Scofield will perform on Friday, featuring music from his most recent recording Combo 66 with a band including keyboardist Gerald Clayton, bassist Vicente Archer, and drummer Bill Stewart.
His last gigs in St. Louis were an October 2017 date with the group Hudson at The Sheldon, and a week co-leading a band with saxophonist Joe Lovano in April, 2018 at Jazz St. Louis.
Jones will play on Saturday, teaming up with choreographer, dancer and vocalist Brinae Ali to present "Dizzy Spellz," which is described as "an Afro-futuristic lens exploring the intersection of cultural and spiritual dilemmas within the African Diaspora through the music of Dizzy Gillespie."
A frequent visitor to St. Louis in recent years, Jones' most recent gig here was with the "Bistro All-Stars"(also including saxophonist Tia Fuller, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, and pianist Peter Martin) in February of last year at Jazz St. Louis.
The GSLJF also includes two days of adjudication, clinics, and performances by area high school big bands on the Wednesday and Thursday preceding the public concerts. This year's festival will be the first under the direction of pianist and educator Adaron "Pop" Jackson, who took over leadership of the University of Missouri-St. Louis' jazz program last fall after the retirement of former director and festival founder, bassist Jim Widner.
Tickets for both concerts are scheduled to go on sale, prices TBA, on Friday, January 24 via the Touhill box office.
* Pianist and St. Louis native Tom McDermott, who's made his home for many years in New Orleans, has a new album, Tom McDermott Meets Scott Joplin, out this month on the Arbors label.
* On The Corner Live! The Music of Miles Davis, the new release featuring an all-star band gathered by saxophonist and former Davis sideman Dave Liebman, was reviewed in Jazz Journal and Jazz Times.
* The deadline for local student musicians in grades 6-12 to apply for Jazz St. Louis' JazzU program for the 2019-20 school year is next Friday April 26. Audition and application details are online at https://jazzstl.org/education/jazz-u/2019-20-jazzu-auditions/.
* And in a related story, current JazzU student Joanna Serenko, a singer, guitarist and senior at Kirkwood High School, last week was announced as the winner of this year's St. Louis Teen Talent Competition sponsored by the Fox Performing Arts Charitable Foundation.
This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes the long-awaited return of a critically acclaimed pianist; an all-woman big band headlining a local festival; a couple of free events examining the music of John Coltrane; and more. Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, April 10
Pianist Brad Mehldau returns to St. Louis for the first time since 2011 for the start of a five-night engagement at Jazz St. Louis.
Their most recent recording is Seymour Reads the Constitution!, which came out in 2018, and given how long it's been since Mehldau's last appearance here, it seems likely that this week's run at the Bistro will feature some of that material, as well as selections from 2016's Blues and Ballads.
Thursday, April 11
There's more Coltrane content on tap for Thursday night, as the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University will present a free concert featuring saxophonist Paul DeMarinis playing a program of the saxophonist's compositions. DeMarinis will be joined by pianist Nick Schlueter, bassist Jeff Anderson, and drummer Steve Davis, with Ashley Kahn also on hand to deliver some pre-concert remarks.
The NYC-based, all-woman big band led by drummer Sherri Maricle last year celebrated their 25th anniversary with an album featuring all-original compositions and arrangements by members of the group.
For more about that, plus some videos of DIVA in action, as well as videos of musicians who will be featured in Saturday's GSLJF concert, check out this post from last Saturday.
Saturday, April 13
The 2019 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival's final concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center will be a tribute to UMSL jazz studies director Jim Widner featuring the "Ultimate Jazz All-Stars,"an ad hoc group assembled for the occasion by drummer and producer Gregg Field and featuring musicians such as saxophonist Tom Scott, trumpeter Scotty Barnhart, pianist, saxophonist and arranger/composer Gordon Goodwin, bassist Carlitos del Puerto, pianist Shelly Berg, and more.
Then on Sunday evening, multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman and pianist Carolbeth True will revisit some of the music from their 1998 album New World Harmonica Jazz at the house concert venue Judson House.
Tuesday, April 16
Bassist Victor Wooten(pictured, bottom left) returns with the Wooten Band for a show at Old Rock House. Along with the leader, the Wooten Band includes his brothers Regi and Joseph Wooten on guitars and keyboards and Derico Watson on drums.
The show also will feature the "Wooten Woods Experience," which involves an audience participation segment; guest musicians/educators drawn from a roster including bassist Steve Bailey and saxophonists Bob Franceschini and Bob Hemenger; and "a select group of students from his music and nature camps, an immersive educational program focusing on the relationship between music, nature, and life."
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.)
