Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* Trumpeter, former member of the Black Artists Group and St. Louis native Baikida Carroll is the winner of the 2020 FONT Music Award of Recognition, which was presented to him in an online event Wednesday night as part of this year's Festival Of New Trumpet Music (aka FONT Music).
Carroll (pictured) was lauded for being "one of trumpet’s most original and creative voices since the early ‘70s." You can see an archived video of the award presentation, which includes performance footage featuring Carroll and commentary from fellow musicians, here.
* Singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja will be one of four featured performers for the "Jazz's Rising Star virtual White Plains Jazzfest" at 8:00 p.m. EDT tonight. Olatuja, fellow vocalist Veronica Swift, and pianists Connie Han and Matthew Whitaker each will present short live sets, and then take part in a moderated discussion. You can preregister to view the event via Zoom here, or watch on Facebook.
* Saxophonist David Sanborn has announced that he'll be teaching online master classes in November, sharing techniques and tips and taking questions from a group of 10 to 12 students for a couple of hours on four consecutive Sunday afternoons. Signup details are TBA via Sanborn's website and Facebook page.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* Drummer Jimmy Cobb, the last surviving musician to have played on Miles Davis' historic album Kind of Blue, is ailing and need of financial assistance.
Cobb (pictured), who's now 91 years old, also played on Davis' Sketches of Spain as well as hundreds more sessions and thousands of live dates from the 1950s into the present day.
Cobb's daughter has put up a GoFundMe page to help raise money for his medical and living expenses. You can find out more and, if you wish, donate here.
* The Muny is looking for photos of Gaslight Square for use this summer in a production of Smokey Joe's Cafe, the "jukebox musical" built from the catalog of songwriter Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. The photos may be used for show promotion, a preshow element, and/or and could be featured in the production. Deadline to submit is Wednesday, April 1; for details, visit http://muny.org/smokeyjoescafe/photo-submission/
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* The first episode of saxophonist David Sanborn's new web video series "Sanborn Sessions" went live online this week on Tuesday. You can see the episode, which features pianist and singer Kandace Springs, in the embedded video window up above or on YouTube.
* St. Louis Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts is co-sponsoring a workshop on "Understanding Taxes for Music Professionals" starting at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, Saturday, December 7 at the offices of TechArtista, 4818 Washington Blvd in the Central West End. See details and registration information here.
* Also as reported in the Post-Dispatch, the south side venue Foam, which over the last ten years has hosted free improv performances among its eclectic variety of live music, will close permanently on Sunday, December 29.
This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes a return visit from one of the top big bands working today and homecoming shows from a couple of St. Louis natives, plus a bunch of holiday-themed performances and more.
Also on Wednesday, singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja performs for the first of five nights at Jazz St. Louis.
Olatuja (pictured, top left) earlier this year released her second album, Intuition: Songs from the Minds of Women, which features original material and songs from female composers including Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman, Kate Bush and more. For more about that, plus some videos of recent live performances by Olatuja, check out this post from Saturday before last.
Thursday, December 5
Pianist Kim Portnoy and guitarist William Lenihan will lead a quartet in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.
Friday, December 6
Singer and St. Louis native Craig Pomranz(pictured, bottom left) will be back home for a visit from his current digs in NYC to perform his cabaret show “The Power of Song!” for one night only at the Kranzberg Arts Center.
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.)
This week, it's time to take a look at some videos featuring singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja, who's coming back home to perform starting Wednesday, December 4 though Sunday, December 8 at Jazz St. Louis.
Having played the Bistro previously as a guest artist with both drummer Ulysses Owens Jr and harmonica player Grégoire Maret, this will be Olatuja's second time headlining her own shows at the venue. You can read more of her back story and watch some performance videos from earlier in her career in this post that ran before her first gig there in 2018.
This visit comes after the release earlier this year of Olatuja's second album Intuition: Songs From the Minds of Women, which, as it says on the tin, features music by women composers, including songs by Joni Mitchell, Sade, Tracy Chapman, Kate Bush and more as well as some original material.
You can see her performing one of the songs from Intuition in the first video up above, a version of "Child of The Moon," which was written by singer/songwriter Natalya Phillips and recorded in a live session in March for radio station TSF Jazz in Paris.
