Jazz this week: The Jazz Collective, Eric Person, The Sound Clinic, and more

This weekend's schedule of jazz and creative music in St. Louis isn't as jam-packed as the last two, but there still are a number of noteworthy performances happening over the next few days. Let's go the highlights...

As it happens, the best-known musicians in town this week are performing under the somewhat generic-sounding name The Jazz Collective on Friday and Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro.

The all-star band includes drummer Jimmy Cobb, pianist Cedar Walton and bassist Buster Williams, three veteran sidemen who have worked with some of the most important jazz musicians of the past 50 years, and saxophonist Javon Jackson, who, though a generation younger than his bandmates, has some impressive credits of his own, including a partnership with keyboardist Les McCann and time in Cobb's Miles Davis tribute, the So What band. Given that Williams also was part of So What, don't be surprised if the group does some songs associated with Davis, along with original material and perhaps some favorites from the hard-bop repertoire.

You can read more about Jimmy Cobb and see videos of all four Jazz Collective members here. Also, Jazz St. Louis is running a two-for-one special on tickets, and you can get the details on that offer here.

Also on Friday, the Funky Butt Brass Band plays an early set at Brandt's; and guitarist Dave Black's trio performs at the Cigar Inn in Belleville.

Update - 5:20 p.m., 4/21/11: The Funky Butt Brass Band has just posted a message to their Facebook page saying that the Brandt's gig has been canceled by the venue.

On Saturday afternoon, The Sound Clinic will play the music of Ornette Coleman for the Nu-Art Series at Metropolitan Gallery. The group is co-led by trumpeter and Nu-Art Series director George Sams and Bay Area saxophonist Lewis Jordan, with Chicago's Yosef Ben Israel and St. Louisan Charles "Bobo" Shaw on drums.

On Saturday night, saxophonist and St. Louis native Eric Person returns home to front a trio with bassist Willem von Hombracht and drummer Demarius Hicks at Robbie's House of Jazz. Person's most recent CD The Grand Illusion was released in the fall of 2010, and his last performance here in St. Louis was back in 2009 at the Ambassador Events Center.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday drummer Joe Pastor's trio is at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups, and on Tuesday, the Genesis Jazz Project big band performs in a free concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

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.)

Jazz St. Louis offering 2-for-1 special on tickets for the Jazz Collective

Jazz St. Louis is offering a 2-for-1 special on tickets to see the Jazz Collective this Friday, April 22 and Saturday, April 23 at Jazz at the Bistro.

The all-star group features pianist Cedar Walton, saxophonist Javon Jackson, bassist Buster Williams (pictured) and drummer Jimmy Cobb, the subject of our most recent StLJN Saturday Video Showcase.

The advertised ticket price is $35 each, but with the discount, buyers get two tickets for $35. The discount is available for both the 8:30 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. sets. Ticket buyers will get the best seats available at time of purchase. To take advantage of the offer, call Jazz St. Louis at 314-289-4030 and use the coupon code FC422.

Notes from the Net: Ian Carr mourned, Linda Presgrave reviewed, Eric Person on the road, plus news, reviews and more

Here's this week's compilation of news and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including musicians from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions - now with even more boldfacing!

* Alas, the only significant Miles Davis-related link this week is to the sad news that the British jazz trumpeter and writer Ian Carr died this past Wednesday at age 75. Long considered one of the top trumpet players on the British scene, Carr wrote a well-regarded biography of Miles and was influenced significantly by Davis' music. His band Nucleus made some fine electric jazz/fusion recordings that still hold up well today. R.I.P., Mr. Carr.

* On a much happier note, here's a review of pianist and St. Louis expat Linda Presgrave's new CD Inspiration, via AllAboutJazz.com, which says, in part: "Whether performing original compositions or a cover, Presgrave and her accompanists are in top form...Inspiration doesn't just honor musicians "who happen to be women"; it is music for its own sake."

* Saxophonist and St. Louis native Eric Person (pictured) and his band Meta-Four will be in the Quad Cities on March 15 to play the Third Sunday Jazz Matinee & Workshop Series at the Redstone Room in Davenport, IA, and they got a nice writeup in the local paper, which you can see online here.