Friday night's concert will feature the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, an all-woman big band based in NYC that was founded and still is led by drummer Sherri Maricle. They celebrated their 25th anniversary as a band in 2018 and have released ten albums to date, the most recent being last year's 25th Anniversary Project, which featured all original music composed and arranged by current members of the orchestra.
As you'd expect, aside from Maricle, the lineup of musicians has changed and evolved over the years, and several alumni have gone on to careers as solo artists and bandleaders, notably trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and saxophonist and clarinetist Anat Cohen.
You can see DIVA in action in the first video up above, which documents their complete set at the 2017 International Women's Brass Conference, held in June of that year on the campus of Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ.
After the jump, you can see two more performances recorded in 2018 at the Cummings Theatre in Cazenovia, NY, starting with "Jami's Tune" by trumpeter Barbara Laronga, and then "Square One," composed and arranged by alto saxophonist Alexa Tarentino.
Saturday night's concert at the Touhill is billed as tribute to bassist and UMSL jazz studies director Jim Widner, who founded the GSLJF and is retiring from teaching this year. Drummer and producer Gregg Field , a former student of Widner's, will lead a "all-star" big band assembled specifically for the occasion, featuring a number of musicians with connections to Widner and the festival.
Though a complete lineup of musicians hasn't been announced, the tribute's advertised participants include a number of well-known players, such as saxophonist Tom Scott, trumpeter Scotty Barnhart, pianist, saxophonist and arranger/composer Gordon Goodwin, bassist Carlitos del Puerto, pianist Shelly Berg, and more. You can see and hear some of those musicians in action in the rest of today's videos.
Field, who first made his reputation as the drummer for a latter-day edition of Count Basie's band, can be seen in the third video after the jump, driving the student musicians in the 2017 Disneyland Resort All American College Band in a concert from behind his kit.
Next, you can see Barnhart playing the ballad standard "I Thought About You," as recorded in 2017 at a demonstration performance for Monette trumpets, followed by Tom Scott doing his tribute to Grover Washington, "Got to Get Closer To You," at a gig in 2016.
That's followed by Berg's brief solo take on 'They Can't Take That Away from Me," recorded in 2016 as a tribute to his friend Larry Rosen; an unaccompanied bass solo from 2015 by Del Puerto; and, last but not least, a full set from Goodwin's Big Phat Band, recorded earlier this year at the Folsom Jazz Festival in California.
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
Friday's concert will feature the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, the all-woman big band led by drummer Sherrie Maricle. Based in NYC, DIVA (pictured) celebrated 25 years as a band earlier this year with the album 25th Anniversary Project.
Saturday's show will feature the "Ultimate Jazz All-Stars Big Band," an ad hoc assembly directed by drummer Gregg Field, and will serve as a tribute to bassist and UMSL director of jazz studies Jim Widner, who founded the GSLJF and is retiring from teaching next year.
Although a complete lineup of musicians isn't available yet, players mentioned in the promotional email as participants on Saturday include saxophonists Tom Scott and Eric Marienthal, multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Gordon Goodwin, bassist Carlitos del Puerto, pianist Shelly Berg, and drummer Scotty Barnhart.
Tickets for the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival are $35 per night, $33 for seniors, $15 for students, and are on sale now via the Touhill box office.
It's a big week for big bands in St. Louis, as the calendar of upcoming jazz and creative music events in St. Louis features a couple of famed large ensembles as headliners of the annual Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival.
There's also a retrospective of the Harlem Renaissance and a look at how Johann Sebastian Bach influenced jazz, plus plenty of other performances in jazz styles ranging from vintage to modern. Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, April 18
Jazz St. Louis' "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series continues at Jazz at the Bistro with Washington University professor Gerald Early talking about "Harlem's Renaissance," followed by a performance of music associated with the period.
Meanwhile, this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" will help kick off the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival by featuring small ensembles from UMSL's jazz program at The Stage at KDHX and as opening acts for the jam session led by bassist Bob DeBoo at the Kranzberg Arts Center and for trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's band at The Dark Room.
Thursday, April 19
Singer Erin Bode performs at Cyrano's, and the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival continues with trumpeter Hermon Mehari(pictured, top left), who's originally from Kansas City and now splits his time between there and Paris, leading a quartet at The Dark Room.
(You can find out more and see some videos of performances by Mehari and the headlining bands of the GSLJF's weekend shows in this post from last Saturday.)
Saturday, April 21
The Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival concludes with a performance by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band (pictured, bottom left); and Carolbeth Trueand Two Times True will be joined by singer Joe Mancuso at the Webster Groves Concert Hall.
