Jazz this week: Christine Ebersole & Billy Stritch, Adam Larson, Craig Pomranz, Dave Koz & Friends, Storm Large, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes an exploration of the compositions of a legendary jazz saxophonist, several servings of holiday music, some contemporary cabaret, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...  

Wednesday, December 5
Singer Christine Ebersole and singer/pianist Billy Stritch present their cabaret show "Snowfall" for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis, with just a handful of tickets still available at this writing.

Also on Wednesday, the weekly "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" will feature trumpeter and banjo player T.J. Muller at The Stage at KDHX; the weekly jam session hosted by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, this week featuring students from some of Jazz St. Louis' JazzU groups; and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet at The Dark Room.

Thursday, December 6
The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University will close out the semester with a free concert featuring the Arc of Light Ensemble, a sextet including trumpeter Randy Holmes, saxophonist Paul DeMarinis, trombonist Wayne Coniglio, pianist Ken Kehner, bassist Jeff Anderson and drummer Montez Coleman.

Also on Thursday, the Funky Butt Brass Band will be getting in the spirit with a show at the Blues City Deli that could include a preview of some numbers from their upcoming "Holiday Brasstravaganza"; and pianist Jim Hegarty leads a quintet at The Dark Room.

Elsewhere around town, Latin/funk/hip-hop band Ozomatli plays at the Old Rock House, and new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound returns to the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Friday, December 7
Saxophonist Adam Larson (pictured, top left) plays the music of Sonny Rollins for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis.

Though Rollins is esteemed as one of the all-time greatest improvisors in jazz, he's also written a number of tunes that have become standards, including "St. Thomas," "Alfie's Theme," "Oleo," "Doxy," "Pent-Up House," and "Airegin." These compositions, and others from deeper in the Rollins catalog, should provide Larson and friends with ample opportunities for improvisation and interpretation.

Also on Friday, St. Louis native Craig Pomranz (pictured, center left) will be back home from NYC to perform his latest cabaret show, "Love: It Takes Time..." for the first of two nights at the Kranzberg Arts Center; saxophonist Tim Cunningham plays at Troy's Jazz Gallery; and Jesse Gannon returns for a late show at The Dark Room.

Saturday, December 8
Singer Mardra Thomas and keyboardist Reggie Thomas, once mainstays on the St. Louis scene and now living in northern Illinois, will be back for a visit and, along with guitarist Rick Haydon, playing a set of holiday music for "Saturday With Santa" at the Missouri Botanical Garden's Ridgway Visitors Center.

Sunday, December 9
Miss Jubilee performs vintage jazz and blues for brunch at Evangeline's, and the North County Big Band and the City of Music All-Star Chorus will perform at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Tuesday, 
December 11
Saxophonist Dave Koz (pictured, bottom left) brings the 14th annual edition of his holiday show to the Family Arena, with guest stars including saxophonist Mindi Abair, singer and guitarist Jonathan Butler, and keyboardist Keiko Matsui; and singer Storm Large, who's performed here several times in a cabaret setting, gets a slightly bigger stage for her show "Holiday Ordeal" at the Sun Theatre.

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: 2016 St. Louis Cabaret Festival

This week, it's time to take a look at some of the performers who will part of the 2016 St. Louis Cabaret Festival, which will feature performances by touring headliners on Wednesday, July 20; Thursday, July 21; and Friday, July 22 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

(A final performance on Sunday, July 24 at the Ferring Jazz Bistro will showcase participants from the St. Louis Cabaret Conference, an annual week-long event that encompasses the festival as well as daily educational programming for both aspiring and experienced cabaret performers, professional development, networking, and more.)

This year's festival will feature return appearances by several performers who have been well-received in years past, including longtime St. Louis favorite Ann Hampton Callaway and Kansas native Marilyn Maye, the amazingly spry 88-year-old who's been called the "grande dame of cabaret." They'll both be featured along with pianists Billy Stritch and Tedd Firth on Thursday night's show, titled "Marilyn Maye and her Piano Men".

