So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Following up on a story from last week, artist Ray Harvey has completed his mural of the late trumpeter Clark Terry on a building in the Carondelet neighborhood, and St. Louis magazine has a photo of the finished work and an interview with Harvey.

* On a related note, the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, directed by trumpeter Byron Stripling, last week debuted a newly commissioned big band suite paying tribute to Terry. You can read a review of the performance here.

* A story in Wednesday's Alton Telegraph detailed the financial woes of radio station WSIE. With the state of Illinois poised to withdraw all support by 2018, the article says the station will need to replace approximately $140,000, or 80 percent, of its annual budget with additional sponsorships, underwriting, and listener support.

WSIE currently is conducting an IndieGoGo campaign with a goal of collecting $10,000. With 30 days to go, they've raised $1,155 from 21 backers.

* With the hull of what's left of the Goldenrod Showboat destroyed this past summer in a low-water mishap, an article in the St. Louis Business Journal says that preservationists now hope to salvage the Goldernrod's theater and various other artifacts for possible display in a museum setting.

* Drummer Mark Colenburg has been tapped to present a master class, "Connecting Generations," as part of the Percussive Arts Society's 2015 convention, which takes place Wednesday, November 11 through Saturday, November 14 in San Antonio, TX.

* One of guitarist Kevin Eubanks' performances last week at Jazz at the Bistro was reviewed for the Post-Dispatch by Terry Perkins.

* While Eubanks was in town, the former Tonight Show bandleader made several appearances on local broadcast media, including one on NBC affiliate KSDK and one on ESPN Radio affiliate 101Sports.

* Speaking of reviews, KDHX's Chuck Lavazzi has posted one of Lina Koutrakos and Rick Jensen's show last Sunday for the Gaslight Cabaret Festival.

* And speaking of KDHX, they've also posted to Facebook two photo sets of interest, one from Banu Gibson's performance last Sunday at the Sheldon and one from last weekend's St. Louis Gypsy Jazz Festival.

* Saxquest is introducing their own line of saxophone mouthpieces, and they're taking pre-orders now for the first two models, called "The Core" and "The Bridge".

* Saxophonist Oliver Lake has posted to YouTube some video footage from the Krakow show of his recent European tour with the Generations Quartet.

* Trumpeter, singer and U City native Jeremy Davenport was one of a number of musicians taking part last week in a tribute to 100 years of the legacy of Frank Sinatra at the Orpheum Theater in New Orleans. Davenport (pictured) will be back in St. Louis next month for his annual Thanksgiving weekend gig at Jazz at the Bistro.

Jazz this week: Kevin Eubanks, St. Louis Gypsy Jazz Festival, Banu Gibson, and more

The wide variety of music encompassed by the label "jazz" will be on full display this week in St. Louis, with performances of big band swing, cabaret, free improv, Gypsy jazz, ragtime, and numerous other sub-genres and allied musics happening at local venues.

Here's a look at some of the most noteworthy shows coming up...

Wednesday, October 21
Guitarist Kevin Eubanks and his trio begin a four-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro. Since leaving his steady gig on television, the former Tonight Show bandleader has done work for some educational and charitable causes; toured on his own and with bassist Dave Holland; and made several recordings for Mack Avenue Records, the most recent of which was a duet album with fellow guitarist Stanley Jordan that came out earlier this year.

For more about what Eubanks (pictured, top left) has been up to recently, check out the interview he did back in April with the Voice of America program Beyond Category.

Also on Wednesday, Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Open Mic Night" at the Tavern of Fine Arts; and guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran plays at Nathalie's.

Thursday, October 22
The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University will present a tribute to the music of Ornette Coleman featuring saxophonist Dave Stone, while the Gaslight Cabaret Festival resumes with singer and impressionist Dean Christopher performing "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime: A Tribute to Dean Martin" at the Gaslight Theater.

Also on Thursday, singer Joe Mancuso and keyboardist Curt Landes will take the stage at Thurman Grill.

Friday, October 23
Organized by singer Eve Seltzer and guitarist Ben Wood of the band Franglais, the first-ever St. Louis Gypsy Jazz Festival begins the first of three days and nights of performances at Evangeline's.

The event will include three evening shows followed by late-night jam sessions, plus brunch-time shows on Saturday and Sunday. In addition to Franglais (pictured, center left) the lineup features St. Louis' own Coco Rico, plus visiting acts including accordionist Dallas Vietty, singer Miles Griffith, and the bands Swing '39 and Bedlam Swing. You can see videos of all the participating acts in this post from last Saturday.

Also on Friday, Minnesota's Davina & The Vagabonds will bring their swinging jump blues to the Old Rock House; Ken Haller performs his cabaret show "Mama's Boy" at the Gaslight Theater; and the Gateway City Big Band plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, October 24
The Friends of Scott Joplin will present pianists Frank LiVolsi and John Reed-Torres (pictured, center left) in an "East Coast Meets West Coast" concert of ragtime music at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site's Rosebud Cafe.