Sunday, April 22
This week's Sunday jazz brunch options include The Bonbon Plot playing bossa nova and more at The Dark Room, and Miss Jubilee singing vintage jazz and blues at Evangeline's.
Tuesday, April 24
As part of St. Louis Bach Festival 2018, the Bach Society of St. Louis will present "Bach & Jazz"with singer Erin Bode, guitarist Steve Schenkel and pianist Kim Portnoy at Jazz at the Bistro.
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.)
This week, let's take a look at some videos of the musicians who will be performing at the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, which takes place next week and culminates with concerts on Friday, April 20 and Saturday, April 21 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.
While the first part of the festival involves student bands from around the area working with and performing for visiting clinicians, the GSLJF also usually has several public events. This year, those performances include a show by trumpeter Hermon Mehari on Thursday at The Dark Room, and the weekend concerts at the Touhill, which will feature the One O'Clock Lab Band from the University of North Texas on Friday and Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band on Saturday, with the UMSL Jazz Band directed by Jim Widner as opening act on both nights. Small ensembles from UMSL also will be performing as part of next week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" on Wednesday night.
Based in Los Angeles and stocked with first-call West Coast musicians, the Big Phat Band occupies a place in the jazz world not unlike that once held by Stan Kenton and later Maynard Ferguson. They're favorites of band directors and members of high school and college student big bands across the country, thanks to their energetic live show and slickly executed arrangements, and no doubt aided by their willingness to travel and perform at high schools and small colleges as well as at more prestigious venues.
The first video of the Big Phat Band up above, "Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes," was recorded in 2016 at one of those off-the-beaten-path gigs at New Trier High School in Winnetka, IL, near Chicago. So were "Count Bubba's Revenge" and "Horn Of Puente," the two numbers that follow it after the jump. While the videos are low-res, the audio quality is good, and the three numbers depicted give a good taste of the Big Phat Band's sound and stylistic range.
The One O'Clock Lab Band is the top student band at the University of North Texas, home to one of the most storied and longest-running collegiate jazz programs in the USA. Although like any college band, they have ongoing turnover in membership, the One O'Clock band over the years has maintained a consistent high standard of musicianship rivaling many professional ensembles, as you can hear in the next three videos.
"Hey, It’s Me You’re Talking To" is an arrangement of a tune by drummer Victor Lewis, recorded on March 1 of this year at Winspear Hall on the North Texas campus, as was the Robert Washut arrangement "Beneath the Mask" just eight days later. The third of clip of the group, a new arrangement of the venerable "Harlem Nocturne," was recorded last November, also at Winspear Hall.
Today's last two videos feature Hermon Mehari. who grew up in Kansas City and now splits his time between there and Paris, France. "Minority" is, as Mehari mentions in his introduction, a staple of his live shows, seen here in a version recorded last October at Belleville Brûlerie in Paris, while "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" showcases Mehari alongside the acclaimed young pianist Aaron Parks in a live-in-the-studio promotional clip for the trumpeter's 2017 debut album Bleu.
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
This week, StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview continues with part five in a series of posts featuring videos of 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, part three here, and part four here.)
Continuing in chronological order from where last week's post left off, the first video up above features singer and St. Louis native Ken Page, the St. Louis native and star of Broadway and film who will bringing his cabaret act to Jazz at the Bistro on Wednesday, April 4 and Thursday, April 5. Page, who's known for his roles in the original casts of musical theater megahits such as Ain't Misbehavin' and Cats, as well as for his voice characterization of Oogie Boogie in Tim Burton's animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas, is seen here in a demo reel compiled to showcase his talents for potential bookings.
Page will be followed on the Bistro stage by drummer Allison Miller, trumpeter Riley Mulherkar and saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, who will be in town that week to do an educational residency for Jazz St. Louis and will cap it with performances on Friday, April 6 and Saturday, April 7 at the Bistro.
As with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Group that's here this week at the Bistro, Miller, Mulherkar and Lefkowitz-Brown (and presumably a local support musician or two) will be joining forces specifically for this gig, so the only available footage to show you is of them performing individually.
Miller can be seen in the first video after the jump with her band Boom Tic Boom, performing "Fuster," the opening track from their album Otis Was a Polar Bear, at a gig in May 2016 in Philadelphia. (Along with the leader on drums, Boom Tic Boom includes pianist Myra Melford, violinist Jenny Scheinman, cornetist Kirk Knuffke, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and bassist Todd Sickafoose.)
After that, you can see Mulherkar playing Duke Ellington's "Echoes of Harlem" in a jam session last April at the Kranzberg Arts Center right here in St. Louis, accompanied by bassist Bob DeBoo and drummer Montez Coleman, followed by a clip of Lefkowitz-Brown playing Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite" with his quartet, which includes Takeshi Ohbayashi on piano, Tamir Shmerling on bass, and Bryan Carter on drums.
