StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Janet Evra & Will Buchanan's "St. Louis Music Box"

This week, let's take a look at "St. Louis Music Box," a video project created and produced over the past year by hassist/singer Janet Evra and guitarist Will Buchanan.

When the pandemic hit last spring and all gigs were canceled, Evra and Buchanan, who are married as well as musical partners, like a lot of musicians found themselves with some time on their hands. One of the projects they devised to fill the void was the "St. Louis Music Box" series, in which they and various musical friends team up to collaborate remotely on new arrangements of familiar popular tunes from the 70s and 80s.

Singer Anita Jackson has been a mainstay on the project, doing lead vocals on five of the six videos released so far, while Evra concentrated on bass and co-production duties. While most of tghe musicians are from St. Louis, the remote-collaboration nature of the project has made it possible to enlist some famous guest stars, most notably veteran trumpeter Randy Brecker and piano phenom Taylor Eigsti.

The "St. Louis Music Box" series kicked off last year in July with a video cover of the Kool and the Gang disco-era hit "Ladies' Night," performed by Evra, Buchanan, Jackson, keyboard player Andrew Stephen, and drummer Tim Moore.

After the jump, you can check out their version of "Ain't Nobody," a song written by Prince that in 1984 was one of singer Chaka Khan's last hits as a member of the band Rufus. The recording features Randy Brecker and the same band as "Ladies' night," except with drummer Dhoruba Hill in for Moore.

The next song, a cover of Natalie Cole's "This Will Be," uses mostly the same musicians, but with tenor saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown instead of Brecker and Tim Moore back behind the drum kit.

That's followed by another disco-era song, Leo Sayer's "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing," with both Jackson and Evra on vocals and Paul Brackens playing the bass, and then by a cover of the Beatles' "Octopus's Garden" with Evra as vocal soloist accompanied by Brackens, Moore, and keyboard player Ryan Marquez.

The final video and most recent in the series is "Some Kind of Wonderful," made famous in 1974 by Grand Funk Railroad, and here featuring Taylor Eigsti on piano along with Evra, Buchanan, Jackson, and Noore. No word yet as to when and if another installment might be forthcoming, but you can keep an eye out for one by checking in on Evra's YouTube channel,

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