After the jump, check out Olatuja's take on Chapman's hit "Give Me One Reason," recorded in March 2019 at the Moss Theater in Santa Monica, CA.
After that, you can see her performing the standard "Everything Must Change" as part of Ulysses Owens Jr.'s "Songs of Freedom" project, and two excerpts of songs recorded during 2018 run of shows in St. Louis, "Love Me Still" and "Be My Husband," as captured by local videographer James Ross.
The final video embed is an audio-only interview with Olatuja from April 2019, in which she talks about her career and Intuition on the podcast "Doing Jazz with Lorens Chuno."
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* The Kranzberg Arts Foundation this week announced the St. Louis Music Initiative, consisting of three related projects intended to promote the local music scene.
St. Louis Music Week, set for September 4 through September 13, 2020, will "actively market and promote music events at participating music venues...to showcase the depth and breadth of music offerings available throughout the region."
The week will conclude with Music at the Intersection, a three-day event featuring more than 60 local acts performing at various venues in Grand Center. Then in 2021, the foundation will present the Midwest Music Summit, which is "designed to build music industry infrastructure in St. Louis through panels, workshops, exhibitions and classes."
* In the latest development regarding the financial troubles of community radio station KDHX, the Riverfront Times' Daniel Hill reports that the Kranzberg Arts Foundation will take over the first floor of the KDHX building, which includes a performance space, The Stage at KDHX, and a bar/cafe that has gone through several iterations and operators since opening in 2014.
* More than a year after the last-minute cancellation of the Loufest music festival, St. Louis Public Radio's Jeremy Goodwin reports that the festival's former sound and lighting contractor Logic Systems is suing LouFest promoter Listen Live Entertainment and its managing partner Mike Van Hee for defamation, malicious prosecution, and abuse of process.
* The Miles Davis official merchandise store is offering fans a chance to win a $100 shopping spree in exchange for an email address. You can enter the drawing here.
* Capitalizing on the St. Louis Blues' run for the NHL's Stanley Cup, singer and multi-instrumentalist Tonina Saputo has recorded a video of her cover version of "Gloria," the 1982 hit by singer Laura Branigan that has become the team's victory anthem. You can see the video here.
That would be saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer(pictured) who, while born in Carbondale, IL, grew up in St. Louis and did his first professional work as a musician here. He's joined in the class of 2019 by saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, singer Dinah Washington, and drummer Chick Webb.
Responding to the cancellation announcement in a Facebook post, U City Jazz Fest organizer Michael Silverman said he's now looking for an alternate location to stage the event on Saturday, June 8. Watch this space for more as this story develops...
JSL will supply the sounds, Big Muddy Dance Company will create the choreography, and Shakespeare Festival St. Louis will "weave the pieces together with Shakespearean scenes and sonnets." The fourth partner, Nine Network, will host three free performances of the work on October 3, 4 and 5 at its Public Media Commons.
* The final performance of the 2019 Vision Festival, set for June 9-16 at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY, will be a tribute to the late saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett, led by his friend and collaborator, pianist D.D. Jackson, and featuring U City native and drummer Ronnie Burrage, saxophonists James Carter and Darius Jones, bassist William Parker, and percussionist Juma Sultan.
Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* Intuition: Songs From The Minds of Women, the new album (pictured) from singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja that's set for release next Friday, February 22, was reviewed by DownBeat.
The album will include tracks from bassist Bob DeBoo; keyboardists Mo Egeston, Jesse Gannon, Owen Ragland and Ptah Williams; singer Anita Jackson, saxophonist Ben Reece; multi-instrumentalist and singer Tonina Saputo; and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor.
Recorded last year and mixed at Clayton Studios by Tazu Marshall and Mike Silverman, the compilation will be available on streaming services, as a digital download, and as a CD, which will be sold locally at Vintage Vinyl, Music Record Shop, and Euclid Records, and at various affiliated venues such as Sophie’s Artist Lounge and The Dark Room.
* In a separate announcement, the Kranzberg Arts Foundation has put out a call for applicants for their next group of music artists-in-residence. In addition to a chance to appear on next year's compilation album, selected participants will get "performance, rehearsal and recording opportunities, as well as marketing support, office space, and industry education and access to assist them with advancing and building their careers."