Next up at the Bistro will be "Songs of Freedom," a show developed by drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr that will be performed by a group led by him and featuring vocalists Alicia Olatuja and Joanna Majoko starting Wednesday, April 11 and continuing through Saturday, April 14 at the Bistro.
First presented at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, "Songs of Freedom" is based on the music of what the promotional copy calls "three iconic voices of the 1960s--Joni Mitchell, Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone--and the complex ways in which they call out to each other."
Unfortunately, none of the previous performances seem to have been recorded on video and put online, so instead in today's fourth clip you can see a full set of Owens leading a band with bassist Reuben Rogers, vibraphonist Joel Ross, and singer Vuyo Sotashe last August as Dizzy's Club in NYC.
That's followed by a clip of Majoko singing "Bye Bye Blackbird" recorded a couple of years ago at UMFM studios in Winnipeg, MB, Canada, accompanied by Jocelyn Gould (guitar), Carter Graham (keyboard), Karl Kohut (bass), and Curtis Nowosad (drums). (St. Louis native Olatuja can be seen in last week's post, which previewed, among others, her solo shows in February at the Bistro.)
The same night that Owens and company wrap up at the Bistro, pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and his band Ekaya will be in town to perform on Saturday, April 14 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.
Ibrahim originally was scheduled to be joined by trumpeter Hugh Masekela for a program recounting the history of the Jazz Epistles, South Africa's first bebop band, of which both men were members.
However, Masekela's health issues have caused him to cancel all his live shows for the first part of 2018, so as of this writing, the concert is still set to go on, but no replacement trumpeter has been announced yet.
It was announced this past week that the estimable Wadada Leo Smith will be performing with Ibrahim for dates next month at SFJAZZ in San Francisco, which ought to make for a very interesting collaboration. And Ibrahim has worked with some other very capable trumpeters, too, as in the next clip, which shows him and Ekaya plus special guest Terence Blanchard in a full set recorded last July at the Jazzaldia festival in Donosti, Spain.
The One O'Clock Lab Band, which is UNT's top student ensemble, can be seen in the penultimate clip performing "Harlem Nocturne" in a show last November on campus. That's followed by a video of a full show from the Big Phat Band, recorded in November 2015 at the Los Angeles College of Music.
Look for part six 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...
As Jazz Appreciation Month 2017 moves past the halfway point, the calendar of live jazz and creative music performances here in St. Louis takes a turn toward the historic, with events scheduled to pay tribute to St. Louis' own Oliver Nelson, as well as to Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Dizzy Gillespie, and more. Let's go to the highlights...
The nine-piece band (three reeds, three brass, three rhythm) will perform material from throughout Nelson's career, with an emphasis on works addressing topics of civil rights and social justice, including "I Hope In Time A Change Will Come," "Emancipation Blues" and "The Kennedy Dream Suite," as well as songs from Nelson's most famous album Blues and the Abstract Truth.
Also on Wednesday, the weekly jam session hosted by pianist Curt Landes, bassist Glen Smith, and drummer Chuck Kennedy continues at @Nesby's in South County.
For more about the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, plus some videos of Stafford, Gordon, Vadala, and Saturday night's headliner, trumpeter Jon Faddis, (pictured, top left) see this post from last Saturday.
Saturday, April 22
The Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival concludes with a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dizzy Gillespie, featuring Gillespie's protege Jon Faddis and Friends, at the Touhill.
Tuesday, April 25 Troy's Jazz Gallery begins a new, weekly Tuesday night jam session hosted by drummer Montez Coleman.
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.)
The event actually begins on Thursday with a day devoted to adjudicated performances by jazz bands from area high schools, along with clinics for student musicians, followed by the public concerts on Friday and Saturday at the Touhill.
This year, Friday's concert is billed as a tribute to Louis Armstrong, and will feature trumpeter Terell Stafford, trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, and saxophonist/flutist Chris Vadala, along with the University of Missouri-St. Louis Big Band directed by bassist Jim Widner, who heads both the festival and UMSL's jazz program.
On Saturday, the concert will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dizzy Gillespie by featuring one of his more notable proteges, trumpeter Jon Faddis "and Friends," which for this occasion will include Stafford, Vadala, trombonist Andre Hayward, drummer Ignacio Berroa, and trumpeter Nick Marchione, plus the UMSL Big Band.