Also returning for an encore appearance will be Broadway star Faith Prince, who was part of the event in 2014. This year, she'll team up with singer and actor Jason Graae on Wednesday night for "The Prince and the Showboy," which they first did together in 2012 in New York City.

New to the event in 2016 is singer and pianist Tony DeSare, who will be featured on Friday night. Though this is his first year as part of the Cabaret Festival, DeSare has played in St. Louis before, in 2007 at the Bistro and in 2011 at the Sheldon. You can see him in the first video up above, singing "Baby Dream Your Dream," a song from the Broadway musical Sweet Charity, at a gig in March of this year in Las Vegas.

After the jump, you can see DeSare performing his original song "Chemistry" in a recording made at the same Las Vegas gig.

Below that, there are a couple of examples of impromptu interaction between Ann Hampton Callaway and Marilyn Maye, as they're featured in two audience-made clips (one from 2010, the other undated) improvising a bit of blues and playing around with "Our Love Is Here To Stay".

(For more videos of Maye and Callaway, together and separately, plus a clip of Billy Stritch, see StLJN's preview of the 2014 fest. There also are a couple of nice clips of Maye in the preview post from 2015.)

You'll also find a couple of videos of Faith Prince in that 2014 post, and you can see her and Jason Graae in today's fifth clip, which excerpts from and promotes the NYC run of "The Prince and the Showboy".

Last but not least, the sixth and final video features Tedd Firth playing a solo piano version of "When A Woman Loves A Man," a song recorded by both Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday, as well as many others.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* The Miles Davis Memorial Project's campaign to place a statue of Davis in downtown Alton was featured this week in a story on St. Louis Public Radio.

* Meanwhile, this week's news from the set of Miles Ahead, actor-director Don Cheadle's feature film about Davis now lensing in Cincinnati, includes a first look at Emayatzy Corinealdi in costume as Davis' ex-wife Frances Taylor, via IndieWire; and a brief feature about the film on WNYC radio.

* Saxophonist and U City native Marty Ehrlich will help kick off the fall season of the New York chapter of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians with a concert on Friday, September 12 at the Community Church of New York. Ehrlich's Trio Exaltation, with bassist John Hebert and drummer Nasheet Waits, will share the bill with drummer Thurman Barker's ensemble. The series also will feature a concert by saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake on November 7.

* Singer Denise Thimes (pictured) has been named a recipient of a 2015 St. Louis Arts Award from the Arts and Education Council. Thimes' trophy for "Excellence in the Arts" will be presented along with the rest of this year's awards at a gala event on January 19 at the Chase Park Plaza.

* The Big Little Big Band has posted to Facebook an album of photos from their concert last week for the St Louis Jazz Club.

* Last Friday's St. Louis Cabaret Festival performance by pianist/singer Billy Stritch and singer Marilyn Maye was reviewed by Chuck Lavazzi of KDHX.

* Single tickets for the various 2014-15 series at the Sheldon Concert Hall go on sale at 10:00 a.m tomorrow, Saturday, August 9. (However, you can get a day's head start by going here and entering the promo code SHE14.) You can listen to music samples from the various performers on the Sheldon's SoundCloud page.

* Saxophonist Tim McAllister, the soloist on the St. Louis Symphony's recent recording of composer John Adams' City Noir, recounts the history and development of the work in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News' Richard Scheinin.

* Yr. humble StLJN editor is serving this month as a guest blogger for New Music Box, the online publication of New Music USA, and you can see the first of four scheduled posts - an essay about the potential uses and misuses of musical genre designations - here.

* To celebrate the 65th anniversary of Prestige Records, the label is holding a giveaway of prizes including a 20-CD boxed set of remastered recordings supervised by legendary engineer Rudy Van Gelder and reissues of early music by Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and more. You can enter the drawing here.

