Jazz this week: TAUK, Clayton, Coffin & Wilson, River City Sound Clinic & Gerald Nicosia, Blue Strawberry opens, and more

It's another busy week for live jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with sounds from funk and fusion to free improv and straight-ahead swing, plus the opening of a new local venue for cabaret performances, and more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, October 30
Funk/jam quartet TAUK returns to perform at the Old Rock House, having recently released the third volume in their "Real Tauk" series of live recordings; and The 442s will debut some new music from bandleader Adam Maness and composers Christopher Stark and Stefan Freund in a concert at The Sheldon.

Elsewhere around town, this week's "Wednesday Night Jazz Crawl" features Miss Jubilee at The Stage at KDHX, the weekly jam session at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and The People's Key doing a 1980s-themed show for Halloween at The Dark Room.

Thursday, 
October 31
The new Central West End cabaret venue Blue Strawberry opens with St. Louisan Ken Haller's latest show, "When I'm 65." The club will feature cabaret and other singers on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, plus additional live music on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and food and drinks throughout the week. To find out more, read this post from last week.

Also on Thursday, the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University presents a free concert by Italian vibraphonist Marco Pacassoni (pictured, center left) with guitarist William Lenihan, bassist Joseph Lepore and drummer Steve Davis; and singer Denise Thimes is back home from Chicago to present the "Mildred Thimes Foundation 15th Annual Benefit Concert" at The Sheldon, with saxophonist Tim Cunningham providing the entertainment for the pre-show VIP event.

Friday, November 1
Bassist John Clayton, saxophonist Jeff Coffin and drummer Matt Wilson (pictured, top left), all in town for week-long educational residencies at Jazz St. Louis, will team up to conclude their stays with the first of two nights of performances at the Bistro.

As often happens with these ad hoc combinations, given the diversity of their respective experiences and usual modes of musical expression, it's hard to predict what they'll sound like together. All three do have their own catalogs of compositions from which to draw, and there definitely should be a high level of musicianship happening, even if there's some stylistic tension along the way.

Also on Friday, Dizzy Atmosphere plays vintage swing and Gypsy jazz in a concert at The Focal Point; the Sentimental Journey Dance Band plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom, and Blue Strawberry's opening weekend continues with a performance from St. Louisans Rosemary Watts and Joe Dreyer.

Saturday, November 2
Trumpeter George Sams' Nu-Art Series returns with "Jazz n' Tongues: Musical Improvisation to the poetry of Gerald Nicosia" featuring Sams and an ensemble of St. Louis musicians christened the River City Sound Clinic with Nicosia (pictured, with Sams, at bottom left) on stage at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Also on Saturday, former St. Louisan Mark Deutsch presents another performance on his invented instrument, the Bazantar, at the Focal Point;  nine different up-and-coming St. Louis bands and performers will be featured in "Labor of Love - A Kranzberg Arts Foundation Music Resident Benefit Concert" at .ZACK in Grand Center, and the opening weekend at Blue Strawberry concludes with Amy Friedl Stoner singing "A Little Bit of Everything."

Sunday, November 3
The St. Louis Record Show will present their last event of the year at the American Czech Center, and the St. Louis Jazz Club presents the Funky Butt Brass Band in a concert at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel St. Louis - Westport.

Then on Sunday evening, pianist Ptah Williams' trio performs at The Judson House, and the student musicians of the JazzU Big Band will perform at Jazz St. Louis.

Monday, November 4
Students in Webster University's Student Jazz Combos will show off what they've learned this semester in a performance at Webster's Community Music School.

Tuesday, November 5
Trumpeter Garrett Schmidt leads a quintet in a concert at the Gaslight Theater.

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: The Clayton Brothers Quintet

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring members of the Clayton Brothers Quintet, who will be performing in St. Louis starting next Monday, March 1 through Saturday, March 4 at Jazz at the Bistro.

With a crisp, hard-bop sound evoking memories of saxophonist Cannonball Adderley's classic quintet and any number of vintage Blue Note recordings, the group is led by bassist John Clayton and saxophonist Jeff Clayton, and also includes John's son Gerald Clayton on piano, drummer Obed Calvaire, and trumpeter Terell Stafford.