You can see Stafford in the first video up above, a full set of music paying tribute to trumpeter Lee Morgan that was recorded in October 2016 at Dizzy's Club in NYC's Jazz at Lincoln Center. Stafford is accompanied by his close friend and fellow Philadelphia native Tim Warfield on tenor sax, Bruce Barth on piano, Peter Washington on bass, and Billy Williams on drums.
After the jump, you can see a full set of music featuring Gordon, also recorded at Dizzy's Club in November of last year. Joining Gordon are Adrian Cunningham (tenor sax, clarinet, flute), Ehud Asherie (piano), Corcoran Holt (bass), and Alvin Atkinson Jr. (drums), plus guest trombonist Corey Wilcox.
Finding recent, high-quality clips of Vadala was something of a challenge. Since he's a very active clinician with high school and college jazz programs - he was last here in St. Louis in 2012 working with students from Webster Groves High School and Western Illinois University - there are dozens of amateur shaky-cam videos of him on YouTube performing as guest soloist with various student groups all around the country, but most of them devote as much time to the ensembles as to Vadala, or have audio/video quality below even StLJN's rather forgiving standards.
In the end, the best available, recently shot, close-up showcase for Vadala seemed to be the next two clips, which feature him playing with a band called the Eastern Standard Time Jazz Quartet at the 2016 Takoma Park JazzFest in Maryland.
Finally, you can check out a couple of clips of Faddis, first doing a dueling-trumpets thing with Wynton Marsalis on an arrangement of Dizzy Gillespie's "Things To Come," and then playing Tadd Dameron's "If You Could See Me Now" with the Barcelona Jazz Orquestra.
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
Today, it's time to wrap up StLJN's winter/spring 2017 jazz preview with the fifth installment in the series, which features videos of jazz and creative music performers who are coming to St. Louis over the next few months. The posts cover those acts in chronological order, and if you've missed earlier installments, you can catch up by clicking through to parts one, two, three and four.
This year's GSLJF will feature trumpeter Terell Stafford and trombonist Wycliffe Gordon playing with the UMSL Jazz Ensemble on Friday, and trumpeter Jon Faddis and friends "Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Dizzy Gillespie" on Saturday.
In the first clip up above, you can see Stafford playing flugelhorn on the ballad "Everything Happens To Me" as recorded last March in the studios of KNKX radio in Tacoma, WA.
After the jump, the second clip features Gordon singing and soloing on Fats Waller's "Honeysuckle Rose" at the 2015 New York Hot Jazz Festival, with help from clarinetist Adrian Cunningham, drummer Alvin Atkinson Jr, bassist Jennifer Vincent, and pianist Ehud Asherie.
Below that, you can see Faddis featured with pianist Mike Longo's big band, playing Longo's arrangement of "A Night in Tunisia" as part of an event commemorating Dizzy Gillespie's birthday in November 2015 at the NYC Baha'i Center.
The week after the GSLJF, the SFJAZZ Collective will return for a series of performances starting Wednesday, April 26 through Saturday, April 29 at Jazz at the Bistro.
The Collective each year features new arrangements of music from a single composer, and this season, they're spotlighting the works of Miles Davis, which should prove to be a strong audience draw pretty much everywhere, but especially so here in St. Louis.
To get an idea of how they're approaching Davis's music, check out the next video featuring trumpeter Sean Jones' arrangement of "So What" as performed last October at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco. In addition to Jones, the current lineup of the Collective includes alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon, tenor saxophonist David Sanchez, trombonist Robin Eubanks, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, pianist Edward Simon, bassist Matt Penman and drummer Obed Calvaire.
A couple of weeks later, organist Joey DeFrancesco, will be performing starting Wednesday, May 10 through Saturday, May 13 at the Bistro. DeFrancesco is seen today's fifth clip with guitarist Dan Wilson and drummer Jason Brown playing a full set recorded in August 2016 at Dizzy's Club in NYC's Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Next up, it's bassist Christian McBride, who's bringing his New Jawn Quartet here to play Wednesday, May 24 through Saturday, May 27 at the Bistro. With trumpeter Josh Evans, saxophonist Marcus Strickland, drummer Nasheet Waits but no pianist, guitarist or vibraphonist to fill out the ensemble, this group represents something of a new sound for McBride, but unfortunately, they're so new that there doesn't seem to any representative video of them online as of yet.
They're playing the Village Vanguard next week, so perhaps some video of that will surface before spring, but in the meantime, in the penultimate clip you can check out McBride's trio, which played the Bistro last year, performing "Sand Dune" in a session last July at KNKX radio.