* The Ars Nova Workshop in Philadelphia just presented the second part of their tribute to alto saxophonist, composer and former St. Louisan Julius Hemphill at Philly's World Cafe. The concert featured Hemphill's music for big band and sax sextet, as performed by a big band including multi-reedman and St. Louis native Marty Ehrlich.

* DJ and blogger LeRoy "The JazzCat" Downs was one of the hosts of the recent Playboy Jazz Cruise, produced by St. Louis-based Jazz Cruises LLC. You can read his account of the voyage, which included St. Louis' own Peter Martin and Montez Coleman among the many musicians on board, and see lots of photos - all rated "SFW - Safe For Work," in case you were concerned about the potential presence of scantily clad Bunnies - here.

* Turning to the "coming attractions" file: Percussionist Gino Robair will be in St. Louis on Saturday to perform at Forest Park Community College - see this post for details - but before he gets here, he'll be visiting Detroit on Tuesday to play a gig with Marko Novachcoff, Joel Peterson, Piotr Michalowski, Mike Khoury and James Cornish at the Kerrytown Concert House.

* Guitarist Mike Stern, who will be in St. Louis from April 29 to May 2 with the Yellowjackets to play at Jazz at the Bistro, recently co-led a gig at NYC's Iridium with saxophonist Kenny Garrett, who, like Stern, worked with Miles Davis in the latter part of the trumpeter's career. You can read a review of the Stern/Garrett show here.

* Catching up with news of recent visitors, it seems that Martino Unstrung, the documentary about guitarist Pat Martino that was shown here in St. Louis last November during the St. Louis International Film Festival, is finally getting a New York premiere on March 15 at the Rubin Museum of Art, Martino himself was in St. Louis last month to play at Jazz at the Bistro.

* And while still on the subject of musicians that have recently played at the Bistro, veteran pianist Cedar Walton, who played the club last fall, just did a sextet concert at the Kumble Theater on Long Island University's Brooklyn campus, which was reviewed for the New York Times by Nate Chinen here.

* Chinen and the NYT this past week also did an article on pianist Jason Moran (who did a concert at the Missouri Museum here in St. Louis last October) and his participation in this weekend's 50th anniversary tribute to Thelonious Monk's landmark Town Hall concert. For more on the Monk tribute concert, see this post from Doug Ramsey's Rifftides.

* Last but not least, many of those who caught Return to Forever's reunion tour when they played the Fox Theatre last June may be glad to know many of the shows on the tour were recorded, resulting in a new RFT live album called Returns that will released on March 17.

Jazz St. Louis adds new podcasts, feeds

Jazz St. Louis has made available two more podcasts in their ongoing series.

The third installment in the series features an interview with JSL director of education Phil Dunlap, and can be heard here. The fourth and latest podcast interview to go online features saxophonist Javon Jackson, who will be in St. Louis next week to perform with pianist Les McCann at Jazz at the Bistro. That podcast can be heard here.

JSL Web guru Adam Roach reports that the organization's site now has a new community section that will serve as a library for the series of podcasts, a soon-to-be-added set of photo galleries, and other materials. You can go directly to the list of available podcasts here. (As a result of the site remodeling, the links previously provided here to past interviews with Tony DeSare and Cedar Walton have changed. You now can find the DeSare podcast here, and the Walton podcast here.)

Users can also subscribe to the Jazz St. Louis podcast feed using iTunes or any podcast software using this link, and the JSL podcasts also are available now through the Apple iTunes store.

Jazz this week: David Sanborn, Cedar Walton, Vinny Golia Large Ensemble, Frank Catalano, Bruce Menefield, KMOX Jazz & Wine Festival, and more

It's potentially a very busy week for fans of jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with plenty of noteworthy performances happening over the next few days. Let's look at some of the highlights:

This evening, veteran pianist Cedar Walton begins a four-night run with his trio at Jazz at the Bistro. Arriving on the scene in the late 1950s, Walton has worked with heavyweight musicians such as Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Art Farmer, Benny Golson, Abbey Lincoln, J.J. Johnson, Charles McPherson and Lee Morgan in addition to leading his own groups. Though he began by playing hard bop and still is closely identified with that style, Walton is a fine all-around jazz pianist and even made some funk-oriented records back in the 1970s. You can see some video of Walton in action in this previous StLJN post, and listen to him being interviewed in a Jazz St. Louis podcast here.