The brothers also co-lead the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra with drummer Jeff Hamilton, a bifurcation of musical efforts that began years ago when the brothers mutually agreed to support each others' preferred musical format. As recounted in their Wikipedia entry, "Jeff's love of small groups lead to formation of the Clayton Brothers Quintet," while John's preference for big bands led to formation of the CHJO.

After more than three decades, the orchestra may have a higher public profile, thanks in no small part to having recorded and performed with popular guests such as John Pizzarelli and Diana Krall, but the quintet has put out eight albums since 1980 - the most recent of which, Soul Brothers, came out last spring - and earned generally good notices for them.

Still, for a group that's been around that long, and that even has earned Grammy nominations for a couple of their recordings, there seems to be relatively little video of them available online, while clips of the big band proliferate.. Nevertheless, StLJN has managed to unearth a few videos of the quintet in action previously unseen here, starting with the first clip up above, an excerpt from their show at the 2012 Pittsburgh JazzLive International Festival.

After the jump, you can see excerpts from two more performances from around that time, recorded in October 2012 at the BMW Jazz Festival in São Paulo, Brazil and at Dizzy's Club in Jazz at Lincoln Center in NYC.

Below that, you can check out solo improvisations from the two Clayton brothers, as John Clayton plays a solo version "If I Were a Rich Man" in April, 2015 at the University of New Hampshire, and Jeff plays a free-form solo while guesting with the Stanford University jazz orchestra in 2011.

The sixth and final video is an interview with the Clayton brothers recorded in 2011 for the web series The Pace Report.

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

Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra to headline 2015 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival

The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra will headline the final night of the 12th annual Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, which will be held next year on Friday, March 20 and Saturday, March 21 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

Led by drummer Jeff Hamilton, bassist John Clayton and his brother, saxophonist Jeff Clayton, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra (pictured) was formed in 1985. They've released six CDs, the most recent of which is 2005's Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra Live At MCG. Local jazz fans also may remember that John and Jeff Clayton performed here as The Clayton Brothers in 2010 at Jazz at the Bistro and in 2011 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

The GSLJF's Friday night concert will feature a band assembled especially for the occasion, fronted by saxophonist "Blue" Lou Marini, known for his work with the Blues Brothers, Blood Sweat & Tears, and the Saturday Night Live house band; trombonist Steve Wiest, a Grammy nominated composer/arranger and faculty member at the University of Denver; and Clay Jenkins, lead trumpeter for top big bands including Stan Kenton and the Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra and professor at Eastman School of Music.

They'll be accompanied by a rhythm section comprised of two locals, drummer Montez Coleman and pianist Ken Kehner, plus bassist and jazz educator Lou Fischer.

The GSLJF also includes three days of educational activities, as student bands from Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Tennessee and Texas will participate in adjudicated performances and clinics, which include one-on-one sessions and critiques from visiting professionals.

In a couple of notable differences from past festivals, the March dates for the 2015 GSLJF are nearly a month earlier than when the event has been held in years past, during the third weekend in April. Also, the 2015 festival apparently will not include a Thursday night show at Jazz at the Bistro, which has been part of the event in recent years.

Both public concerts will start start at 8:00 p.m. and will feature the UMSL Jazz Ensemble, directed by Jim Widner, as opening act. The ticket on-sale date and prices will be announced in January.

Jazz this week: Dan Hicks, John Clayton & Gerald Clayton, Lotte Anker Trio, Danny Fox, and more

With a bit of spring in the air this week in St. Louis, there's also plenty of live jazz and creative music happening around town to get out and enjoy over the next few days. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, singer-guitarist Dan Hicks returns to the St. Louis area for a performance at the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville.  Hicks' mix of Gyspy jazz, swing, country, blues and folk has been entertaining audiences for nearly fifty years now, and continue to draw appreciative crowds even when he doesn't have a new recording to promote. For more on his colorful career and some video samples of him and the the current edition of his band, the Hot Licks, in action, see this post from last Saturday.