Today's final video features singer, pianist and occasional guitarist Norah Jones, who will be coming to St. Louis for a concert on Tuesday, June 6 at the Peabody Opera House. Jones' most recent album Day Breaks offered something of a return to the jazz-oriented sound with which she began her career, including a version of Horace Silver's composition "Peace" that she performed in December on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
That finishes StLJN's 2017 winter/spring jazz preview, though if any future performances of interest subsequently are announced, you'll find the news here. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
It's a fine week to be a fan of jazz and creative music in St. Louis, as the calendar offers a jam-packed schedule of upcoming performances in a variety of styles and genres from big band and straight-ahead swing to free improv and experimental music.
Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, April 20 The Bad PlusJoshua Redman finish their two-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. While some tickets may remain for the 9:30 performance, call ahead to check for availability.
Lake, poet Shirley LeFlore and drummer Charles “Bobo” Shaw will take part in a panel discussion about BAG, and then will perform, abetted by bassist Darryl Mixon and trumpeter George Sams. The latest from Jazz St. Louis is that this free event is at capacity, so if you don't already have a ticket, you can still show up and watch from the Bistro's adjacent first floor lounge or hope for returns and/or no-shows.
Abrams and Dawkins are last-minute replacements for percussionist Adam Rudolph, who was scheduled for a duo performance with Drake but unfortunately, has fallen ill and can't travel this week.While their presence will make the program undoubtedly different than a Drake/Rudolph duet, it nevertheless should prove to be a satisfying experience for fans of creative improvised music.
Elsewhere on Thursday, trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet will play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, and the high school students of the North County Big Band will show off what they've learned this semester in a performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall.
A longtime favorite of St. Louis audiences, Pizzarelli (pictured, center left) was here most recently last year to perform at a benefit gala for The Sheldon. You can read StLJN's review of a Pizzarelli performance in 2014 at Jazz at the Bistro here.
Saturday, April 23
Saxophonist David Liebman makes a rare visit to St. Louis with his group Expansions, presenting a free workshop and concert during the afternoon at Saxquest and then performing two sets on Saturday evening at Jazz at the Bistro.
For more about Liebman (pictured, lower left) and a video of a workshop and performance featuring him and the members of Expansions, see this post from Monday.
Also on Saturday, the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival wraps up with a "Tribute to Maynard Ferguson,"featuring a group of former Ferguson sidemen billed as the M.F. All-Star Band, at the Touhill. You can see videos of some of the musicians performing in the concert in this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.
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.)
(This year's GSLJF also will feature a concert on Friday by St. Louis favorite John Pizzarelli, with the UMSL Jazz Ensemble directed by Jim Widner as opening act for both nights. In addition, the festival includes three days of adjudicated performances and clinics for high school jazz ensembles from around the area, beginning on Thursday and continuing through Saturday.)
Known particularly for his exceptional high-note prowess on trumpet, outgoing personality, and showmanship, Maynard Ferguson first gained wide notice as a member of Stan Kenton's band in the 1950s. He formed his own big band in 1957, and after a sabbatical in the late 1960s, Ferguson rose to even greater prominence in the 1970s, thanks to incessant touring and a series of fast-selling albums featuring original charts tinged with funk and rock plus brassy renditions of then-current pop tunes.
What also happened around that time was that, as Wikipedia puts it, "Ferguson latched on to the burgeoning jazz education movement by recruiting talented musicians from colleges with jazz programs (notably Berklee College of Music, North Texas State University and the University of Miami) and targeting young audiences with performances and master classes in high schools and colleges. This practical and strategic move helped him develop a strong following that would sustain him for the remainder of his career."
Although not all of Ferguson's more commercially oriented music was well-received by critics, his late-career return to a more mainstream jazz sound with the nine-piece Big Bop Nouveau provided ample evidence that he was more than just a high-note specialist, and also was popular enough to keep him busy touring and recording right up until his death at age 78 in 2006.
Today's collection of video clips shows them performing music associated with their former boss in a variety of settings, including a 2008 tribute show that yielded the first video up above, a version of the Ferguson band's arrangement of "MacArthur Park" featuring Wayne Bergeron on trumpet.
After the jump, there's another clip from the same show of "Gonna Fly Now," better known as the theme from the film Rocky, which was recorded by Ferguson in 1977 and here features solos from Eric Miyashiro, Patrick Hession, and Bergeron.
Next, there's a version of "Got the Spirit," a Slide Hampton composition that was a staple of Ferguson's 1970s and 80s touring repertoire. This clip was recorded in 2013 by the University of North Texas' One O'Clock Band, directed by Steve Wiest and featuring as special guests Frank Greene, Denis DiBlasio, and Stockton Helbing.
Wiest steps into the spotlight in the next video, wielding a customized trombone with Denver's Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra as the featured performer on "Superbone Meets The Badman." The chart by arranger/composer Jay Chattaway originally was heard on Ferguson's popular 1974 album Chameleon; this version is from a 2014 show by Wiest and the MJO at Dazzle Jazz Club in Denver.
