StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Galactic comes back (one year later)

When live shows shut down last March due to the pandemic, a performance by the New Orleans band Galactic scheduled at Delmar Hall was one of the first concerts to get canceled here in St. Louis. So perhaps it's fitting that they're one of the first bands to return here for a gig as restrictions are loosened and some venues are able to reopen.

In anticipation of that show on Sunday, May 16 at The Big Top, here's a grab-bag of (relatively) recent videos featuring Galactic and their current lead singer, Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph, starting up above with a full set of music recorded on New Year's Eve 2019 at the band's home venue, Tipitina's, which they've owned since the fall of 2018.

After the jump, you can see a version of "Walking On The Moon" recorded last fall at Tipitina's to benefit Georgia Comes Alive, a virtual festival to get out the vote in the Georgia Senate runoff elections.

That's followed by the music video for another single recorded during the pandemic, titled "Something’s Wrong With This Picture" and featuring Joseph and Ivan Neville.

The fourth video shows the band and Joseph performing "Heart of Steel" and "Hey Na Na" in September 2019 at Tipitina's.

The final two videos, both from May 2019, documents a Jazz Fest set at Tipitina's and an in-store performance at the Louisiana Music Factory.

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

Galactic to bring New Orleans funk to The Big Top on Sunday, May 16

In a welcome sign of touring bands resuming activity post-COVID, the New Orleans funk/jazz group Galactic has booked a show here in St. Louis at 7:00 p.m. Sunday, May 16 at The Big Top.

(If the name of the venue doesn't ring a bell, The Big Top is the tent used by Circus Flora, now installed semi-permanently as a multi-purpose venue at 3401 Washington Ave. in the Grand Center neighborhood.)

Regular visitors to St. Louis before the live music shutdown, Galactic (pictured) had been scheduled to play here most recently in March 2020 at Delmar Hall, but that show was among the first to be scuttled when the pandemic-related shutdowns began.

The group also has been in the news at various times over the past year for their ownership of Tipitina's, the famed New Orleans club that, like all live music venues, has been challenged to stay financially viable while being unable to present live performances.

Tickets for Galactic at the Big Top will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. Friday, April 9 via Metrotix, though prices still are TBA as of this writing.

Jazz this week: Kuzu, Galactic, Julian Lage & Dave King, Dikeman/ACA Quartet, Soul Message Band, SFJAZZ Collective, and more

It's a busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with a half-dozen noteworthy shows from visiting performers offering funk, free jazz, re-imaginations of music from two iconic artists, and much more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, March 11
Improvising trio Kuzu (pictured, top left), featuring guitarist Tashi Dorji, drummer Tyler Damon and saxophonist Dave Rempis, will perform in a New Music Circle concert at Joe's Cafe.

You can find out more, and see and hear performances on video from all three of them, separately and together, in this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Also on Wednesday, cabaret grande dame Marilyn Maye continues with her second of three nights of performances with the Jazz St. Louis Big Band; and Jazz St. Louis' "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series presents a free event with author William Studdart discussing his book The Jazz War: Radio Nazism, and the Struggle for the Airwaves in WW2 at the St. Louis County Library.

Thursday, March 12
New Orleans funk/jazz band Galactic (pictured, center left) returns to perform at Delmar Hall.

You can find out more about what they've been up to since their last appearance here, and see videos of some recent performances in this post from Saturday before last.

UPDATE - 10:00 a.m., 3/12/20: In an announcement made this morning on Twitter,  Galactic has canceled all tour dates, including tonight's show in St. Louis, until Saturday, March 28.

Also on Thursday, guitarist Julian Lage and drummer Dave King bring their "pop-up" tour to Gaslight Studio, and Dutch saxophonist John Dikeman headlines a bill of free improvisors at the Way Out Club.

Elsewhere around town, Chicago-based organ trio Soul Message Band will perform at The Dark Room, and two more Chicago-based musicians, saxophonist Rob Denty and drummer Tim Mulvenna, will team up with guitarist Vincent Varvel to play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

UPDATE - 7:45 a.m., 3/12/20: In a message published Wednesday night on Facebook, the Jazz at Holmes series announced that the remaining shows for the spring semester, including this week's Denty/Mulvenna/Varvel concert, have been cancelled, in keeping with Wash U's policy regarding current public health concerns over the coronavirus.

Friday, March 13
Keyboardist Dave Grelle's Playadors perform for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis, and singer Erin Bode will present at a concert at Focal Point.

Also on Friday, the Ambassadors of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom, and the Mineral Area College Carol Moore Memorial Jazz Festival, with trombonist Michael Dease as the featured guest, gets underway for the first of two nights at the Mineral Area College Theater in Park Hills, MO.

Saturday, March 14
The all-star SFJAZZ Collective (pictured, bottom left) will perform at the Sheldon Concert Hall, featuring new arrangements of music from Miles Davis' In A Silent Way and Sly and the Family Stone's Stand!.

You can find out more about about the Miles/Sly project and see some brief musical excerpts on video in this post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, bassist and singer Janet Evra leads her quartet at Evangeline's, and saxophonist Tim Cunningham returns to Troy's Listening Room.

