So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* The Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis is now accepting applications for 2018 Artist Support Grants.

The grants range in amount from $500 to $3000, and are available to individual artists of all disciplines for a variety of purposes, including equipment and materials, rental space, arts-related travel, conference fees, project completion, salaries, professional and artistic development, training, and other resources.

Applications are due by Thursday, March 15, and RAC will present the first of three free "how to apply" workshops this coming Monday, February 5 at their headquarters.

* Last Sunday's performance by trombonist Ryan Keberle and Catharsis at The Dark Room was reviewed for DownBeat magazine by Terry Perkins.

* Pianist Peter Martin talked with the Post-Dispatch's Calvin Wilson about his benefit concert for Metro Theater Company this Saturday night and the troupe's upcoming production of the "concert play" Bud, Not Buddy.

* In a couple of related conversations, trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard talked about his original score for Bud, Not Buddy in interviews with St. Louis Public Radio's Alex Heuer and the St. Louis American's Kenya Vaughn.

* Trumpeter Keyon Harrold's new album The Mugician was reviewed by AllAboutJazz.com's Thomas Earl. 

* KTVI - FOX2 News is looking for "bands of all genres" to perform live on their 9:00 a.m. weekday newscast. According to a post on Facebook from the station's Kim Hudson, they "need to see videos with clean lyrics and content appropriate for morning television. It always helps if you brag on yourself, too. So, let us know what concerts you have coming up and what big things you have done in the past. Send those videos and all that info to kim.hudson@tvstl.com."

* The 60th anniversary of the release of the movie Elevator to the Gallows, directed by Louis Malle and featuring a soundtrack by Miles Davis (pictured, with the film's star Jeanne Moreau), was noted in articles on LittleWhiteLies.com, DVDTalk.com, and Film School Rejects. 

* And speaking of Miles Davis, a post this week on OpenCulture.com highlights a Spotify playlist featuring 65 hours of Davis' music in chronological order of release.

* Jazz St. Louis is looking to hire an executive assistant to work with the executive director/CEO and the director of development. You can find details on the job and how to apply here.

* The Baylor Project, fronted by drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor and his wife, singer Jean Baylor, were the subject of a brief feature by the Post-Dispatch's Kevin Johnson published before last Sunday's Grammy Awards ceremony.

The Baylors, who were nominated for Grammys in two different categories, unfortunately did not take home any trophies on Sunday night, but they will be coming to St. Louis to make their local debut at Jazz at the Bistro from Wednesday, March 28 through Saturday, March 31.

The Baylors on Thursday also shared via email a compilation of photos and social media posts documenting their "Grammy Week" experiences.

* Last Saturday's performance by singer Barb Jungr and pianist/singer John McDaniel at the Kranzberg Arts Center was reviewed by KDHX's Chuck Lavazzi.

* Family and friends of Nathan Jatcko are setting up a scholarship in the late pianist's name at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Donations may be made online at http://www.siue.edu/give or by mail to Kyle Moore, Director of Development, College of Arts & Sciences, SIUE Foundation, Box 5048, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL 62026. The memo line on a check should read "Nathan Jatcko." Anyone with questions about online giving can contact Moore via email at kymoore (at) siue.edu or by phone at 618-650‑5048.

A "celebration of the life and music of Nathan Jatcko" also is planned for next Friday, February 8 at Off Broadway.

Jazz this week: Maceo Parker, Barb Jungr & John McDaniel, Ryan Keberle, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features one of the godfathers of funk saxophone, cabaret interpretations of the music of the Beatles, the return of a popular free concert series, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, January 24
Saxophonist Maceo Parker opens a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro.

Parker (pictured, top left) made his reputation in the 1970s and '80s as a member of James Brown's band, the JBs. He went on to play with George Clinton's P-Funk organization and numerous others, and over the last 20 years has developed a busy solo career extending and adding his own flavor to Brown's funk legacy.

Listeners at the Bistro can expect to hear interpretations of material like "Cold Sweat" and "Pass The Peas" from Brown's catalog as well as originals featuring Parker's tart, angular alto solos.

Also on Wednesday, the Ambassadors of Swing provide the music for "Shake And Shout Wednesdays," the first of what's projected as a monthly series of swing dance events at Tin Roof St. Louis; and Miss Jubilee and The Gaslight Squares perform on a double bill at The Bootleg at Atomic Cowboy as part of the venue's week of shows with free admission.

Thursday, January 25
Saxophonist Richard Deja leads a quartet in the first free concert of the semester from the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, and singer Feyza Eren returns to Evangeline's.

Friday, January 26
Saxophonist Harvey Lockhart and The Collective play a late show at The Dark Room.

Saturday. January 27
Singer Barb Jungr and singer, pianist and Kirkwood native John McDaniel will present two performances of their cabaret show based on the music of The Beatles at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Sunday, January 28
Trombonist Ryan Keberle and his band Catharsis will perform at The Dark Room.

