Jazz this week: Stefon Harris, Nevermore Jazz Ball, Quincy Troupe, Regina Carter, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features not one, but two DownBeat poll-winning musicians on their respective instruments - vibes and violin - plus the year's biggest local event for swing dancers, a spoken-word performance from a confidant of Miles Davis, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, October 31
Vibraphonist Stefon Harris and his band Blackout return for the first of five nights of performances at Jazz St. Louis.

Winner of this year's DownBeat Critic's Poll as "best vibraphonist," Harris (pictured, top left) is touring in support of his new album Sonic Creed, which his first release as a leader since 2009. For more about that, plus some videos of Harris performing, check out this post from last Saturday.

Thursday, November 1
The eighth annual Nevermore Jazz Ball, a weekend of swing dance events that attracts enthusiasts from all over the country, gets underway with a performance by the Arcadia Dance Orchestra at 2720 Cherokee. Though all-event passes for the weekend are sold out in advance, tickets for the individual events will be sold at the door pending availability.

Also on Thursday, guitarist Vincent Varvel, multi-instrumentalist William Lenihan, drummer Steve Davis and bassist Ric Vice will present a "Tribute to John Abercrombie" in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Elsewhere around town, the Gaslight Cabaret Festival resumes with singer Bob Gerchen's show "Joe Cocker: Never Forget" at the Gaslight Theater, and trumpeter Keith Moyer and his quartet return to The Dark Room.

Friday, November 2
The Nevermore Jazz Ball continues with Miss Jubilee performing at the Casa Loma Ballroom, followed by an after-hours event with music from Austin, TX-based clarinetist Jon Doyle's sextet at the South Broadway Athletic Club.

Also on Friday, poet, author and Miles Davis biographer Quincy Troupe (pictured, center left) will give a spoken-word performance with music from trumpeter George Sams' quartet at St. Louis University's Xavier Hall.

Elsewhere around town, singer and actress Carrie St. Louis performs for the Gaslight Cabaret Festival in the first of two nights at the Gaslight Theater; and keyboardist Jay Oliver's trio and Bach To The Future will share a double-bill at 50/Fifty Kitchen.

Saturday, November 3
Nevermore Jazz Ball continues with three events on Saturday, starting at noon with the "Cherokee Street Jazz Crawl," featuring free live music from more than a dozen bands and solo acts at various locations along Cherokee St. between Jefferson Ave and Nebraska Ave.

The NJB's Saturday evening dance then will feature music from Michael Gamble and the Rhythm Serenaders at Casa Loma Ballroom, followed by an after-hours event with the Emily Asher Band at the South Broadway Athletic Club.

Also on Saturday, jazz-fusion band Dreaming In Colour plays a late-afternoon show at BB's Jazz Blues & Soups

Sunday, 
November 4
The St. Louis Record Collector & CD Show presents their fall event at the American Czech Educational Center, while the Friends of Scott Joplin's monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" takes place at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site.

Also on Sunday afternoon, violinist Regina Carter (pictured, bottom left), another DownBeat poll winner, headlines a benefit concert for Community Women Against Hardship at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Elsewhere around town, the Nevermore Jazz Ball wraps up for 2018 with one final performance from Michael Gamble and the Rhythm Serenaders at the Boo Cat Club.

Monday, November 5
The Student Jazz Combos from Webster University perform at Webster's Community Music School.

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.)

Kirk Whalum's "Gospel According to Jazz" featuring Sheila E, Lynn Mabry set for Friday, December 14 at Friendly Temple

Saxophonist Kirk Whalum will bring this year's edition of his "A Gospel According to Jazz Christmas" concert to St. Louis for a performance at 7:00 p.m. Friday, December 14 at the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church.

Guest stars for this seventh annual presentation of the show will include percussionist Sheila E. and singers Lynn Mabry (who's been part of E's band in recent years), John Stoddart, and Kevin Whalum, plus St. Louis' own Brian Owens.

Kirk Whalum (pictured) released his first "Gospel According to Jazz" album in 1998, with three more recordings since added to the series,  and began touring the Christmas show in 2012.

Tickets for the concert are priced at $20 balcony, $35 floor, and $50 for VIP seating, and will go on sale next Sunday, November 4 at the Friendly Temple office and bookstore and online.

Sunday Session: October 28, 2018

Melvin "Wah Wah Watson" Ragin

Here's a 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:

* When David Bowie Became a Superstar: ‘It Was the Happiest I’d Ever Seen Him’ (The Daily Beast)
* Is your business streaming music for customers? That's breaking the law (The Guardian)
* Kandace Springs Motors Forward (DownBeat)
* Reconsidering Composer Raymond Scott, From Cartoons to the Cutting Edge, in Deep Dive (WBGO)
* Live Review: 2nd October Revolution in Philadelphia (Jazz Times)
* The Velvet Revolution of Claude Debussy (The New Yorker)
* Did Muddy Waters’ First UK Tour Launch The British Blues Boom? (UDiscoverMusic.com)
* Here’s how horror film scores have evolved to scare us over the years (AV Club)
* City Hall lets KC’s American Jazz Museum languish with no permanent director or board (Kansas City Star)
* The Top 100 Albums Of The Quietus' Existence, As Picked By tQ's Writers (TheQuietus.com)
* The Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition Returns (NPR)
* The Strange World Of... Awesome Tapes From Africa (TheQuietus.com)
* My Teenage Son and I Went to the Same Music Festival. Our Experiences Were Totally Different (Observer.com)
* What crisis? Why music journalism is actually healthier than ever (The Guardian)
* The Music of “Doctor Who” Makes a Glorious Return to Form (The New Yorker)
* Wah Wah Watson, Guitarist for Marvin Gaye and Michael Jackson, Dead at 67 (Rolling Stone)
* Randy Weston 1926–2018 (The Wire)
* Makaya McCraven Isn’t Interested in Saving Jazz (Rolling Stone)
* Opinion: Apple Music’s human curation falls apart when it comes to less mainstream tastes (9To5Mac.com)
* In Ann Arbor, Edgefest Showcases Chicago Avant-Garde (DownBeat)
* Monk Institute Piano Competition Set for Dec. 2 and 3 (Jazz Times)
* Photos: 2018 BRIC JazzFest (Jazz Times)
* David Bowie: the day I pulled the plug on his Glastonbury comeback (The Guardian)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Stefon Harris and Blackout's "Sonic Creed"