Elsewhere on Saturday, trumpeter Jim Manley and guitarist Randy Bahr's "All-Star Band" plays at Nathalie's; singer and actor Jeffrey M. Wright does cabaret at the Gaslight Theater; and the Wire Pilots play original fusion music at the Tavern of Fine Arts.

Sunday, October 25
Bassist Jim Widner's Big Band, having shed its former alternate identity as the St. Louis Jazz Orchestra, will play a matinee at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

Meanwhile, singer Banu Gibson will be back in town for the first time since 2010 to perform a matinee program of music from singer-songwriter Randy Newman at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Then that evening, singer Lina Koutrakos and pianist and singer Rick Jensen will wrap up the Gaslight Cabaret Festival's weekend with their show "Two For The Road" at the Gaslight Theater.

Monday, October 26
The music department at Webster University will present its annual TKT Scholarship Benefit at Winfred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus. The event raises money for scholarships awarded in the names of Terry Jackson, Kirk Cappello and Tony Saputo, three former Webster students who died in the 1991 plane crash that :killed eight members of country singer Reba McIntyre's band.

This year's theme is "Jazz Interpretations of Pop Hits of the 1960s," as performed by members of the jazz faculty, the Webster University jazz Singers, and guest vocalists.

Also on Monday, saxophonist "Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective return to BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups,

Tuesday, October 27
The Luminary presents "Change is a Sound: Free Jazz and Collective Practice in Political Movements," an event featuring a conversation between percussionist Charles "Bobo" Shaw, a founding member of the Black Artists Group, and St. Louis University's Ben Looker, who wrote The Point From Which Creation Begins, a book about the history of BAG. KDHX's Josh Weinstein will spin BAG-related recordings before and after.

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 2015 jazz preview, part 3

Today, it's the third part of StLJN's video preview of jazz and creative music performers coming to St. Louis this fall. (You can see part 1 here, and part 2 here.)

Continuing from last time in chronological order, we resume in mid-October with the New Mastersounds, who will be here Tuesday, October 20 to play at the Old Rock House. You can see them at the top of this post jamming on the tune "Dusty Groove" in a video recorded in June of this year at a gig in Oakland, CA.

After the jump, there's a video featuring guitarist Kevin Eubanks, who will perform with his trio Wednesday, October 21 through Saturday, October 24 at Jazz at the Bistro. It's an episode of the Voice of America's program "Beyond Category" that features footage of Eubanks playing with his trio as well as an interview with former "Tonight Show" bandleader.

Next up is singer Banu Gibson, who will perform a program of Randy Newman songs in a matinee on Sunday, October 25 at the Sheldon Concert Hall. The video shows Gibson singing "It's A Jungle Out There" - written by Newman as the theme for the TV show "Monk" - earlier this year at The Mint, in New Orleans, accompanied by former St. Louisan Tom McDermott on piano and Matt Perrine on sousaphone.

The next two clips feature performers from the Gaslight Cabaret Festival, starting with singer Lina Koutrakos and singer/pianist Rick Jensen, who will return to St. Louis to perform Sunday, October 25 at the Gaslight Theater. The first clip features Koutrakos singing "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" with Jensen on piano, and was recorded in 2013 at the Metropolitan Room in NYC.

Then it's singer Kat Edmonson, who's booked to appear on Thursday, October 29 and Friday, October 30 at the Gaslight Theater. This version of her singing "Rainy Day Woman" was recorded in March 2015 for radio station WNRN in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Last but certainly not least, it's the veteran tenor saxophonist Houston Person, who will be coming back to town for gigs on Friday, October 30 and Saturday, October 31 at Jazz at the Bistro. In this clip, Person and pianist Joe Alterman's trio, with James Cammack on bass and Gregory Hutchinson on drums, work out on "Kelly's Blues" at a gig back in August 2012 at Jazz At Lincoln Center's Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.

Look for part 4 of StLJN's Fall 2015 jazz preview here next week. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

The Sheldon announces 2015-16 season

The Sheldon Concert Hall has announced their various series lineups for the 2015-16 season, with a jazz series featuring four piano players, plus various other events that may be of interest to jazz and creative music fans.

Brazilian-born pianist Eliane Elias (pictured, top left) will begin the jazz series on Saturday, November 21, followed by Billy Childs presenting his show "Re-Imagining Laura Nyro" on Saturday, January 30.

The Panamanian native Danilo Pérez (pictured, center left) is next, with a program called, appropriately enough, "Panama 500" on Saturday, February 27, and Cyrus Chestnut, who's quite familiar to St. Louis listeners from numerous previous appearances at Jazz at the Bistro and The Sheldon, wraps up the series with "African Reflections" on Saturday, May 7.