Sunday, March 31 is the deadline to apply; for more information or to complete an application, visit the KAF website.
The grants range in size from $100,000 to $500,000, with JSL getting get $350,000 for demonstrating "outstanding artistic programs and visionary leadership."
* Also putting out new music this month is drummer/keyboardist and U City native Ronnie Burrage. Recording under the group name Holographic Principle, Burrage, keyboardist Michal Wierba, and bassist Nimrod Speaks will release Dance of the Great Spirit on Friday, February 15 via Truth Revolution Records. They'll promote the album (pictured) with a performance on Saturday, February 16 at the Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
* The results of this year's DownBeat Readers Poll are out, and there's a winner with a St. Louis connection, as Miles Davis & John Coltrane, The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6got the most votes in the "Historical Album" category.
* Saxquest will present their 2018 Woodwind Musical Instrument Expo from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 17 at the Donald D Shook Fine Arts Building on the campus of St. Charles Community College.
Participating manufacturers will include Buffet-Crampon, Selmer, Yamaha, Yanagisawa, Keilwerth, P. Mauriat, Eastman, Haynes, Powell, Muramatsu, Fox, Loree, BG, D'Addario and Vandoren, and attendees at the free event can pre-register to get access to a private sound room and more.
* The 2018 St. Louis International Film Festival, which will take place Thursday, November 1 through Sunday, November 11 at various venues around town, will include a couple of documentaries that may be of particular interest to StLJN readers.
The Jazz Ambassadors, which premiered earlier this year on PBS, will be shown at 4:00 p.m. Saturday, November 4 at Brown Hall on the Washington University campus. It tells the story of how American jazz musicians including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie toured the world during the Cold War on behalf of the US Government, examining the contradictions they faced in promoting the ideal of equality abroad while enduring segregation at home.
Also of interest, Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes will be screened at 6:00 p.m. Sunday, November 11 at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus, followed immediately by a performance by pianist Adam Maness' trio. The film "explores the vision behind the iconic American jazz label...through current recording sessions, rare archival footage, and conversations with iconic Blue Note artists."
It's another jam-packed week of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with two esteemed pianists appearing back-to-back at one of the city's best-sounding halls; a retrospective of music from three of the 1960s' most provocative female vocalists, starring a St. Louis native; a couple of events raising scholarship money for local music students; and more. Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, April 11
Drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. presents his show "Songs of Freedom," with featured vocalists Joanna Majoko and St. Louis' own Alicia Olatuja, for the first of four nights at Jazz at the Bistro. Developed by Owens for Jazz at Lincoln Center, the production explores the 1960s through the music of Joni Mitchell, Abbey Lincoln, and Nina Simone.
Also on Wednesday, trumpeter Jim Manley is back at Sasha's Wine Bar, and the weekly "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features saxophonist Andy Ament at The Stage at KDHX, a jam session led by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's band at The Dark Room.
Friday, April 13
Pianist Ramsey Lewis (pictured, top left) is the headline attraction at the Sheldon Concert Hall's annual benefit gala. The concert is billed as Lewis playing the music of the Beatles, but don't be surprised if he slips in a couple of his own hits like "The In Crowd" or "Sun Goddess" along with his interpretations of the Fab Four. As usual with their benefit performances, the Sheldon is offering a limited number of concert-only tickets; contact their box office for availability.
Saturday evening, pianist Abdullah Ibrahim(pictured, bottom left) and his band Ekaya, featuring trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, will present "Jazz Epistles - The Story in Concert" at the Sheldon Concert Hall.
The Jazz Epistles were one of Ibrahim's first bands, bringing a hard bop sound modeled on Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers to his native South Africa in the late '50s, and he's been touring this tribute show since last year with various trumpeters standing in for the late Hugh Masekela, who was part of the original Jazz Epistles and had planned to . For more about Ibrahim and this retrospective show, plus a video from this current tour and more, check out this post from last Saturday.
