Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Jazz this week: Anat Cohen, Eliane Elias, Michael Rosen, Bill McNally, and more

The calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis for the week before Mardi Gras is packed with performances in a variety of styles, with a handful of visiting headliners hitting local stages, plus some noteworthy shows from our hometown performers. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, February 27
Clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen (pictured, top left) brings her quartet to Jazz St. Louis for the first of five nights of performances, continuing through Sunday.

Voted the top clarinetist in jazz in the most recent DownBeat critic's poll, Cohen is a versatile player who can navigate a variety of styles with both technical facility and feeling. You can find out more about Cohen and see videos of her playing (in several different musical idioms) in this post from Saturday before last.

Also on Wednesday, this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features the Jazz Troubadours at The Stage at KDHX, along with the jam session hosted by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor at The Dark Room.

Thursday, February 28
Saxophonist Michael Rosen, a New York native and Berklee grad who expatriated to Italy in the late '80s and has made a name for himself on the European jazz scene, will play in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, accompanied by keyboardist Jay Oliver, guitarist and bassist William Lenihan. and drummer Steve Davis.

Elsewhere on Thursday, trumpeter Keith Moyer leads a jam session at Rendezvous Cafe & Wine Bar in O'Fallon, MO; Samba Bom brings a bit of Brazilian carnival to Joe's Cafe & Art Gallery; Dizzy Atmosphere plays vintage swing and Gypsy jazz for the Missouri Botanical Garden's "Orchid Nights"; and saxophonist Ben Reece's Unity Quartet plays the music of Rahsaan Roland Kirk at The Dark Room.

Friday, March 1
New music ensemble Alarm Will Sound returns to the Sheldon Concert Hall with a program featuring music by their late founding member Matt Marks, who died suddenly after a concert here last year; and Miss Jubilee plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, March 2
The Friends of Scott Joplin present ragtime pianist 
Bill McNally in a matinee concert at the Opera House of Pacific.

On Saturday evening, pianist and singer Eliane Elias (pictured, bottom left) will perform at The Sheldon. Having already proved her skills at jazz-fusion, the music of her native Brazil, and much more, Elias on her most recent recording explores something a bit different, re-imagining the score of the Broadway show Man of La Mancha in a Latin jazz style.

You can see some recent performances by Elias on video in this post from last Saturday. Also, The Sheldon and Metrotix have cut the price of some remaining tickets for the concert to $25. To get the discount, go here and use the promo code LAMANCHA.

Also on Saturday, Chicago-based Third Coast Percussion will play music from composers including Steve Reich and Wilco's Glenn Kotche in a concert at 560 Music Center.

Sunday, March 3
The St. Louis Jazz Club presents keyboardist "Bob Row's "Mardi Gras Party" at Royale Orleans; Genesis Jazz Project plays at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups; and the Jazz Troubadours return to Evangeline's.

Tuesday, March 5
The Funky Butt Brass Band will play for Fat Tuesday revelers at the Broadway Oyster 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.)

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