treatment (DownBeat)
* 'Dock Of The Bay' At 50: Why Otis Redding's Biggest Hit Almost Went Unheard (NPR)
* The musical secrets of FAME Studios legend Rick Hall (Birmingham News)
* A Cabaret Star’s Comeback (Wall Street Journal)
* Ice Music: Building Instruments Out Of Water (NPR)
* White Noise Story Generates White Noise on Copyright (IllusionOfMore.com)
* Just How Similar Are Radiohead's 'Creep' and Lana Del Rey's 'Get Free'? (Esquire)
* Inside the Amish town that builds U2, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift's live shows (Wired)
* Funk Carves Out A Groove At The Funk Music Hall Of Fame In Ohio (NPR)
* Mitchell Takes Homage to Winter Jazzfest (DownBeat)
* Why this awful-sounding album is a masterpiece (Vox.com)
* Surprise! The ‘Music Modernization Act’ Prohibits Litigation Against Streaming Services (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* First Listen: The Bad Plus, 'Never Stop II' (NPR)
* Why music venue closures 'make all of our lives poorer' (BBC)
* Lester Bangs Play 'How to Be a Rock Critic' Captures Writer's Wild Spirit (Rolling Stone)
* At Peabody jazz: discrimination allegations, a forced ouster — and new hope (Baltimore Sun)
* ********, ∆, †‡† ... the most unpronounceable band names ever (The Guardian)
* Spotify Is in the Business of Selling You Spotify, Not Music (TrackRecord.net)
* Q&A: Chick Corea on his regrets, Grammys, future plans and more (Creative Loafing - Tampa)
* Portrait Of: Eddie Palmieri (LatinoUSA.org)
* Roy Hargrove’s rousing Showcase residency (DownBeat)
* The “True” Story Of How Brian Eno Invented Ambient Music (OpenCulture.com)
* Chartmania!! I Broke Down Every Song That Reached the Billboard Top 5 in 2017 (Soundfly.com)
* Life’s Work: An Interview with John Adams (Harvard Business Review)
* Dr. Demento, comedic song hero and unsung punk rock legend, gets his due on new album (Los Angeles Times)
* Preservation Hall’s Musical Mission (Garden and Gun)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/spring 2018 jazz preview, part five

This week, StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview continues with part five in a series of posts featuring videos of jazz and creative music performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the first few months of the new year. (If you missed the previous installments, you can see part one here, part two here, part three here, and part four here.)

Continuing in chronological order from where last week's post left off, the first video up above features singer and St. Louis native Ken Page, the St. Louis native and star of Broadway and film who will bringing his cabaret act to Jazz at the Bistro on Wednesday, April 4 and Thursday, April 5. Page, who's known for his roles in the original casts of musical theater megahits such as Ain't Misbehavin' and Cats, as well as for his voice characterization of Oogie Boogie in Tim Burton's animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas, is seen here in a demo reel compiled to showcase his talents for potential bookings.

Page will be followed on the Bistro stage by drummer Allison Miller, trumpeter Riley Mulherkar and saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, who will be in town that week to do an educational residency for Jazz St. Louis and will cap it with performances on Friday, April 6 and Saturday, April 7 at the Bistro.

As with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Group that's here this week at the Bistro, Miller, Mulherkar and Lefkowitz-Brown (and presumably a local support musician or two) will be joining forces specifically for this gig, so the only available footage to show you is of them performing individually.

Miller can be seen in the first video after the jump with her band Boom Tic Boom, performing "Fuster," the opening track from their album Otis Was a Polar Bear, at a gig in May 2016 in Philadelphia. (Along with the leader on drums, Boom Tic Boom includes pianist Myra Melford, violinist Jenny Scheinman, cornetist Kirk Knuffke, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and bassist Todd Sickafoose.)

After that, you can see Mulherkar playing Duke Ellington's "Echoes of Harlem" in a jam session last April at the Kranzberg Arts Center right here in St. Louis, accompanied by bassist Bob DeBoo and drummer Montez Coleman, followed by a clip of Lefkowitz-Brown playing Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite" with his quartet, which includes Takeshi Ohbayashi on piano, Tamir Shmerling on bass, and Bryan Carter on drums.

