Jazz this week: Jeremy Davenport returns to the Bistro, Cactus Truck, and more

A few quick suggestions for some post-Turkey Day jazz and creative music in and around St. Louis...

Tonight, trumpeter, singer and U City native Jeremy Davenport returns from his current home in New Orleans to play his annual post-Thanksgiving weekend gig at Jazz at the Bistro.

Though he's been leader of the house band in the lounge at the Ritz Carlton in New Orleans for more than 10 years now, these annual visits have helped ensure that Davenport still has a strong following here in St. Louis. As a result, the 7:30 shows on both nights are sold out in advance, and though tickets for the 9:30 shows still may be available, advance reservations would seem to be a must.

Elsewhere around town on Friday, singer Feyza Eren and guitarist Tom Byrne will duet at Tavern of Fine Arts; singer Joe Mancuso brings a quartet to Nathalie's; trumpeter Jim Manley plays at Thurman Grill; and saxophonist Willie Akins leads a quartet at Cigar Inn.

On Saturday, bassist John King and friends will present another of his "My Life In Music" shows at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups; singer Wendy Gordon and pianist Carolbeth True will team up at Tavern of Fine Arts;
Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes will play swing and jump blues at Evangeline's; and Miss Jubilee will perform at 612 Kitchen and Cocktails, a relatively new spot at 612 W Woodbine Ave in Kirkwood.

Then on Sunday, the Amsterdam-based free jazz trio Cactus Truck will be in town for a performance at  Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, with saxophonist Dave Stone opening the show. For a video preview of Cactus Truck's high-energy, wall-of-skronk sound, check out this post from last week.

Also on Sunday, singer Erin Bode will present "An Evening of Holiday Music" to benefit Promise Christan Academy at the Purser Center at Logan University; and the Coleman-Hughes Project with singer Adrianne Felton will perform at Troy's Jazz Gallery.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday guitarist Tom Byrne will lead a trio 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: Cactus Truck hitting Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center on Sunday, November 30

Prickly and persistent, loud and as unsubtle as an 18-wheeler careening down a stretch of bad road at 70 miles an hour, the music of Cactus Truck certainly fits their name. Their balls-to-the-wall skronk also seems like an appropriate soundtrack for a state of emergency, either real or imagined, and so the upcoming visit by the Amsterdam-based trio on Sunday, November 30 to Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center seems rather timely.

Comprised of saxophonist John Dikeman (who's originally from the USA, born in Wyoming), guitarist/bassist Jasper Stadhouders, and drummer Onno Govaert, Cactus Truck was named "discovery of the year" in 2011 by the UK music magazine The Wire. Their first album Brand New For China! was called "brutal, furious and uncompromising" by AllAboutJazz.com's Eyal Hareuveni, and has evoked repeated comparisons to the electric music of saxophonist Peter Brötzmann with Last Exit, Hairy Bones and Trio Roma, and to experimental/noise groups such as The Thing and Zu.

You can sample their sonic mayhem in the first track up above, an excerpt from a performance in April 2014 at the alternative music venue Occii in Amsterdam.

After the jump, there are three excerpts from a 2013 show at Autonoom Centrum, which translates as "autonomous center," a sort of collectively managed community gathering place, performance space, and bookstore. (There are several venues in the Netherlands using the designation, including in one in Amsterdam, but it's not clear which one this is from the notes on the video.)

After that, it's a piece called "Magnum Eyebrow," recorded in 2013 at 12 Points, a festival in Dublin, Ireland for young European jazz artists.

Last but not least, the connection with 1960s free jazz is made a bit more explicit by a clip of Dikeman and Govaert performing Albert Ayler's "Ghosts" in 2012 at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam.

Tickets for Cactus Truck at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center will be $7 at the door. Saxophonist Dave Stone's Free Jazz Unit will open the show.

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