Also tonight, the father-son team of bassist John Clayton and pianist Gerald Clayton (pictured, with drummer Jeff Hamilton) returns to open a four-night stand of duo gigs at Jazz at the Bistro. The two last appeared here in October 2011 as part of Clayton Brothers Quintet, which also includes John's sax-playing sibling Jeff Clayton. Since then, Gerald Clayton's star has continued to rise. He's now signed to Concord Records, and the label will release his debut for them, Life Forum, next month. The younger Clayton also can be heard on Cover Art, Concord's recently released album by the Next Collective, which is an eclectic group of 20-something musicians assembled by label exec Chris Dunn.

Tomorrow night, New Music Circle presents Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker in a concert at 560 Music Center. Teamed for this show with keyboardist Craig Taborn and drummer Gerald Cleaver, Anker is known here in the USA mostly as an improvisor, but also has a compositional sensibility that helps provide a sense of structure to many of her improvised flights. For more about Anker, and some video samples of her performing, check out this post from a couple of weeks ago.

Also tomorrow night, singer Erin Bode and band return to Crave coffeehouse on the south side.

On Friday, saxophonist Tim Cunningham will settle in for what's projected as a recurring weekly gig at Troy's Jazz Gallery,  saxophonist Jay Hutson is at Robbie's House of Jazz; singer Joe Mancuso performs for the first of two nights at Chaser's Lounge in the Chase Park Plaza Hotel; and saxophonist Austin Cebulski's quartet is at the Cigar Inn.

Then on Saturday, the trio of NYC-based pianist Danny Fox will be in town for a performance at Robbie's. Fox, a Harvard grad, has toured with drummer Max Weinberg's big band and the Tommy Dorsey "ghost band," among others. The trio's debut album The One Constant was released in 2011, and you can hear samples on Fox' website.

Also on Saturday, Two Times True with pianist Carolbeth True will perform at the south side house-concert venue Kinda Blue, 6101 1/2 Idaho; and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes bring their swing and jump blues sound back to Venice Cafe.

On Sunday, a group billed as the SIUE Jazz Faculty Ensemble, led by guitarist Rick Haydon and saxophonist Jason Swagler, will play a free concert presented by St. Louis Jazz and Blues Vespers series at Second Baptist Church.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday pianist Kim Portnoy's ensemble will perform at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium; and on Tuesday, the weekly swing dance presented by Lindy Hop St. Louis at the Grandel Theatre in Grand Center will feature live music from The Sidemen.

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: Winter/spring 2013 jazz preview, part 3

Today, it's part 3 of our video preview offering samples of some of the touring jazz and creative musicians who will be coming to St. Louis during the first part of 2013. (Part 1 of the preview is here and part 2 is here.)

Most of the musicians spotlighted in this week's installment may need little introduction to St. Louis jazz fans, as they've all played here at some point in the recent past, some multiple times.

For example, the bassist John Clayton and his son, pianist Gerald Clayton played here as part of the Clayton Brothers Quintet (co-fronted by John's saxophone-playing brother Jeff Clayton) in April 2010 at  Jazz at the Bistro and again in October 2011 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

They're coming back to play as a duo from Wednesday, March 13 through Saturday, March 16 at the Bistro, and though online footage of just the two of them is scarce, we did manage to find the undated clip embedded up above, which features them together playing a medium-slow blues at the 2009 Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy.

The second clip, embedded just below the text, features another duo, pianist Chick Corea and banjo player Béla Fleck. Corea was here most recently with Return to Forever in August 2011 at the Fox Theatre, while Fleck appeared with the reunited original Flecktones lineup in March of this year at the Sheldon.

They'll be playing together in a concert presented by Jazz St. Louis on Saturday, March 23 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. Here you can see them in a clip from 2008, performing "Sunset Road" from their 2007 collaborative album The Enchantment. (It was shot by an audience member, so the video quality is a bit shaky, but the audio is good enough.)