Sunday, March 15
The Original Knights Of Swing will play a matinee at the Opera House of Pacific; the Coleman Hughes Project celebrates seven years as a band with a show at HollyLou Entertainment; and the JazzU Big Band student ensemble performs at Jazz St. Louis.

Tuesday, March 17
Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Singers Open Mic" at Sophie's Artist Lounge, and pianist Kim Portnoy teams up with voice faculty members from Webster U and Webster alumna Erin Bode for  "The Poetry Project" at Union Avenue Christian Church.

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: From New Orleans to the cosmos with Galactic

This week, let's check out some videos featuring the New Orleans funk/jazz band Galactic, who are coming back to St. Louis to perform on Thursday, March 12 at Delmar Hall.

Since their last appearance here in March 2018 at The Pageant, Galactic made big news in their hometown by becoming the new owners of Tipitina's, long known as one of New Orleans' top music venues.

Though that venture has consumed some of their collective time and attention, they also released a new album in February of last year titled Already Ready Already, their first since 2015, and currently are touring in celebration of their 25th anniversary as a band.

You can see some of the material from that new album being performed in today's collection of videos, starting with the first video up above, which shows an in-store performance by Galactic in May 2019 at the Louisiana Music Factory in New Orleans.

After the jump, you can see them performing "Heart of Steel" and "Hey Na Na" with their current touring lead singer, Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph, in September 2019 at Tipitina's, followed by "Dolla Diva" with singer Erica Falls from May 2019, also at Tipitina's.

The last two videos are both complete sets, also featuring Falls on vocals, from June 2018 at the Disc Jam Music Festival in Stephentown, NY and from a show in October 2018 in Live Oak, FL.

For more about Galactic, listen to the episode of "Music Inside Out with Gwen Thompkins" on WWNO in New Orleans in which they were featured last August, and read drummer Stanton Moore's interview with LiveForLiveMusic.com and bassist Robert Mercurio's interview on Jazz.FM91 in Canada, both from last fall.

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

Galactic to perform Thursday, March 12 at Delmar Hall

New Orleans-based funk/jazz band Galactic (pictured) will return to St. Louis next spring to perform on Thursday, March 12 at Delmar Hall.

Galactic last played here in March 2017, also at Delmar Hall. Their most recent recording, Already Ready Already, is their first album in three years, and was released in February 2019 on the band's own label, Tchuop-Zilla Records. In addition to the usual instrumentals, the album also features several songs recorded with various New Orleans vocalists, which are handled on tour by singer Erica Falls.

Since their last St. Louis appearance, Galactic also has been in the news for their purchase of the famous New Orleans nightclub Tipitina’s, which was completed late last year.

Tickets for Galactic at Delmar Hall are $25 in advance, $30 day of show, with a $2 surcharge for minors, and will go on sale at 10:00 this Friday, November 8.

Sunday Session: April 7, 2019

James Carter

Here's a roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* James Carter Revisits the Music of Django Reinhardt (Westword)
* CD REVIEW.. Bill Evans – Evans in England (Ronnie Scotts, Dec 1969) (London Jazz News)
* Hannibal Lokumbe: Always Go With the Feeling (New Music Box)
* Hardly Anyone on the Pop Charts Writes Their Own Music (Alone) Anymore (Rolling Stone)
* Live Review: Big Ears Festival 2019 (Jazz Times)
* We Spoke To The Head Of Music At Ronnie Scott’s About The Rise Of British Jazz (Complex.com)
* Galactic Takes Over Historic New Orleans Venue Tipitina’s (DownBeat)
* Steve Cropper reflects on a lifetime of playing guitar with a who's who of musical titans (Straight.com)
* Colonel Sanders at the Rave: Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Presence at Ultra Music Festival Was Disturbing (Pitchfork.com)
* Sounds from Tomorrow's World - Sun Ra and the Chicago Years, 1946-1961 (UChicago.edu)
* Red Bull Music Academy, Radio to Shut Down After 21-Year Run (Rolling Stone)
* Jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden’s historic house cited for demolition by neglect (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
* Kamasi Washington Is Finding That There Are No Wrong Notes (GQ)
* Pharoah Sanders: Spirit Ascending (BrooklynRail.org)
* Tibetan Musical Notation Is Beautiful (OpenCulture.com)
* Premiere: Hear the Title Track from Melissa Aldana’s Upcoming Motéma Album, ‘Visions’ (DownBeat)
* Melvin Gibbs Isn’t Looking Back (Jazz Times)
* Ruthie Foster, the Blues, and a Town That Needs Lifting (No Depression)
* ‘Old Town Road’ and the History of Black Cowboys in America (Rolling Stone)
* Country Music Excludes Women, Especially Over Age 40, Study Finds (NPR)
* Aaron Diehl: paradox at the piano (Rochester City Newspaper)

