Jazz this week: Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, Chicago Underground Duo, Tommy Halloran's Guerrilla Swing, and more

As the final weekend of Jazz Appreciation Month comes into view, there's still plenty to celebrate, with a variety of jazz and creative music performances happening in and around St. Louis over the next few days. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, the 2014 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival gets underway with a quartet performance led by pianist and ex-St. Louisan Reggie Thomas and his Michigan State University colleague, bassist Rodney Whitaker, at Jazz at the Bistro. Drummer Montez Coleman and saxophonist Willie Akins will round out the group.

Also tonight, the St. Louis Low Brass Collective presents a free showcase at the Sheldon Concert Hall; and the Tavern of Fine Arts will present their monthly "Experimental Arts Open Improv Night" with live improvised music.

Tomorrow, the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival shifts to the Touhill Performing Arts Center, where Cuban-born trumpeter Arturo Sandoval will headline Friday's show, with the UMSL jazz band, directed by Jim Widner, as opening act. For more about this GSLJF, read this interview  that Widner did with Terry Perkins for St. Louis Public Radio.

Also tomorrow night, the Chicago Underground Duo (pictured), featuring Rob Mazurek (cornet, electronics) and Chad Taylor (drums, percussion), plays at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center; singer-guitarist Tommy Halloran and his band Guerrilla Swing make their debut in the first of two evenings at Jazz at the Bistro; and the Gaslight Cabaret Festival concludes with the first of two performances this weekend by St. Louis' own Lara Teeter at the Gaslight Theater.

And if all that's not enough, elsewhere around town on Friday Samba Bom will perform a free concert at Ferguson Citywalk; singer Joe Mancuso leads a quartet at Nathalie's; trumpeter Randy Holmes' sextet pays tribute to the music of Duke Ellington at Robbie's House of Jazz; and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes return to CJ Muggs in Webster Groves.

On Saturday, record collectors will want to make time to stop by "The Gigantic St. Louis DJ Album Sale for Charity" being held in midtown at 3137 Locust St. (east of Compton, one block west of The Fountain on Locust). The sale will feature more than 10,000 LPs, CDs and items of music memorabilia donated by local radio personalities past and present; for more details, see this post from last week.  

Also on Saturday afternoon, mouthpiece guru Mike Lomax will give a free workshop and presentation at Saxquest; and Miss Jubilee plays a matinee at Blues City Deli.

Update - 11:00 a.m. 4/25/14: Saxquest has posted on Facebook that the Mike Lomax mouthpiece workshop has been postponed due to illness.   

Then Saturday evening, the 2013 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival concludes with a concert by the Count Basie Orchestra, now directed by trumpeter Scotty Barnhart and featuring Reggie Thomas on piano, at the Touhill. For more about the Basie band and some video samples of performances of their classic repertoire, see this post from last Saturday.

And that's not the only big band show in town on Saturday, as that same evening bassist/trombonist Wayne Coniglio will lead a 35-piece orchestra with guest soloists including Cecil Cope and Elsie Parker in "The Swing of Hearts," a romance-themed program at Florissant Civic Center Theatre.

Also on Saturday night, violinist David McNair and his Gypsy jazz group Tzgane return to Robbie's House of Jazz; and the Ann Dueren Trio performs at Il Bel Lago.

On Sunday, the Dave Dickey Big Band plays their monthly gig at Kirkwood Station Brewing Company, with saxophonist Chip McNeill as guest soloist and the Genesis Jazz Project performing at intermission.

Also on Sunday, guitarists Steve Schenkel, John McClellan, Dave Black and Tom Byrne - aka the guitar faculty of Webster University - team up to perform at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus; and saxophonist Tim Cunningham and singer Jeffery Hardin join forces for a concert at the Forest Park golf course clubhouse.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday "Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective return to  BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups; and on Tuesday, pianist David Parker and drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw will perform as a duo at Tavern of Fine Arts.

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.)

Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center to celebrate 20th anniversary with concerts by Chicago Underground Duo, Peter Brötzmann Trio

The Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center is 20 years old this year, and to celebrate, they've booked a couple of concerts this spring that will be of special interest to StLJN readers.

* First up, the Chicago Underground Duo (pictured) will perform at LNAC at 8:00 p.m., Friday, April 25. Comprised of cornetist Rob Mazurek and percussionist Chad Taylor, the group has roots dating back to 1996, when Mazurek started an experimental jazz workshop at the Chicago club The Green Mill.

The "Chicago Underground" sessions subsequently spawned a number of ensembles, starting with the Chicago Underground Orchestra, which has released several albums on Delmark. Mazurek and Taylor have continued to form groups under the Chicago Underground umbrella, performing as the Chicago Underground Duo, Trio and Quartet, and putting out several recordings on the Thrill Jockey label.

Their seventh, Locus, is out this month on the Northern Spy imprint, and features "experiments with new forms, washes of electronic ambiance, beats and free playing." Their St. Louis performance will be part of 17-date tour supporting the new album.

* Next, saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and his trio will return to LNAC to perform at 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 4. Brötzmann, who just turned 73, is a German who's been a major force on the free jazz and creative music scene in Europe and here in the US since the late 1960s, recording dozens of albums as a leader and appearing on many more as a sideman or collaborator.

Influenced by Albert Ayler and other "New Thing" players of the 1960s, Brötzmann is known for a high energy approach to improvisation; a forceful sound that can be sandpaper-toned at select times; and for being a prolific collaborator with musicians from all over the globe. He also has a Chicago connection, as from 1997 to 2012 he led a ten-piece group that was based there. He last played in St. Louis in a 2010 duo gig at LNAC with drummer Hamid Drake.

Tickets for both concerts will be $5 at the door.

There's more about LNAC's 20th anniversary after the jump...