Jazz this week: The Heath Brothers, Jeanne Trevor with Carolbeth True, and more

It's kind of a slow week for jazz events in St. Louis, but the lack of competing shows is all the more reason to go check out the Heath Brothers, who are performing at Jazz at the Bistro through Saturday night. As true veterans of the jazz "old school," saxophonist Jimmy Heath (pictured) and drummer Albert "Tootie" Heath have played with many jazz legends and have more than a century of experience between them, stretching from the bebop era into the present day. As an added incentive, Jazz St. Louis is offering a special discount on tickets. For more background on the Heath Brothers, see these previous posts.

Elsewhere around town, singer Jeanne Trevor will team with with pianist Carolbeth True and her trio to play a free concert tonight for Washington University's Jazz at Holmes series. Also worth hearing, as always, are the regular weekly gigs from saxophonist Dave Stone (Friday at Mangia Italiano), saxophonist Willie Akins (Saturday at Spruill's) and the St. Louis New Jazz Quartet (Sunday at Riddle's).

For more local jazz-related events, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

(If you have calendar items, band schedule information, news tips, links, or anything else you think may be of interest to StLJN's readers, please email the information to stljazznotes (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)

Jazz St. Louis offers two-for-one deal on tickets for the Heath Brothers

Jazz St. Louis is offering a special discount on tickets to see the Heath Brothers, who are performing at Jazz at the Bistro this Wednesday through Saturday. The deal is that if you purchase one adult ticket for any performance at the regular price, you can get a second ticket free. To take advantage of the offer, order your tickets by calling the Bistro at 314-289-4030 and mentioning promotion code HB0706.

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: Jimmy Heath of the Heath Brothers, heard as player and arranger

This week's videos feature the venerable tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath in his capacities as both player and arranger. Heath and his percussionist sibling Albert, also known as "Tootie," will be in St. Louis under the collective banner of the Heath Brothers to perform at Jazz at the Bistro from Wednesday, March 26 through Saturday, March 29.

The Heath Brothers also will take part in one of Jazz St. Louis' "Jazz Perspectives" discussions on Tuesday, March 25, and based on their long years of experience in the music business, they should have some fascinating stories to tell. The Philadelphia natives have played or recorded with many of the greatest jazz musicians from the 1950s to the present, including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery and Herbie Hancock. They formed the Heath Brothers group in 1975 with eldest brother Percy (who also was the bassist in the famed Modern Jazz Quartet). Though Percy passed away in 2005, his brothers have continued to record and perform together, and both also are heavily involved in music education.

The first clip shows Jimmy Heath performing the Milt Jackson composition "Fungi Mama" at a Jazzmobile concert in NYC. The audio/video quality is a bit rough, as you'd expect from a handheld recorder wielded by an audience member at an outdoor show, but Heath plays a tasty solo and you can definitely see and hear well enough to get the idea.

The second video shows shows Jimmy Heath directing and soloing with the Berklee College of Music Jazz Orchestra. It's from a program of Heath's arrangements done in 2005 at the college, but, alas, the source of the clip did not note the name of this particular composition. It's some nice writing, though, and the student ensemble gives the piece a very serviceable, if not fully professional, rendition.

As a bonus, there's a third clip this week, the trailer for a 2004 documentary about the Heath Brothers called, appropriately enough, Brotherly Jazz. Though a mere trailer is too short to delve into the details of their individual stories, it does give a bit of a feel for the Heath Brothers' place in the jazz pantheon and the esteem in which they are held by their musical colleagues. It also provides a welcome opportunity to hear some of Tootie Heath's playing, as he lays down a nice groove to set up the clip. (For some reason, there's a lack of video footage of Tootie online, although he can be seen here backing up Sonny Rollins in a 1968 version of "On Green Dolphin Street" and here backing up Dexter Gordon in another clip from around the same time.)

Notes from the Net: Miles reviewed, Lake reissued, Bad Plus interviewed, and much more

Has it really been nearly two weeks since the last installment of "Notes from the Net"? I guess so, because there are a lot of news items piled up in the ol' inbox:

* Let's start things off with our traditional roundup of Miles Davis-related news, specifically Ben Ratliff's New York Times review of a newly issued Davis CD, Live at the 1963 Monterey Jazz Festival, one of a series of live recordings released by Monterey Jazz Festival Records.

* Next are two more reviews of Miles' Complete On The Corner Sessions box set, one from the New York Sun by Martin Harrison - "It may not have been jazz as we know it, but the Miles Davis band of the early '70s created great music, and the final document of the Davis reissue project presents it with fabulous detail" - and one from the New Yorker by Sasha Frere Jones

* One of Miles' trumpets is being auctioned off as part of an October 14th sale of fine musical instruments that will also include some of George Benson's guitars.

* Oliver Lake has a new CD reissue. Now available on the hatHut label, Zaki is a trio session recorded live in 1979 that features Lake (saxophones), Michael Gregory Jackson (guitar) and Pheeroan akLaff (drums).

* More CD reviews: The blog Free Jazz takes a listen to the new Marty Ehrlich/Myra Melford CD Spark, while eJazzNews had a brief review of guitarist Joe Friedman's Cup O' Joe.

* Trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis, who's coming to St. Louis this week to play at Jazz at the Bistro, just got done performing at the Columbus Jazz and Blues Festival in Columbus, MS. When he's finished in the Gateway City, the third-youngest of the Marsalis clan will be heading to New York to play with his older brother Branford Marsalis in a program for Jazz at Lincoln Center featuring the works of Gil Evans. Trumpeter Terell Stafford, who records for St. Louis based MAXJAZZ label and will play the Bistro in February, also will be part of the group performing the Evans tribute.

* Speaking of acts playing the Bistro later this season, the Heath Brothers are performing this weekend at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, while singer Karrin Allyson has signed with a new management firm.

* Meanwhile, Tony Bennett, who's playing St. Louis' Fox Theatre on October 27, has a new CD, a DVD and a book of his paintings all coming out this fall.

* The Bad Plus, who will return to the Bistro the first weekend of January, are being their usual media friendly selves, with drummer Dave King interviewed by Indianapolis Post before a gig there, and the entire band doing another interview with AllAboutJazz.com. Over on their own blog, the members of the Bad Plus recently discussed their penchant for covering popular songs, while the Secret Society's Darcy James Argue chimed in with some contextually relevant observations about the history of ironic covers in jazz.

* From the "items of general jazz interest" file: After years of effort, John Coltrane's home in New Jersey has been added to both the New York State and the National Register of Historic Places.

* And finally, the New York Times economics blog recently had an entertaining and thought-provoking panel on the future of the music industry that's worth a few minutes of reading time.

Jazz St. Louis will offer "Jazz Perspectives" from Haynes, Stafford, and the Heath Brothers

Jazz St. Louis will continue its series of informal conversations with visiting musicians again during the organization's 2007-08 season. Last year, JSL hosted talks with pianist Ahmad Jamal, saxophonist/ educator Ronald Carter and author/journalist Dan Morgenstern.

This year, the "Jazz Perspectives" series will kick off at 2 p.m. on Sunday, September 23 with a reception and conversation with drummer Roy Haynes. Trumpeter Terell Stafford (6 p.m., Tuesday, February 19) and the Heath Brothers (6 p.m., Tuesday, March 25) will also take part in the series. All three events will be held on the 4th floor at the Centene Center for the Arts, 3547 Olive Street, and tickets for each are $10 per person, available through the Jazz St. Louis Web site.

(Edited 8/27/07 to reflect the fact that there will be a $10 admission charge.)