Jazz this week: JazzU with Antonio Hart, St. Louis Piano Festival, Wendy Gordon & Friends "Honoring Our Own," and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes a showcase for some of the city's top student musicians, a gathering of pianists representing a variety of musical styles, a tribute to three of our town's esteemed veteran performers, and more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 29
The "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" seems to have stopped announcing in advance who's playing at The Stage at KDHX each week, but the event continues to include various duos or trios performing there, as well as the jam session hosted by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor at The Dark Room.

Elsewhere around town, Miss Jubilee performs at Schlafly Bottleworks, and trumpeter Jim Manley plays his weekly duo gig in at Sasha's Wine Bar.

Thursday, May 30
It's a night for jazz guitarists, as Josiah Joyce leads a group at The Dark Room, and Carol Eder and Joe Park play duets at The Pat Connolly Tavern.

Friday, May 31
This year's top students from Jazz St. Louis' JazzU program will perform for the first of two nights at the Bistro, joined by special guest saxophonist Antonio Hart (pictured, top left).

Also on Friday, the Funky Butt Brass Band plays a free show for the "Jungle Boogie" series at St. Louis Zoo's Schnucks Family Plaza; drummer Demarius Hicks' quartet with singer Anita Jackson plays two shows at .ZACK; the Second Generation Swing Band performs at the Casa Loma Ballroom; and drummer Kyle Honeycutt leads a trio for the late night/early morning gig at Mangia Italiano

Saturday, June 1
Saxophonist Matt McKeever leads a quartet in a free matinee performance at Saxquest; percussionist Herman Semidey and Son Montuno play salsa, Latin jazz and more at the Ozark Theatre; and keyboardist Mo Egeston and friends play a late show at The Dark Room.

Sunday, June 2
Pianist Adam Maness performs for brunch at Thurman's in Shaw and the Jazz Troubadours play their monthly first-Sunday gig at Evangeline's.

Monday, June 3
Pianist Ethan Leinwand has gathered eight other pianists from around the country, including St. Louis' own Ptah Williams and former St. Louisan Tom McDermott (pictured, bottom left), for the fourth annual St. Louis Piano Festival at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Tuesday, June 4
Singer Wendy Gordon and a stellar lineup of St. Louis singers and musicians will pay tribute to local performers Jeanne Trevor, Fred Walker and Linda Kennedy with a show called "Honoring Our Own" at the Sheldon Concert Hall

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.)