StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: 2016 St. Louis Cabaret Festival

This week, it's time to take a look at some of the performers who will part of the 2016 St. Louis Cabaret Festival, which will feature performances by touring headliners on Wednesday, July 20; Thursday, July 21; and Friday, July 22 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

(A final performance on Sunday, July 24 at the Ferring Jazz Bistro will showcase participants from the St. Louis Cabaret Conference, an annual week-long event that encompasses the festival as well as daily educational programming for both aspiring and experienced cabaret performers, professional development, networking, and more.)

This year's festival will feature return appearances by several performers who have been well-received in years past, including longtime St. Louis favorite Ann Hampton Callaway and Kansas native Marilyn Maye, the amazingly spry 88-year-old who's been called the "grande dame of cabaret." They'll both be featured along with pianists Billy Stritch and Tedd Firth on Thursday night's show, titled "Marilyn Maye and her Piano Men".

Also returning for an encore appearance will be Broadway star Faith Prince, who was part of the event in 2014. This year, she'll team up with singer and actor Jason Graae on Wednesday night for "The Prince and the Showboy," which they first did together in 2012 in New York City.

New to the event in 2016 is singer and pianist Tony DeSare, who will be featured on Friday night. Though this is his first year as part of the Cabaret Festival, DeSare has played in St. Louis before, in 2007 at the Bistro and in 2011 at the Sheldon. You can see him in the first video up above, singing "Baby Dream Your Dream," a song from the Broadway musical Sweet Charity, at a gig in March of this year in Las Vegas.

After the jump, you can see DeSare performing his original song "Chemistry" in a recording made at the same Las Vegas gig.

Below that, there are a couple of examples of impromptu interaction between Ann Hampton Callaway and Marilyn Maye, as they're featured in two audience-made clips (one from 2010, the other undated) improvising a bit of blues and playing around with "Our Love Is Here To Stay".

(For more videos of Maye and Callaway, together and separately, plus a clip of Billy Stritch, see StLJN's preview of the 2014 fest. There also are a couple of nice clips of Maye in the preview post from 2015.)

You'll also find a couple of videos of Faith Prince in that 2014 post, and you can see her and Jason Graae in today's fifth clip, which excerpts from and promotes the NYC run of "The Prince and the Showboy".

Last but not least, the sixth and final video features Tedd Firth playing a solo piano version of "When A Woman Loves A Man," a song recorded by both Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday, as well as many others.

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

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/spring 2015 jazz preview, part 2

Today, we continue with part two of StLJN's winter/spring 2015 jazz preview, this time covering musicians and groups who will be visiting St. Louis during the first part of February. (To see part 1, which covers January, go here.)

The month will begin with a series of performances featuring pianist Kenny Barron and vibraphonist Stefon Harris, starting Wednesday, February 4 and continuing through Saturday, February 7 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Though Barron and Harris have paired up before, this short clip featuring a Barron solo from the 2013 Marciac Jazz Festival seems to be the only video documentation online. So instead, we've got clips here featuring each of them individually. Barron can be heard up top with bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Carl Allen playing his composition "Cook's Bay" in October 2013 at the Jarasum International Jazz Festival in South Korea. Down below, Harris and his band, including Nic Payton on trumpet and David Sanchez on saxophone, perform "Ninety Miles" at the 2012 Copenhagen Jazz Festival.

After that, you can check out the No BS! Brass Band playing their version of Charles Mingus' "Haitian Fight Song" in August 2013 for the web series Audiotree Live. They'll be here in St. Louis on Sunday, February 8 to play at the Broadway Oyster Bar.

Next up is saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who brings his band to St. Louis the very next evening (Monday, February 9) for a one-nighter at Jazz at the Bistro. Marsalis is seen here sitting in on a gig led by his pianist Joey Calderazzo this past summer at Pizza Express in London, in which the two of them plus bassist Orlando Le Fleming and drummer Donald Edwards take on "The Mighty Sword" from Marsalis' 2012 album Four MFs Playin' Tunes.