Next, it's pianist Joe Sample, who will lead a trio starting Wednesday March 27 through Saturday, March 30 at Jazz at the Bistro. Sample and singer Randy Crawford performed in 2008 at the now-defunct St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival, and Sample also was here with the reunited Jazz Crusaders in June 2011 at the Touhill. This clip shows him playing "Old Places, Old Faces" with Jay Anderson on bass and Lenny Castro on drums

Trumpet fans and players should relish the combination of Jon Faddis, Terell Stafford and Sean Jones, who will join forces to play on Friday, April 5 and Saturday, April 6 at Jazz at the Bistro. It'll be a rare chance to see these three top trumpeters together on one stage, and all three have headlined their own gigs here in the past few years.

Faddis played St. Louis in 2009 at the Touhill for the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival and again with pianist Cyrus Chestnut in 2011 at the Bistro; Jones headlined at the Bistro in April 2009 and again May 2011, and also did a one-nighter there with Stefon Harris this April as part of the 2012 GSLJF. (You can check out StLJN's previous video features on Jones here and here.)

For his part, Stafford led his own quartet in a week of dates at the Bistro in October (and was the subject then of his own video showcase post). He also played the club in March of this year with drummer Matt Wilson's band Arts and Crafts.

Stafford is shown with Wilson below in today's final clip, but before we get to that, there's Faddis playing "Autumn Leaves" from a 2011 concert paying tribute to Miles Davis at the Prague Castle in the Czech Republic. Below that, you can see Jones working out on "I'll Remember April" in an undated video recorded at Gregory's Jazz in Rome, Italy.

Singer Marlena Shaw is next on the calendar, as she'll be in town the following week to perform Wednesday, April 10 through Saturday, April 13 at Jazz at the Bistro. Shaw last played the club in May 2010, and had been scheduled to return in the spring of 2012, but postponed and was rescheduled for 2013. Here, you can see her performing "Feel Like Making Love" in March 2010 at New Morning in Paris, France. 

We close out today's video preview with clips featuring clarinetist Anat Cohen and drummer Matt Wilson, who will be paired for a gig to open the 2013 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival on Thursday, April 18 at Jazz at the Bistro. Cohen made her St. Louis debut as a leader in February of this year at the Bistro, and also played the club in 2007 with Waverly Seven; Wilson was here most recently in March for a week-long educational residency with Jazz St. Louis that culminated in a two-night stand with his band Arts and Crafts at the Bistro.

The video of Cohen shows her and her quartet - Jason Lindner on piano, Joe Martin on bass, and Daniel Freedman on drums - playing "As Rosas Nao Falam" from her most recent album Claroscuro. It was filmed in June 2012 at at the Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington D.C..

Today's final clip was recorded during Wilson's last visit to St. Louis, when he and Arts and Crafts (with Stafford on trumpet) also did an in-store performance and clinic at Saxquest. Here, you can see them at Saxquest playing "Beija-Flor" by Brazilian samba singer Nelson Cavaquinho, from their 2001 debut album. Then Wilson talks for a bit before they play his original composition "In Touch With Dewey", first recorded on the 2007 album The Scenic Route.

Next week in this space, the plan is to have more about singer Gregory Porter, who will open 2013 at Jazz at the Bistro, with the fourth and final part of StLJN's winter/spring 2013 jazz preview set for two weeks from today. Stay tuned...















(Edited 12/26/12 to fix a typo and a formatting problem.)

Bassist/educator Jim Widner elected to Jazz Education Network board of directors

Bassist and educator Jim Widner has been elected to the board of directors of the Jazz Education Network (JEN), a relatively new organization formed in 2008 not long after the collapse of the International Association of Jazz Educators. JEN's Web site says the group is "dedicated to building the jazz arts community by advancing education, promoting performance and developing new audiences."

The newly elected board has seventeen members who took office on July 1 and will have their first official meeting this week in Columbus, OH. The JEN board of directors includes both full-time educators like Widner (who directs the jazz studies program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and runs several summer jazz camps) and working players with a strong interest in jazz ed, such as bassist John Clayton and trumpeter Terrell Stafford.