* Jazz radio update: On this Saturday's edition of “Somethin’ Else” on Radio Arts Foundation - St. Louis, host Calvin Wilson will spin music from trios led by saxophonists, including Joshua Redman, Joe Henderson and Branford Marsalis. "Somethin' Else" can be heard at 8:00 p.m. Saturdays on 107.3 FM, 96.3 HD-2, and online at http://www.rafstl.org/listen.

Then on Sunday night, KWMU's "Jazz Unlimited" continues host Dennis Owsley's documentary look at the history of St. Louis jazz with an episode covering the late-1960s rise of the Black Artists Group and Human Arts Association. "Jazz Unlimited" can be heard from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Sundays on KWMU (90.7 FM) and online at http://www.stlpublicradio.org/listen.php.

(Updated after posting to add New Music Box link.)

Jazz this week: St. Louis Cabaret Festival, Bull of Heaven, "All That Tap XXIII," and more

Though the dog days of August are looming nigh, it's a busy week for live jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with local festivals representing two different branches of jazz-related performance, a rare live gig from a much-talked-about experimental music duo, and a whole lot more. Let's go the highlights...

Tonight, Broadway star Faith Prince kicks off the St. Louis Cabaret Festival with a performance of her show "Have A Little Faith" at the Sheldon ballroom. Produced by Cabaret Project of St. Louis, the festival takes place in conjunction with their annual St. Louis Cabaret Conference. You can read more about it and see some video of Prince and the festival's other headliners in this post from last Saturday.

Tomorrow, the Cabaret Festival continues with longtime St. Louis favorite Ann Hampton Callaway (pictured) presenting "The Streisand Songbook" at the Sheldon.

Also on Thursday, pianist Kara Baldus, bassist Eric Stiller and drummer Kyle Honeycutt will play a free concert to wrap up Washington University's summer Jazz at Holmes series, which is being staged at Tisch Commons in the Danforth University Center; and the Tavern of Fine Arts will present their monthly "Experimental Arts Open Improv Night" with live improvised music.

On Friday, the Cabaret Festival presents a double bill at the Sheldon, with pianist and singer Billy Stritch opening with his own show entitled "I've Got Your Number: The Jazz of Cy Coleman" and then accompanying singer Marilyn Maye for her headlining set. Given Maye's status as one of the reigning grande dames of cabaret, this seems a likely sellout, so if you're interested in going, advance reservations would be a must.

Fortunately, if you can't get tickets in time, there will be plenty of St. Louis jazz vocal talent on display around town on Friday, too, as Miss Jubilee plays a free show at the St. Louis Art Museum; Wendy Gordon and pianist Arthur Toney return to DeLeo's Cafe & Deli; the Ann Dueren Trio performs at Il Bel Lago; and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes will be swinging at Evangeline's. And should you be out west in Union, MO, you can catch singer Joe Mancuso's quartet at Domenic's Ristorante and Social Club (membership in la familia not required.).

On Saturday, the Cabaret Festival wraps up with the St. Louis Cabaret Conference Showcase at the Kranzberg Arts Center, featuring performances from a roster of up-and-coming singers in town to take part in the conference.

That same evening, the spotlight shines on yet another part of the jazz diaspora as the annual St. Louis Tap Festival comes to a conclusion with "All That Tap XXIII", presented this year at the Edison Theatre.

Pianist Carolbeth True's trio will provide the music for a lineup of dancers including the festival's founder, Robert L. Reed; Emmy Award-winning choreographer Jason Samuels Smith; dancer and author Karen Callaway Williams; the Israeli dance team of Avi Miller and Ofer Ben; Reed’s protégé Logan Miller; multi-media choreographer Bob Audy; Evan Ruggiero; Maud and Chloe Arnold, who were featured on this past season of the Fox network's So You Think You Can Dance; Martin 'Tre' Dumas III; and Megan Maltos.

