Jazz this week: Bela Fleck & the Africa Project; a tribute to Eddie Jefferson; Jan Shapiro; Matt Wilson; Ntozake Shange & Hamiet Bluiett; and more

There's lots going on in St. Louis over the next few days with regard to jazz and creative music, so let's go right to the highlights, starting with tonight when the much-anticipated Bela Fleck and the Africa Project tour comes to the Sheldon Concert Hall. For more on the Africa Project, see this article that I wrote for last week's Riverfront Times. Also, new this week, Playback STL's Amy Burger has a piece on the show here.

Next up come three performances in which the human voice will play a key role, beginning with "The Genius of Eddie Jefferson," which opens tonight at Jazz at the Bistro and runs through Saturday. This tribute to the late jazz singer and lyricist features vocalists Carla Cook and Allan Harris and pianist Eric Reed, and there's lots to see and hear about them and Jefferson in this post from last Saturday.

Also, Jazz St. Louis is offering a two-tickets-for-the-price-of-one deal for the 8:30 p.m. show on Thursday only; for details on how to get the discount, see this post. As a longtime fan of Eddie Jefferson, I'm glad to see his music revisited in this way; the fact that it can be done by two singers as different from Jefferson (and each other) as Cook and Harris certainly is a testament to its wide range of expression and long-lasting appeal.

On Thursday night, singer and St. Louis expat Jan Shapiro, who now heads the jazz vocal program at Berklee College of Music in Boston, will perform with guitarist William Lenihan in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University. As you'd expect from a vocal teacher, Shapiro's got a fine technique, and unlike many of the more callow female singers on the scene today, she's lived enough to know how to use that technique to best advantage while imbuing her song interpretations with some real emotional weight.

Moving on to Saturday afternoon, the Nu-Art Series will present poet and author Ntozake Shange in a spoken word performance with music from legendary baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett and multi-instrumentalist Dr. London Branch starting at 3:00 p.m. at the Metropolitan Gallery, 2936 Locust St. in downtown St. Louis. The program also will feature the musical group JBMG, which includes the grandchildren of singer Fontella Bass and trumpet player Lester Bowie.

On Saturday evening, trombonist and low brass man Lamar Harris brings his mix of jazz, funk, hip-hop, R&B, classical and who-knows-what-else to downtown's newest live music venue, the St. Louis Jazz Cafe.

Then on Sunday afternoon, drummer Matt Wilson (pictured) and his Quartet will do a matinee starting at 3:00 p.m. at the Black Cat Theatre. in Maplewood. The group, founded in 1996, includes Andrew D’Angelo on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, Jeff Lederer on tenor and soprano saxophones and clarinet, and Chris Lightcap on acoustic and electric bass. Wilson is a consistently interesting drummer as well as a prolific and sometimes provocative bandleader, and given that the Quartet has played together since 1996, they've got a lot of shared experience and repertoire to mine, which should make for an entertaining and musically substantive show.

UPDATE, 4/1/09, 1:00 p.m. - As yr. humble editor is not really the charity-party type, I neglected to mention in the first version of this post that this Sunday is also the date of Jazz St. Louis' annual fundraising gala, which begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark. The event features dinner, an auction, cocktail music from the Jazz St. Louis All-Stars student ensemble, and a headlining set from the lovely Italian-born, Berklee-educated singer Chiara Civello.

Tickets are $250 per person. I don't know if there's any room left as of this writing, but if you'd like to go, you can contact Melissa Jones at Jazz St. Louis by calling 314-289-4037 or via email at melissa@jazzstl.org to ask about ticket availability.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Sunday night, the eclectically funky Good 4 The Soul plays the early set at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups, and the St. Louis New Jazz X-Tet holds forth as usual at Riddles. On Monday night, the Sessions Big Band returns to BB's, and on Tuesday, Bennett Wood and Friends are back at The Gramophone.

