Showing posts with label Bett Butler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bett Butler. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Jazz this week: Marco Benevento, John Scofield Trio, Matt Ulery's LOOM Trio, Bett Butler, and more

There's lots of jazz and creative music going on this weekend in and around St. Louis, including visits from a New York keyboardist, a Chicago bassist, a singer from Texas, and the return of one of the top guitarists in electric jazz. Let's go the highlights...

Tonight, keyboard player Marco Benevento brings his trio to the Old Rock House, with the Mike Dillon Band opening. (Given that Dillon also is the percussionist in Garage A Trois, which also includes Benevento, perhaps they'll jam a bit together as well.) For more about Benevento and video samples of his music, check out this post from last Saturday.

Tomorrow night, guitarist Vince Varvel and bassist Eric Stiller will play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University. Also on Thursday, bassist Dave Troncoso leads a trio at the Wine Press; and it's "Avant Garde Arts Night," featuring live improvised music, at the Tavern of Fine Arts

On Friday, Chicago bassist Matt Ulery's LOOM Trio plays a free concert in the Grigg Gallery at the St. Louis Art Museum. Ulery is a busy participant in Chicago's jazz and improvised music scenes, and for this gig, his band will be augmented by members of the new music ensemble eighth blackbird, some of whom were involved in Ulery's crticially acclaimed album By A Little Light, released earlier this year. (Note that although it's a free show, tickets are required, and can be picked up at the Museum's information desk.)

Also on Friday evening, guitar great John Scofield returns to town for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro. Last year, Scofield brought a quartet to St. Louis; this time around, it's his trio (pictured) with bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart, which has been together long enough to achieve a near-telepathic level of interplay among its members.

Over on the east side on Friday, saxophonist Tim Cunningham returns to Jazz on Broadway in Alton, and guitarist Tom Byrne  will lead a trio with bassist Chris Watrous and drummer Steve Davis at the Cigar Inn in Belleville.

On Saturday afternoon, the Bosman Twins will play a free show outdoors on the quad at Webster University, sponsored by Wesbter's African American Alumni Associations.

Then on Saturday evening, singer Feyza Eren is at the Wine Press; and the student ensemble Jazz In Outer Space takes the stage at Robbie's House of Jazz. Also on Saturday, and of special interest to those of you in West County or the western exurbs: pianist Dave Becherer brings his trio to Bugsy's, a bar and restaurant out in Union, MO that's now presenting live jazz on some weekend evenings with a booking assist from trumpeter Keith Moyer.

On Sunday evening, Texas-based singer Bett Butler will be in town to do a performance called "Words and Music" with writer Pamela Houston at the Ethical Society. Butler has an interesting sort of post-modern take on the classic style of jazz vocalizing exemplified by Ella Fitzgerald, which she'll employ in what's billed as "an evening of story, song, and adventure." 


Sunday also will bring the debut of a weekly, early evening gig at Club Klymaxx in the Ambassador Entertainment Center featuring First Call, a new band including Jeff Anderson (bass), Danny Campbell (trumpet), Marty Morrison (drums), Eric Slaughter (guitar) and Chad Evans (saxophones). $5 gets you in the door and includes your first drink.

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.)

Saturday, September 08, 2012

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase:
Fall 2012 jazz preview, part 2



This week, we present part two of StLJN's fall jazz preview, featuring video samples of some of the musicians who will be coming to St. Louis to perform between now and the end of the year. (You can see part one of the preview here.)

Today's first video up top features guitarist John Scofield playing "Trio Blues" with bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart in November 2010 in Leverkusen, Germany. Scofield will be back here in St. Louis to perform Friday, September 28 and Saturday, September 29 at Jazz at the Bistro

Down below, you can see and hear singer Bett Butler (vocals) performing an excerpt from "Come Rain or Come Shine" at the Elephant Room in Austin, TX during this year's SXSW festival. Though she's accompanied here by Joël Dilley (bass), Paul Klemperer (sax), and Philip Marshall (drums), Butler will be in St. Louis with writer Pam Houston to present a collaborative program called "Words and Music" on Sunday, September 30 at the Ethical Society.

Below that , it's pianist Billy Childs playing a solo piece called "The Red Wheelbarrow" in May 2010 at WNYC radio in New York. Childs is coming to St. Louis to perform Wednesday October 3 through Saturday October 6 at Jazz at the Bistro with an all-star quartet that also will include drummer Brian Blade, saxophonist Steve Wilson, and bassist Scott Colley.