Also on Saturday, pianist Greg Mills will present original improvisations in a free concert at St. Louis University's Xavier Hall; the Midwest Jazz-tette plays West Coast jazz at the Webster Groves Concert Hall; and Acoustik Element will be joined by percussionists Baba Mike and Matt Henry for a show at Joe's Cafe & Art Gallery. Sunday, April 15
There's more matinee action on Sunday , as singer Joe Mancuso brings his organ trio to the house concert venue The Judson House, and drummer Chuck Kennedy, pianist Curt Landes, bassist Glen Smith, and singers Valerie Tichacek, Trish Richardson and Tom Kozlowski will present their take on Liverpool's most famous hitmakers, "The Beatles Go Jazz," at the Webster Groves Concert Hall.
Tuesday, April 17
Improvisational keyboardist Thollem, violinist Alex Cunningham, and singer/pianist Ellen the Felon will perform on a triple bill at Foam; and drummer Montez Coleman and guitarist Eric Slaughter will host "The Tuesday Night Hit" jam session at The Dark Room.
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.)
For the second consecutive week, the calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features performances by a local expat making a triumphant return home after earning national acclaim.
For more about that and the other jazz shows happening around town, let's go to the highlights...
Known by her maiden name Alicia Miles while growing up in St. Louis, Olatuja has seen her career take off since she gained national attention in 2013 as a featured soloist at President Barack Obama's second inauguration. With one solo album under her belt and another set for release later this year, she's not a household name yet, but her star definitely seems on the rise.
Olatuja was a featured guest last year during harmonica player Gregoire Maret's week at the Bistro, and she'll be back in a few weeks with drummer Ulysses Owens Jr's "Songs of Freedom" project, but this will be her debut performance as a headliner at the venue, so expect a good turnout from the hometown crowd. For more about Alicia Olatuja, plus some video samples of past live performances, see this post from last Saturday.
At the dinner hour, check out pianist Ptah Williams playing at The Dark Room, and later in the evening, saxophonist Dave Stone trio's continues their weekly residency at Thurman's in Shaw.
Sunday, February 18
Guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran will play for brunch at The Dark Room, while Miss Jubilee serenades the brunch crowd as 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.)
Today, let's check out some videos featuring singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja, who will be coming back home to perform starting next Wednesday, February 14 through Saturday, February 17 at Jazz at the Bistro.
Olatuja was known by her maiden name Alicia Miles while growing up here and then while attending the University of Missouri. After graduating from Mizzou's School of Music in 2005, she moved to New York City to earn her master's degree at the Manhattan School of Music, eventually meeting and marrying British/Nigerian bassist Michael Olatuja.
The two began working together as The Olatuja Project, releasing an album in 2011. Two years later, Alicia gained international attention for her performance as the featured soloist with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir at President Barack Obama's second inauguration.
That led to interest in her as a solo artist, and in 2014 she released her first album, Timeless. Olatuja gained additional exposure that year on tour with pianist Billy Childs as part of his show “Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro,” and subsequently has performed with other well-known musicians including organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, bassist Christian McBride, and harmonica player Gregoire Maret, with whom she made her Bistro debut last year as a guest vocalist.
Now touring as a headliner with her own band, anchored by her husband as bassist and musical director, and having recently completed a Kickstarter campaign to fund a second album, Intuition-Songs from the Minds of Women, which is expected to be released in June, Olatuja seems well-positioned for even bigger things soon.
You can see her perform a full set of music in the first video up above, which was recorded in October 2014 in NYC, shortly after the release of Timeless.
After the jump, you can see three performances recorded in August 2015 at Dizzy's Club at Lincoln Center in NYC, starting with a cover of "Love Me Still," originally made famous by Chaka Khan, followed by two of Olatuja's own songs, "In The Dark" and "Truth In Blue."
Next up is a performance of "Serrado," written by the Brazilian singer/songwriter Djavan and recorded in 2014 as a duet with guitarist David Rosenthal.
The final video is an extended interview with Olatuja, just recorded on February 1 of this year before her performance for the Modlin Arts series in Richmond, VA.
This week, StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview continues with part five in a series of posts featuring videos of jazz and creative music performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the first few months of the new year. (If you missed the previous installments, you can see part one here, part two here, part three here, and part four here.)
Continuing in chronological order from where last week's post left off, the first video up above features singer and St. Louis native Ken Page, the St. Louis native and star of Broadway and film who will bringing his cabaret act to Jazz at the Bistro on Wednesday, April 4 and Thursday, April 5. Page, who's known for his roles in the original casts of musical theater megahits such as Ain't Misbehavin' and Cats, as well as for his voice characterization of Oogie Boogie in Tim Burton's animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas, is seen here in a demo reel compiled to showcase his talents for potential bookings.
