Jazz this week: Javon Jackson, Chris Botti, Pablo Ziegler & Claudia Acuna, BAG honors MLK, and more

After a couple of relatively slow weeks to start the new year, this week's musical offerings include several touring jazz performers playing on St. Louis stages. Let's go to the highlights:

Saxophonist Javon Jackson's Superband, featuring former Miles Davis sideman Jimmy Cobb on drums and Ronnie Matthews on piano, performs at Jazz at the Bistro starting tonight and continuing through Saturday. Jackson's recent recordings have been compared by some critics to the 1970s CTI releases from players such as Stanley Turrentine and Grover Washington Jr., and while Jackson (pictured) definitely can bring the funk when the situation calls for it, he also can play modern, hard bop and straight-ahead swinging jazz very well. This week's engagement likely will include some of all those styles, perhaps with a bit more straight-ahead playing than on some gigs due to the most welcome presence of Cobb, who was the drummer on Miles Davis' landmark Kind of Blue.

On Friday and Saturday, trumpeter Chris Botti plays the Touhill Performing Arts Center. I wrote a Critic's Pick about Botti for this week's Riverfront Times, and you can read it online here.

Also on Friday, the Pablo Ziegler Quintet for New Tango with special guest singer Claudia Acuna performs at the Edison Theatre on the Washington University campus. It's not clear from the publicity just how large a role Acuna has in this production, but from what I can tell, Ziegler, who worked with tango legend Astor Piazzolla, certainly seems worth hearing in his own right.

UPDATE - 11:55 p.m., 1/16/08 - Terry Perkins interviewed Ziegler for an article in Thursday's Post-Dispatch, elucidating the pianist's connection with Piazzolla and answering my question about Acuna: she'll sing seven songs with Ziegler's group. Read the whole article here.

On Sunday, BAG returns to the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site to pay tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a program called "One for King," featuring performances from the BAG Trio, poet Michael Castro, and more. Admission is free, and the concert is billed as being "family friendly."

Some other local gigs of note: Brandt's has the Richard Fuller Quartet on Thursday, Trio Tres Bien on Friday and Mo & Dawn on Saturday, while Cookie's Jazz and More will present Kim Massie on Friday and the Carolbeth True Trio on Saturday. Looking beyond the weekend, the Sessions Big Band performs at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups on Monday night.

For more local jazz-related events, please see 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.)

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: Claudia Acuna sings "My Man's Gone Now"plus Chris Botti's "My Funny Valentine"

This week's videos showcase a couple of performers who will be coming to St. Louis later this month.

First up is singer Claudia Acuna, who's returning to the Gateway City on Friday, January 18 with the Pablo Ziegler Quintet for New Tango as part of the Ovations series at Washington University's Edison Theatre. This clip shows Acuna doing her version of the Gershwin Standard "My Man's Gone Now."

Down below, it's trumpeter Chris Botti, who will be at the Touhill Performing Arts Center for a two-night stand on Friday, January 18 and Saturday, January 19. He's seen here playing another well-known standard, "My Funny Valentine," in a clip from the PBS series Legends of Jazz.

Claudia Acuna to perform in Edison Theatre's "Ovations" series

Chilean vocalist Claudia Acuna (pictured), who has recorded for the St. Louis-based MAXJAZZ label and performed at Jazz at the Bistro, will return to St. Louis in 2008 as the only jazz-oriented performer in next year's "Ovations" series at the Edison Theatre on the Washington University campus.

The series includes a variety of performances, including music, theatre and dance, and often has featured a musical artist of interest to jazz listeners. This year, it's Acuna, who will take the Edison stage on January 18 with the Pablo Ziegler Quintet for New Tango. Ziegler is an Argentinean pianist who worked for many years with tango master Astor Piazzolla. You can read about the rest of the "Ovations" series in the Post's story by theater critic Judith Newmark, found online here.