That's followed by another clip from the 2008 tribute show, a Fergusonized version of Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man" that includes a solo turn from Denis DeBlasio.
The baritone saxophonist also is featured in the sixth clip, which is from a Ferguson band performance sometime in the 1980s and provides a vivid example of the leader's typical onstage demeanor. As DeBlasio solos and scat-sings on Dizzy Gillespie's bebop standard "Salt Peanuts," Ferguson is right there alongside, getting into the music and visibly exhorting him.
The final clip, from a Big Bop Nouveau performance in 1988, doesn't feature any of the musicians who will be at the Touhill, but instead serves as a reminder of some of Ferguson's other popular arrangements that could end up being part of the show. The video of "The MF Hit Medley" starts with "Chameleon" and moves through abridged versions of "MacArthur Park", "Frame For The Blues", "Maria", and "Blue Birdland".
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
This week, it's part four of StLJN's winter/spring 2016 jazz preview, with an advance look at some of the noteworthy bands and musicians who will be playing in St. Louis during the first part of the new year. (You can check out part one here, part two here, and part three here.)
This installment begins with a slight interruption in chronological order for a performance that could have gone in last week's post, except it wasn't announced until after that post had been prepared.
That would be Pink Martini, who will be making their St. Louis debut on Monday, March 21 at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Fronted by singer China Forbes, they can be seen in the first video embed up top playing Forbes' tune "Hey Eugene" back in 2012 at a gig in Seattle.
Next, it's saxophonist and former St. Louisan David Sanborn, who will return home to perform Wednesday, April 13 through Saturday, April 16 at Jazz at the Bistro. While Sanborn likely needs no introduction to most StLJN readers, after the jump you can hear a version of his concert staple "Run For Cover" recorded at last year's Montreux Jazz Festival and featuring his most recent touring ensemble, with Andre Berry (bass), Ricky Peterson (keyboards), Nicky Moroch (guitar) and Chris Coleman (drums).
That same week, drummer/multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey will be coming to town to perform with his Alloy Trio (with pianist Corey Smythe and bassist Christopher Tordini) in a concert presented by New Music Circle on Saturday, April 16 at The Stage at KDHX. Since there doesn't seem to be a good quality video of the group yet anywhere online, in today's third clip you can see and hear Sorey playing with a similarly configured group, bassist Mario Pavone's Arc Trio Blue with pianist Matt Mitchell, performing the composition "Andrew" in March, 2014 at Cornelia Street Cafe in NYC.
Friday's headliner will be guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli, another musician who's played here frequently enough that most local jazz fans know his work. For those that don't, or simply are curious about the affable Pizzarelli's latest project, the fourth video shows him performing "Let 'Em In" from his most recent album Midnight McCartney.
On Saturday, the GSLJF will present a tribute to the late trumpeter Maynard Ferguson from the M.F. All-Star Band, which features former Ferguson sidemen including trumpeters Wayne Bergeron and Frank Greene, trombonist Steve Wiest, baritone saxophonist Dennis DiBlasio, and drummer Stockton Helbing. The fifth clip features a montage of excerpts from a pair of Ferguson tributes staged in April, 2012 and March, 2013, featuring Bergeron (2012), DiBlasio (2012 and 2013), Greene (2013) and Helbing (2013) with the University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band.
Today's last video features Dave Liebman's Expansions, who will be in St. Louis to perform a one-nighter on Saturday, April 23 at Jazz at the Bistro. Expansions features the veteran saxophonist and former Miles Davis sideman with four much younger musicians, including pianist Bobby Avey, saxophonist Matt Vashlishan, bassist Tony Marino, and drummer Alex Ritz. They're seen here playing "The Sky" during a concert recorded in October 2015 at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in Pittsburgh, PA.
Next week, it's the fifth and final chapter of StLJN's winter/spring 2016 jazz preview. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
Pizzarelli (pictured) is a frequent visitor to St. Louis who played here most recently in July at the Sheldon in a fundraiser for the family of pianist Ray Kennedy. His latest album Midnight McCartney, which was released in September, features interpretations of the songs of Paul McCartney. Pizzarelli also was one of the headliners at the 2009 GSLJF.
The UMSL Jazz Ensemble, directed by Jim Widner, will open both shows. The GSLJF also will include three days of adjudicated performances and clinics for high school jazz ensembles from around the area, beginning on Thursday, April 21 and continuing through Saturday.