The NYC-based Keberle and band (pictured, bottom left) are in the Midwest for a week of one-nighters in support of their fourth album Find the Common, Shine the Light, which the Los Angeles Times called “a potent blend of cinematic sweep and lush, ear-grabbing melodies.”

Monday, January 29
Members of Webster University's jazz faculty will present a program called "As If It Were the Seasons" at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus. Singer Debby Lennon, saxophonist Paul DeMarinis, pianist Nick Schlueter, bassist Ben Wheeler and drummer Nick Savage will perform a "repertoire that reflects on the distinct character of each of the four seasons," drawing on songs including "You Must Believe in Spring," "Summer in Central Park," "Autumn Nocturne" and more.

Tuesday, January 30
"Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective play their monthly gig at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

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: Winter/spring 2018 jazz preview, part 2

This week, it's part two of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview, featuring videos of the jazz and creative music performers who will be visiting St. Louis in the first few months of the new year. (You can see part one here.)

Picking up in mid-January where last week's installment ended, the first video up above features singer Storm Large, who will be returning to perform on Wednesday, January 17 at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Large has presented her cabaret show here a couple of times before, but this concert will feature her band Le Bonheur, who back her up in this 2014 performance of "I've Got You Under My Skin."

That same week, The Bad Plus will return to St. Louis to present their first-ever live shows featuring their new pianist Orrin Evans, starting Wednesday, January 17 and continuing through Saturday, January 20 at Jazz at the Bistro.

With founding pianist Ethan Iverson' departure from the trio being a long-planned event, Evans already has recorded an album, Never Stop 2, with TBP, but will be making his live-performance debut with group during their St. Louis run.

Given those circumstances, there's really no way to "preview" their shows here, but after the jump, you can see a performance by the original TBP lineup from this year's Moers Festival in Germany, followed by a clip of Evans, rethinking the standard "Autumn Leaves" with bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Obed Calvaire, in 2012 at NYC's Jazz Standard.

The same night TBP concludes their run, Grand Center also will be the site of a "Winter Jazz Fest" at the Grandel Theatre, featuring a headlining performance by Yellowjackets, plus saxophonist Eric Marienthal performing with St. Louis' own Bach to the Future, and more.

The next clip, shot by the prolific St. Louis videographer James Ross, shows Yellowjackets performing "Civil War" during their last visit here in September of this year at Jazz at the Bistro.

After that, there's a video of Marienthal playing Eddie Harris' "Cold Duck Time" at Vandojam 2017, an event presented by the reed and mouthpiece manufacturer Vandoren at the 2017 NAMM show in Los Angeles.

Next up is saxophonist Maceo Parker, who's playing Wednesday, January 24 through Saturday, January 27 at the Bistro, making his long-awaited debut at that venue. Parker can be seen in today's sixth clip performing "Pass the Peas" in August 2017 at the Music Box in San Diego, CA.

While Parker is funking up the Bistro on Saturday night, a couple of blocks away the Kranzberg Arts Center will present "Come Together - Barb Jungr & John McDaniel Perform The Beatles" on Saturday, January 27.

This is the St. Louis debut of a show that Jungr, a British-born cabaret singer, and McDaniel, the pianist, singer and Kirkwood native who gained national celebrity as musical director for Rosie O'Donnell's talk show, have been doing for a couple of years now. In the penultimate video, a promotional clip featuring excerpts from several songs, you can get an idea as to how they go about reinterpreting the Fab Four's catalog.

Last but not least, today's final video features pianist Cyrus Chestnut, who will be back with his trio to perform starting Wednesday, January 31 through Saturday, February 3 at the Bistro.

Chestnut, a familiar visitor to St. Louis who last played here in May, 2016 at The Sheldon, can be seen in fine form with bassist Michael Hawkins and drummer Neal Smith, playing a whole set recorded in August 2017 at the Montclair Jazz Festival in New Jersey.

Look for part three 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...

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Jazz St. Louis has some new photos on their Facebook page from guitarist Pat Martino's sets Wednesday at Jazz at the Bistro. Martino continues there through Saturday.

* Meanwhile, KDHX's Chuck Lavazzi has posted online reviews of two cabaret performances at the Kranzberg Arts Center - last weekend's show by singer and pianist Steve Ross, and this week's show by singer Barb Jungr (pictured), who continues at the Kranzberg through Saturday.

* A new high-end home audio store called St. Louis Stereo recently opened downtown, and the Riverfront Times' Roy Kasten has the story here.

* St. Louis drummer Andre Boyd just got a gig playing with one of the traveling troupes of the famed Cirque du Soleil, as reported here by the St. Louis American's Rebecca S. Rivas.

* According to a story by the Post-Dispatch's Tim Bryant published today, several real estate projects are about to come to fruition in midtown St. Louis' Grand Center arts district, home to music venues including Jazz at the Bistro, the Sheldon Concert Hall, the Fox Theatre and Powell Symphony Hall. The upcoming developments include new homes for radio stations KWMU and KDHX, both of which are relocating to the area; a hotel; more than 100 rental units; and a renovation of the Beaux Arts Building into the Grand Center Arts Academy, a visual and performing arts charter school.