Page will be followed on the Bistro stage by drummer Allison Miller, trumpeter Riley Mulherkar and saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, who will be in town that week to do an educational residency for Jazz St. Louis and will cap it with performances on Friday, April 6 and Saturday, April 7 at the Bistro.
As with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Group that's here this week at the Bistro, Miller, Mulherkar and Lefkowitz-Brown (and presumably a local support musician or two) will be joining forces specifically for this gig, so the only available footage to show you is of them performing individually.
Miller can be seen in the first video after the jump with her band Boom Tic Boom, performing "Fuster," the opening track from their album Otis Was a Polar Bear, at a gig in May 2016 in Philadelphia. (Along with the leader on drums, Boom Tic Boom includes pianist Myra Melford, violinist Jenny Scheinman, cornetist Kirk Knuffke, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and bassist Todd Sickafoose.)
After that, you can see Mulherkar playing Duke Ellington's "Echoes of Harlem" in a jam session last April at the Kranzberg Arts Center right here in St. Louis, accompanied by bassist Bob DeBoo and drummer Montez Coleman, followed by a clip of Lefkowitz-Brown playing Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite" with his quartet, which includes Takeshi Ohbayashi on piano, Tamir Shmerling on bass, and Bryan Carter on drums.
Next up at the Bistro will be "Songs of Freedom," a show developed by drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr that will be performed by a group led by him and featuring vocalists Alicia Olatuja and Joanna Majoko starting Wednesday, April 11 and continuing through Saturday, April 14 at the Bistro.
First presented at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, "Songs of Freedom" is based on the music of what the promotional copy calls "three iconic voices of the 1960s--Joni Mitchell, Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone--and the complex ways in which they call out to each other."
Unfortunately, none of the previous performances seem to have been recorded on video and put online, so instead in today's fourth clip you can see a full set of Owens leading a band with bassist Reuben Rogers, vibraphonist Joel Ross, and singer Vuyo Sotashe last August as Dizzy's Club in NYC.
That's followed by a clip of Majoko singing "Bye Bye Blackbird" recorded a couple of years ago at UMFM studios in Winnipeg, MB, Canada, accompanied by Jocelyn Gould (guitar), Carter Graham (keyboard), Karl Kohut (bass), and Curtis Nowosad (drums). (St. Louis native Olatuja can be seen in last week's post, which previewed, among others, her solo shows in February at the Bistro.)
The same night that Owens and company wrap up at the Bistro, pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and his band Ekaya will be in town to perform on Saturday, April 14 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.
Ibrahim originally was scheduled to be joined by trumpeter Hugh Masekela for a program recounting the history of the Jazz Epistles, South Africa's first bebop band, of which both men were members.
However, Masekela's health issues have caused him to cancel all his live shows for the first part of 2018, so as of this writing, the concert is still set to go on, but no replacement trumpeter has been announced yet.
It was announced this past week that the estimable Wadada Leo Smith will be performing with Ibrahim for dates next month at SFJAZZ in San Francisco, which ought to make for a very interesting collaboration. And Ibrahim has worked with some other very capable trumpeters, too, as in the next clip, which shows him and Ekaya plus special guest Terence Blanchard in a full set recorded last July at the Jazzaldia festival in Donosti, Spain.
The One O'Clock Lab Band, which is UNT's top student ensemble, can be seen in the penultimate clip performing "Harlem Nocturne" in a show last November on campus. That's followed by a video of a full show from the Big Phat Band, recorded in November 2015 at the Los Angeles College of Music.
Look for part six of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview next week in this space. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
It's a busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with an eclectic selection of visiting performers offering something for listeners with tastes ranging from vintage jazz to mainstream to experimental.
Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, April 12
Harmonica player Grégoire Maret, with singer and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja as his featured guest, opens a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro.
One of a scant handful of headlining jazz performers on his chosen instrument, Maret (pictured, top left), may be making his St. Louis debut as a bandleader, but he already has quite a thriving career, having played with Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, Marcus Miller and many other well-known musicians before releasing his first album as a leader in 2012. You can find out more about him and see and hear some samples of his virtuoso technique in this post from last Saturday.