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring vibraphonist Stefon Harris, who's coming to St. Louis to perform starting next Wednesday, October 31 and continuing through Sunday, November 4 at Jazz St. Louis.

Considered one of the top mallet percussionists in jazz, Harris has played here several times in the last few years, most recently as the guest artist with Jazz St. Louis' JazzU student ensemble in June, 2016 at the Bistro.

This time, though, he's got a new album to promote, having just released Sonic Creed at the end of September. It's his first recording as a bandleader since 2009, and eighth overall (not counting the two albums of the "Ninety Miles" project that Harris co-led with trumpeter Christian Scott and saxophonist David Sánchez from 2010 to 2012). It's also Harris' debut release on the Motéma label after putting out seven records on Blue Note, which signed him to his first recording contract back in the late 1990s.

The album features Harris' band Blackout, which includes East St. Louis native Terreon Gully on drums, and seems to be getting a positive response in early reviews. AllAboutJazz.com's Dan Bilawsky praised it as "Harris at his honest and unswerving best," while JazzTrail.net called it "a smooth voyage to the world of jazz masters with imaginative, regenerating sounds deep-rooted in the powerful African American culture."

You can get a taste of some of the material from Sonic Creed in the first video up above, a full set of music recorded just a few weeks ago on September 17, 2018 at the Jazz and Heritage Center in New Orleans. After the jump, you can see a short video "trailer" for the album.

That's followed by clips of a couple of older performances - the first featuring Harris and pianist Alex Brown performing “I Fall in Love Too Easily” in April 2015 at Parlance Chamber Concerts in Ridgewood, NJ, and the second showing a performance of "Ninety Miles" from the 2012 Copenhagen Jazzfestival.

Next, there's an extended video of a performance and demonstration Harris did at a Virginia high school back in 2009, in which he teaches students what to listen for in jazz and talks about his approach to music. Produced by the Kennedy Center, it's obviously somewhat dated, but there's some nice performance footage as well as some interesting insights into Harris' process and personality.

The final video is an extended interview from 2015, recorded as part of New York University's Steinhardt Jazz Interview Series, in which Harris, who teaches at NYU, talks with fellow faculty member David Schroeder about a variety of topics.

For more about Stefon Harris and Sonic Creed, read the cover story about him from the November 2018 issue of DownBeat, and listen to him being interviewed on a recent episode of the revived "Jazz Session" podcast.

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 and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja (pictured) has signed a contract with Resilience Records, which will release her next album Intuition - Songs from the Minds of Women on February 1, 2019.

* Trumpeter Chris Botti, who performs with the St. Louis Symphony tonight at Powell Hall, was interviewed by Kevin Johnson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and by the St. Louis American's Kenya Vaughn.

* "1968: Let The Sunshine In," the new cabaret show by St. Louis native John McDaniel and Barb Jungr, is the subject of a brief feature on BroadwayWorld.com. The show plays this Saturday (October 27) at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

* The concert by pianist and singer Jon Batiste last Saturday at The Sheldon was reviewed by Daniel Durchholz for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

* Also for the Post-Dispatch, Durchholz interviewed singer, songwriter and pianist Jimmy Webb, who's performing in sold-out shows on Sunday and Monday for the Gaslight Cabaret Festival.  

* The Baylor Project, led by drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor and his wife, singer Jean Baylor, was the subject of a brief feature in the Pittsburgh Current.

* Electronic musician Eric Hall has posted to Bandcamp an album of live recordings made during various tour dates this fall in Chicago, Louisville, Indianapolis, and elsewhere.

* Singer and pianist Billy Stritch will headline a fund-raising event for The Cabaret Project of St. Louis on Friday, December 7 at the St. Louis Club in Clayton.

* The results of this year's DownBeat Readers Poll are out, and there's a winner with a St. Louis connection, as Miles Davis & John Coltrane, The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6 got the most votes in the "Historical Album" category.

* Saxquest will present their 2018 Woodwind Musical Instrument Expo from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 17 at the Donald D Shook Fine Arts Building on the campus of St. Charles Community College.

Participating manufacturers will include Buffet-Crampon, Selmer, Yamaha, Yanagisawa, Keilwerth, P. Mauriat, Eastman, Haynes, Powell, Muramatsu, Fox, Loree, BG, D'Addario and Vandoren, and attendees at the free event can pre-register to get access to a private sound room and more.

* The 2018 St. Louis International Film Festival, which will take place Thursday, November 1 through Sunday, November 11 at various venues around town, will include a couple of documentaries that may be of particular interest to StLJN readers.

The Jazz Ambassadors, which premiered earlier this year on PBS, will be shown at 4:00 p.m. Saturday, November 4 at Brown Hall on the Washington University campus. It tells the story of how American jazz musicians including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie toured the world during the Cold War on behalf of the US Government, examining the contradictions they faced in promoting the ideal of equality abroad while enduring segregation at home.