Sunday Session: December 9, 2018

Dexter Gordon

Here's a roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* All-too-easy listening - The music industry sells classical as soothing background music — robbing a great art of its power (Washington Post)
* Marcus Strickland Harnesses Power of Vocalists, Organ on Latest Album (DownBeat)
* The Multiple Personalities of Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks (ConsequenceOfSound.net)
* Jeff Simon: Is posthumous jazz a problem or a glorious resurrection? (Buffalo News)
* Wynton Marsalis: Jazz And Holiday Music Go Together Like Holly And Ivy (HoustonPublicMedia.org)
* Esperanza Spalding says goodbye to song-driven shows (Washington Post)
* It’s official: Galactic has purchased Tipitina’s (Offbeat)
* This Thing Never Stops: Roscoe Mitchell and Phillip Greenlief in Conversation (SFMOMA.org)
* Jazz Is Dance Music Again (Rolling Stone)
* The Life Force of Esperanza Spalding (OfficeMagazine.net)
* The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition Has a Winner (WBGO)
* Classical Hands: Composer Kris Bowers on Scoring ‘Green Book,’ Teaching Mahershala Ali Piano, Seeing His Hands On Screen (Pollstar)
* The good fight: Jan Ramsey keeps music journalism alive in New Orleans (Columbia Journalism Review)
* St. Nick: The Long, Strange and Wonderful Career of Nick Lowe (Rolling Stone)
* Interview: Milford Graves (Modern Drummer)
* Can We Get to That (Oxford American)
* Indie Labels Now Account for 39.9% of the Global Recorded Music Market (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Dexter Gordon Biography 'Sophisticated Giant' Chronicles a Jazz Life (Billboard)
* The Unclassifiable, Unstreamable Eighties Albums of Annette Peacock (The New Yorker)
* Sachal Vasandani Celebrates the American Songbook (Jazz Times)
* At 80, Saxophonist Charles Lloyd Finds Enlightenment in the Groove (NPR)
* Jazz legend Herbie Hancock becomes first musician to receive Ben Franklin Medal (WHYY)
* Hi Records star and instrumental hitmaker Ace Cannon dead at 84 (Memphis Commercial Appeal)
* Selling Vintage Records in Tokyo (LongReads.com)
* Covering both sides: Catherine Russell and John Pizzarelli (Santa Fe New Mexican)
* Playing the theory of relativity: Sunny Murray in Europe 1968–72 (The Wire)
* Daversa, Salvant, Mehldau Nominated for Grammy Awards (DownBeat)
* 'Fight The Power': A Tale Of 2 Anthems (With The Same Name) (NPR)
* Feds allege wider cover-up by Irvin Mayfield, Ronald Markham in New Orleans Library Foundation scandal (New Orleans Advocate)

Jazz this week: Melissa Aldana Quartet, Ben Wendel's "The Seasons," Galactic, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features performances from two stellar saxophonists, one of New Orleans' favorite funk bands, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, 
March 14
Saxophonist Melissa Aldana returns with her quartet for the first of four nights of performances at Jazz at the Bistro.

Aldana, who was born in Chile and educated at Berklee, has enjoyed a fast rise in the jazz world since becoming the first female instrumentalist and the first South American to win the annual Thelonious Monk competition in 2013, thanks to her distinctive tone on tenor sax and a musical approach influenced by players such as Sonny Rollins, Don Byas and Mark Turner.

For more about Aldana, you can see and hear some samples of her playing on video in this post, which dates from her St. Louis debut two years ago, and read an interview with her published a few weeks ago by the Chicago Tribune here.

Aldana's sets also will be simulcast on video to the first-floor lounge opposite the Bistro, where they can be viewed for free as part of the "Grand Center Jazz Crawl,"  which this week also includes Jacob Alspach and Friends at The Stage at KDHX, the jam session led by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet at The Dark Room.

Thursday, March 15
Saxophonist Ben Wendel performs at The Ready Room. Wendel (pictured, top left), best known as a member of the cooperative band Kneebody, currently is touring with music from a project called "The Seasons," which featured 12 original compositions dedicated to musical friends and colleagues that were released as a series of duo performances on video over the course of a year.

You can find out more about Wendel and "The Seasons," and hear some of the compositions that have been expanded to full-band arrangements for the tour, in this post from a week ago Saturday.

Update: 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 14: StLJN has just gotten word from Ben Wendel's publicist that his St. Louis date has been cancelled. If you bought tickets, contact your point of purchase for refund details.

Also on Thursday, New Orleans funk/jazz band Galactic (pictured, bottom left) will be back for another visit to St. Louis, their destination this time being Delmar Hall; Cincinnati "garage jazz" band Animal Mother tops a bill that also includes Animal Children and saxophonist Dave Stone at Foam; and saxophonist Ben Reece's Unity Quartet returns to The Dark Room.

Friday, March 16
Catch some of St. Louis' own at one of several weekly residencies happening on Fridays, including pianist Ptah Williams' trio at The Dark Room; singer and guitarist Tommy Halloran at Das Bevo Underground, or saxophonist Tim Cunningham at Troy's Jazz Gallery.

Saturday, March 17
Pianist Christopher Parrish plays a matinee at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site's Rosebud Cafe as part of a new monthly series presented by the Friends of Scott Joplin.

Then on Saturday night, singer Tony Viviano will be doing his thing at Table Three, while keyboardist Mo Egeston offers late night grooves at The Dark Room.

Sunday, March 18
The St. Louis Jazz Club presents Miss Jubilee in concert at the Moolah Shrine Temple in Maryland Heights.

Monday, March 19
Trumpeter Jim Manley will be back at Momo's Greek Restaurant, and pianist Carolbeth True and saxophonist Paul DeMarinis will perform a duo concert at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium.