Tickets for the Friday and Saturday concerts will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. next Tuesday, October 20 via the Touhill box office, online at http://touhill.org/, and by phone at 314-516-4949.
It's looking like the busiest weekend so far this year for live jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with a number of touring bands and musicians passing through town in the next few days, as well as some particularly noteworthy shows from local players.
Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, March 18
The eclectic quintet Kneebody makes their St. Louis debut, opening a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. Although their instrumentation (trumpet, sax and rhythm section) may seen familiar, Kneebody pulls in a lot of influences from beyond the jazz tradition, ranging from punk rock to contemporary classical. You can see and hear the results for yourself in this video showcase post from last Saturday.
Led by Dizzy Gillespie’s long-term bassist John Lee, the group pays tribute to Gillespie’s pioneering efforts to fuse jazz and Latin music in the 1940s and 50s, with a repertoire featuring the trumpeter's compositions as well as contemporary Latin jazz that draws on the tradition he helped establish.
Led by bassist John Clayton, his brother, saxophonist Jeff Clayton, and drummer Jeff Hamilton, and often featuring St. Louis native Keith Fiddmont in the saxophone section, the Los Angeles-based big band is a hard-swinging outfit with original charts that puts contemporary touches on the mainstream tradition, not unlike a West Coast version of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
Inspired by Women's History Month, the concert will feature the 17-piece band and guest performers including singers Marsha Evans and Denise Thimes, trumpeter/singer Dawn Weber, pianist Carolbeth True, and saxophonist Hope Walker playing "jazz standards and also a few soon to be standards."
Monday, March 23
Guitarist and St. Louis native Daryl Darden, who's been based on the West Coast in recent years, will be back home for a performance at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups; and pianist Matt Villinger will play while artist Vesna Delevska paints at Tavern of Fine Arts.
Tuesday, March 24
Keyboardist Jim Hegarty doubles down on his Off Topic trio to launch STL, The Free Jazz Septet with a debut performance at the Tavern of Fine Arts. In addition to Hegarty, the septet includes Off Topic members Paul Steinbeck on bass and Gary Sykes on drums, plus "Baba" Mike Nelson (trumpet, shells, poetry), Jay Dubz (alto sax, percussion, vocals), John Tamm-Buckle (electronics), and Michael Castro (poetry).
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.)
Today, we continue with part four of StLJN's winter/spring 2015 jazz preview, covering the touring bands and musicians who will be be performing here during the first half of the year. (Parts one through three can be found here, here, and here.)
Up above, you can see Marini back in 2009, playing the head and soloing on the Crusaders' "Bayou Bottoms" at a 2009 gig in Los Angeles with an ensemble apparently called California Roll.
Down below, you can see Wiest at a show in June 2014 with Denver's Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra, taking one of the featured roles in "Superbone Meets The Badman," which composer/arranger Jay Chatterly wrote back in the 1970s for Maynard Ferguson.
In the third clip, you can see Jenkins playing the Tadd Dameron bebop standard "Hot House," accompanied only by student drummer Stockton Helbing at a masterclass in November 2013 at Oklahoma State University.
Video number four features the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, who will headline the closing show of the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival on Saturday, March 21 at the Touhill.
It's a full concert performance, recorded in 2011 at Jazzwoche Burghausen in Germany, and features guest vocals and guitar on a number of tunes by St. Louis favorite John Pizzarelli, who recorded his album Dear Mr. Sinatra with the CHJO.
Next up is pianist and singer Freddy Cole, who will return to our town to perform Wednesday, April 1 through Saturday, April 4 at Jazz at the Bistro. Cole, the brother of singer and pianist Nat "King" Cole, is a familiar figure to St. Louis audiences from numerous appearances here over the years, but if you haven't seen him perform before, there's a complete show, undated but recent, recorded at New Morning in Paris that will give you a good idea of what to expect.
Today's penultimate clip features saxophonist Eric Person, who of course is originally from St. Louis but has made his home in NYC for the past couple of decades. He'll be back, though, on Thursday, April 2 to play with a trio in a free show for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University. Person can be seen here with bassist Joseph Lepore and drummer Shinnosuke "Shin" Takahashi playing Rahsaan Roland Kirk's "Black Diamond" in 2011 at Smalls in NYC.
Last but certainly not least today is guitarist John Abercrombie, who will be here the following Tuesday, April 7 to do a free performance with his quartet, also for the Jazz at Holmes series. We'll be doing a video showcase specifically about Abercrombie closer to the show date, but for now you can check out some very brief excerpts from a show he did in October in Japan with pianist Marc Copland, bassist Phil Donkin and drummer Anthony Pinciotti.
Look for part five of the 2015 winter/spring jazz preview in this space next week. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
