Jazz this week: Terell Stafford, STL Free Jazz Collective, Brian Culbertson, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes return visits from a top mainstream trumpeter, a popular smooth jazz groove-maker, and an acclaimed new music ensemble, as well as free improv, vintage jazz, big band swing, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 9
Trumpeter Terell Stafford (pictured, top left) returns with his quintet for the first of four nights of performances at Jazz at the Bistro.

Also on Wednesday, new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound will perform at the Sheldon Concert Hall; and the weekly "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features the Alberto Patiño Duo at The Stage at KDHX, a jam session led by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet at The Dark Room.

Thursday, May 10
Saxophonist Michael Foster and drummer Dane Rousay will perform free improv duets at Kismet Creative Center, with opening sets from locals Danielle Taylor Williams and the trio of NNN Cook, Mabel Suen and Chris Trull.

Also on Thursday, the New Orleans Suspects return to the Broadway Oyster Bar; guitarist Dave Black and singer Bridgette Kossor will perform at the The Pat Connolly Tavern; saxophonist Harvey Lockhart returns to The Dark Room; and pianist Adam Maness' trio is back at Thurman's in Shaw.

Friday, May 11
The Wire Pilots will play original jazz/fusion, with guest appearances from singer Erin Bode and saxophonist Paul DeMarinis, at the Webster Groves Concert Hall/Ozark Theatre.

Elsewhere around town, the Original Knights of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom, and The Gaslight Squares will be back at Yaquis on Cherokee.

Saturday, May 12
Multi-instrumentalist Brian Culbertson (pictured, bottom left) performs at The Pageant.

Culbertson is touring in support of his most recent release Colors of Love, which cam out earlier this year and, in something of a contrast to his usual groove-based material, offers a program of piano-based love songs.

You can read more about that and see some live performance videos of Culbertson in this post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, the STL Free Jazz Collective will play a free concert at the 14th St Artist Community; the Midwest Jazz-tette returns to Evangeline's; and the Gateway City Big Band will provide the music for dancers at the Concord Farmers Club.

Sunday, May 13
Mother's Day no doubt will mean a booming business for brunches this Sunday, and if you'd like some live jazz served with your meal, you can hear swing and Gypsy jazz from Dizzy Atmosphere at The Dark Room; enjoy fusion, funk and R&B from 3X Groove and vocalist Truenessia Combs at Troy's Jazz Gallery; or check out some vintage jazz and swing from Miss Jubilee at Evangeline's.

Monday, May 14
Trumpeter Jim Manley returns to Momo's Greek Restaurant, and guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran will play at Yaquis on Cherokee.

Tuesday, May 15
Drummer Montez Coleman and guitarist Eric Slaughter host "The Tuesday Night Hit" jam session at the The Dark Room, and saxophonist and singer Cary Colman's trio plays 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.)

Jazz this week: Jane Monheit, Douglas Ewart and the STL Free Jazz Collective, Battle Trance, holiday jazz begins, and more

This week's busy calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes a return engagement from one of the most popular female vocalists in jazz; a couple of shows featuring adventurous woodwind players; the first few of what will be many holiday-themed concerts for the season; and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, November 29
Singer Jane Monheit returns to St. Louis for the first of four nights at Jazz at the Bistro. Monheit (pictured, top left) last performed here in 2015 with singer and guitarist John Pizzarelli at the Sheldon's annual benefit gala, and before that in 2014 at the Bistro.

She first won wide public attention shortly after the turn of the century, applying a plush vocal tone and a sure sense of swing to mostly standards from the Great American Songbook. Since then, Monheit has released a dozen albums as a leader, and also made guest appearances on record with a wide variety of performers, from fellow singers such as Sara Gazarek and Tony DeSare to instrumentalists including David Benoit, Ray Brown Jr., and many others.

After recording for five different labels, including Sony, Concord, and Decca/EmArcy. Monheit in 2016 started her own record company, Emerald City Records, inaugurating the imprint with the release of The Songbook Sessions, a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald. Listeners this week at the Bistro can expect an emphasis on that material, though the multi-night gig also should give Monheit a chance to dig into her back catalog as well.

Also on Wednesday, singer Joe Mancuso continues his weekly gig at Taha'a Twisted Tiki in The Grove; the Cary Colman Jazz Trio plays at Evangeline's; and this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features Jacob Alspach at Squatters Cafe/The Stage at KDHX, the jam session led by bassist Bob DeBoo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's band at The Dark Room.

Thursday, November 30
Guitarist Vincent Varvel leads a quartet in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; the Liberation Organ Trio plays at Evangeline's; singer Feyza Eren and her quartet will perform at Joe's Cafe; and saxophonist Ben Reece's Unity Quartet returns to The Dark Room.

Friday, December 1
Pianist Carolbeth True and Two Times True with guest vocalist Kim Fuller will perform at the Webster Groves Concert Hall; singer/guitarist Tommy Halloran continues his weekly residency at Das Bevo Underground; and saxophonist Tim Cunningham is at Troy's Jazz Gallery.

Saturday, 
December 2
Freddie Washington will be the latest local saxophonist to be featured in Saxquest's series of free Saturday matinee performances, while just down the street at Dead Wax Records, Battle Trance will be promoting their Saturday evening show for New Music Circle with a free in-store performance.

Then, as fate would have it, Saturday evening offers a tough choice for fans of woodwinds and/or creative music, with two shows of interest happening simultaneously.