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: Winter/spring 2018 jazz preview, part 4

This week, StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview continues with part four of a series of posts featuring videos of the jazz and creative music performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the first few months of the new year. (If you missed the previous installments, you can see part one here, part two here, and part three here.)

Continuing in chronological order from where part three left off, today's first video features singer Marilyn Maye, the grande dame of cabaret who will perform Wednesday, March 7 and Thursday, March 8 at Jazz at the Bistro. She's seen here singing a medley of "Secret of Life" and "Here’s to Life," recorded June 5, 2017 at the fifth anniversary celebration of Feinstein's/54 Below in New York City.

After the jump, you can see a clip of Melissa Aldana, who will lead her quartet in shows starting Wednesday, March 14 continuing through Saturday, March 17 at the Bistro. The video shows the Chilean-born, Berklee-educated saxophonist with pianist Sam Harris, bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Craig Weinrib playing "Turning & Over There" in November 2017 at the venue musig im pflegidach in Muri, Switzerland.

That week also features two more concerts of interest to StLJN readers on Thursday, March 15, when New Orleans jazz/funk band Galactic will be playing at Delmar Hall while saxophonist Ben Wendel performs at The Ready Room.

Galactic can be seen in the second video after the jump, playing a full set recorded in February 2017 at the Music Box in San Diego, CA, followed by Wendel, a founding member of Kneebody, playing "Song Song" from his album What We Bring in a undated video with Gerald Clayton, Joe Sanders, and Henry Cole.

Next up, it's The Thing, the avant-jazz trio of saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, and drummer Paal Nilssen Love. They'll be in St. Louis on Thursday, March 22 for a concert presented by New Music Circle at Off Broadway, and can be seen here playing a full set recorded November 27, 2017 at Blue Tomato in Vienna, Austria.

the penultimate clip features bassist Victor Wooten's trio with drummer Dennis Chambers and saxophonist Bob Franceschini. They're set to perform on Tuesday, March 27 at the Old Rock House, and are seen here playing "Love is My Favourite Word" in February 2016 at the Blue Note in Milano, Italy.

Last, but certainly not least, it's The Baylor Project, fronted by the husband-and-wife team of drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor and singer Jean Baylor, who are performing Wednesday, March 28 through Saturday, March 31 at the Bistro.

The Baylors, who are nominated in for 2018 Grammy Awards in both the "Best Traditional R&B Performance" and "Best Jazz Vocal Album" categories, can be seen in today's final video performing their Grammy-nominated song "Laugh and Move On," in a version recorded live last year at the studios of radio station WERS in Boston.

Look for part five of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview next week in this space. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

New Orleans funk/jazz band Galactic to perform Thursday, March 15 at Delmar Hall

The New Orleans-based funk/jazz band Galactic (pictured) is returning to St. Louis to perform on Thursday, March 15 at Delmar Hall.

Over the last few years, they've played here several times at Delmar Hall's sibling venue The Pageant, most recently in March 2014. Their most recent recording is Into the Deep, which came out in 2015 on the Provogue label.

Tickets for Galactic at Delmar Hall are $25 in advance, $30 day of show, with a $2 surcharge for minors, and will go on sale at 10:00 this Friday, October 20.

Sunday Session: July 26, 2015

Kamasi Washington

For your Sunday reading, here are some interesting music-related items that have hit StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* After 20 Years, New Orleans Band Galactic Lifts Off With New Voices (NPR)
* This Year’s DownBeat Critics Poll Kerfuffle (Outside-Inside-Out)
* Digitized and Now Available: Mahler’s Marked Score of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony (New York Philharmonic)
* 'Inside Out' composer Michael Giacchino is on a roll (Los Angeles Times)
* The key to perfection: how a Steinway piano is made (Financial Times)
* How Hip-Hop Is Becoming the Oldies (New York Times)
* Swing It Loud: Duke Ellington’s Early Black-Pride Music (WFIU)
* How MTV Is Trying to Reinvent Itself to Combat Sinking Ratings and Disinterested Teens (Billboard)
* 'Kid Charlemagne': A Close Reading Of Steely Dan's Ode To Haight Street's LSD King (SFist)
* To Stream or Not to Stream? That is the Wrong Question (New Music Box)
* How Music Magazines Are Changing to Stay Alive (Billboard)
* Why do pop singers like Lady Gaga keep releasing jazz albums? The upsides are tremendous. (Washington Post)
* Apple Music is a nightmare and I'm done with it (The Loop)
* SpokFrevo Orquestra, Redman Spark North Sea Jazz Festival (DownBeat)
* LA jazz: how Kamasi Washington and Thundercat are breathing new life into the west coast scene (The Guardian UK)
* Impulse To Release Haden-Rubalcaba Duo Album (DownBeat)
* Zappa Family Gives Access For New Frank Zappa Documentary (JamBase.com)

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Drummer Kimberly Thompson is keeping busy with her duties with the house band for NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers, even participating in some on-camera comedy bits, like the one pictured here with Michelle Wolf and Alison Agosti of the Late Night writing staff. However, Thompson did manage to find time this week to post on SoundCloud an excerpt from her band's performance last month at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

* Jazz students from Webster Groves High School are in New York City this week, and band director Kevin Cole has a full schedule planned for his young charges. The trip will include visits to NYC venues to hear Ambrose Akinmusire, Maria Schneider, Ulysses Owens, Charles Turner, Walter Smith III, and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; and a clinic at Queens College with Michael Philip Mossman, Antonio Hart, Paul Bollenbeck, and Luis Bonilla.

