So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Bassist Darin Gray talked with Terry Perkins for a St. Louis Beacon article about Saturday's New Music Circle concert featuring percussionist Chris Corsano (pictured), Gray, and saxophonist David Stone at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

* Perkins also has another piece up at the Beacon this week, about the closing of Webster Records.

* Meanwhile, Jason Rosenbaum of the Riverfront Times this week penned a birthday tribute to saxophonist Julius Hemphill.

* The Sheldon Concert Hall staff has posted photos of Sunday's concert by Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo to an album on the Sheldon's Facebook page.

* Also, saxophonist Jeff Riley has put up some photos on his Facebook page of his recent concert at The Chapel.

* Guitarist Brian Vaccaro sends word that his CD Going Through the Motions was listed among the "Notable CD's of 2011" list of the venerable author, critic, and jazz historian W. Royal Stokes, who's written for the Washington Post, Down Beat and many other publications.

* Pianist Peter Martin is offering a "buy two, get two free" deal on tickets for his next concert at the Sheldon. The show will feature Martin, bassist Robert Hurst, drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. and guest vocalist Vivian Sessoms in the debut of Inner Circle, Martin's new band that "interprets classic pop and R&B songs and originals through a jazz lens." The four-for-two offer is good only through next Tuesday, January 31; to get the discount, go to Metrotix.com to purchase your tickets and, when prompted, enter the promo code: CIRCLE.

* In more Martin-related news, the pianist was among the honorees Monday at the annual Arts and Education Council awards dinner at the Chase Park Plaza, and you can read an account of the evening's events from the Post-Dispatch's Deb Peterson here. The ceremony also included short videos about all the award winners; you can see the one about Martin online here, and the video about Jason Brown, trumpet player, music teacher in the Riverview Gardens school district and Arts Educator of the Year, here.

Jazz this week: Ravi Coltrane, Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo, a new big band debuts, and more

The tenor sax plays a major role in this week's schedule of jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with two of the instrument's most prominent current exponents in town, plus several other noteworthy shows including the debut of a new big band as well. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane (pictured) opens a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. Coltrane, the son of legendary saxophonist John Coltrane and pianist/harpist Alice Coltrane, last played the Bistro with his own group in 2008, and then returned the following year to perform with the Blue Note 7 at the Sheldon. He's been through some changes since then, and talked about them a bit in an interview I did with him on Monday that should be going live on the Riverfront Times music blog any time now. (Update - 3:30 p.m., 1/19/12: The interview is online here.)

Until then, for more about Ravi Coltrane, check out this video showcase post from a couple of Saturdays ago; this St. Louis magazine blog post by Dennis Owsley, which compares Coltrane with his famous father; and this article by the Post-Dispatch's Calvin Wilson, which ponders the elder Coltrane's influence on his son and on Branford Marsalis (who will be here on Sunday - see below). Also, you can hear Coltrane's complete set from last summer's Newport Jazz Festival as archived online by NPR here.

Also tonight, Erin Bode is at Cyrano's; saxophonist Larry Johnson and singer Charlie B. will be playing their new weekly gig at Bartolino's near Hampton and 44; and singer Ralph Butler and pianist Gigi Darr perform in an early evening show at Jazz on Broadway in Alton.

On Thursday, Coltrane will be at Webster University's Community Music School to do a workshop with Webster students; the event, held in CMS room #10, also is open to the public, free of charge. Also on Thursday, the Dixie Dudes bring their traditional New Orleans jazz sound back to Jazz on Broadway.

Then on Friday, trumpeter Randy Holmes' quintet (aka Hard Bop Heritage) will play at Robbie's House of Jazz; saxophonist Rod Tate returns to the Halls Ferry Inn Jazz Cafe; and drummer Paul Shaw's trio with pianist Ptah Williams and bassist Bob DeBoo is back at the Cigar Inn.

Saturday evening, the Funky Butt Brass Band will perform at the new multi-genre venue Plush, which is located at 3222 Locust in Midtown. (For a bit more about this venue, which seems to be booking mostly rock, blues and R&B so far, see this blog post from the RFT's Kiernan Maletsky.)

