Jazz this week: Kuzu, Galactic, Julian Lage & Dave King, Dikeman/ACA Quartet, Soul Message Band, SFJAZZ Collective, and more

It's a busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with a half-dozen noteworthy shows from visiting performers offering funk, free jazz, re-imaginations of music from two iconic artists, and much more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, March 11
Improvising trio Kuzu (pictured, top left), featuring guitarist Tashi Dorji, drummer Tyler Damon and saxophonist Dave Rempis, will perform in a New Music Circle concert at Joe's Cafe.

You can find out more, and see and hear performances on video from all three of them, separately and together, in this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Also on Wednesday, cabaret grande dame Marilyn Maye continues with her second of three nights of performances with the Jazz St. Louis Big Band; and Jazz St. Louis' "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series presents a free event with author William Studdart discussing his book The Jazz War: Radio Nazism, and the Struggle for the Airwaves in WW2 at the St. Louis County Library.

Thursday, March 12
New Orleans funk/jazz band Galactic (pictured, center left) returns to perform at Delmar Hall.

You can find out more about what they've been up to since their last appearance here, and see videos of some recent performances in this post from Saturday before last.

UPDATE - 10:00 a.m., 3/12/20: In an announcement made this morning on Twitter,  Galactic has canceled all tour dates, including tonight's show in St. Louis, until Saturday, March 28.

Also on Thursday, guitarist Julian Lage and drummer Dave King bring their "pop-up" tour to Gaslight Studio, and Dutch saxophonist John Dikeman headlines a bill of free improvisors at the Way Out Club.

Elsewhere around town, Chicago-based organ trio Soul Message Band will perform at The Dark Room, and two more Chicago-based musicians, saxophonist Rob Denty and drummer Tim Mulvenna, will team up with guitarist Vincent Varvel to play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

UPDATE - 7:45 a.m., 3/12/20: In a message published Wednesday night on Facebook, the Jazz at Holmes series announced that the remaining shows for the spring semester, including this week's Denty/Mulvenna/Varvel concert, have been cancelled, in keeping with Wash U's policy regarding current public health concerns over the coronavirus.

Friday, March 13
Keyboardist Dave Grelle's Playadors perform for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis, and singer Erin Bode will present at a concert at Focal Point.

Also on Friday, the Ambassadors of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom, and the Mineral Area College Carol Moore Memorial Jazz Festival, with trombonist Michael Dease as the featured guest, gets underway for the first of two nights at the Mineral Area College Theater in Park Hills, MO.

Saturday, March 14
The all-star SFJAZZ Collective (pictured, bottom left) will perform at the Sheldon Concert Hall, featuring new arrangements of music from Miles Davis' In A Silent Way and Sly and the Family Stone's Stand!.

You can find out more about about the Miles/Sly project and see some brief musical excerpts on video in this post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, bassist and singer Janet Evra leads her quartet at Evangeline's, and saxophonist Tim Cunningham returns to Troy's Listening Room.

Sunday, March 15
The Original Knights Of Swing will play a matinee at the Opera House of Pacific; the Coleman Hughes Project celebrates seven years as a band with a show at HollyLou Entertainment; and the JazzU Big Band student ensemble performs at Jazz St. Louis.

Tuesday, March 17
Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Singers Open Mic" at Sophie's Artist Lounge, and pianist Kim Portnoy teams up with voice faculty members from Webster U and Webster alumna Erin Bode for  "The Poetry Project" at Union Avenue Christian Church.

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.)