Also of interest, Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes will be screened at 6:00 p.m. Sunday, November 11 at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus, followed immediately by a performance by pianist Adam Maness' trio. The film "explores the vision behind the iconic American jazz label...through current recording sessions, rare archival footage, and conversations with iconic Blue Note artists."

Jazz this week: Chris Botti; Eddie Henderson; Rogers, Owens & Ellis; Faith Prince and more

This week's jam-packed calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features performances from two top trumpeters, a cavalcade of cabaret, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, October 24
Singer Darius de Haas will present the first of two nights of performances of his cabaret show "A Bernstein Thing" at Jazz St. Louis.

Also on Wednesday, the "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features pianist Jim Hegarty'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 band at The Dark Room.

Thursday, October 25
Singer Denise Thimes will be back from her new home in Chicago to headline the "Mildred Thimes Foundation 14th Annual Benefit Concert" at the Sheldon Concert Hall. This year's show will feature Thimes and friends interpreting material associated with singers Luther Vandross and Chaka Khan. .

Also on Thursday, Italian drummer Lecrezio de Seta will be joined by bassist/guitarist William Lenihan and keyboardist Jay Oliver for a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; saxophonist Ben Reece's Unity Quartet returns to The Dark Room; and trumpeter Jim Manley and guitarist Randy Bahr will head to O'Fallon, MO for a gig at the Rendezvous Cafe & Wine Bar.

Friday, October 26
Trumpeter Chris Botti (pictured, top left) returns to St. Louis for the first time since 2015 to perform once again with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra at Powell Hall.

Also on Friday, the revived Nu-Art Series gets underway with a concert featuring trumpeter Eddie Henderson (pictured, bottom left) with poet Lyah LeFlore, pianist Ptah Williams, and fellow trumpeter and Nu-Art impresario George Sams at Xavier Hall on the St. Louis University campus.

For more about Henderson, who turns 78 the day of his St. Louis show, plus some videos of recent performances, check out the post from last Saturday.

Elsewhere around town, bassist Reuben Rogers, drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. and saxophonist John Ellis, joined by St. Louis' own Peter Martin on piano, will wrap up a week-long educational residency for Jazz St. Louis with the first of two nights of performances at the Bistro; and the Gaslight Cabaret Festival resumes with Tony Award winning actress and singer Faith Prince performing for the first of two evenings at the Gaslight Theater/

Saturday, October 27
Singer Barb Jungr and singer, pianist and St. Louis native John McDaniel return with a one-night-only performance of their latest cabaret show, "1968 - Let The Sunshine In," at the Kranzberg Arts Center; and pianist Mo Egeston is back at The Dark Room.

Sunday, October 28
Though singer/songwriter Jimmy Webb's two performances for the Gaslight Cabaret Festival are sold out, Sunday offers several other noteworthy musical options, as pianist David Thomas Roberts will perform at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site's Rosebud Cafe, and the eight-piece, Seattle-based Afrobeat band Polyrhythmics will play at the Old Rock House

Also on Sunday, trumpeter Randy Holmes has his Hard Bop Heritage band back in action at the Ozark Theatre; and the Bosman Twins with guest vocalist Marsha Evans will provide the music for the "Royal Vagabonds Foundation Scholarship Benefit" at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Monday, October 29
The Usual Suspects play at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups, and drummer Nick Savage leads a quartet in a concert at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University 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: October 21, 2018

Maria Schneider

Here's a 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:

* Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell and John Scofield, guitar greats all, discuss their mutual admiration society (San Diego Union-Tribune)
* Review: Dave Holland and Chris Potter (Jazz Journal)
* Paul Simon: Fathers, Sons, Troubled Water (New York Review of Books)
* Jaimie Branch on “Brass Chillers” (Jazz Times)
* Zorn to Secrecy (ArtAndMusicMagazine.com)
* Experts aim to finally solve plane war mystery of famed big band leader Glenn Miller (South China Morning Post)
* Maria Schneider: The star of the show (Irish Examiner)
* Alan Broadbent: Intimate Reflections on a Passion for Jazz (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Jazznojazz Fest Celebrates 20 Years (DownBeat)
* A Mingus discovery (TheBlueMoment.com)
* New Music by Five Composers Behind the Drums, From Tyshawn Sorey to Allison Miller (WBGO)
* Four Electronic Artists Reflect on the Influence of Composer Laurie Spiegel (Bandcamp.com)
* Ben Wendel Takes ‘The Seasons’ from Video Project to Album (DownBeat)
* Loss of small music venues is handing control of culture to robots, MPs told (ArtsProfessional.co.uk)
* Big Bands Reign Supreme at Angrajazz (DownBeat)
* Esperanza Spalding announces ’12 Little Spells’ tour, shares 10th track (Brooklyn Vegan)
* Copyright and the Jazz Musician (Jazz Times)
* New Stax Box Set Details a Fraught 1968 (DownBeat)
* To Hat and To Hold (ArtForum.com)
* The Horace Silver Quintet drummer Roger Humphries reflects on his storied life in jazz (WaxPoetics.com)
* Rubén Blades Swings Big Band Jazz And Rumba On New Album (NPR)
* Naxos Joins eMusic Exodus Over Non-Payment (Hypebot.com)
* Joshua Abrams Discusses Solo Bass and the Spirit of Music (DownBeat)
* What Small, Diverse Music Venues Mean to New York City (CityLab.com)
* Ambassadors for Motown sound seek more of it in hometown (Associated Press)
* Tiny Desk Concert: Alfredo Rodríguez (NPR)
* Is the Cover Making a Recovery? (Slate.com)
* The New American Songbook (Slate.com)
* Lou Reed's Archive Holds Six Hundred Hours Of Mostly Unreleased Audio, And Other Revelations From His Archivist (PleaseKillMe.com)
* Q&A with Ingrid Jensen: Leading from Within (Jazziz)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Eddie Henderson

This week, StLJN's video spotlight is focused on trumpeter Eddie Henderson, who's returning to St. Louis to perform next Friday, October 26 at St. Louis University's Xavier Hall.