Thursday, April 13
In a relatively last-minute addition to their previously announced season schedule, New Music Circle will present trumpeter Peter Evans' new electro-acoustic septet at the new performance space and "arts incubator" .ZACK (aka the Cadillac Building, recently the site of the nightclub Plush).
This band is an expanded version of Evans' long-running quintet, described as "a 21st century chamber ensemble dedicated to a broad range of creativity, drawing on dense notated scores, free improvisation, novel combinations of acoustic and electronic sounds, the seamless incorporation of electronic instruments into live improvised textures, and a performance energy channeling both intensity and sincerity."
The event also will feature music from DJ Jeff Michael and a video and art installation created by Elizabeth Moore, Chad Eivins, Kevin Harris, Matthew Kelly Debbaudt, Jeremy Kannapell, and Stan Chisholm
Based in Bloomington, IN, Liberation Music Collective (pictured, bottom left) is a self-described "socially conscious big band" made up of past and present students at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music who are "dedicated to performing original compositions about contemporary social issues." LMC's visit will include an afternoon workshop for young musicians, followed by an early evening "Jazz for Justice" concert.
Tuesday, April 18
The SIUE Concert and Alumni Jazz Bands will take the stage at Jazz at the Bistro, and the Handsome Devils Trio, in from New Orleans for a weeknight show without their lead singer Naomi, will perform for "NOLA Swing Night" at HandleBar in the Grove.
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.)
Today, it's the fourth installment of StLJN's winter/spring 2017 jazz preview, presenting videos of the jazz and creative music artists who will be coming to our town to perform over the next few months. The preview posts are in chronological order of their appearances here; you can see part one here, part two here, and part three here.
Leading off today is pianist Laurence Hobgood, who will play with his trio on Wednesday, April 5 and Thursday, April 6 at Jazz at the Bistro. Hobgood, known for for his long association with singer Kurt Elling, has concentrated more on his own music since leaving Elling's band in 2013, and he's seen here playing solo back in August, 2014 for the Chicago Jazz Festival's "PianoForte Sessions" in a hour-long session that also includes interview segments with host Barry Winograd.
Next up, Jazz St. Louis will bring together four young jazz stars with Midwestern roots, as trumpeter Keyon Harrold, pianist Lawrence Fields, saxophonist Adam Larson, and drummer Kimberly Thompson join forces for two nights of performances on Friday, April 7 and Saturday, April 8 at the Bistro.
These dates should inspire a healthy turnout of hometown fans, as Harrold, Fields and Thompson all are originally from St. Louis, and Larson is from just up the the road in Bloomington, IL. All four will be working with local music students for the preceding week, then wrapping up their residencies with the weekend shows.
Since this a band brought together specifically for the occasion, there's no video of all four of them together; instead, they are featured here individually, starting with the first clip after the jump, a full set of Keyon Harrold and his band recorded in April, 2016 at the Boiler Room New York.
Below that, you can see Fields performing with trumpeter Christian Scott's band, playing John Coltrane's composition "Equinox" at the 2016 Montreux Jazz Festival. Fields is featured with a nice long solo that starts at about 6:50 into the clip and continues for more than three minutes. In addition to Scott and Fields, the rest of the ensemble includes Elena Pinderhughes (flute), Braxton Cook (alto sax), Kris Funn (bass), and Corey Fonville (drums).
The fourth clip features Larson, accompanied by pianist Fabian Almazan, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Jimmy Macbride, playing his composition "The Dope Pope" at Birdland in NYC. That's followed by Thompson showing off her chops and use of textures and space in an extended solo recorded during the "Hit Like A Girl" drum festival in April of last year.
The final two videos feature the following week's attractions at the Bistro, harmonica player Gregoire Maret and guest vocalist Alicia Olatuja, who will be in town to perform at the club starting Wednesday, April 12 through Saturday, April 15. Maret is seen here playing "The Gospel" at the 2016 Montreux Jazz Festival, followed by Olatuja singing her original composition "In The Dark" at a gig in August 2015 at Dizzy's Club in NYC's Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Look for the fifth part of StLJN's winter/spring 2017 jazz preview next week. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