Next up at the Bistro will be "Songs of Freedom," a show developed by drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr that will be performed by a group led by him and featuring vocalists Alicia Olatuja and Joanna Majoko starting Wednesday, April 11 and continuing through Saturday, April 14 at the Bistro.

First presented at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, "Songs of Freedom" is based on the music of what the promotional copy calls "three iconic voices of the 1960s--Joni Mitchell, Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone--and the complex ways in which they call out to each other."

Unfortunately, none of the previous performances seem to have been recorded on video and put online, so instead in today's fourth clip you can see a full set of Owens leading a band with bassist Reuben Rogers, vibraphonist Joel Ross, and singer Vuyo Sotashe last August as Dizzy's Club in NYC.

That's followed by a clip of Majoko singing "Bye Bye Blackbird" recorded a couple of years ago at UMFM studios in Winnipeg, MB, Canada, accompanied by Jocelyn Gould (guitar), Carter Graham (keyboard), Karl Kohut (bass), and Curtis Nowosad (drums). (St. Louis native Olatuja can be seen in last week's post, which previewed, among others, her solo shows in February at the Bistro.)

The same night that Owens and company wrap up at the Bistro, pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and his band Ekaya will be in town to perform on Saturday, April 14 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Ibrahim originally was scheduled to be joined by trumpeter Hugh Masekela for a program recounting the history of the Jazz Epistles, South Africa's first bebop band, of which both men were members.

However, Masekela's health issues have caused him to cancel all his live shows for the first part of 2018, so as of this writing, the concert is still set to go on, but no replacement trumpeter has been announced yet.

It was announced this past week that the estimable Wadada Leo Smith will be performing with Ibrahim for dates next month at SFJAZZ in San Francisco, which ought to make for a very interesting collaboration. And Ibrahim has worked with some other very capable trumpeters, too, as in the next clip, which shows him and Ekaya plus special guest Terence Blanchard in a full set recorded last July at the Jazzaldia festival in Donosti, Spain.

The final two videos today feature the headliners of the 2018 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, which will present the The University of North Texas One O’Clock Lab Band on Friday, April 21 and Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band on Saturday, April 22, both at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

The One O'Clock Lab Band, which is UNT's top student ensemble, can be seen in the penultimate clip performing "Harlem Nocturne" in a show last November on campus. That's followed by a video of a full show from the Big Phat Band, recorded in November 2015 at the Los Angeles College of Music.

Look for part six of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview next week in this space. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:

* Singer Storm Large (pictured) was interviewed Wednesday by St. Louis Public Radio's Alex Heuer in advance of her performance next Wednesday, January 17 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

* Singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja is the subject of a short feature story in the current issue of Jazz Times.

* A new article on the website Jazz in Europe looks at the impact of Miles Davis' landmark 1970 album Bitches Brew.

* Speaking of Davis, an article in On Milwaukee magazine recounts the story of the trumpeter's 1959 "legendary show that wasn't" at a club there called the Brass Rail.

* Saxophonist David Sanborn appeared Thursday on the morning news at New York City's WABC, promoting his gigs this weekend at BB King's in NYC.

* Lea DeLaria's performance last month at Jazz at the Bistro was reviewed for CabaretScenes.org by Chuck Lavazzi.

* Keyboardist Michael Silverman of Bach to the Future and Silverman Productions was interviewed by St. Louis County Arts Blog's Valerie Tichacek.

* Gene Dobbs Bradford of Jazz St. Louis was profiled on the website of the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis. Bradford will be one of seven 2018 recipients of the council's St. Louis Arts Awards, which will be presented at an event on Monday, January 22 at the Chase Park Plaza hotel.

* Guitarist Todd Mosby's performance next week in Rolla is previewed on the Three Rivers Publishing website, which compiles news from several small towns in east central Missouri.

Jazz this week: Claire Chase, Tyshawn Sorey & Cory Smythe; Jazz at Lincoln Center Group; The Sextet; Marcus Lewis; and more

This week's lineup of jazz and creative music in St. Louis features a couple of Kansas City acts making their first trips here, a couple of small groups comprised of musicians drawn from larger, well-known ensembles, and more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, January 10
This week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features cornetist and banjo player T.J Müller at The Stage at KDHX, the jam session led by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet at The Dark Room.

