So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Trumpeter Keyon Harrold (pictured) was the featured guest on a recent episode of "Folded Space with Tony Minvielle" on the UK's JazzFM network.

* Keyboardist Michael Silverman and keyboardist/producer Jeff Lorber appeared last week on Jazziz magazine's "Last Call" video series to promote Silverman's latest album Human Spirit, which is out this week on his Autumn Hill label.

* Silverman and Lorber also were guests this week on BlogTalkRadio's "Hybrid Jazz" program with host Trish Hennessey.

* Willem von Hombracht, a longtime mainstay of the St. Louis music scene, has been ailing (though not with COVID-19), and earlier this week was discharged and sent home after a week and a half at St. Mary's Hospital. To raise money to help with von Hombracht's medical bills and other expenses, friends of the bassist have set up a GoFundMe page.

* New Music Circle has put together a collection of music video performances by some of the organization's board members, and after an online premiere this past Monday, has posted it to YouTube. The collection includes music from NNN Cook & Nestor, Michael Williams, Tracy Andreotti, Aaron E. Johnson, Fred Tompkins with Greg Mills, Alex Cunningham, and 18andCounting.

* Multi-instrumentalist and singer Tonina was profiled by the St. Louis American's Ashley Jones.

Jazz this week: Jeff Lorber Fusion, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Christina Bianco, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features a pioneering jazz-fusion keyboardist; a quick-thinking musical impressionist who first gained fame online; one of the top female vocalists in jazz taking on some soul and blues classics; and more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, November 14
Keyboardist Jeff Lorber (pictured, top left) will perform for the first of five nights at Jazz St. Louis. Lorber, who last played here in February 2015 at the Bistro, this time is supporting a new release, Impact, that came out in August on Shanachie Records.

With a band that includes bassist Jimmy Haslip, drummer Gary Novak, guitarist Paul Jackson Jr., and saxophonists Andy Snitzer and Dave Mann, Impact features 10 new original compositions by Lorber, some of which no doubt will get played this weekend. (You can listen to all the tracks from Impact here.)

Also on Wednesday, Jazz St. Louis' "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series presents a talk by NPR jazz critic Kevin Whitehead at St. Louis County Library's Grant's View Branch. Whitehead will discuss his forthcoming book Play the Way You Feel, which examines how fiction and biographical films from 1927 to 2016 told stories about jazz music and musicians.

Thursday, November 15
Guitarist Dave Black leads his latest project, In Touch, in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University. In addition to Black, the group features Kyle Honeycutt on drums, Ben Wheeler on bass, the St. Louis Symphony's Asako Kuboki on violin, and Paul DeMarinis on saxophones and clarinets.

Also on Thursday, Nashville-based singer/songwriter Kristen Cothron performs at The Wolf, and trumpeter Danny Campbell leads a trio at The Dark Room.

Friday, November 16
Singer Christina Bianco, who's gotten tens of millions of views on YouTube for her impressions of various celebrity vocalists, will perform her show "Diva Moments" for the first of two nights at the Gaslight Theater.

Saturday, November 17
Singer Dee Dee Bridgewater brings her tribute to Memphis blues and soul to the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Backed by a group dubbed The Memphis Soulphony, Bridgewater has been touring with a show based on her 2017 album Memphis...Yes I'm Ready, which features her interpretations of (mostly) well-known songs associated with her hometown.

You can find out more about the project and see some videos of her performing the Memphis show in this post from last Saturday. Also, the Sheldon is offering a $10 discount for online purchases of tickets to the concert, which can be accessed by going here and using the promo code MEMPHIS10.

Elsewhere around town, Jeanette Harris who's billed as the "scintillating saxtress of smooth jazz," will play two shows at .ZACK.

Sunday, November 18
The St. Louis Jazz Club presents pianist Pat Joyce and clarinetist Scott Alberici at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel St. Louis - Westport; bassist and singer Janet Evra celebrates the release of her debut album with a performance at .ZACK; and singer Ken Haller wraps up the Gaslight Cabaret Festival's fall series with one last performance of his show "Happy Haller Days!" at the Gaslight Theater.

Monday, November 19
Faculty members in the Webster University Jazz Collective will perform at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus.

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.)

Jazz this week: Adam Larson, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Summerset festival, and more

It's a busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with festivals presenting smooth jazz and swing dance; New Orleans music from one of that city's classic bands and from a St. Louis expat; and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, July 11
Saxophonist Adam Larson is in town and will present a free public performance/workshop at Saxquest.