Presented in conjunction with SLU as the first production of the revived Nu-Art Series, the concert also will feature poet and author Leah LeFlore (daughter of the late trumpeter and Black Artists Group co-founder Floyd LeFlore), pianist Ptah Williams, and trumpeter George Sams, the founder and head of Nu-Art.

Henderson, who will celebrate his 78th birthday the day of his St. Louis show, recently has enjoyed renewed public attention, performing and recording with the "supergroup" The Cookers and earlier this year releasing a new quintet album, Be Cool, on the Smoke Sessions label.

Probably still best known for his work with Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi band in the early 1970s, Henderson for years pursued dual careers in music and in medicine, working as a practicing psychiatrist in San Francisco when not touring.

Even so, he's managed to release 30 albums as a leader over the course of his career, ranging in style from fusion and funk to straight-ahead, while also accumulating performance and recording credits with Pharoah Sanders, Mike Nock, Norman Connors, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Charles Earland, Azteca, and more.

To give you an idea of Henderson's style and repertoire, we've collected videos of some relatively recent live performances, starting up above with a full set of Henderson leading a quintet in 2016 at the Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis.

After the jump, you can see him playing the Kenny Barron composition "Phantoms," a frequent part of his live shows, with a quartet in March of last year in Zagreb, Croatia,

That's followed by two clips featuring Henderson as a guest performer with a band led by trumpeter Jesse Fischer, performing his own composition "Sunburst" and Hancock's "You'll Know When You Get There" in December 2013 at ShapeShifter Lab in Brooklyn, NY.

Next is a video from one of Henderson's previous appearances in St. Louis, at a concert in March 2012 presented by the Nu-Art Series at the now-closed Metropolitan Gallery downtown. Along with the trumpeter, the band includes Freddie Washington on tenor sax, Ptah Williams on piano, Bob DeBoo on bass, and Gary Sykes on drums.

The sixth and final video is an episode of the web series "The Pace Report" from 2012, which includes some performance footage as well as an interview with Henderson by host Brian Pace.

For more about Eddie Henderson, listen to the interview he did in March 2018 with 21CM.org; read DownBeat's feature on him from earlier this year, occasioned by the release of Be Cool; and check out his 2012 radio interview on the Tucson, AZ-based "The Jake Feinberg Show."

One last thing: Observant readers will note, for the first time in many years, the presence of titles and various other typographical bric-a-brac superimposed over the YouTube embeds in this post. Unfortunately, this is a result of YouTube permanently changing its embed code so that those items no longer can be hidden, claiming that they are "an integral part of the YouTube experience."

While yr. humble editor will continue to search for another way to remove the superfluous material (which, often as not, contains misspellings and errors), it looks like all sites that embed YouTube videos are stuck with the new formatting limitations for now.

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

Craig Pomranz returning to perform December 7 & 8 at Kranzberg Arts Center

Singer and St. Louis native Craig Pomranz is bringing his cabaret show "Love: It Takes Time..." to his hometown for performances at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, December 7 and Saturday, December 8 at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

The show, directed by Ronald Cohen with musical direction by Michael Roberts, includes selections from classic songwriters such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim; pop material from Amy Winehouse and Neal Sedaka; and more.

Pomranz (pictured) is a past winner of the "Best Male Vocalist" award from the Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs (MAC) in NYC, as well as the recipient of critical plaudits from New York magazine, GQ, the New York Post, Backstage, and many others.

Tickets for Craig Pomranz' "Love: It Takes Time..." are $25, and are on sale now via Metrotix.

Janet Evra celebrating album release on Sunday, November 18 at .ZACK

Bassist and singer Janet Evra will celebrate the release of her debut album Ask Her To Dance with a performance at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, November 18 at .ZACK, 3224 Locust St. in Grand Center.

Evra (pictured) will be accompanied by the musicians who played on the recording, including her husband, guitarist Will Buchanan, along with Adam Maness (piano), Montez Coleman (drums), Khamali Cuffie-Moore (trumpet), and Kwanae Johnson (tenor sax), plus additional special guests such as singer Chrissy Renick, keyboardist Jim Hegarty, and more.

The album, recorded by Jason McEntire at Sawhorse Studios in St. Louis and mastered by Brad Sarno at Blue Jade Audio, includes nine original songs, some evoking the bossa nova sound that influenced Evra and Buchanan in their "cover" project, The Bonbon Plot.

Tickets are $10, which includes general admission plus a CD of the album, and are on sale now via Metrotix.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* The Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries has named Peter Palermo as its new executive director, replacing Paul Reuter, who retires next year. Palermo comes to the Sheldon from the Hettenhausen Center for the Arts at McKendree University in Lebanon, IL.

* Author, poet and Miles Davis biographer Quincy Troupe will speak and sign copies of his new book Miles & Me (pictured) on Sunday, November 4 at Left Bank Books.

* Pianist and St. Louis native Dred Scott's new album Rides Alone was reviewed by LucidCulture.com.

