Jazz this week: Garfield, Ligertwood & Friends, "A Jazz Heaven," and more

This week's calendar of jazz and creative music performances in and around town features the returns of several notable St. Louis expat musicians as well as shows paying tribute to both local and all-time jazz greats.

Let's go to the highlights...

Thursday, August 27
Tonight, guitarist Tom Byrne and singer Erika Johnson will perform at Evangeline's; and the Tavern of Fine Arts presents their monthly "Experimental Arts Open Improv Night" with live improvised music.

Friday, August 28
Keyboardist David Garfield and singer Alex Ligertwood (pictured, top left) return to join forces with guitarist Marvin Horne, saxophonist Jim Stevens, and friends for a performance at at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups.

Garfield, a Metro East native who's toured extensively with George Benson, and Ligertwood, a Scotsman who's sung with Brian Auger and Santana, have teamed up with Stevens and band for a couple of previous gigs here, and with the addition of Horne, another former St. Louisan, this show should offer plenty of funk and fireworks.

Also on Friday, singer, songwriter, guitarist and former St. Louisan Javier Mendoza (pictured, center left) returns from his new home in Nashville to front Estereotipo, the latest iteration of his Latin/jazz project, for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro.

Elsewhere around town, singer Tony Viviano will perform in concert at the St. Peters Cultural Arts Centre, and guitarist Eric Slaughter and bassist Glen Smith return to Thurman Grill.

Saturday, August 29
Trumpeter Randy Holmes leads "A Tribute to Charlie Parker" at the Ozark Theatre; Wack-A-Doo performs at Thurman Grill; Tim Cunningham returns to Troy's Jazz Gallery; and Herman Semidey and Orquesta Son Montuno will play salsa and Latin music for dancing at Club Viva.

Sunday, August 30
Wendy L. Gordon (pictured, lower left) will present the sixth annual show in her "Jazz Heaven" series at the Florissant Civic Center Theatre, this time offering a "Tribute to St. Louis Legends" with help from a cast including Linda Kennedy, Jeanne Trevor, Joe Mancuso, Uvee Hayes, J Samuel Davis and more.

Monday, August 31
"Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective will return to BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

Tuesday, September 1
The First Tuesday Composers Club will spotlight new works for saxophone quartet at The Dark Room.

Wednesday, September 2
Erin Bode will sing standards for the first of two nights to kick off the fall presenting season at Jazz at the Bistro.

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: Kevin Eubanks; Garfield, Ligertwood & Stevens; Emily Bergl; a tribute to Miles Davis; and more

While some revelers this weekend no doubt will be wearing green in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day, your StLJN staff would like to remind you that one doesn't have be Irish, or indeed of any particular national origin or ethnicity, to enjoy jazz, either.

You just have to know where to go and when, and to help you with that, we've compiled these highlights of upcoming jazz and creative music performances in the St. Louis area...

Tonight, bassist Christian McBride, who was just here last month with his trio at Jazz at the Bistro, drops into the area again for a day to do a master class and concert with pianist Peter Martin down I-55 at Jefferson College in Hillsboro.Tickets for the evening concert are only $5 for the general public, so even figuring in that it's a bit of drive from many parts of the area, that's still a bargain.

Meanwhile back in downtown St. Louis, keyboardist and St. Louis expat David Garfield, former musical director for George Benson, and singer Alex Ligertwood, who's toured and recorded with Santana, Average White Band and Brian Auger, will join forces with saxophonist Jim Stevens and his rhythm section for two sets of funk, soul and jazz at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups.

Also tonight, the Gaslight Cabaret Festival resumes with singer and actress Emily Bergl, who's best known for her work in musical theater and a recurring role on ABC's Desperate Housewives, presenting the first of three performances of her show "Until the Real Thing Comes Along" at the Gaslight Theater.

On Friday, pianist and Jazz St. Louis education director Phil Dunlap brings his new quintet to Jazz at the Bistro for the first of two evenings featuring the music of Miles Davis. Along with Dunlap, the group includes trumpeter Danny Campbell, saxophonist Ben Reece, bassist Nathan Pence, and drummer Montez Coleman.