Battle Trance (pictured, center left), who will be making their St. Louis debut in their Saturday evening concert at The Luminary, is an ensemble of four tenor saxophonists who use extended techniques to play music that's a mix of composition and improvisation, though it can be hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. You can find out more about them, and see videos of some sample live performances, in this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Meanwhile, across town in the Old North neighborhood, multi-instrumentalist Douglas Ewart will be in town to join the STL Free Jazz Collective for a free concert at the 14th St. Artist Community.

Ewart (pictured, bottom left), who plays a whole arsenal of woodwinds, percussion, and self-made instruments, was one of early members of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and has performed and/or recorded with many of the most important creative musicians of the past half-century. There's more about Ewart, including videos of some of his live performances, in this post from last Saturday.

Sunday, December 3
It's another day for matinees, as the St. Louis Jazz Club presents Cornet Chop Suey playing traditional jazz and swing at the Moolah Shrine Temple, while the Friends of Scott Joplin present their monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site's Rosebud Cafe.

Also on Sunday afternoon, the UMSL Jazz Ensemble directed by Jim Widner, Vocal Point, and University Orchestra will present their annual free concert, "UMSL's Jazz For The Holidays," at the Touhill Performing Arts Center; and trumpeter Randy Holmes, singer and impressionist Dean Christopher, and a mini-big band will pay tribute to Frank Sinatra and Hoagy Carmichael at the Webster Groves Concert Hall.

Monday, December 4
Trumpeter Jim Manley is back at Momo's Greek Restaurant, and Washington University's student jazz combos will show off what they've learned this semester in a free performance at the 560 Music Center.

Tuesday, December 5
Dean Christopher, having a busy week, headlines "A Vegas 'Rat Pack and More' Christmas" 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.)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Douglas Ewart

Today, let's take a look at some videos featuring multi-instrumentalist Douglas Ewart, who's coming to St. Louis to perform with the STL Free Jazz Collective in a free concert next Saturday, December 2 at the 14th Street Artists Community.

Ewart, who's 71 years old, plays various saxophones and woodwind instruments, hand drums, and instruments of his own design. Born in Jamaica, he moved to Chicago as a teenager, and first gained wide attention as an early member of that city's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, later serving as the AACM's president from 1979 to 1986.

He has led his own bands in a variety of instrumental configurations and multi-disciplinary performances, and has recorded as a leader and collaborator with many of the well-known musicians associated with the AACM, as well as with Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, and various other creative improvisors and composers.

Given that Ewart and his St. Louis collaborators will be improvising most, if not all, of next Saturday's performance, there's no way to "preview" the show in terms of specific musical content. That said, today's collection of videos, drawn from various Ewart performances in the last eight years, should provide at least some idea of his sound and general approach to making music.

First up is an excerpt from Ewing's set at an observance of John Coltrane's 90th birthday in September 2016 at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, in which he plays solo with two dancers, Jay Jao and Taiga Ultan.

After the jump, you can see a couple of excerpts from the set performed by Ewart and his band Inventions in September 2015 at the Chicago Jazz Festival in Millennium Park. Along with Ewart, the group includes Mankwe Ndosi (voice, poetry, percussion), Maggie Brown (voice, percussion), Duriel Harris (poetry, percussion), Dee Alexander (voice, percussion), Mwata Bowden (winds, percussion), Edward Wilkerson (winds, percussion), Jeff Parker (guitar), Dushun Mosley (drums), Darius Savage (bass), Kidd Jordan (saxophone), and Willie Pickens (piano).

The fourth clip is a piece called "Manalapho," written in 2013 in tribute to Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager killed in a 2012 shooting that sparked outrage across the country.

That's followed by Ewart and another iteration of Inventions, as recorded in 2009 at the Vision Festival in NYC. This version of the group features Ewart, the Art Ensemble of Chicago's Joseph Jarman and St. Louis' own J.D. Parran on various woodwinds, along with pianist Donald Smith, percussionist Thurman Barker, and poet Amiri Baraka.

The final video is an interview with Ewart, recorded in 2011 on the occasion of the release of his album Songs of Sunlife on innova Recordings, in which he discusses the album, his life, and influences.

For more about Douglas Ewart, check out the interview with him published in 2015 on the website of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, where Ewart now lives; and his interview from that same year with the NY Jazz Record.

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

Douglas Ewart to perform with STL Free Jazz Collective on Saturday, December 2

Multi-instrumentalist Douglas Ewart is coming to St. Louis to perform with the STL Free Jazz Collective at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, December 2 at the 14th Street Artist Community, 2701 N 14th St in the Old North neighborhood.

The concert is free and open to the public, thanks to funding from the Regional Arts Commission.

Ewart (pictured), who plays various saxophones and woodwind instruments, hand drums, and instruments of his own design, was an early member of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and served as the AACM's president from 1979 to 1986.

He has collaborated in performance and on recordings with many of the well-known musicians associated with the AACM, as well as with Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, and numerous other creative improvisors and composers. Ewart, who now lives in Minneapolis, last played in St. Louis in 2010 at Webster University's Community Music School.

The STL Free Jazz Collective includes "Baba" Mike Nelson (trumpet, shells, percussion), Jerome "Jay Dubs" Williams (alto sax), Jim Hegarty (piano, electronics), Paul Steinbeck (bass), Gary Sykes (drums, percussion), and Michael Castro (poet). You can see a video of their last performance at the 14th St. Artist Community here.