Thursday, January 11
The Kansas City-based band The Sextet will make their St. Louis debut at The Dark Room. Incorporating "soulful grooves and elements of funk" into their sound (per Bill Brownlee of the Kansas City jazz blog Plastic Sax), the up-and-coming group is supporting their recently released second album Blob Castle.

Also on Thursday, Miss Jubilee will perform at the Chase Club at the Chase Park Plaza, which apparently now is including occasional jazz in their revamped live music offerings.

Friday, January 12
Billed as the Jazz at Lincoln Center Group, trombonist James Burton III, trumpeter Tatum Greenblatt, drummer Jerome Jennings, and bassist Ben Wolfe (pictured, bottom left) will cap off a week-long educational residency for Jazz St. Louis with the first of two nights of performances at Jazz at the Bistro.

Although all four are associated with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the group was assembled specifically for these dates, and so it's hard to know specifically what they'll be doing at the Bistro, Still, you can get a look at all of the players in action individually in part one of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview.

Also on Friday, singer Anita Jackson returns to The Dark Room, and guitarist Tom Byrne leads a trio at Cigar Inn.

Saturday, January 13
Depending on the project, the International Contemporary Ensemble can grow to the size of a chamber orchestra, but for their St. Louis date on Saturday presented by New Music Circle at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, they'll be a trio, featuring founder, leader and flute player Claire Chase, the much-talked-about multi-instrumentalist and composer Tyshawn Sorey, and pianist Cory Smythe (pictured, top left).

They'll perform three compositions by Sorey, and two by the late composer and experimental music pioneer Pauline Oliveros. You can see one of Sorey's pieces, plus additional videos featuring Chase and Smith, in this post.

Also on Saturday, guitarist Dave Black leads a trio at the house concert venue The Judson House in Grand Center.

Sunday, January 14
The St. Louis Jazz Club presents trumpeter Randy Holmes' Satchmo Six in a matinee performance at the Moolah Shrine Center.

Tuesday, January 16
The St. Louis Low Brass Collective will present their annual gala at the Sheldon Concert Hall featuring special guest trombonist and composer Marcus Lewis, who's based in Kansas City when he's not on the road with R&B singer Janelle Monae.

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: January 7, 2018

Ron Carter

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's inboxes over the past week:

* A 2017 JT Reader - Selected highlights from the year in JazzTimes (Jazz Times)
* Legendary Jazz Bassist Ron Carter Talks About Music, Recording, and Hi-Fi (Stereophile)
* Long Players: writers on their most cherished albums (NewStatesman.com)
* Wayne Shorter: Artist In Residence At The Detroit Jazz Festival (NPR)
* Lifetime Achievement in Music: The Poet Laureate of Mardi Gras Indians, Monk Boudreaux (Offbeat)
* Iverson Plays Final Show with Bad Plus (DownBeat)
* How a Hit Happens Now (Vulture.com)
* The 'Despacito' effect: The year Latino music broke the charts (NBC)
* Player Pianos and the Commodification of Music (JStor.org)
* Spotify Hit With $1.6 Billion Copyright Lawsuit Over Tom Petty, Weezer, Neil Young Songs (Hollywood Reporter)
* Rick Hall, Producer And Songwriter Who Put Muscle Shoals On The Map, Dead At 85 (NPR)
* Jazz improvisers score high on creativity (Science News)
* In 2018, I want to find new music without using algorithms (TheVerge.com)
* The rebirth of St. John Coltrane church in the Western Addition (TheWesternEdition.com)
* The lost art of music snobbery (The Globe and Mail)
* Matt Wilson – The Ambassador of Unvention (Modern Drummer)
* New Documentary Examines Milford Graves’ Music and Philosophy (DownBeat)
* The Healing Power of Jazz (The New Yorker)
* Producers say record labels are calling projects “mixtapes” to avoid paying them fairly (TheFader.com)
* Fred Hersch: Life, Music, and the Creative Process (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Recording Studios are not Dying (Pro Sound News)
* Pop tunes are welcome in the movies, directors say, as long as it's in service of the plot (Los Angeles Times)
* How Women Shaped The Legacy Of Nashville’s Oldest And Most Celebrated Venue, The Ryman Auditorium (Uproxx.com)
* theartsdesk Q&A: Vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant (TheArtsDesk.com)
* Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, and the Road to West Side Story (Vanity Fair)
* The Alabama Recording Studios Where Music Was Never Segregated (ZocaloPublicSquare.org)
* US Label Cuneiform stops all new releases for 2018 (London Jazz News)
* YouTube’s Unlikely Peacemaker Has a Plan to Make Musicians Rich (Bloomberg.com)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/spring 2018 jazz preview, part 4