Next up, we've got a clip showcasing the first of four stellar trumpeters who will be visiting St. Louis during a four-week stretch this fall. It's the Cuban-born virtuoso Arturo Sandoval, playing "There Will Never Be Another You" in January of last year in the studios of Seattle radio station KPLU. His band in the clip includes Mahesh Balasooyria (piano:) Zane Musa (saxophone), John Belzaguy (bass) and Johnny Friday (drums). Sandoval returns to St. Louis for a concert on Saturday, October 6 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Then, it's New Orleans native and trumpeter Christian Scott, doing his tune "Spy Boy" last November at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Scott's band here features Berklee grad and St. Louis native Lawrence Fields on piano, plus Matthew Stevens (guitar), Kris Funn (bass) and Jamire Williams (drums). He'll be in St. Louis to perform Wednesday, October 17 through Saturday, October 20 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Right on Scott's metaphorical heels is trumpeter Terell Stafford, seen here with his quintet playing "Blues for J.T." at the 2006 Jazz Baltica festival in Salzau, Germany. Stafford's accompanists in the clip include Tim Warfield (tenor sax, soprano sax), Martin Wind (bass), Matt Wilson (drums) and Mulgrew Miller (piano). For his upcoming St. Louis gig, which will take place Wednesday, October 31 through Saturday, November 3 at Jazz at the Bistro, Stafford will be showcasing music from This Side of Strayhorn, his 2011 release on St. Louis' MAXJAZZ label.

Today's final video features cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum's sextet performing a piece called "Asphalt Flowers Forking Paths" at the 2010 Saalfelden Jazz Festival in Germany. Along with Bynum, the group's current lineup includes Jim Hobbs (alto saxophone), Bill Lowe (bass trombone, tuba), Mary Halvorson (guitar), Ken Filiano (bass) and Chad Taylor (drums), and they'll be playing Saturday, November 3, at the Luminary Center for the Arts in a concert presented by New Music Circle.

Join us again in this space at the same time next week for the third part of StLJN's Fall 2012 jazz preview...











Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Coming attractions include Jimmy Herring, Snarky Puppy, Bett Butler

Catching up with the contents of the email inbox here at StLJN HQ, here's info on three upcoming shows by touring musicians coming to town to promote new releases that may be of interest to StLJN readers:

* Guitarist Jimmy Herring will be coming to St. Louis to perform at 9:00 p.m. Wednesday, August 29 at the Old Rock House.

Herring (pictured, top left), who's currently working with the band Widespread Panic, has played with a "who's who" of the jam band world, including the Allman Brothers Band, the Dead, Phil Lesh and Friends, and Bela Fleck, as well as with several groups he helped to co-found, such as Aquarium Rescue Unit, Project Z and Jazz is Dead. He'll be touring in support of his second solo album, Subject To Change Without Notice, which comes out next Tuesday, August 21. Tickets are $20 general admission, 18 and older only.

* The Texas-based instrumental band Snarky Puppy (pictured, center left) will return to St. Louis for a show presented by the Old Rock House at The Gramophone at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 20. Three-time winners of "Best Jazz Act" in the the Dallas Observer's Music Awards, Snarky Puppy came together while various members were studying music in the famed jazz program of the University of North Texas in Denton.

Led by bassist Michael League, they describe themselves as "somewhere between a garage band and a collective, with over 25 players in regular rotation." In addition to League, Snarky Puppy's core members include drummer Robert “Sput” Searight, keyboardists Shaun Martin and Cory Henry, and multi-instrumentalist Louis Cato. The individual band members' credits include work with artists including Marcus Miller, Q-Tip, George Duke, Erykah Badu, The Polyphonic Spree, Snoop Dogg, Roy Hargrove’s RH Factor, Morcheeba, Tower of Power, Justin Timberlake, Kenny Garrett, Yo-Yo Ma and others. Their latest recording, the live, two-disc album/DVD Tell Your Friends, came out earlier this year. Tickets for Snarky Puppy are $8 in advance, $10 day of show.

* Another Texan, singer and pianist Bett Butler (pictured, lower left), is coming to St. Louis for "Words & Music," a performance and reading with author Pam Houston at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 30 at the Ethical Society.

Butler, who's from San Antonio, previously has recorded two albums of her own material, which her press kit describes as "off-beat songwriting about dark subject matter" and has been likened by one critic to that of "a female Charles Bukowski." Her latest recording, American Sampler, is her third studio album and first recorded collection of jazz standards by Gershwin, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, and others.

Tickets for "Words and Music" with Bett Butler and Pam Houston are $10 at the door.