Also on Friday, Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes play at the Atomic Cowboy; singer Wendy Gordon and pianist Arthur Toney perform at the Tavern of Fine Arts; and guitarist Dave Black, violinist Asako Kuboki and saxophonist Paul DeMarinis will team up for a trio show at the house concert venue KindaBlue, 6101 1/2 Idaho in south St. Louis.

On Saturday afternoon, the revived Nu-Art Series will present drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw, pianist David Parker and trumpeter George Sams at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site.

Then on Saturday evening, guitarist Kevin Eubanks (pictured) will play two shows at Lumiere Place Casino's Lumiere Theatre. Eubanks just got back from a series of dates in Europe and Russia with bassist Dave Holland, performing in both a trio format and with the quartet Prism. The former bandleader for Jay Leno's Tonight Show also made news recently when he dropped by Arsenio Hall's syndicated late night program for a chat and a bit of jamming.

Elsewhere around town on Saturday evening, the Pennsylvania-based contemporary chamber music group NakedEye Ensemble will make their St. Louis debut at The Chapel; trombonist Doug Burns returns to Robbie's House of Jazz; Miss Jubilee plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; and The People's Key and Elastik Soul will present "Bold as Jimi: Love as Jazz," a jazz/funk tribute to Jimi Hendrix, at the Schlafly St. Louis Brewery and Tap Room.

On Sunday, multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman and pianist Carolbeth True will be the featured performers at this month's free "Inner Jazz" concert at Kirkwood United Church of Christ; and Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center continues their “Quiet Concert” series with a performance headlined by Kansas City-based electronic musician and composer Jason Zeh.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday the jazz faculty at Webster University will present their annual concert in Winifred Moore Auditorium to raise funds for the school's Shepard/Davis scholarships.

On Tuesday, the Sheldon Concert Hall is busy day and night, starting with a morning "Coffee Concert" (also repeated on Wednesday) featuring Red Lehr and the St. Louis Rivermen, and continuing with an evening performance by trumpeter and singer Dawn Weber as part of the hall's "Notes From Home" series. Also on Tuesday, the Twin Cities jump-blues and swing band Davina and The Vagabonds will be back in town for a show at The Gramophone.

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: Chucho Valdés, Robert Glasper, Ligertwood/Garfield/Stevens, Michael Zerang, Glenn Miller Orchestra, Bonerama, and more

It's definitely a busy week for live jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with so many touring musicians in town that we can barely fit them all into the headline of this post. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, singer Alex Ligertwood, who's worked with Santana and Brian Auger's Oblivion Express, will team up with keyboardist and St. Louis native David Garfield, who's currently working with George Benson, and saxophonist Jim Stevens for a show at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups. For more on how this collaboration came to be and what to expect from the gig, see this post.

Also tonight, pianist Ken Kehner will play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; and singer Erika Johnson and guitarist Eric Slaughter's trio will perform at Robbie's House of Jazz.

Tomorrow night, pianist Robert Glasper (pictured) make his long-awaited St. Louis debut as a leader with the first of two nights Jazz at the Bistro. Glasper has just released a new album, Black Radio, with his group the Experiment that includes guest appearances from R&B and hip-hop performers such as Erykah Badu, Lalah Hathaway, Lupe Fiasco, Bilal, Ledisi, Mos Def and Meshell N'degeocello. Although he's bringing his trio, rather the larger and therefore more costly Experiment, to the Bistro, don't be surprised if a few numbers from the new album turn up reworked in Glasper's sets anyway.

For more about Glasper, you can see and hear an interview with him talking about Black Radio here; and two more short video interviews, titled "Jazz with Hiphop is Music of the NOW" and "Make Jazz Cool Again," provide some additional insight into his approach to music.