Two of the Sheldon's big fundraising events of the year also will feature jazz headliners, with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (pictured, bottom left) booked to perform at the Friends of the Sheldon benefit gala on Saturday, October 3, and pianist Ramsey Lewis celebrating the 50th anniversary of his hit "The In Crowd" at the annual ArtSounds! event on Saturday, November 7.

(While the benefit gala ticket prices start at $150 for JaLCO and Marsalis, and $125 for Lewis, and go up from there, there also will be concert-only tickets sold for both, priced at $45 orchestra, $40 balcony for JaLCO and $65 orchestra, $55 balcony for Lewis.)

Also of potential interest to jazz fans, singer Banu Gibson will pay tribute to "40 Years of Randy Newman" in a special non-subscription matinee concert on Sunday, October 25.

Pianist Peter Martin turns up on three different programs - first, in a concert for his eponymous series, with a special guest TBA, on Saturday, October 10; then with St. Louis Symphony violinist David Halen and friends for a holiday program on Wednesday, December 2; and finally, with Halen and other St. Louis Symphony members playing classical music on Wednesday, April 6.

New music ensemble Alarm Will Sound also will be back for their fourth St. Louis season, with concerts scheduled for Tuesday, October 20; Friday, November 20; Friday, February 12; and Thursday, May 26.

The popular Coffee Concert series of mid-week morning performances will include Alan Ox doing “Songs of Great American Crooners” on Tuesday, October 6 and Wednesday, October 7; actor/singer Ben Nordstrom on Tuesday, February 16 and Wednesday, February 17; Wack-A-Doo on Tuesday, April 5 and Wednesday, April 6; and cabaret singer Tim Schall in a tribute to music of the Gaslight Square era, “The Gaslight Generation,” on Tuesday May 10 and Wednesday, May 11. Last (from a jazz perspective) but not least, trumpeter and singer Dawn Weber will play a Saturday matinee on Saturday, April 2.

So what's the "hot take" on this lineup? Longtime readers may recall that in the past, yr. humble StLJN editor has taken the Sheldon's management to task for being too risk-averse when booking the jazz series, and the phrase "talented, but safe" once again could be used to describe pretty much all this year's choices. Consider also that, although some of the individual programs presented might have been different, the entire jazz series  could have been booked with these exact same artists 10 years ago, and the dimensions of the challenge become more apparent.

Of course, there's always potential for additional individual concerts to be added as the fall approaches, and if past years are any guide, there likely will be at least a couple more shows of interest to jazz fans. But given that this year's lineup contained some arguably riskier choices, such as the Spokfrevo Orquestra and Cécile McLorin Salvant, the 2015-16 slate seems like a bit of an artistic retrenchment.

Subscriptions for the four-concert jazz series are $150 for orchestra seating, $135 balcony, with prices for other shows varying according the specific event. New subscriptions go on sale at 10:00 a.m. Monday, May 11, with sales will continuing through the first concert in each series, via phone at 314-533-9900 and online at http://www.thesheldon.org/. Single tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. August 8 at 10 a.m. via MetroTix or the Sheldon website.

Jazz this week: Regina Carter's Reverse Thread, Banu Gibson, Dave Pietro, Christopher McBride, and more

This week's jazz and creative music offerings in St. Louis would seem to have something of a nostalgic bent, with several shows recalling early New Orleans or Swing Era jazz, and one headliner who's reaching all the way back to the music's African roots. However, there also are some more modern sounds happening around town; you just have to know where to look. So, let's go to the highlights:

Tonight, violinist Regina Carter (pictured) opens a four-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro with her current project Reverse Thread, which draws inspiration from African folk music and features kora player Yacouba Sissoko. You can see some videos of Reverse Thread in action here, and read a brief interview with Carter, done last week by Calvin Wilson of the Post-Dispatch, here.

Thursday's quite busy, as the touring Swing Era musical In The Mood is in town for two shows at the Touhill Performing Arts Center, and saxophonist Dave Pietro, who's played with many modern-day big bands including Toshiko Akiyoshi, Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton, Maynard Ferguson, Maria Schneider, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and Arturo O’Farrill, will perform with the Webster Groves HS combos at Highway 61 Roadhouse.

That same evening, clarinetist Scott Alberici plays a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, and the Sheldon Concert Hall hosts its annual "Artsounds" benefit, which this year is themed "Jazz in Black and White" and will feature a performance of new music from pianist Kim Portnoy.

On Friday, singer, pianist and percussionist Al Ox (aka Alan Oxenhandler) is putting on what's being billed as a "classic stage variety show" of "songs, schtick and soft-shoe" at 560 Music Center; and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Anderson will deploy his tenor sax at Robbie's House of Jazz, backed by guitarist Eric Slaughter, bassist Nick Jost and drummer Marty Morrison.