In addition, the WGHS Jazz 1 group will perform Sunday at St. Peters Jazz Vespers with pianist Kenny Werner, and then serve as the opening act that evening at Birdland for Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra.

* Also on the education front, Jazz St. Louis has announced a $35,000 gift from the Arthur & Helen Baer Foundation in support of the 2014-15 season of their JazzU program. Applications to audition for next year's JazzU are due by Friday, May 2, with auditions beginning on Monday, June 2. For more details, see the Jazz St. Louis website.

* Writing for the website NextStL, Kevin Belford has an update on recent wind damage to the historic Palladium Building in Grand Center and the possible effects on efforts to save the structure.

* Via Miles Davis Online, here's a video interview from IRockJazz with Davis' nephew Vince Wilburn, Jr., who helps administer his uncle's estate, in which Wilburn discusses the forthcoming movie about the trumpeter and various other Miles-related topics. MDO blogmaster Jeffrey Hyatt also has created a new site, Kill The Trumpet Player, to track news of the Davis film.

* Singer Connie Fairchild's show last Saturday for the Gaslight Cabaret Festival was reviewed for KDHX by Chuck Lavazzi.

* The late ragtime pianist and historian Trebor Tichenor was the subject of a tribute episode of KWMU's "CityScape" program.

* Galactic's performance last week at The Pageant was reviewed by KDHX's Amy Burger.

* A set from the Funky Butt Brass Band's gig last month at The Gramophone has been posted to archive.org.

* And speaking of The Gramophone, they're celebrating the venue's sixth anniversary this week with the announcement that their Sandwich and Bottle Shop will be open for regular daytime business offering food, drink and free wi-fi to the growing Grove neighborhood starting April 1.

* Also on the culinary tip, the Post-Dispatch's Ian Froeb is the latest to review the Louisiana-style menu at the new Central West End spot Evangeline's.

* HEC-TV last night debuted a new episode of I Love Jazz, featuring previously unseen archived performances by singer Marlena Shaw, trumpeter Dawn Weber, singer Marilyn Maye and pianist Billy Stritch, saxophonist Willie Akins and drummer Montez Coleman, and jazz faculty and students from Webster University. Check your TV provider's program guide for channels, dates and times, or watch online at http://www.hectv.org.

* Jazz radio update: On this Saturday's episode of Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis' "Somethin' Else," host Calvin Wilson spotlights New Orleans trumpeters including Louis Armstrong, Derrick Shezbie, Joe Newman, Terence Blanchard and Wynton Marsalis. You can listen at 8:00 p.m. Saturdays via 107.3 FM, 96.3 HD-2, and online at http://www.rafstl.org/listen.

(Edited after posting to add the KWMU "CityScape" link.)

Jazz this week: Sean Jones, Galactic, Pat Metheny Unity Group, Andre Delano, a tribute to Eddie Lang, and more

As the city wakes up the morning after Fat Tuesday, there's no post-Mardi Gras slump in the schedule of jazz and creative music in St. Louis. This week includes shows from several noteworthy touring musicians, plus a homecoming performance from a well-known expat, and much more. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, Sean Jones returns to Jazz at the Bistro to open a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday. The former lead trumpeter with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Jones (pictured) has been a frequent visitor to St. Louis on his own in recent years, most recently performing at the Bistro in 2013 with both the "Triumph of Trumpets" show and as guest soloist with the student JazzU ensembles. For this visit, he'll be accompanied by a top-notch group including pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Luques Curtis and drummer Obed Calvaire.

Tomorrow night, another group of frequent visitors returns, as New Orleans' funk/jazz/hip-hop band Galactic checks in for their annual appearance at The Pageant, this time with singer Maggie Koerner as special guest and the Mike Dillon Band as opening act. For more about Galactic, plus some recent performances of theirs on video, check out this post from a couple of Saturday ago.

Elsewhere around town on Thursday, saxophonist/clarinetist Elsie Parker's group featuring pianist Ken Kehner will play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; singer Feyza Eren and pianist Scott Shepard will star in "Colored Sky: An Evening of St. Louis Jazz," a benefit for the Diversity Awareness Partnership presented at the Sheldon Concert Hall; and the Gaslight Cabaret Festival continues with a performance of Ken Haller's "The TV Show" at the Gaslight Theater.

On Friday, the husband-and-wife team of pianist Joe Dreyer and singer Rosemary Watts continue the Gaslight Cabaret Festival with their show "Swing Into Spring"; singer Wendy L. Gordon returns to DeLeo's Cafe & Deli; vibraphonist Tom Rickard leads a trio at Cigar Inn; and the Ambassadors of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom

Then on Saturday, Connie Fairchild, the soulful singer best known for the long-running local rock band bearing her last name, will make her debut as a cabaret performer with a show called "Down By The River" at the Gaslight Theater.

Also on Saturday, Wack-A-Doo will be at the Tavern of Fine Arts; saxophonist Jay Hutson and Da Wolvez play R&B-inflected tunes at Robbie's House of Jazz; jazz-fusion band The Freedom make their debut at Thurman Grill; and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes return to the Venice Cafe.

On Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis Jazz Club presents a tribute to guitarist Eddie Lang at the Sheraton Westport, featuring guitarist Rick Haydon, trombonist Brett Stamps, clarinetist Scott Alberici, drummer Miles Vandiver, and bassist Zeb Briskovich.

Sunday evening offers dueling headliners, as saxophonist and East St. Louis native Andre Delano will be back home to play two shows at the Bistro at Grand Center, while guitarist Pat Metheny brings his Unity Group to town for a highly anticipated performance at The Pageant. For more about the Pat Metheny Unity Group and their brand new album Kin, see this post from last Saturday.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday percussionist Joe Pastor and his group are back at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

Then on Tuesday, the jazz-fusion group Common Time (formerly known as Steizuello) will be joined by a string quartet for a "Notes From Home" performance at the Sheldon; and Boisyiac, a new quartet including guitarist Mason Baran, bassist Nathan Pence, drummer Joe Winstein-Hibbs, and keyboardist Matt Villinger, will play at the 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.)

(Edited 3/6/13 to add some links and clean up typos.) 

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The funky cosmos of Galactic

This week, we've selected for your viewing and listening enjoyment some recent videos of Galactic, who will be back in St. Louis to perform on Thursday, March 6 at The Pageant.

Comprised of Stanton Moore (drums), Jeff Raines (guitar), Robert Mercurio (bass), Rich Vogel (keyboards), and Ben Ellman (saxophone), the New Orleans-based funk/jazz/hip-hop band has been making an annual St. Louis appearance in close proximity to Mardi Gras for a number of years now, often bringing at least a couple of guest stars with them.

This time, they'll have along singer Maggie Koerner, a recent transplant to New Orleans from her native Shreveport, as their special guest, with the Mike Dillon Band as opening act. (Given Galactic's proclivity for jamming with others featured on the same bill, it seems a safe bet that they'll all end up on stage together at some point, too.)

In the first clip, you can see them performing "Go Go" at the 2013 Gathering of the Vibes Music Festival, held last July in Bridgeport, CT. Down below, there's a multi-song performance recorded last year during their visit to the studios of KEXP in Seattle.

Below that, you can see a full set from Galactic's show last August at the Telluride Jazz Festival in Colorado, including some vocals from their former lead singer Theryl DeClouet, who left the band in 2004 but recently has been making some appearances with them.

That's followed by the first half of their show from the 2013 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which includes guest performances from Mike Dillon on percussion as well as Cory Henry (trombone), Corey Glover (vocals), Jazz Henry (trumpet), and David Shaw (vocals).

The final two embeds are parts one and two of a complete show from last April at the Vogue in Indianapolis, also with Shaw as guest vocalist.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/spring 2014 jazz preview, part 3

This week, it's an extra-large part three of StLJN's video preview of jazz musicians and bands coming to St. Louis in the first part of 2014. (In case you missed them, here's part one and part two.)

Today's first clip features singer Marissa Mulder, who will make her St. Louis debut as one of the headliners of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival, performing "The Songs of Tom Waits" from Thursday, February 27 through Saturday, March 1 at the Gaslight Theater. In this clip, Mulder can be seen singing "Day After Tomorrow," written by Waits and Kathleen Brennan, during a show in March of this year at the Metropolitan Room in NYC.

Down below, the next video shows off trumpeter Sean Jones playing his song "Transitions" at the 2011 Detroit Jazz Festival. Jones will return to St. Louis once again this spring to play Wednesday, March 5 through Saturday March 8 at Jazz at the Bistro.

The third video features another act that's visited St. Louis frequently in recent years, the New Orleans funk/jazz group Galactic. They'll be back on Thursday, March 6 to play at The Pageant, but in the meantime, you can watch their entire set from this year's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Below that, the fourth clip present another of the visiting headliners for the Gaslight Cabaret Festival, singer/actress Emily Bergl, whose performances of "Until the Real Thing Comes Along" from Thursday, March 13 through Saturday, March 15 at the Gaslight Theater will be her first here in St. Louis. Bergl, an acclaimed musical theater performer who also had a recurring role on ABC's Desperate Housewives, is seen here singing "42nd Street" at the Cicada Club in Los Angeles.

In the fifth video window, you can see an NPR Music "Tiny Desk Concert" featuring alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, who will be making his St. Louis debut Wednesday, March 19 through Saturday, March 22 at Jazz at the Bistro. Mahanthappa, who leads several different ensembles, is seen here performing "Killer" and "Playing With Stones" with guitarist Rez Abbasi, bassist Rich Brown, and drummer Rudy Royston.

The last five clips all relate to a single concert, the all-star "Newport Jazz Festival: Now 60" ensemble that will play the final date of a 17-city tour on Sunday, March 30 at the Sheldon Concert Hall. The group includes St. Louis' own Peter Martin (who should be quite familiar to regular StLJN readers by now) as pianist, and will be directed by clarinetist/saxophonist Anat Cohen, who was featured in this space last year when she and her quartet played a week at the Bistro.