As always, these are just some of the more noteworthy shows happening around St. Louis this week, and with the start of a new month, there will undoubtedly some updates and additions over the next few days. To see the latest listings for jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

(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: Previewing "The Genius of Eddie Jefferson"

Today, we've got a wealth of material related to "The Genius of Eddie Jefferson", a tribute to the late jazz singer starring vocalists Allan Harris and Carla Cook and pianist Eric Reed that will be performed here in St. Louis starting Wednesday, April 1 through Saturday, April 4 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Jefferson, who was born August 3, 1918, first gained wide public recognition thanks to "Moody's Mood For Love," a lyric he wrote to a solo improvised by saxophonist James Moody on a recording of the standard "I'm In The Mood For Love." Although Jefferson didn't get a hit record out of it - the version recorded in 1952 by Clarence "King Pleasure" Beeks had a greater initial impact - the idea of writing lyrics to pre-existing jazz solos and compositions caught on, eventually becoming known as "vocalese."

Performers such as Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, the Manhattan Transfer, Al Jarreau, George Benson (who recorded "Moody's Mood"), and many others certainly owe a major creative and conceptual debt to Eddie Jefferson, who, after periods of relative inactivity during the 1960s, enjoyed something of a career renaissance during the 1970s. Tragically, Jefferson was shot and killed in May, 1979 after leaving a gig at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit; a suspect in the murder was tried and acquitted, and the case officially remains unsolved.

In addition to his legacy as one of the creators of vocalese, Jefferson left behind a number of fine recordings showcasing his rough-hewn vocal timbre and energetic, hard-swinging style; for a discography of his work, go here. And for even more on his life and career, check out "Music Makes the World Go Round: A Tribute to Eddie Jefferson," a program originally aired in 1980 by KPFA radio in Berkeley, CA and now available online in both downloadable and streaming forms via archive.org.

As for Harris, Cook and Reed, they did a similar tribute to Jefferson last year for Jazz at Lincoln Center in NYC, and it was the subject of one of JALC's audio "jazzcasts," which you can still hear online in streaming form here. You can even follow along with the script, in either HTML or .pdf format. (If you can't get the audio to stream from the link above, go to JALC's podcast archive page here and look for the program from 8/28/08.)

Alas, there doesn't seem to be any video online of Harris, Reed and Carr's JALC performances, instead, we've got some other relevant clips for you, starting up top with a extended excerpt from one of Eddie Jefferson's last performances.

This footage was recorded on May 6, 1979 at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago, just three days before Jefferson was shot and killed. It runs just under 50 minutes, and features Jefferson singing a number of songs from his then-current repertoire. He's accompanied by saxophonist Richie Cole, a frequent touring and recording partner in Jefferson's later years, and a rhythm section of Joel Spencer (drums), Kelly Sill (bass,) and John Campbell (piano).

(The video of this show was originally issued years ago on VHS by Rhapsody Films, but apparently has gone out of print. There are a number of shorter excerpts and individual songs from this show posted online at YouTube, Google Video and elsewhere, but this is the longest and most complete version I could find.)

Down below, we've got clips of the three performers who will be in St. Louis to pay tribute to Jefferson, starting with Carla Cook, seen in the first embedded video window singing "The Way You Look Tonight." This live-in-the-studio clip was put out to promote Cook's CD It's All About Love by her record label, St. Louis-based MAXJAZZ.

Next up is Allan Harris, in a video recorded in September 2007 at the Blue Note in NYC, where he was celebrating the release of Long Live The King, a CD paying tribute to Nat "King" Cole. The video features snippets from several Cole songs, as performed by Harris, Jesse Jones Jr. on sax and flute, Dan Kaufman on piano, Paul Beaudry on bass, and Ulysses Owens on drums.

Last, but not least, is pianist Eric Reed, who, like Cook, may be familiar to St. Louis listeners from his recordings for MAXJAZZ. This clip was made at the NYC club Smoke, and feature Reed in a trio setting playing a tune called "Why?"

Jazz St. Louis offering 2-for-1 deal on tickets for Eddie Jefferson tribute

Via a local email list, Jazz St. Louis is offering two tickets for the price of one for a performance of "The Genius of Eddie Jefferson" next week at Jazz at the Bistro. The tribute to the late jazz singer Jefferson (pictured), who is credited as one of the inventors of vocalese, will feature pianist Eric Reed and singers Carla Cook and Allan Harris, and runs next from Wednesday, April 1 through Saturday, April 4 at the Bistro.

Tickets are $30, and the 2-for-the-price-of-1 deal is available ONLY for the performance at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 2. To get the discount, buy your tickets in advance by calling 314-289-4030 and mentioning promotional code FC0901 when you place your order.