Elsewhere around town on Saturday, the experimental duo Bull of Heaven will be in town for a rare live performance at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center. As much a conceptual art project as a performing unit, Bull of Heaven reportedly have released hundreds of thousands of hours of audio since being formed in 2006, including individual "songs" that are hundreds of hours long, as well as "music puzzles" using some of the peculiarities and specifics of digital technology to deliver unexpected results. For a bit more about them, and links to interviews with the group's members, see this post.

And if all that's not enough for one Saturday night, the Funky Butt Brass Band will be making a comparatively rare non-holiday appearance at Off Broadway; and singer Tony Viviano will present his "Tony Bennett 88th Birthday Tribute" at Four Seasons Winery in Chesterfield.

On Sunday, the Friends of Scott Joplin will host their monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site; singers Mary Dyson and Dianne Vaughn will be this week's guest stars with saxophonist Willie Akins' quartet at Troy's Jazz Gallery; and guitarist Dave Black will play at Pomme Cafe & Wine Bar.

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: St. Louis Cabaret Festival

Today, let's take a look at some video clips featuring the stars of next week's St. Louis Cabaret Festival. The festival is produced by Cabaret Project of St. Louis, and takes place in conjunction with their annual St. Louis Cabaret Conference, a week-long event offering educational programs, professional development, networking, and so on for cabaret performers, both established and aspiring.

In the first video up above, Marilyn Maye, the Kansas native whose show business career spans parts of seven decades, performs a medley of songs by Johnny Mercer with Ted Firth (piano) and Steve Doyle (bass), recorded in June 2009 at Birdland in NYC.

Maye will co-headline a concert with pianist and singer Billy Stritch on Friday, August 1 at the Sheldon Concert Hall's upstairs ballroom.After the jump, you can see her, backed by Stritch on piano, in an undated but fairly recent clip singing "My Man."

Next, while online videos featuring Stritch as a solo performer do not seem to be in plentiful supply, we were able to find one of him singing and playing "I've Got the World on a String" and "I've Got Rhythm" at an awards show way back in 1999.

(You also can see a full hour of Maye and Stritch together right here in St. Louis courtesy of HEC-TV's I Love Jazz, which devoted a whole episode to them in September 2013 that, alas, cannot be embedded.)

Below that, there's a video tribute filmed at Birdland on the occasion of Maye's 85th birthday. Depending on your interest in the minutiae of NYC's cabaret and theater scenes, you may or may not want to watch the whole thing, but definitely check out the first part featuring a brief improvised blues duet between Maye and another of the festival's performers, longtime St. Louis favorite Ann Hampton Callaway.

Callaway has been a regular visitor here over the last decade and a half, and she'll be back at the Sheldon next Thursday, July 31, performing an evening of songs associated with Barbra Streisand.

You can see Callaway in the fifth clip teaming up with Maye again for an impromptu version of "It Had to be You" recorded in 2010 at a benefit gala for the Heartland Men's Chorus in Kansas City, and below that, there's a video compiling some highlights of her Streisand show.

The festival's final headliner, singer and actress Faith Prince, is represented by the final two clips. Although Prince is a well-known regular on Broadway thanks to starring roles in shows like Guys and Dolls, Bells Are Ringing and Annie, there seems to be essentially no online video of her performing in a cabaret setting.

So instead, we close out today with a clip of Prince singing "Adelaide's Lament" from Guys and Dolls on a 2001 TV special; and an interview she recorded for the program "Show People With Paul Wontorek."

For more about the St. Louis Cabaret Festival, you can hear Callaway and Cabaret Project of St. Louis' Tim Schall in this interview recorded Friday for the "Cityscape" program on KWMU (90.7 FM).

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

St. Louis Cabaret Festival announces 2014 schedule

The Cabaret Project of St. Louis has announced the lineup of performers for their 2014 St. Louis Cabaret Festival, which will take place Wednesday, July 30 through Saturday, August 2 with performances in Sheldon Concert Hall's third floor ballroom and at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Popular Broadway performer Faith Prince gets the festivities started with her show "Have A Little Faith" at 8:00 p.m.,Wednesday, July 30 at the Sheldon. Prince is best known for starring in recent hit revivals of Guys and Dolls and Annie, and will make her St. Louis debut as a solo cabaret performer with this show.