Larson is an up-and-coming young musician who already has headlined and co-headlined shows at Jazz St. Louis' Bistro and other top venues, so the chance to see him for free makes this gig one of the week's top picks.

Also on Wednesday, the free "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" resumes after an Independence Day break with the Jazz Troubadours at The Stage at KDHX, the jam session led by bassist Bob DeBoo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor and band at The Dark Room.

Thursday, July 12
Having celebrated four decades together in 2017,  the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (pictured, top left) will be back in St. Louis for the first time in several years for a show at the Old Rock House. You can see and hear some recent DDBB performances in this post from last Saturday.

Also on Thursday, the Summerset smooth jazz festival presents the first of three concerts this weekend, kicking off with a show from saxophonists Paul Taylor and Pamela Williams at the World's Fair Pavilion in Forest Park. You can find out more and see videos of all the various musicians who will playing the fest in this post from a couple of weeks ago.

Elsewhere around town, pianist and St. Louis native Tom McDermott is back from New Orleans for a visit and a show at Joe's Cafe; and vocal group Java Jived will perform in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Friday, July 13
The Summerset festival continues with a show featuring keyboardist Jeff Lorber, saxophonist Everette Harp and guitarist Paul Jackson Jr; and the annual River City Mess Around, the mid-summer swing dance weekend presented by STL Jitterbugs, officially begins with a dance at City Museum featuring music from singer/guitarist Tommy Halloran and band.

Also on Friday, multi-instrumentalist Lamar Harris presents "Headnotic," described as "his newest project, focusing on brand new, original compositions," for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis; the Ambassadors of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; and singer Anita Jackson returns to The Dark Room.

Saturday, July 14
The Summerset festival concludes with a performance by singer and St. Louis native Lynne Fiddmont (pictured, bottom left) and singer Howard Hewitt; and the River City Mess Around continues with a dance featuring Miss Jubilee at the Webster Groves Masonic Lodge No 84.

Also on Saturday, The WirePilots play original jazz fusion in a free concert at Kirkwood Park Amphitheatre; The People's Key will perform at The Stage at KDHX; and trumpeter Jim Manley and his band return to Evangeline's.

Sunday, July 15
Singer Jan Shapiro, former head of the vocal department at Berklee College of Music who recently retired and moved back home to St. Louis, will team up with guitarist Tom Byrne for a matinee tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass at the Webster Groves Concert Hall.

Then on Sunday night, the River City Mess Around concludes with a performance by the Arcadia Dance Orchestra at Off Broadway.

Monday, July 16
"Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective return to BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Tuesday, July 17
Multi-instrumentalist Tonina Saputo and her band host "The Tuesday Night Hit" at The Dark Room.

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: Summerset brings smooth jazz to Forest Park

When smooth jazz faded as a radio format a few years back, the listeners of those station and the bands and musicians whose works were played on those stations didn't just disappear.

The ability to hear those artists play live, however, varies widely from city to city. Here in St. Louis, The Pageant used to present two or three shows a year featuring touring smooth jazz musicians, which more recently has tapered off to just an occasional production, as when multi-instrumentalist Brian Culbertson played the venue earlier this year. Similarly, the local casinos, which collectively used to add a few more shows to each year's total, these days for the most part seem to be eschewing smooth jazz concerts.

That's left recent local presentations of touring smooth jazz performers mostly to one-off events and festivals, like Summerset, a three-night event taking place Thursday, July 12 through Saturday, July 14 at the World's Fair Pavilion in Forest Park.

Though this may seem an unlikely venue at first take, this is the event's fourth year there and the dwindling amount of seating shown as "available" on the ticketing website suggests sales have been relatively brisk. So, we're taking this opportunity to share videos of some of the musicians who will be appearing while there may still be a chance to score some seats.

On Thursday, July 12, the performers will be saxophonist Paul Taylor (who headlined the Chesterfield Jazz Festival here back in 2013) and saxophonist Pamela Williams.

You can see Taylor in the first video up above, performing "Awakening" at a gig last August in Columbus, OH. After the jump, you can see a full set by Williams and her band, exact date and location unknown, but seemingly recent.

Then on Friday, July 13, keyboardist Jeff Lorber, saxophonist Everette Harp, and guitarist Paul Jackson Jr. will be the featured performers.

You can see Lorber in the third video, playing "Test Drive" with his trio in April 2018 at a show in Cleveland, and again in the fourth clip, backing up Harp as the saxophonist covers Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" at a show recorded in 2015 at the Augsburg Smooth Jazz Festival in Germany.