Elsewhere on Friday evening, the Chicago-based free-improvising percussionist Michael Zerang, who played here last fall with multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, will return for a duo concert with bassist Darin Gray at Floating Laboratories, 4528 Ohio. Nathan Cook and Rick Weaver will open, with Jeremy Kannapell and Joshua Weinstein serving as hosts and pre-show DJs.

Also on Friday evening, the Glenn Miller Orchestra ghost band makes its annual appearance in the area with a concert in St. Charles at Lindenwood University's Scheidegger Center for the Arts; and there are two Mardi Gras-themed shows featuring local musicians, with the Funky Butt Brass Band and Dogtown Allstars sharing a bill at the Sheldon Concert Hall's upstairs ballroom, and pianist Curt Landes leading a group including Cornet Chop Suey's trumpeter and vocalist Brian Casserly at Robbie's House of Jazz.

On Saturday, there's a chance to hear another outstanding pianist, as the Cuban-born virtuoso Chucho Valdés and his Afro-Cuban Messengers play at the Sheldon Concert Hall. For much more about Valdés, who first came to fame in this country as one of the co-founders of the group Irakere, see this post from last Saturday.

On Sunday afternoon, Bach to the Future will play a matinee at the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville; and that night, the New Orleans based group Bonerama brings their four-trombone front line back to St. Louis for a show at the Old Rock House. The local group Metrobones, which features 14 student trombonists from around the area under the direction of Dave Dickey, will open the show.

Looking beyond the week, on Monday there's a chance to catch two more big bands in action, as Webster University's student big band plays a concert at Winifred Moore Auditorium on campus, while downtown, the Sessions Big Band holds forth at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Then on Tuesday, singer Erin Bode and her band will perform at Jazz at the Bistro, taking over the room's Valentine's Day gig from the husband-and-wife team of Reggie and Mardra Thomas, who had played the Bistro on February 14 for several years running but moved to Michigan last summer. (And in case you were wondering, the tradition of spousal harmony on the gig will continue, as the Erin Bode Group's bassist Syd Rodway also is Bode's husband.)

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.)

(Edited 2/9/12 to add the Erin Bode Valentine's Day gig.)

Ligertwood, Garfield and Stevens to perform Thursday, February 9 at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups

Singer Alex Ligertwood, who's worked with big names including Santana and Brian Auger's Oblivion Express, is coming to St. Louis to perform with keyboardist David Garfield and saxophonist Jim Stevens at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, February 9 at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Garfield, a St. Louis native who's lived in Los Angeles since the 1970s, was in town most recently in October to perform with George Benson at the Touhill, and stuck around to play with Stevens the next night at BB's. The two first met a couple of years ago when Garfield was home for a visit and played a gig at Mineo's restaurant that Stevens attended based on a tip from a mutual friend.

"I went over and checked it out, and he just blew the roof off the place," said Stevens. They struck up a friendship, resulting in Stevens sitting in on another Garfield gig at Mineo's and then their subsequent move to a larger venue, namely BB's, for the keyboardist's last visit home.

In addition to working with Benson, Garfield has led his own bands in Los Angeles, including the fusion group Karizma, which has released six CDs. He's also put out nine CDs under his own name, and toured and/or recorded with a number of musical notables, including Boz Scaggs, Larry Carlton, The Manhattan Transfer, The Rippingtons, Smokey Robinson, Earl Klugh, Michael McDonald and Nancy Wilson. His ongoing collaboration with Ligertwood led to the singer's inclusion on three Midwest dates with this particular ensemble, starting in Indianapolis the night before the BB's gig and moving on to Cleveland afterward.

The band also will include drummer James Jackson and bassist John King, who both work with Stevens as well as with their own group Good 4 The Soul. As for what they'll be playing, Stevens says he hasn't seen a set list yet, but expects some funk and soul covers, some Garfield originals, and perhaps a tune or two from Ligertwood's tenure with Santana.

Tickets for the Ligertwood/Garfield/Stevens show will be $10 general admission at the door; Stevens also is arranging for advance sales by email at thejimstevensgroup@aol.com.