* As part of the BRIC Jazz Festival in NYC, trumpeter Keyon Harrold this week took part in a panel discussion about the evolution of jazz with trumpeter Terence Blanchard, guitarist and singer Camila Meza, and journalist Nate Chinen. Video of the discussion is said to be forthcoming...

* And speaking of panel discussions, on Wednesday, November 7 the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles will host "a special listening experience and discussion of the new box set Miles Davis & John Coltrane—the Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6." The panel will include Coltrane's daughter Miki Coltrane, Miles' son Erin Davis and nephew Vince Wilburn, Jr, and Steve Berkowitz, who produced the box set.

* Radio station WSIE and Trusty Chords Record Shop in Edwardsville are teaming up to put together an endcap display in the store featuring local and regional music played on the station. If you're a musician or indie label with a recent or upcoming release and would like to be considered for inclusion, contact WSIE general manager Jason Church at jaschur@siue.edu.

* Lastly, if you've ever wondered what the various venues in the Grand Center Arts District would look like if they were recorded on video in a time-lapse style, with the resulting footage then set to an EDM soundtrack to make a two-and-a-half minute music video, wonder no more.

Jazz this week: Jon Batiste, Gaslight Cabaret Festival fall series opens with "Broadway's Greatest Hits," and more

This week's calendar of jazz and creative music in St. Louis offers the chance for a close-up look at a top TV bandleader, the start of this fall's Gaslight Cabaret Festival, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, October 17
Since it doesn't seem to have been publicly announced anywhere else, this seems like a good place to note that organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, who previously was announced as performing Wednesday through Sunday of this week at Jazz St. Louis, last month cancelled a number of upcoming performances, including his St. Louis dates, due to illness.

While we all no doubt wish Smith a speedy and complete recovery, the late-breaking nature of this unfortunate development means that the Bistro, presumably unable to secure a suitable replacement in time, will be dark for the next week.

However, the weekly  "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" continues as usual, with Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes at The Stage at KDHX, the jam session hosted by bassist Bob DeBoo and friends at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor and band at The Dark Room.

Also on Wednesday, Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Singers Open Mic" at Sophie's Artist Lounge & Cocktail Club; Wright's Project plays fusion and funk at Al's Lounge; and trumpeter Jim Manley is back for his weekly performance at Sasha's Wine Bar.

Thursday, October 18
The Poor People of Paris will play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, and singer Joe Mancuso is back at 50/Fifty Kitchen.

Also on Thursday, saxophonist Harvey Lockhart and the Collective will perform at The Dark Room, and the Stephen Haake Trio returns to The Pat Connolly Tavern.

Friday, October 19
The fall series of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival begins with the first of two nights of "Broadway's Greatest Hits of All Time," as performed by singers Lianne Marie Dobbs and William Michals at the Gaslight Theater.

Also on Friday, keyboardist Ryan Marquez, his trio, and special guest vocalist Lola will play at the Kranzberg Arts Center; bassist and singer Janet Evra performs at Evangeline's; drummer Steve Davis brings his "Super Band" with singer Feyza Eren to the Ozark Theatre; and singer Erin Bode performs (with only a few seats left for purchase at the door) at Focal Point.

Saturday, October 20
Keyboardist Jon Batiste (pictured), the New Orleans native known for leading the house band on CBS' The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, will officially open this season's jazz series at the Sheldon Concert Hall; and guitarist Todd Mosby will play a solo concert at the Webster Groves Garden Cafe.

Sunday, October 21
Guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran plays for brunch at The Dark Room, while Annie and the Fur Trappers will perform for the brunch crowd at Evangeline's.

Monday, October 22
Dizzy Atmosphere returns to The Shaved Duck.

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: October 14, 2018

Esperanza Spalding

Here's a 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:

* BBC 'to make classical music archive available' (BBC)
* Quincy Jones, From A to Z (Rolling Stone)
* From Studio to Screen: Becoming a Composer (FactMag.com)
* Roy Orbison hologram concert in L.A. invites awe and debate (Los Angeles Times)
* Barcelona’s Jazz Festival Thrives at 50 (DownBeat)
* Visualizing 40 Years of Music Industry Sales (VisualCapitalist.com)
* Women Run the Show at Monterey Jazz Fest (San Francisco Classical Voice)
* Louis Armstrong's unseen artifacts almost ready for public view (AMNY.com)
* Radiohead, the Cure, Rage, Janet Jackson Nominated for Rock Hall of Fame 2019 (Pitchfork)
* Esperanza Spalding Casts First of “12 Little Spells” Online (Jazz Times)
* Shelved: Bill Evans’ Loose Blues (LongReads.com)
* “Automation Divine”: Early Computer Music and the Selling of the Cold War (New Music Box)
* Ahmad Jamal at 88: Still playing hard and on his way to Chicago (Chicago Tribune)
* A Labor of Love Supreme: Saving John Coltrane's Home Studio (Pro Sound News)
* Elvis Costello Explains His Great New Album, ‘Look Now’ (Rolling Stone)
* Into the Vault: Erroll Garner Uncovered (NPR)
* Key Music Modernization Act Proponents Disinvited to White House Signing Ceremony (Billboard)
* Marc Ribot Leads a Musical Army Protesting Against Trump (The Daily Beast)
* Lindsey Buckingham sues Fleetwood Mac for kicking him out (Associated Press)
* Famed jazz saxophonist accused of sexual misconduct by former protégé now suing for defamation (New York Daily News)
* Ben Wendel Takes ‘The Seasons’ from Video Project to Album (DownBeat)
* Tony Bennett & Diana Krall: They Like a Gershwin Tune (Jazz Times)
* Berklee to Launch Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice (Jazz Times)
* Maxine Gordon Ended Up Married to the Music (Publishers Weekly)
* The Unearthing of Thelonious Monk’s Lost Live Classic (Bandcamp.com)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Remembering Hamiet Bluiett

The jazz world and the St. Louis area both suffered a big loss last week with the death of Hamiet Bluiett, one of the greatest baritone saxophonists of all time and a co-founder of both the Black Artists Group and the World Saxophone Quartet.

