So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:

* Singer and actor Alice Ripley's cabaret show  was previewed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Calvin Wilson.  Ripley performs here tonight and Saturday night for the Gaslight Cabaret Festival.

* Electronic musician and composer John Wiese will present a free, public composition workshop at 3:00 p.m. Wednesday, November 8 in Room 4 of Tietjens Hall on the Washington University campus. Wiese (pictured) will be in St. Louis for a concert presented by New Music Circle on Saturday, November 11 at St. Louis University's Xavier Hall theater.

* The 2018 St. Louis International Film Festival, which will take place November 2-12 at various venues around town, includes a number of films with musical subjects, notably the local premiere of Mr. Handy's Blues, a documentary about "St. Louis Blues" composer W.C. Handy.

The festival's screening of the Handy bio at The Stage at KDHX will be paired with a live performance by singer Valerie "Miss Jubilee" Kirchoff, cornetist TJ Muller, and pianist Ethan Leinwand. You can see the entire festival schedule here.

* Drummer Dave Weckl and bassist Tom Kennedy are headed for Europe next month, touring with guitarist Mike Stern and saxophonist Bob Malach as the Mike Stern/Dave Weckl Band. The group will play dates in Germany, Austria, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, The Netherlands, Switzerland, England, Slovakia and Poland, and then return to the USA for a half-dozen shows in December on the West Coast.

* Pianist Peter Martin's music education video company Open Studio Network was featured in an article on AVClub.com.

* Saxophonist and St. Louis native Greg Osby was interviewed on Philadelphia radio station WRTI's program "The Bridge"

Jazz this week: Harold López-Nussa, Filippo Cosentino, Alice Ripley, and more

This week's calendar of jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes a pianist from Cuba, a guitarist from Italy, a cabaret show from a singer and actress who has earned Broadway's highest honor, and more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, October 18
Cuban-born pianist Harold López-Nussa makes his St. Louis debut in the first of four evenings at Jazz at the Bistro. For more about López-Nussa (pictured, top left) and some video samples of him and his trio in action, see this post from last Saturday.

Also on Wednesday, Bach to the Future and guitarist Dave Black will perform for the Webster Arts series at Cyrano's, and this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features guitarist Eric Slaughter and bassist Glen Smith at KDHX's Magnolia Cafe, the jam session led by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet at The Dark Room.

Thursday, October 19
The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University will present "From Torino - Music of Italian Film Composers," a free concert featuring Italian guitarist Filippo Cosentino, guitarist and bassist William Lenihan, and the Sogni D'Alba String Trio.

Elsewhere around town, violinist Christopher Voelker's trio plays The Pat Connolly Tavern, drummer Kaleb Kirby’s Animal Children returns to The Dark Room, and Cabaret Project St. Louis will present their monthly "Broadway Open Mic" at the Curtain Call Lounge.

Friday, October 20
The Gaslight Cabaret Festival's fall series resumes with Tony Award-winning actress and singer Alice Ripley (pictured, bottom left) performing for the first of two nights at the Gaslight Theater.

Also on Friday, singer Feyza Eren returns to the Webster Groves Concert Hall.

Saturday, October 21
Saxophonist Dave Stone will play a free matinee show at Saxquest, and trumpeter/vibraphonist Joe Bozzi and his band return to Evangeline's

Sunday, October 22
Miss Jubilee will play for brunch at Evangeline's, and singer Chuck Flowers will perform a late-afternoon show BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups

Monday, October 23
Trumpeter Jim Manley plays for diners and drinkers at Momo's Greek Restaurant.

Tuesday, October 24
Bassist, educator and author Paul Steinbeck will discuss his book Message to Our Folks: The Art Ensemble of Chicago in Room 142 of Olin Library on the Washington University campus. The free, public event is part of the Washington University Library Faculty Book Talk series.

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: Fall 2017 jazz preview, part two

This week, it's part two of StLJN's Fall 2017 jazz preview, featuring videos of noteworthy performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the next several months. (You can see part one, published last week, here.)