Next up is longtime local favorite Ann Hampton Callaway (pictured), who will present "The Streisand Songbook" at 8:00 p.m., Thursday, July 31 at the Sheldon.

Then on Friday, August 1, there's a double-header of sorts starting at 8:00 p.m. at the Sheldon, as singer and pianist Billy Stritch first will perform a solo show, "I've Got Your Number: The Jazz of Cy Coleman," and then accompany singer Marilyn Maye for her set, titled simply "An Evening With Marilyn Maye."

The festival closes with the annual St. Louis Cabaret Conference Showcase, in which 30 singers attending  the concurrently held conference will have the opportunity to perform at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, August 2 at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Tickets for the 2014 St. Louis Cabaret Festival are from $40 to $75 for the Sheldon performances; $25 for the final night's Cabaret Conference Showcase; and are on sale now via Metrotix.

Jazz this week: St. Louis Cabaret Festival with Marilyn Maye, American Music Showcase, Kelley Hunt, and more

This weekend may mark the beginning of the dog days of summer, but it's one of the busiest times of the year for Cabaret Project St. Louis, as the organization presents its annual St. Louis Cabaret Festival
and conference this week.

In addition to a week's worth of educational programs for prospective singers, there are four nights of performances on tap, starting this evening as singer and pianist Billy Stritch performs songs associated with Mel Torme at the Bistro at Grand Center.

The Festival's biggest event is tomorrow night, as singers Marilyn Maye (pictured) and Jason Graae will take the stage for separate sets at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

The Sheldon extravaganza will be followed by two more shows at the Bistro, featuring singer and pianist John Bucchino on Friday and a showcase of students from this week's workshops on Sunday. You can read an interview that Maye did with the Post-Dispatch's Sarah Bryan Miller, including more details on the Festival, here.

Elsewhere around town tonight, it's an alpha-and-omega kind of thing, as the St. Louis New Jazz X-Tet plays their final Wednesday gig at the Chase Park Plaza's Cafe Eau, while trumpeter Delano Redmond is in just the second week of his new weekly engagement at Premier Lounge.

Also on Thursday, trumpeter Jim Manley starts a new weekly gig at Joyia Tapas in the Grove neighborhood; and Miss Jubilee performs swing and jump blues at Thaxton Speakeasy.

On Friday, singer Ron Wilkerson will be at Robbie's House of Jazz; guitarist Tom Byrne leads a trio at Cigar Inn; and saxophonist Tim Cunningham is downtown at former St. Louis Cardinal Jim Edmonds' Fifteen Steakhouse, where he'll be playing Fridays all this month.

Then on Saturday, pianist Phil Dunlap's new quintet, washed out by rain a few weeks ago at the St. Louis Art Museum, finally will give their debut performance as part of the American Music Showcase, a multi-band, multi-venue event in the Grand Center district.

Also on Saturday, singer Tony Viviano celebrates the birthday of Tony Bennett with a tribute show at Talayna's; young Chicago guitarist Chuck Tripp is at Robbie's; and Coco Rico will play Gypsy jazz and swing at the Tavern of Fine Arts.

On Sunday, BB's Jazz Blues and Soups has a matinee from Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes, followed by an evening performance from Kansas City pianist and blues singer Kelley Hunt, long a favorite around these parts, who will showcase some material from her upcoming album. Also on Sunday, the Friends of Scott Joplin present their monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" jam session at Dressel's Pub.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Tuesday Dizzy Atmosphere plays a "Notes From Home" show at the Sheldon Concert Hall. They'll be joined by an extensive list of guest performers including multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman, bassist Willem von Hombracht, keyboardist Carl Pandolfi, and several others.

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.)