While StLJN's obituary for Bluiett, published last week shortly after his death, covered the broad outline of Bluiett's career, there's much more to say, and media, fans, and fellow musicians have all paid tribute to the saxophonist in recent days.

Here in St. Louis, Bluiett's passing was noted by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, St. Louis Public Radio and the St. Louis American.

Nationally and internationally, coverage included obits and/or tributes from the New York Times, NPR, Jazz Times, London Jazz News, and DownBeat - the latter penned by St. Louis' own Terry Perkins, who's preparing a more extensive article about Bluiett for an upcoming issue of the magazine.

In addition to the piece that aired on NPR, veteran jazz writer and radio host Gene Seymour wrote a tribute to Bluiett specifically for NYC public radio station WBGO.

Also, a number of musicians weighed in about Bluiett on social media and on their personal sites, including bassist Melvin Gibbs, with a good story about playing a blues gig early in his career with Bluiett; saxophonists Sam Newsome, Jaleel Shaw and Tony Kofi, bassists Dave Holland and Christian McBride, and guitarist Vernon Reid.

Perhaps the best way to remember Hamiet Bluiett, though, is through his music, and toward that end, StLJN has assembled some favorite online video clips of live performances featuring him, starting up above with a complete set of of the World Saxophone Quartet, recorded at near the height of their collective powers in 1987 at Jazzfest Berlin.

This is the original WSQ lineup, with Bluiett, Julius Hemphill (alto sax, soprano sax), Oliver Lake (alto sax, soprano sax) and David Murray (tenor sax), and the set contains several arrangements from their then-current album of arrangements of music by Duke Ellington.

After the jump, we leap back in time to July 1974, when Bluiett was part of Charles Mingus's band for a performance at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Todi, Italy.

The song is called "Flowers For A Lady," and after tenor saxophonist George Adams and pianist Don Pullen play their solos, at about the six-minute mark it's Bluiett's turn, and he comes in hard, shredding in the altissimo register while Mingus and drummer Dannie Richmond stoke the rhythm.

After that, there's a full concert of Bluiett's band Clarinet Family from 1984 in Berlin, featuring fellow St. Louisan J.D. Parran in the ensemble along with clarinetists Buddy Collette, Edward "Kidd" Jordan, John Purcell, Dwight Andrews, Don Byron, and bassist Fred Hopkins.

Next up is a video apparently shot in 2000 in Ghana, featuring Bluiett with some local players. There's not a whole lot of other information available about this clip, but Bluiett sounds good on it, and it's an interesting groove.

The fifth video documents a performance by Bluiett's Bio-Electric Ensemble in June 2013 as part of the Vision Festival at Roulette in New York City. Along with the leader, the group features Matthew Whittaker on electric keyboards, D.D. Jackson on piano, Harrison Bankhead on bass and Hamid Drake on drums.

That's followed by another set of music by Bluiett, Drake, and bassist William Parker, recorded in January 2016 in NYC.

Finally, you can view the profile of Bluiett done in 2008 by KETC's Living St. Louis program, and a nearly hour-long interview with Bluiett, conducted by saxophonist and latter-day WSQ member Bruce Williams in October 2016 at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.

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:

* Saxophonist Ben Reece, keyboardist Mo Egeston, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor were interviewed on a recent episode of Rock Paper Podcast. 

* Bassist and singer Janet Evra appeared Tuesday on KTVI/Fox 2's morning newscast.

* In advance of his debut later this month at SFJAZZ in San Francisco, trumpeter Keyon Harrold's past collaborations are the subject of an article on SFJAZZ.org's website. 

* Cabaret singer and pianist Rick Jensen's performance last Saturday at the Kranzberg Arts Center was reviewed by KDHX's Chuck Lavazzi.

* The family of the late Hamiet Bluiett (pictured) is trying to raise money via crowd-funding for burial and memorial expenses, as the baritone sax great died last week without life insurance. If you'd like to contribute, go to https://www.gofundme.com/683jk7k. (You also can help by sharing the GoFundMe page URL on social media and elsewhere.)

A funeral service for Bluiett will be held at 10:00 a.m. today (Friday, October 12) at Lovejoy Temple Church of God, 511 Canal Street in Brooklyn, IL, followed by burial at 12:30 p.m. at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis.

Storm Large's "Holiday Ordeal" set for Tuesday, December 11 at Sun Theatre

Singer Storm Large is returning to St. Louis to present her show "Holiday Ordeal" at 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, December 11 at the Sun Theatre in Grand Center.

Described as "a night of music, stories, gags, and gifts," the show includes songs such as "2000 Miles," "O Holy Night," "Hallelujah," "Sock It to Me Santa," "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and "Somebody To Love," which Large calls in the show's promotional material "the greatest holiday song never written for the holidays."

Large (pictured) has performed here several times in recent years, both with the band Pink Martini and as a solo act, most recently as part of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival's winter series earlier this year.