Picking up the chronology in mid-October where part one left off, today's first video features trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, who will be back in St. Louis to perform on Friday, October 13 and Saturday, October 14 at Jazz at the Bistro. The video shows a full set from Sandoval and his band, recorded in February of this year in Moscow, Russia.

After the jump, it's singer Paula West, who will open the fall series of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival on Friday, October 13 and Saturday October 14 at the Gaslight Theater. West is seen here performing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" as part of a tribute to Bowie in February 2016 at Feinstein's in San Francisco.

Next, it's the recently formed "supergroup" Hudson, featuring drummer Jack DeJohnette, guitarist John Scofield, keyboardist John Medeski, and bassist Larry Grenadier. They'll perform here on Saturday, October 14 at the Sheldon Concert Hall, and can be seen in today's third clip vamping for a few minutes on the title track from their eponymous first album, as recorded on June 30 of this year at the Montreal Jazz Festival.

The fourth video features the young Cuban-born pianist Harold Lopez-Nussa, who will make his St. Louis debut here with performances starting Wednesday, October 18 through Saturday, October 21 at Jazz at the Bistro. He's seen here performing music from his most recent album El Viaje in March of this year at the Banlieues Bleues Festival in Seine-Saint-Denis, France.

The fifth video features actor and singer Alice Ripley, the Tony Award-winning Broadway star who will perform as part of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival on Friday, October 20 and Saturday October 21 at the Gaslight Theater. The video shows Ripley singing "As If We Never Said Goodbye" (from the musical Sunset Boulevard) and was recorded on June 5, 2017 at Feinstein's/54 Below in NYC.

Today's final clip spotlights Sammy Miller and the Congregation, a young band from New Orleans who will cap off a week-long educational residency for Jazz St. Louis with shows on Friday, October 27 and Saturday, October 28 at Jazz at the Bistro. Miller and his flock are seen here performing "Ain't Misbehavin'" in April of this year at the studios of radio station KNKX in Tacoma, WA.

Look for part three of StLJN's Fall 2017 jazz preview in this space next week. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Gaslight Cabaret Festival announces fall series

The Presenters Dolan have announced the fall 2017 series of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival, which will include seven different shows over five weekends at the Gaslight Theater in the Central West End.

The series will begin with jazz singer Paula West on Friday, October 13 and Saturday, October 14.

West (pictured), who's known for her ability to interpret a wide range of material, from the Great American Songbook to contemporary pop and rock, will be accompanied by pianist and music director Bruce Barth, bassist Ben Wheeler, and drummer Montez Coleman.

Next up is Alice Ripley, who won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in Next to Normal, and was in the original Broadway casts of Les Misérables, Sunset Boulevard, Side Show, The Rocky Horror Show, and American Psycho. She'll take the stage of the Gaslight Theater on Friday, October 20 and Saturday, October 21.

The following weekend, singer/pianist Eric Comstock and singer Barbara Fasano will present a show called "Downton Abbey Road: The Best of Britain" on Friday, October 27. As the name suggests, the show is built on songs from an eclectic selection of British songwriters, from Noel Coward and Anthony Newley to the Beatles and Sting.

After that, Ken Haller, one of two St. Louis performers in the series, will present a new holiday-themed show, "Happy Haller Days!" on Thursday, November 2 and Thursday November 9.

Singers Farah Alvin and William Michals will be the next to take the festival stage, bringing their show "Broadway's Greatest Hits of All Time" from Feinstein's in New York City to St. Louis on Friday, November 3 and Saturday, November 4.

For the series' final weekend, former St. Louisan Katie McGrath, who moved to NYC last year, will return on Friday, November 10 with her show "Significant Others," and Emily Skinner, who's been nominated for Tony Awards for her work in Broadway shows including Side Show, Billy Elliot and The Full Monty, will wrap things up with a performance called "Broadway Her Way" on Saturday, November 11.

Single ticket prices for the Gateway Cabaret Festival range from $30 to $45, depending on the show, and there's a 10% discount for a subscription of five shows or more. For more information or to buy tickets, visit the Gaslight Cabaret Festival website.