On Thursday evening, Two Times True, featuring pianist Carolbeth True and her son, drummer David True, will do a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Then on Friday, alto saxophonist and St. Louis native David Sanborn (pictured) comes home for the first time in a couple of years to perform at The Pageant. Sanborn is touring in support of his latest CD, Here and Gone, which is a tribute to the music of Ray Charles and to saxophonists David "Fathead" Newman and Hank Crawford, who sparked Charles' bands of the 1950s and early 1960s and were key early influences on Sanborn. Given his affection for the material, expect several numbers from Here and Gone included in the show along with the customary mix of tunes from Sanborn's extensive catalog.

UPDATE, 3:00 p.m., 9/25/08: Local music journalist Dan Durcholz did an interview with Sanborn for the online publication the St. Louis Beacon. You can read it here.

Also on Friday, Cincinnati saxophonist Bruce Menefield begins a two-night stand at Brandt's. This is, as far as I know, Menefield's first trip to St. Louis; he'll be working Friday night with bassist Jeff Anderson and drummer James Jackson, and on Saturday night with guitarist Dave Black and Jackson. You can see some video of Menefield in this previous StLJN post, as well as here.

Moving on to Saturday, Los Angeles-based multi-woodwind player and composer Vinny Golia will instantiate a St. Louis version of his Large Ensemble for a concert at Webster University Community Music School. The event, presented by New Music Circle as the kickoff to their 50th season, will feature a 27-piece group (21 students and six professionals, according to the promotional email from NMC) of local and regional players performing some of Golia's large-scale works, which include both composed and improvised materials and incorporate influences from a number of musical genres as well as some unconventional playing techniques.

Also on Saturday, radio station KMOX (1120 AM) presents their third annual Jazz and Wine Festival starting at 1:00 p.m. at Faust Park in Chesterfield. This year's musical lineup consists entirely of groups led by vocalists, with Kim Massie, Anita Rosamond and Jeanne Trevor serving as the featured attractions. If your tastes run more toward the instrumental and/or freely improvisational, Saturday afternoon also is when the BAG Trio, featuring bassist Zimbabwe Nkenya, drummer Gary Sykes and trumpeter/percussionist Mike Nelson, kicks off this fall's series of free concerts at the Kemper Museum on the Washington University campus.

On Sunday night, the Todd Mosby Group and Orange, featuring members of the Erin Bode Group, provide a double bill of electrified jazz at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups, and on Monday, the Sessions Big Band takes the stage at BB's. And as if all that weren't enough for one week, on Tuesday the energetic saxophonist Frank Catalano visits from Chicago to perform a free show at The Gramophone, and pianist/singer and longtime local favorite Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum plays at Brandt's. (You can see a couple of video clips of Catalano in performance here.)

To see listings of more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis this weekend and beyond, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

(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.

Jazz St. Louis podcasts offer interviews with visiting artists

Although it somehow escaped my notice until now, earlier this month Jazz St. Louis launched a series of podcasts featuring interviews with visiting artists performing at Jazz at the Bistro.

There are two podcasts online so far, with JSL executive director Gene Dobbs Bradford conversing with pianist and singer Tony DeSare, who played the Bistro two weeks ago, and pianist Cedar Walton, who's performing there this week. You can stream or download the DeSare interview here, while the Walton interview is here.

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: Spotlight on Cedar Walton

From time to time throughout the summer, our Saturday video showcase will offer previews of some of the musicians who are coming to St. Louis this fall and/or next year. Today, we turn the spotlight on Cedar Walton, a veteran pianist who, in addition to leading his own groups, has worked with musicians such as Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Art Farmer, Benny Golson, Abbey Lincoln, J.J. Johnson and Lee Morgan. Walton will be in the Gateway City from September 24 through September 27 to play with his trio at Jazz at the Bistro.

The two clips above show Walton leading a quartet in a performance of John Coltrane's composition "Naima" at the 1976 Umbria Jazz Festival. In addition to the leader on piano, the band includes George Coleman on tenor sax, Sam Jones on bass and the great Billy Higgins on drums. Down below, you'll see Walton in a trio performance of his own composition "Bremond's Blues," backed by Higgins and David Williams on bass. The fourth embedded video window has an interview with Walton from 1997.