Also taking part will be singer and Kansas City native Karrin Allyson, seen here performing "The Shadow of Your Smile" with her quartet; trumpeter Randy Brecker, who in his clip is playing "Round Midnight" in a 2011 performance with Washington DC's Jazz Academy Orchestra; and guitarist Mark Whitfield, offering his version of "In a Sentimental Mood" this part June at the JazzAscona festival in Switzerland (with some help from bassist Roland Guerin and drummer Troy Davis).

Providing the foundation for the band will be bassist Larry Grenadier, who is seen in the ninth video soloing at a clinic in June of this year in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and drummer Clarence Penn, who's featured in today's tenth and final clip playing a solo in 2010 at the Blue Note club in Poznań, Poland.

Look for part four of StLJN's winter/spring 2014 jazz preview here next week.

Galactic returning to The Pageant on Thursday, March 6

The New Orleans funk/jazz/hip-hop band Galactic will return to St. Louis next year to perform at 8:00 p.m. Thursday, March 6 at The Pageant.

Galactic (pictured) have been regular visitors to St. Louis and The Pageant in recent years; their last appearance at the venue was on Valentine's Day of 2013. The group's most recent album Carnivale Electricos was released in 2012.

Tickets for Galactic at The Pageant are $22.50 in advance, $25 day of show, with a $2 surcharge for minors under 21.

Tickets go sale at 5:00 p.m. this Friday, October 11. The Pageant also is conducting a presale for users of their mobile app from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. this Thursday; for more about that, go here.

Jazz this week: Sachal Vasandani, Galactic, Kris Davis Quintet, Jan Shapiro, Bucky Pizzarelli & Denise Thimes, and more

It's a jam-packed week of jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with local debuts from two noteworthy touring musicians, the return of some familiar favorites, homecoming gigs for three local expats, and lots more. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, singer Sachal Vasandani will make his St. Louis debut, beginning a four-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. Along with Gregory Porter, whom the Bistro presented for the first time in January, Vasandani is one of the most talked-about male jazz singers to emerge in recent years, with an intimate, ballad-friendly style and a repertoire with enough romantic songs to make him a suitable choice for Valentine's week. Yet the Chicago native certainly can swing, too, as demonstrated in some of the video samples included in this post from last Saturday.

Also tonight, trumpeter Jim Manley plays at Sasha's Wine Bar, and singer Joe Mancuso performs with a trio  at Frontenac Grill.

Tomorrow night, the New Orleans-based funk/jazz/hip-hop group Galactic returns for what's become an annual gig at The Pageant, this time bringing along as special guests singer Corey Glover of Living Color and Latryx, featuring Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truthspeaker.

For those looking specifically for something Valentine's-themed on Thursday, singer Jan Shapiro, a former St. Louisan who now heads the vocal jazz program at Berklee College of Music in Boston, will be in town to do a free concert with pianist Nathan Jatcko for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; and singer Erin Bode will perform at Cyrano's in Webster Groves.

The romantic theme continues on Friday, as veteran guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli (father of St. Louis favorite John Pizzarelli) comes to town to serve as special guest for singer Denise Thimes' Valentine's Day show at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Now 87, Pizzarelli understandably doesn't work as much these days as he once did, but he remains a masterful practitioner of a classic style of jazz guitar playing, and definitely is worth hearing for any fan of the sub-genre.

Also on Friday, multi-instrumentalist Wayne Coniglio will lead a big band plus multiple vocalists in "The Swing of Hearts" at 560 Music Center. The show will feature guest stars including singers Cecil Cope and Ginger Berglund, trombonist Scott Whitfield, and saxophonist/clarinetist/vocalist Elsie Parker.

Elsewhere on Friday, saxophonist Tim Cunningham plays at the new downtown event space the Paragon Theater; vibraphonist Peter Schlamb performs at Robbie's House of Jazz; and saxophonist Willie Akins will lead a quartet at the Cigar Inn.

On Saturday afternoon, singer Wendy Gordon performs for brunch at Frontenac Grill. Later that day, poet, author, St. Louis native, and Miles Davis biographer Quincy Troupe will be back in his hometown once again to present another performance of his "SoundArt" ensemble at the Metropolitan Gallery downtown. The concert, a production of the Nu-Art Series, also will feature saxophonist Stan Coleman and bassist Darrell Mixon.

Then on Saturday evening, pianist Kris Davis (pictured) and her quintet will play a concert presented by New Music Circle at 560 Music Center. Born in Canada and now based in NYC, Davis blends free improvisation with compositions reflecting influences from jazz and contemporary classical, and has just released a new album, Capricorn Climber. Her St. Louis debut gig will feature most of the band from that record, including saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, drummer Tom Rainey and violist Matt Maneri, along with bassist Eivind Opsvik. For more about Davis and some video clips of her in action, check out this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Saturday night also offers several choices of shows featuring female vocalists, with Feyza Eren at the Wine Press, Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes at the Venice Cafe, and Zena Star at the Rustic Goat.

On Sunday, Miss Jubilee begins a series of regular matinee performances at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups,  and looking beyond the weekend, on Monday trumpeter Keith Moyer's quartet will play at BB's.

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.)

(Edited 2/15/13 to correct an error in Monday's listing.) 

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* New Orleans funk/jazz/hip-hop group Galactic (pictured) will be in St. Louis next week to perform on Valentine's Day at The Pageant, and the group's bassist Robert Mercurio talked to writer Daniel Durchholz for a short preview story in the Post-Dispatch.