Jazz this week: Pat Martino, Romero Lubambo & Peter Martin, Tatsuya Nakatani, Barb Jungr, New Music Circle Showcase, and more

It's a busy time for jazz and creative music over the next few days in St. Louis, with events in styles ranging from soulful mainstream swing to adventurous free improv, plus holiday music, a tribute to a fallen Beatle, and lots more besides. Let's go to the highlights:

Perhaps the best known musician visiting our town this week is guitarist Pat Martino, who plays tonight through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. Martino is an acknowledged master of the classic organ-trio style of jazz guitar playing, but he also incorporates more modern and/or outside concepts and tonalities into his solos, resulting in a sound that's reasonably familiar but never formulaic.

For more about Martino and some videos of him performing, see this post from last Saturday. (Martino also will be honored Thursday afternoon at a free, public symposium on the Washington University campus; for more about that event, see this post.)

Wednesday evening also marks the first performance in British singer Barb Jungr's four-night run at the Kranzberg Arts Center under the auspices of Cabaret St. Louis. Jungr's show "The Men I Love: The New American Songbook" emphasizes work from contemporary songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, David Byrne and others, as arranged by Jungr and her pianist Simon Wallace.

Also on Wednesday, Robbie's House of Jazz will present the first in a series of concerts by local collegiate jazz ensembles, with the Meramec Jazz Band getting the honor of batting lead-off.

On Thursday evening, saxophonist Willie Akins will play a free concert to wrap up this semester's Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, and the Lindenwood University Jazz Ensemble takes the stage at Robbie's.

Friday evening offers some potentially intriguing musical variety, as the Japanese-born improvising percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani returns to the the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center; and the AWA Jazz String Trio, featuring violinists Alyssa Avery and Justin Branum and bassist Willem von Hombracht, will perform a mix of standards, covers and original material at Robbie's.

On Saturday, Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo (pictured) will join pianist Peter Martin for a performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall. The concert also will feature singer Erin Bode as special guest and Martin's fellow U. City native Chris Thomas on bass. To hear some samples of Lubambo's playing, check out the video showcase post from last Saturday. In a nice added touch, the Lubambo/Martin concert also will be webcast live by The Global Loop.

Also on Saturday, New Music Circle will present what's being billed as a showcase for St. Louis-based performers at Steinberg Auditorium on the Washington University campus. The event will feature short sets from five artists, including trumpeter/percussionist "Baba" Mike Nelson; electronic musician Eric Hall; video artist and musician Zlatko Cosic; percussionist, synthesist and instrument builder Ron Coulter; and musique concrête sound designer Lauri des Marais.

On Sunday, the UMSL music department is putting on its annual holiday show at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. The free event will feature the University Jazz Ensemble, Vocal Point, and the University String Orchestra under the direction of Jim Widner and Jim Henry. Also on Sunday, singer Wendy Gordon will present a reprise of her cabaret-style musical "A Jazz Heaven," featuring fellow singer Jeanne Trevor and a three-piece band, at Klub Klymaxx in the Ambassador Events Center.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday the Webster University jazz singers will perform a a free concert at Winifred Moore Auditorium on campus; and drummer Joe Pastor's trio plays at BB's Jazz Blues & Soups.

Then on Tuesday, guitarist Steve Schenkel will lead a group of Webster University music faculty and students in a jazz-flavored tribute to the songs of the late John Lennon at Webster's Community Music School, 535 Garden Ave. in Webster.

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.)

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Feast magazine's "Dinner and a Show" feature this week spotlights Jeremy Davenport's gig this weekend at Jazz at the Bistro.

* The Post-Dispatch's Calvin Wilson previews Steve Ross' cabaret show this weekend at the Kranzberg Arts Center and next week's performances by Barb Jungr at the same venue.

* Guitarist Steve Schenkel (pictured) has organized a tribute to the music of John Lennon to be presented on Tuesday, December 7 at Webster University's Community Music School. The concert will feature Webster U jazz faculty and music students performing songs from throughout Lennon's career, and you can read all about it this article from the Webster U Journal.

* Steve Pick (of KDHX, Euclid Records and too many publications to name) has reviewed Steven Pond’s book Head Hunters: The Making of Jazz's First Platinum Album for Blurt Online.

* Speaking of KDHX, the community radio station last week featured a live performance by drummer Brian Sullivan's trio, with Daryl Mixon on bass and Lew Winer III on saxophones. You can hear their set archived online here.

* Jazz St. Louis has snagged a $20,000 grant for 2011 from the National Endowment for the Arts. The money will be used to "support the Jazz St. Louis Artist Residency Program in local elementary, middle, and high schools, and the after-school music education program."

* The Goldenrod Showboat, once the site of many traditional jazz and ragtime performances on the St. Louis riverfront, has gotten a one-month reprieve from the scrapheap, thanks to a local businessman who's trying to raise funds to renovate and reopen the venerable vessel. The P-D's Deb Peterson has more here.

(Edited 11/29/10 to correct the day of the John Lennon tribute concert.)