That's followed by a video of Jackson performing "Bayshore Drive" at last year's Algarve Smooth Jazz Festival in Portugal.

The finale show on Saturday, July 14 puts the emphasis on vocals, and will feature St. Louis native Lynne Fiddmont along with R&B crooner Howard Hewett.

Fiddmont can been seen in the sixth clip, performing Stevie Wonder's "All I Do" at a gig in 2012 at Spaghettinis in Seal Beach, CA. (Alas, more recent live video of her seems to be rather scarce online.)

Lastly, you can see two clips of Hewitt. In the first, recorded in 2011 at the Musician's Institute in Los Angeles, he teams up with a band led by Stanley Clarke to perform "I'm For Real," which Hewett and Clarke co-wrote.

Finding more recent video of Hewett with a live band proved to be a challenge, but you can get an idea of what he looks and sounds like these days in the final clip, in which he performs to prerecorded tracks a medley of hits from his former group Shalamar - "Second Time Around" "Make That Move," "There's A Love For Me," and "A Night To Remember" - recorded in January of this year in Little Rock, AR.

Also on Saturday, a separately ticketed after-party will feature a set from St. Louis-born R&B singer Truth Hurts and music from DJ Prince Halim. For more information about Summerset, follow the links for individual dates above or visit their website.

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

Jazz this week: Jeff Lorber Fusion, Lotte Anker & Okkyung Lee, and more

This week's jazz and creative music offerings in St. Louis run the gamut from fusion to free improvisation, with plenty of mainstream sounds as well. Let's go to the highlights... 

Wednesday, February 18
Keyboardist Jeff Lorber and the latest iteration of his Fusion group featuring bassist Jimmy Haslip and saxophonist Eric Marienthal (pictured, top left) will begin a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. You can see a video preview of the performances here, and Lorber, Haslip and Marienthal also are featured in this week's "Music Education Monday" post.

Also tonight, Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Open Mic Night" at the Tavern of Fine Arts.

Thursday, February 19
Saxophonist Kristian Baarsvik plays a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; The 442s will perform in the "community room" at St. Louis Public Radio in Grand Center; and singer Feyza Eren returns to Nathalie’s.

Friday, February 20
Trumpeter Randy Holmes' quintet with singer Kim Fuller will present "A Tribute to the Music of Billie Holiday" at Voce; Second Generation Swing will play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; singer Joe Mancuso, guitarist Dave Black and bassist Willem von Hombracht will perform at Element STL; and the Midwest Jazz-tette will bring their West Coast "cool jazz' sound to Cigar Inn.

Saturday, February 21
New Music Circle presents a double bill featuring cellist Okkyung Lee (pictured, center left) and saxophonist Lotte Anker at the "house concert" venue Joe’s Cafe.  You can see some performance videos of Lee in this Saturday video showcase post (which also has a link to an earlier post about Anker.)

Elsewhere around town, Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes will return to Evangeline's; guitarist Tom Byrne and clairnetist Scott Alberici will duet at Thurman Grill; and The Wire Pilots will play original jazz-fusion compositions at Focal Point.

Sunday, February 22
St. Louis musicians from a variety of genres will join together in a benefit concert for bassist Phil Burton (pictured, bottom left) at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups. Burton has played with numerous rock, blues and jazz bands around town since the 1980s, and also works as a musical instrument and audio repair technician at Winston Electronics. He recently suffered a heart attack, and the performance will raise funds to help with some of his expenses while he recovers.

Monday, February 23
Trumpeter Byron Stripling will be featured in a free "Happy Hour" of music and conversation with Jazz St. Louis' Phil Dunlap at the Tavern of Fine Arts;  the Webster University Jazz Collective will perform music by Charles Mingus, Horace Silver and more in a Black History Month concert at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus; and saxophonist "Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective will play their monthly date at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

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.)

Music Education Monday: Fusion fundamentals with Lorber, Haslip & Marienthal

Most of the musicians who come to St. Louis to play at Jazz at the Bistro also get involved in some sort of educational activity on behalf of Jazz St. Louis, performing at local schools and/or working with their jazz ensembles, and doing master classes and workshops for the student musicians involved in JSL's own JazzU program.

While these events are open only to the student groups involved, as it happens the three named headliners playing this week at the Bistro all have created some fairly detailed educational materials that can be found for free online.