On Saturday, February 14, actors and cabaret singers Liz Callaway (the sister of longtime St. Louis favorite Ann Hampton Callaway) and Jason Graae will perform their show "Happily Ever Laughter: A Valentine's Party" at 560 Music Center for Washington University's "Ovations" series.

In addition to her live performances, Callaway over the years also has been the singing voice of a number of characters in animated movies, and here she can be seen in a audience-filmed clip from this past July performing "Journey to the Past" from the 1997 film Anastasia. That's followed by Graae singing "The Moment Has Passed," also filmed this past July as part of a tribute to Off-Broadway musicals staged in NYC by the indie label and production company Kritzerland.

Today's final video features keyboardist Jeff Lorber, who will bring his band featuring saxophonist Eric Marienthal and bassist Jimmy Haslip to St. Louis from Wednesday, February 18 through Saturday, February 21 to play at Jazz at the Bistro. They're seen here playing Lorber's song "Rain Dance" at a gig in June 2013 at Spaghettini in Los Angeles.

Look for part three of the winter/spring 2015 jazz preview here next week. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Jazz this week: St. Louis Cabaret Festival with Marilyn Maye, American Music Showcase, Kelley Hunt, and more

This weekend may mark the beginning of the dog days of summer, but it's one of the busiest times of the year for Cabaret Project St. Louis, as the organization presents its annual St. Louis Cabaret Festival
and conference this week.

In addition to a week's worth of educational programs for prospective singers, there are four nights of performances on tap, starting this evening as singer and pianist Billy Stritch performs songs associated with Mel Torme at the Bistro at Grand Center.

The Festival's biggest event is tomorrow night, as singers Marilyn Maye (pictured) and Jason Graae will take the stage for separate sets at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

The Sheldon extravaganza will be followed by two more shows at the Bistro, featuring singer and pianist John Bucchino on Friday and a showcase of students from this week's workshops on Sunday. You can read an interview that Maye did with the Post-Dispatch's Sarah Bryan Miller, including more details on the Festival, here.

Elsewhere around town tonight, it's an alpha-and-omega kind of thing, as the St. Louis New Jazz X-Tet plays their final Wednesday gig at the Chase Park Plaza's Cafe Eau, while trumpeter Delano Redmond is in just the second week of his new weekly engagement at Premier Lounge.

Also on Thursday, trumpeter Jim Manley starts a new weekly gig at Joyia Tapas in the Grove neighborhood; and Miss Jubilee performs swing and jump blues at Thaxton Speakeasy.

On Friday, singer Ron Wilkerson will be at Robbie's House of Jazz; guitarist Tom Byrne leads a trio at Cigar Inn; and saxophonist Tim Cunningham is downtown at former St. Louis Cardinal Jim Edmonds' Fifteen Steakhouse, where he'll be playing Fridays all this month.

Then on Saturday, pianist Phil Dunlap's new quintet, washed out by rain a few weeks ago at the St. Louis Art Museum, finally will give their debut performance as part of the American Music Showcase, a multi-band, multi-venue event in the Grand Center district.

Also on Saturday, singer Tony Viviano celebrates the birthday of Tony Bennett with a tribute show at Talayna's; young Chicago guitarist Chuck Tripp is at Robbie's; and Coco Rico will play Gypsy jazz and swing at the Tavern of Fine Arts.

On Sunday, BB's Jazz Blues and Soups has a matinee from Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes, followed by an evening performance from Kansas City pianist and blues singer Kelley Hunt, long a favorite around these parts, who will showcase some material from her upcoming album. Also on Sunday, the Friends of Scott Joplin present their monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" jam session at Dressel's Pub.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Tuesday Dizzy Atmosphere plays a "Notes From Home" show at the Sheldon Concert Hall. They'll be joined by an extensive list of guest performers including multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman, bassist Willem von Hombracht, keyboardist Carl Pandolfi, and several others.

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.)