This week, StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview continues with part four of a series of posts featuring videos of the jazz and creative music performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the first few months of the new year. (If you missed the previous installments, you can see part one here, part two here, and part three here.)

Continuing in chronological order from where part three left off, today's first video features singer Marilyn Maye, the grande dame of cabaret who will perform Wednesday, March 7 and Thursday, March 8 at Jazz at the Bistro. She's seen here singing a medley of "Secret of Life" and "Here’s to Life," recorded June 5, 2017 at the fifth anniversary celebration of Feinstein's/54 Below in New York City.

After the jump, you can see a clip of Melissa Aldana, who will lead her quartet in shows starting Wednesday, March 14 continuing through Saturday, March 17 at the Bistro. The video shows the Chilean-born, Berklee-educated saxophonist with pianist Sam Harris, bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Craig Weinrib playing "Turning & Over There" in November 2017 at the venue musig im pflegidach in Muri, Switzerland.

That week also features two more concerts of interest to StLJN readers on Thursday, March 15, when New Orleans jazz/funk band Galactic will be playing at Delmar Hall while saxophonist Ben Wendel performs at The Ready Room.

Galactic can be seen in the second video after the jump, playing a full set recorded in February 2017 at the Music Box in San Diego, CA, followed by Wendel, a founding member of Kneebody, playing "Song Song" from his album What We Bring in a undated video with Gerald Clayton, Joe Sanders, and Henry Cole.

Next up, it's The Thing, the avant-jazz trio of saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, and drummer Paal Nilssen Love. They'll be in St. Louis on Thursday, March 22 for a concert presented by New Music Circle at Off Broadway, and can be seen here playing a full set recorded November 27, 2017 at Blue Tomato in Vienna, Austria.

the penultimate clip features bassist Victor Wooten's trio with drummer Dennis Chambers and saxophonist Bob Franceschini. They're set to perform on Tuesday, March 27 at the Old Rock House, and are seen here playing "Love is My Favourite Word" in February 2016 at the Blue Note in Milano, Italy.

Last, but certainly not least, it's The Baylor Project, fronted by the husband-and-wife team of drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor and singer Jean Baylor, who are performing Wednesday, March 28 through Saturday, March 31 at the Bistro.

The Baylors, who are nominated in for 2018 Grammy Awards in both the "Best Traditional R&B Performance" and "Best Jazz Vocal Album" categories, can be seen in today's final video performing their Grammy-nominated song "Laugh and Move On," in a version recorded live last year at the studios of radio station WERS in Boston.

Look for part five of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview next week in this space. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:

* Trumpeter Keyon Harrold appears on the cover of the latest issue of Jazziz magazine (pictured), and was interviewed by journalist Ted Pankin for the magazine's cover story.

* Trombonist Joe Bowie's band Defunkt has released a new album, The Cleansing, recorded live last year in Europe.

The recording features Bowie, guitarist and fellow St. Louis native Kelvyn Bell, bassist Kim Clarke, and trumpeter John Mulkerin from the band's classic lineup, plus drummer Gary "GMan" Sullivan, and can be downloaded from the Defunkt Bandcamp page.

* Message to Our Folks, bassist Paul Steinbeck's history of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, was named a "Notable Book of 2017" by the Seminary Co-op bookstore in Chicago.

* A brief article in the latest Alive magazine looks at "A Night Out at Jazz St. Louis."

* As recounted in an article in Jazz Times, the compositions of the late saxophonist and St. Louis native Oliver Nelson are featured in a new album by trumpeter and arranger John Vanore.

* In a new post on his blog, saxophonist Greg Osby responds to a story published in November by the Boston Globe alleging misconduct by former faculty members at the Berklee College of Music.