Keep reading after the jump for instructional videos and links to some useful lessons from keyboardist Jeff Lorber, bassist Jimmy Haslip, and saxophonist Eric Marienthal.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The return of Jeff Lorber Fusion

Today, let's check out some video clips previewing next week's performances by keyboardist Jeff Lorber, who will be playing Wednesday, February 18 through Saturday, February 21 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Officially billed as Jeff Lorber Fusion featuring Jimmy Haslip and Eric Marienthal, this will be the group's second time at the Bistro after having played there previously in 2011. That was shortly after Lorber first teamed up with Haslip, longtime bassist for the Yellowjackets, and Marienthal, who originally came to wide public attention with the Chick Corea Elektric Band, to revisit the ensemble style and sound, and even some of the same material, that first brought him to fame in the late 1970s.

Their initial album under the revived Jeff Lorber Fusion banner, Now Is The Time, was released in 2010 on Heads Up Records and nominated for the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. Lorber's subsequent recordings Galaxy (2012) and Hacienda (2013) continued the collaboration with Haslip and Marienthal. In recent years the three also have played a number of live dates, backed by several different drummers, and today you can see and hear some close-up examples of what their show is like.

First up is a version of Lorber's tune "Chinese Medicinal Herbs" recorded in May, 2014 at the Baked Potato in Los Angeles with Third Richardson on drums. This looks to have been shot by an audience member sitting jsut a few feet away from the band, and does a good job of conveying what it's like to hear them in an intimate venue.

After the jump, you can see them playing Frank Zappa's "King Kong" and Lorber's own "Hacienda" from a gig in June, 2014 at The Blue Note in NYC, this time with Lionel Cordew on drums. (These recordings appear to have been made surreptitiously from the audience, but even if the video quality reflects that, the audio is good.)

That's followed by a version of "Montserrat" with drumming from Gary Novak, recorded in 2012 at Spaghettini's in Los Angeles; and finally, a full show in three parts, featuring Lorber, Marienthal, Haslip and drummer Sonny Emory at the 2012 Festiwal Jazz na Starówce in Starówce, Poland.

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: Jeff Lorber, Project/Object, Lowdown Brass Band, TKT Scholarship Benefit, and more

Beyond the usual challenges of performing, the jazz and creative musicians playing in St. Louis over the next week have a tough task: drawing a crowd of attentive listeners while the Cardinals are competing in the World Series. But while this admittedly is a baseball-crazy town, one would hope it's also big enough and diverse enough to provide for adequate turnouts at a number of noteworthy musical performances, too.

For example, tonight keyboardist Jeff Lorber (pictured) begins a four-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. Lorber's most recent recording, 2010's Now Is The Time, offered an updated take on the free-blowing, funkified fusion sound that helped him first gain fame in the late 1970s, and his recent live shows seem to have followed suit.

Although this is Lorber's debut at the Bistro, two of the musicians in his group, saxophonist Eric Marienthal and bassist Jimmy Haslip, already are quite familiar with the club, having played there previously with Yellowjackets. For more on Lorber's return to fusion, and some video clips of him and his band in action, check out this post from last Saturday.

Also tonight, the Frank Zappa repertory ensemble Project/Object returns to St. Louis for a show at the Old Rock House, this time with Zappa alumni/singer-guitarists Ray White and Ike Willis, a St. Louis native, on board. Yr. humble StLJN editor had a chance to hear these guys a few years ago at Cicero's, and while their production isn't quite as elaborate as that of the officially sanctioned Zappa Plays Zappa, P/O are very good musicians who put on a spirited and entertaining performance.

Tomorrow night, saxophonists Mike Karpowicz and Paul DeMarinis will play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

On Friday, Robbie's House of Jazz has singer Nicole Jonas fronting a trio with bassist Christopher Meschede, keyboardist Ryan Coleman and drummer Micah Walker, and the Sentimental Journey Dance Band will play big band swing at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

On Saturday, Chicago's Lowdown Brass Band will be back in town to perform at Robbie's, offering their own twist on the New Orleans brass band tradition. Also on Saturday, guitarist Todd Mosby and Farshid Etniko will be among the performers at a concert at Maryville University benefiting the Mitrata-Nepal Foundation for Children; and singer Danita Mumphard will be at Jazz on Broadway in Alton. For more about that, check out this article about Mumphard by Jill Moon published in Monday's Alton Telegraph.

On Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis Jazz Club presents Terry Thompson's Swing Alive in a matinee concert at the Sheraton Westport.