On Sunday, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and pianist Joey Calderazzo will be in St. Louis to perform as a duo at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Both were here last for a Marsalis quartet show at the Touhill in February 2010, but this tour is a follow-up to the duo album Tales of Mirth and Melancholy released last year by Marsalis and Calderazzo. For more about that, see this video showcase post from last Saturday.

Also on Sunday, trombonist Dave Dickey, a veteran musician but relatively recent transplant to the area who's played with a host of name jazz and Latin artists, debuts the new St. Louis version of his Big Band at the Kirkwood Station Brewing Company; and the Webster Groves middle and high school jazz bands will perform their annual "Cool Nights, Hot Jazz" concert over at The Pageant.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday saxophonist "Blind" Willie Dineen brings his Broadway Collective back to the stage of BB's Jazz, Blues and 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.)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Mirth and Melancholy with Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo

This week, our video spotlight shines on saxophonist Branford Marsalis and pianist Joey Calderazzo, who will be in St. Louis for a duo performance on Sunday, January 22 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

In June of last year, Marsalis and Calderazzo released Songs of Mirth and Melancholy, a duo CD on the saxophonist's Marsalis Music label. This tour essentially is a followup to that recording, which received favorable reviews such as this one from Jazz Times' Jeff Tamarkin and this one from AllAboutJazz.com's Mark F. Turner.

However, although Marsalis and Calderazzo have worked together in the former's quartet for nearly 14 years now, their duo project is new enough that there's not much video documentation of it online. They did make a series of promotional clips, featuring interview footage and some audio excerpts, in conjunction with the release of Mirth and Melancholy, and you can see the first of those, "Inspirations and Methods," in the embedded window up above.

Two more of those promo clips, "Focus on What the Song Requires" and "Playing Together is Enough Inspiration" can be seen down below. (A fourth clip, about the material selected for the album, already was featured in this space as part of the recent winter/spring 2012 jazz preview.)

Performance clips from the duo's concerts to date seem mostly limited to short snippets of a minute or two, but there is one full length performance online of a song from the CD, a version of "Hope" recorded in 2010 at the Detroit Jazz Festival. (The gig was actually a show for Marsalis's quartet, but although bassist Eric Revis and drummer Justin Faulkner are present on stage, their contributions to "Hope" are brief and limited to some discreet swells under Calderazzo's piano.) You can find "Hope" in the fourth window, and to round things out, there's an audio-only clip of another piece from the album, "La Valse Kendall," in the fifth and final embed window.

For more about Branford Marsalis and additional clips of the quartet in action, see this video showcase post that ran before his last St. Louis gig in February 2010 at the Touhill.

The Sheldon, Metrotix offering presale of tickets for concert by Marsalis & Calderazzo

The Sheldon Concert Hall and Metrotix are offering an online presale of tickets for the upcoming duo performance by saxophonist Branford Marsalis and pianist Joey Calderazzo (pictured) on Sunday, January 22 at the Sheldon.

Tickets are $45 for orchestra seats, $40 for the balcony and will go on sale to the general public at 10:00 this Saturday, October 8. However, online buyers can purchase tickets starting at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, October 7. To access the offer, go to Metrotix.com and when prompted, enter the promo code BRANFORD12.

Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo to perform Sunday, January 22 at the Sheldon

This just in: Saxophonist Branford Marsalis (pictured) and pianist Joey Calderazzo, who has played with Marsalis for 13 years as part of his quartet, will perform in a duo concert at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, January 22 at the Sheldon.

Marsalis and Calderazzo in June of this year released a duo CD, Songs of Mirth and Melancholy, on the saxophonist's Marsalis Music label. The disc generally has received very favorable reviews, such as this one from Jazz Times' Jeff Tamarkin and this one from AllAboutJazz.com's Mark F. Turner.

Single tickets for Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo at the Sheldon are $45 for orchestra seats, $40 for the balcony, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. Saturday, October 8 via MetroTix.