Tickets for "Holiday Ordeal," which is produced by the Presenters Dolan, are $25 and $35 for regular seating, $85 for a package that includes "premium seating" and a post-concert reception, and are on sale now.

Boney James returning to perform Friday, April 26 at The Pageant

Saxophonist Boney James (pictured) is returning to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m. Friday, April 26 at The Pageant.

James' most recent album is Honestly, which came out in September 2017. He last played in St. Louis in July of this year as part of the Gateway Jazz Festival at the Chesterfield Amphitheater.

Tickets for Boney James at The Pageant are priced from $35 to $50 and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. this Friday, October 12 via Ticketmaster.

Nu-Art Series to present performances by Eddie Henderson, Quincy Troupe, and more

The Nu-Art Series, founded and run by trumpeter and impresario George Sams, is returning with a concert featuring trumpeter Eddie Henderson (pictured) and pianist Ptah Williams at 8;00 p.m. Friday, October 26 at Xavier Hall on the campus of St. Louis University.

Poet Lyah LeFlore, the daughter of trumpeter and original Black Arts Group member Floyd LeFlore, also will perform, and Sams will be sitting in for a tune or two as well.

The Nu-Art Series previously presented concerts from 2010 to 2012 at the now-closed Metropolitan Gallery downtown, and in 2014 at the Scott Joplin State Historic Site's Rosebud Cafe.

The October concert with Henderson and Williams is the first event of "Jazz-N-Tongues: The Art of Music and Poetry," a series of co-productions with St. Louis University.

The series will continue the following week when poet Quincy Troupe headlines an event also featuring Sams and his quartet at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, November 2 at Xavier Hall.

Sams tells StLJN that he's working on two more concerts for early 2019, one to feature multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native J.D. Parran, the other presenting poet, playwright and author Ntozake Shange, with details to come.

Jazz this week: Ghost Note, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Joey Alexander, Lettuce, Cornet Chop Suey, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features a nice mix of headlining performers, offering styles from funk to big band to vintage jazz to mainstream and more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, October 10
Ghost Note, the instrumental funk band founded by Snarky Puppy percussionists Robert “Sput” Searight and Nate Werth (pictured, top left), will perform at the Old Rock House.

Incorporating influences from Afrobeat, hip-hop, and more, they're touring in support of their second album Swagism, which was released in April of this year.

Also on Wednesday, Jazz St. Louis' "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series of free lecture/discussions with music continues with Marc Myers, who writes about jazz for the Wall Street Journal and other publications, expounding on "1950: The Year Jazz Changed on Two Coasts."

Myers' presentation will be paired with performances of music associated with Dave Brubeck, the Modern Jazz Quartet, and Gerry Mulligan, plus Miles Davis’s complete Birth of the Cool.

Thursday, October 11
Saxophonist Paul DeMarinis leads a trio in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, and the Jim Widner Big Band will play a one-nighter at Jazz St. Louis. 

Also on Thursday, singer Joe Mancuso continues his weekly gig featuring different special guests at  50/Fifty Kitchen, and guitarist Dave Black performs at The Pat Connolly Tavern.

Friday, October 12
Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (pictured, bottom left) to provide the music for the annual fundraiser at the Sheldon Concert Hall. (Some concert-only tickets still may be available; contact the Sheldon's box office for the latest information.)

This year marks the 30th anniversary of JaLCO's founding, and they've released two recordings in 2018 - one documenting various guest star performances with the orchestra over the years, and the other capturing an evening backing singer/actor Ruben Blades. While those guest stars won't be at the Sheldon, the band's deep catalog of original and historic arrangements, developed over the last three decades, should offer the gala-goers ample possibilities for enjoyable listening.

Also on Friday, Grammy-nominated, teenage piano phenom Joey Alexander returns for the first of two nights of performances at Jazz St. Louis; funk/jazz band Lettuce is in town to play at the Atomic Cowboy Pavilion; and singer Anita Jackson will do the late show at The Dark Room

Saturday, October 13
Singer Wendy Gordon and friends, including singer Renee Smith and singer/bassist Eugene Johnson will present a matinee performance of "Different Shades Of The Blues" at the Ozark Theatre.

Later that night, keyboardist Mo Egeston will be at The Dark Room leading his trio, which will be joined this week by guest vocalist Chrissy Renick.

Sunday, October 14
Singer and bassist Janet Evra plays for brunch at The Dark Room, while Miss Jubilee will entertain at Evangeline's.

Also on Sunday, the St. Louis Jazz Club presents Cornet Chop Suey playing traditional jazz and swing in a matinee concert at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel St. Louis - Westport

Tuesday, October 16
Trumpeter Jim Manley and guitarist Rick Haydon play at Evangeline's.

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: October 7, 2018

Jerry González

Here's a 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:

* This Record Label Is What The Future Of Music Business Looks Like (Forbes)
* Wynton Marsalis on his animal ballet, teen funk band days, kazoos and Jazz at Lincoln Center's 31 years (San Diego Union Tribune)
* Q&A: Betty Davis looks back at her fiery funk legacy (Now Toronto)
* It’s Still Not Betty Davis Time, But We’re Getting There (Jazz Times)
* Guggenheim Says Spotify’s Major Label Renegotiations Will Significantly Lower Royalty Obligations (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Tony Bennett & Diana Krall: Streetwise, Yet Sophisticated (DownBeat)
* Jerry González Dies After Fire in His Madrid Home: Report (Billboard)
* Jerry González, Latin Jazz Visionary, Dies After House Fire (NPR)
* Jerry González Dies at 69 (Jazz Times)
* New Doc ‘Fire Music’ Sets the Record Straight on Free Jazz (Rolling Stone)
* Quincy Jones: Celebrating Seven Decades of Music (Billboard)
* Dizzy Gillespie Documentary in the Works (Jazz Times)
* Review: One Note At A Time (Jazz Journal)
* Monterey Jazz Festival Features Highly Charged Performances (DownBeat)
* Tom Petty’s Biographer on the Story He Didn’t Tell (Rolling Stone)
* Jazz Needs A "LeBron James Mentality": A Conversation With The West Coast Get Down's Cameron Graves (SFJAZZ.org)
* How the Music Modernization Act will help artists get paid more from streaming (TheVerge.com)
* How Geoff Emerick Helped the Beatles Reinvent Music (Rolling Stone)
* Geoff Emerick threw himself into the Beatles' experiments (The Guardian)
* Joey Baron’s Deep Listening Manifesto (DownBeat)
* New York Hot Jazz Festival Celebrates Music of New Orleans and Paris (DownBeat)
* Jaimie Branch on International Anthem Fostering Community (DownBeat)
* Hear the Earliest Surviving Radio Broadcast by Duke Ellington, A Historic Find, in Deep Dive (WBGO)
* The 40 Greatest Movie Soundtracks of All Time (Vulture.com)
* Guest Blog: Musicians Deserve More (Offbeat)
* Do Not Seek For Things Outside Yourself: The Compositional Journey of Tyshawn Sorey (BrooklynRail.org)
* Ethan Iverson: At the Crossroads of Jazz and Classical Music (DownBeat)
* The Art Ensemble of Chicago Celebrates 50 Years Of Channeling And Challenging History (NPR)
* Kamasi Washington on Igor Stravinsky, Art Blakey, and a Certain Vintage Arcade Game (WBGO)
* A Look Back At How Virtuoso Jimmy Blanton Changed The Bass Forever (NPR)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The music of Anthony Braxton

This week, let's check out some videos by multi-instrumentalist and composer Anthony Braxton, who will be making his St. Louis debut in a concert presented by New Music Circle this coming Monday, October 8 at St. Louis University's Xavier Hall.

He'll perform in a duo with harpist Jacqueline Kerrod, and then is scheduled to give a post-concert talk after the performance.

Though this will be his first gig ever in St. Louis (!), Braxton has been a major figure in creative music for the past half-century, first gaining wide attention for his groundbreaking 1969 solo recording For Alto and subsequent membership in the short-lived band Circle (with Chick Corea, Dave Holland, and Barry Altschul).

From there, he's gone on to create a huge catalog of music - literally hundreds of hours of recordings - ranging from free improvisations to distinctive, sometimes-skewed interpretations of jazz and popular standards, as well as hundreds of original works . Some have titles resembling math equations or cubist drawings (these days, to the relief of music journalists, he mostly just numbers them) and more recently, he's taken to writing music derived from highly specific compositional systems with names like Diamond Curtain Wall, Ghost Trance Music, and ZIM.

Given the range of Braxton's work and the length of his career, it's impossible even to begin to cover it all in a single blog post; indeed, it seems likely that his music will be the subject of considerable academic study in the future.

What we can do, though, is help you at least get acquainted with his music, starting with a couple of clips from early in his career, when he was still leading a band that at least superficially resembled a small jazz combo, followed by some performances from the past decade using some of the ideas he's developed for the 21st century.

The first clip up above shows Braxton with the first band he put together after the demise of Circle (because Corea had gone off to form Return to Forever). It included trumpeter Kenny Wheeler plus Holland on bass and Altschul on drums. Here, they're playing Braxton's "Composition 40M," as recorded in July 1975 at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

After the jump, you can see Braxton offering his take on Coltrane's "Impressions," recorded in 1981 at the Woodstock Jazz Festival with Miroslav Vitous on bass, Corea on piano and Jack DeJohnette on drums.

Fast-forward to July 2008 for the third video, which features Braxton's Ghost Trance Septet performing his "Composition 348" at the San Sebastian Jazz Festival in Spain. The leader/composer is on various reeds, along with Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet, flugelhorn), Jessica Pavone (viola), Chris Dahlgren (bass, cello), Aaron Siegel (drums, percussion, vibes), Mary Halvorson (guitar), and Jay Rozen (tuba).

Next up is a a recording of the Braxton's 12+1Tet, made on October 13, 2012 at the Festival Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea in Venice, Italy. The piece is called "Composition 355," and it features Braxton, Bynum, Pavone, Halvorson, Rozen and Siegel, plus Ingrid Laubrock (alto sax, tenor sax), Andrew Raffo Dewar (soprano sax, tenor sax, clarinet), James Fei (alto sax, soprano sax, sopranino sax), Sarah Schoenbeck (bassoon, shenai), Reut Regev (trombone), Erica Dicker (violin, baritone violin), and Carl Testa (bass, bass clarinet).

That's followed by a set of just Braxton, Halvorson and Bynum, aka the Diamond Curtain Wall Trio, recorded in January 2015 at Jazzhouse in Copenhagen, Denmark, and one from Braxton's ZIM Sextet, featuring many of the same musicians mentioned above, recorded in 2017 at the Moers Festival in Germany.

The final video is a nearly hour-long interview with Braxton, done in 2013 by percussionist Gerry Hemingway, who toured and recorded with Braxton in the 1980s and 90s.

For more about Anthony Braxton, read the interview with him done by trumpeter and Sound American editor/founder Nate Wooley and published in 2014 by Bomb magazine; the 2016 feature article about him from Red Bull Music Academy; and the recently published guide to his discography from Bandcamp Daily.

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