Also on Sunday, singer Lynne Fiddmont and her brother, saxophonist Keith Fiddmont, are back home in St. Louis for a late-afternoon performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall benefiting the Royal Vagabonds Foundation Scholarship Fund.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday Webster University's music department will present its annual concert to benefit the University's TKT Scholarship Fund. The fund is named for former Webster music students Terry Jackson, Kirk Cappello and Tony Saputo, who in 1991 were killed in a plane crash along with other members of singer Reba McEntiree's road band.

The benefit concert will be held on campus at the Loretto-Hilton Center (where the Rep and Opera Theatre present their shows) and performers will include current Webster faculty; alumni including pianist Ptah Williams and guitarist Tom Byrne; and guest vocalists Ralph Butler, Denise Thimes and Debby Lennon.

For more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, 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 10/19/11 to add the Todd Mosby and Lynne Fiddmont gigs.)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Jeff Lorber 's fusion, revisited

For today's video showcase, let's check out some clips of keyboardist Jeff Lorber, who will be in St. Louis to perform next Wednesday, October 19 through Saturday, October 22 at Jazz at the Bistro. Though Lorber has played St. Louis before - most recently in 2008 at The Pageant as part of that year's Guitars and Saxes tour - this will be his debut at the Bistro. His band for the week will include saxophonist Eric Marienthal and bassist Jimmy Haslip, both of whom played a significant role on Lorber's 2010 CD Now Is The Time, plus veteran jazz/funk/R&B drummer Rayford Griffin.

Now Is The Time marked a return to Lorber's roots in 1970s fusion, emphasizing musicianship and spontaneity, as on his early recordings, rather than the more pop sensibilities and production techniques found in some of his recent work. The CD included updated versions of several of Lorber's most popular older tunes, which also have been featured in many of his recent setlists.

We start out today with one of Lorber's best-known, or at least most-covered, compositions, "Tune 88," heard here in a version recorded in March 2011 at the Berks Jazz Festival in Pennsylvania with a band including Marienthal, Haslip and trumpeter Randy Brecker.

Down below, there's a version of "Ain't Nobody," another concert staple for Lorber, recorded in July at the Sioux Falls Jazz Fest in South Dakota. Although the performance is interrupted briefly for an interview with Lorber, it does get back to the music soon enough, and features him stretching out nicely on keyboard, even dropping some Tynereque left-hand bombs near the end of his solo.

Below that, there's a version of "Dr. Moy" recorded last year at Jazz Alley in Seattle, featuring Lorber with Marienthal, Haslip and Yellowjackets drummer Will Kennedy. The fourth clip is "Surreptitious" from Lorber's 2007 album He Had a Hat, played by Lorber, Marienthal, bassist Nate Phillips and drummer Michael White. The fifth and final video is a version of Lorber's "Rain Dance," recorded at Pizza Express Jazz Club with guitarist Jeff Golub, drummer Andy Newmark and bassist Paul Turner.

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: Jeff Lorber's "He Had A Hat" plus Rick Braun & Richard Elliot's "Notorious"

This week's videos feature some of the musicians who will be coming this summer to The Pageant in St. Louis as part of smooth jazz DJ/impresario Rick Sanborn's "Smooth Summer Party" series.

Up top, it's keyboardist Jeff Lorber, who will be here on Sunday, June 22 as part of the "Guitars and Saxes" show, playing his composition "He Had His Hat". The clip is from a performance in April 2007 at a resort in Arizona, and that's bass player Brian Bromberg with Lorber.

Down below, it's trumpeter Rick Braun, aided and abetted by saxophonist Richard Elliot, doing a version of Braun's tune "Notorious" in June 2007 at a festival in Southfield, MI. Longtime musical associates, Braun and Elliot have recorded and now are touring together under the name R&R, and they'll be playing The Pageant on Friday, July 25.

Smooth jazz returning to the Pageant this summer

The Pageant has announced the scheduling of three smooth jazz concerts for summer 2008. Presented under the auspices of radio personality Rick Sanborn's "Smooth Summer Party," the concerts will feature the 2008 edition of Guitars and Saxes, with guitarists Peter White and Jeff Golub, saxophonist Gerald Albright (pictured) and keyboard player Jeff Lorber, on Sunday, June 22; R&R, with saxophonist Richard Eliot and trumpeter Rick Braun, on Friday, July 25; and saxophonist Dave Koz on Friday, August 8.

Tickets for each show are $35 and $40, with a $5 per ticket discount if you buy seats for all three concerts. Tix will go on sale at 5:00 p.m. this Friday, May 2, via Ticketmaster and the Pageant box office.