Also of note: The Sands, located just outside the city limits in Shrewsbury, recently has expanded its musical offerings to a third day of the week and now is presenting trad jazz, ragtime and other vintage sounds from Banjos and Brass every Friday. The group includes Bobby Grimm and Al Lehman on banjos, Pat Arana on trombone, and Steve Hoog on tuba.

On Saturday, Robbie's has the young Chicago-based saxophonist Christopher McBride, who has played the club once before with his group the McMoore Movement. This time, McBride will front a quartet with pianist Matt Villinger, plus the aforementioned Nick Jost and Marty Morrison.

Then on Sunday afternoon, singer Banu Gibson and her band, the New Orleans Hot Jazz, will perform a matinee at the Sheldon. Her show "Meet Me At The Corner of Broadway and Jazz" will pay tribute to "classic Broadway and jazz songs of the 1920s, '30s and '40s."

As the new week begins, the Webster University Student Jazz Combos 2 get their turn on Monday to perform a free concert at the university's Community Music School, 535 Garden Avenue; and the Next Generation Jazz Band plays at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

For more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, 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.)

Sheldon Concert Hall announces 2010-2011 season series

The Sheldon Concert Hall has announced its 2010-11 season series, and the news for St. Louis jazz fans is, at best, mixed.

Those who were hoping to hear new and exciting music at the Sheldon next year likely will be disappointed, as most of the acts booked for the jazz series, Coffee Concerts and "special concerts" series already have played here in town in the very recent past.

Specifically, the Sheldon's 2010-11 jazz series will include four concerts (that's one fewer than this year's series), and all of the musicians - singer Tierney Sutton (October 9), saxophonist Victor Goines (November 13), the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and pianist Jon Cleary (February 26), and singer/pianist Tony DeSare with guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli (April 30) - have been to St. Louis recently. Sutton played the Sheldon in 2006; Goines was there in 2007; and the DDBB, Cleary, DeSare and Pizzarelli have all performed at other local venues within the last two years.

Similarly, the Coffee Concerts series of mid-morning weekday performances will feature a familiar lineup of local bands, with shows from Cornet Chop Suey (October 19 & 20), Elsie Parker and the Poor People of Paris (November 16 & 17), Swing DeVille (April 12 & 13) and the Sheldon Jazz Quintet (May 10 & 11) of interest to jazz listeners.

This year, there also will be a handful of Saturday matinees featuring local musicians, including pianist Carolbeth True with singer Christi John Bye on January 22, and singer Brian Owens doing a Sam Cooke tribute on February 12. Like their Coffee Concert colleagues, True, Bye and Owens all were featured at events at the Sheldon during this current season.

The "special concerts" series will feature return appearances at the Sheldon by pianist Dave Brubeck (October 17) and singer Banu Gibson (November 7). Brubeck played the hall in 2007 and 2008, while Gibson was there in 2005.

Two other "special concerts" will feature acts that are new to St. Louis and of alleged potential interest to jazz fans. Guitarist John McLaughlin (pictured) will bring his electric quartet 4th Dimension to the Sheldon on November 19, which should be a genuine treat for local fusion fans. On the other hand, pianist David Lanz and the Liverpool Trio will appear on February 11 doing something called “Re-Imagining the Beatles," which, as described, strikes yr. humble editor as a tasteless, pandering schlockfest likely unfit for human consumption.

To be fair, the Sheldon remains a very enjoyable place to see and hear a concert. The production staff headed by Dale Benz does a consistently good job, and all sorts of musicians like playing there. Here's the thing, though: it's not that the musicians booked for 2010-11 are bad (with the exception of Lanz, whose stuff really is nearly unlistenable); the problem is that we've seen and heard just about all of this before, in some cases multiple times.

(Parenthetically, I'm also uneasy about the fact that of all the artists mentioned above, the only African-Americans are Goines, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Owens, and Mardra and Reggie Thomas of the Sheldon Jazz Quintet. There's no reason to think that this mostly-white lineup of musicians is a result of overt racism, but given the music's origins, it still is unsettling to have so relatively few black artists involved in jazz performances at one of our city's most prestigious venues.)

Ultimately, with so many interesting things happening in jazz and creative music these days, it's a shame that the Sheldon's booking policy for jazz is so unimaginative and retrograde. While the need to sell tickets and pay the bills is understandable, their current approach seems almost absurdly risk-averse. There's a sophisticated audience for music in St. Louis, and as one of the most significant concert halls in town, the Sheldon could, and should, do a much better job of exposing that audience to a wider variety of jazz artists.

For more details and ticket prices for all of the Sheldon's season series, please consult their website, where further information on the 2010-11 schedule will be posted on Monday.