* Here's a review of The Wee Trio's set at last weekend's Ottawa Jazz Festival, written by the Ottawa Citizen's Peter Hum. The group will be performing and recording for an upcoming live album tonight and tomorrow at Jazz at the Bistro.

* HEC-TV this week premiered a new episode of I Love Jazz, featuring performances from the archives by musicians including The Cunninghams, Jim Manley, Reggie and Mardra Thomas, Bach to the Future, and Rick Haydon. Check your TV provider's program guide for dates and times, or view it online at http://www.hectv.org.

* Saxophonist Oliver Lake has a new album out on the Intakt label. All Decks was recorded live in November 2011 in Zurich, Switzerland, and features Lake with bassist Christian Weber, drummer Dieter Ulrich and trombonist Nils Wogram.

* MilesDavis.com has been compiling the reviews of the newly released recordings featuring Davis' "Lost Quintet" of the late 1960s, and they're "stellar."

* The downtown music venue/bar/restaurant Lola is recalibrating after the departure of partner/music booker Chris Hansen for the new venue The Demo. The Post-Dispatch's Kevin Johnson has the story on Lola's new direction here.

* Lindy Hop St. Louis is looking for sponsors for the Cherokee Street Jazz Crawl, a part of the Nevermore Jazz Ball, which will be held this year from November 7 through November 10. The Crawl showcases St. Louis traditional jazz and swing musicians in a free-to-the-public event on Cherokee Street. Sponsoring businesses will get recognition in program materials, and donations are tax-deductible. Businesses or organizations interested in becoming sponsors can contact Christian Frommelt of Lindy Hop St. Louis via email at christian @ lindyhopstlouis.org.

* Finally, did you know that St. Louis Jazz Notes has a page on YouTube? If you'd like to see only the StLJN posts that contain online music videos, you can find them all collected for your viewing and listening enjoyment here.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/spring 2013 jazz preview

As we head into the final weeks of 2012, let's take a look at some of the touring jazz and creative musicians who will be coming to St. Louis during the first part of 2013. Though there will be more extensive previews here of many of these performances as we go along, this post and its sequels over the next couple of weeks should help give you a quick overview of what's coming up next.

We start up above with singer Gregory Porter, performing his tune "1960 What?" earlier this year at a show in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Porter will make his St. Louis debut with a series of shows Thursday, January 3 through Sunday, January 6 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Down below, you can see and hear The Bad Plus performing "Sing for a Silver Dollar" from their latest album Made Possible in a performance this year at Anthology San Diego. Although this year they've ceded the first-gig-of-the-year slot at the Bistro to Porter, TBP will be back in St. Louis for their annual engagement a couple of weeks later, from Wednesday, January 16 through Saturday, January 19.

The third clip features the improvising electronic music duo Caboladies, aka Chris Bush and Eric Lanham, in an excerpt from a performance in July 2010 in Baltimore. They'll be coming to town for a concert presented by New Music Circle on Friday, January 18 at White Flag Projects, 4568 Manchester Ave.

Below that, it's the Dave Holland Quintet with "Ebb And Flow", recorded at the 2011 Barletta Jazz Festival in Italy. Holland has spent much of this year gigging with various other ensembles, but he'll reconvene what's been his primary working group for the last decade, with Chris Potter (saxophones), Robin Eubanks (trombone), Steve Nelson (vibes & marimba), and Nate Smith (drums), to play Wednesday, January 30 through Saturday, February 2 at Jazz at the Bistro.

The next musician likely needs no introduction to most St. Louis jazz fans, but just in case you don't already know trumpeter, singer, and University City native Jeremy Davenport, the clip of him performing "Do you Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans" should serve as a representative example of his work. Davenport, who now lives in New Orleans, was back here over Thanksgiving weekend for his annual gig at the Bistro, and he'll be returning on Saturday, February 2 to play at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Another St. Louis native, bassist Dan Loomis, is featured in the next clip, along with his bandmates in The Wee Trio, vibraphonist James Westfall and drummer Jared Schonig. Here, they're playing a tune called "White Out" from their CD Capitol Diner Vol. 2, but they'll be recording for a new live album during their gigs on Friday, February 8 and Saturday, February 9 at Jazz at the Bistro.

We wrap up today's post with a clip of the New Orleans funk/jazz band Galactic, recorded during a show in April of this year at Cannery Ballroom in Nashville. They'll be returning to St. Louis on Thursday, February 14 to perform at The Pageant. Look for part 2 of the winter/spring 2013 jazz preview next week...

Galactic returning to perform Thursday, February 14 at The Pageant

The New Orleans funk/jazz band Galactic (pictured) is returning to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m. Thursday, February 14 at The Pageant. Special guests for the show will be singer Corey Glover of Living Colour, and Latyrx, featuring Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truthspeaker.

Galactic last appeared in St. Louis in March of this year at the Pageant, touring in support of their then-new release Carnival Electricos.

General admission tickets for the February 14 show at the Pageant are $22.50 in advance, $25 day of show, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. this Friday, November 30 via Ticketmaster. The Pageant also is conducting a Facebook-only presale from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. this Thursday, for which you must enable Ticketmaster's Facebook app; for details on that, go here.