Jazz this week: Chris Botti; Eddie Henderson; Rogers, Owens & Ellis; Faith Prince and more

This week's jam-packed calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features performances from two top trumpeters, a cavalcade of cabaret, and more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, October 24
Singer Darius de Haas will present the first of two nights of performances of his cabaret show "A Bernstein Thing" at Jazz St. Louis.

Also on Wednesday, the "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features pianist Jim Hegarty's trio at The Stage at KDHX, along with the jam session led by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor and band at The Dark Room.

Thursday, October 25
Singer Denise Thimes will be back from her new home in Chicago to headline the "Mildred Thimes Foundation 14th Annual Benefit Concert" at the Sheldon Concert Hall. This year's show will feature Thimes and friends interpreting material associated with singers Luther Vandross and Chaka Khan. .

Also on Thursday, Italian drummer Lecrezio de Seta will be joined by bassist/guitarist William Lenihan and keyboardist Jay Oliver for a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; saxophonist Ben Reece's Unity Quartet returns to The Dark Room; and trumpeter Jim Manley and guitarist Randy Bahr will head to O'Fallon, MO for a gig at the Rendezvous Cafe & Wine Bar.

Friday, October 26
Trumpeter Chris Botti (pictured, top left) returns to St. Louis for the first time since 2015 to perform once again with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra at Powell Hall.

Also on Friday, the revived Nu-Art Series gets underway with a concert featuring trumpeter Eddie Henderson (pictured, bottom left) with poet Lyah LeFlore, pianist Ptah Williams, and fellow trumpeter and Nu-Art impresario George Sams at Xavier Hall on the St. Louis University campus.

For more about Henderson, who turns 78 the day of his St. Louis show, plus some videos of recent performances, check out the post from last Saturday.

Elsewhere around town, bassist Reuben Rogers, drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. and saxophonist John Ellis, joined by St. Louis' own Peter Martin on piano, will wrap up a week-long educational residency for Jazz St. Louis with the first of two nights of performances at the Bistro; and the Gaslight Cabaret Festival resumes with Tony Award winning actress and singer Faith Prince performing for the first of two evenings at the Gaslight Theater/

Saturday, October 27
Singer Barb Jungr and singer, pianist and St. Louis native John McDaniel return with a one-night-only performance of their latest cabaret show, "1968 - Let The Sunshine In," at the Kranzberg Arts Center; and pianist Mo Egeston is back at The Dark Room.

Sunday, October 28
Though singer/songwriter Jimmy Webb's two performances for the Gaslight Cabaret Festival are sold out, Sunday offers several other noteworthy musical options, as pianist David Thomas Roberts will perform at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site's Rosebud Cafe, and the eight-piece, Seattle-based Afrobeat band Polyrhythmics will play at the Old Rock House

Also on Sunday, trumpeter Randy Holmes has his Hard Bop Heritage band back in action at the Ozark Theatre; and the Bosman Twins with guest vocalist Marsha Evans will provide the music for the "Royal Vagabonds Foundation Scholarship Benefit" at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Monday, October 29
The Usual Suspects play at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups, and drummer Nick Savage leads a quartet in a concert at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University 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.)

Notes from the Net: More on Miles From India, an appreciation of Oliver Nelson, plus reviews, interviews and more

It's now officially summer time, and the linkin' is easy...to yet another collection of news bits about jazz musicians with a St. Louis connection, recent visitors and coming attractions, pus assorted other items of interest:

* First up, some links related to the Miles Davis-inspired project Miles From India, starting with another review of the two-CD set, written by ContemporaryJazz.com's John Luciano. The CDs have also spawned a limited series of concerts, including one in Los Angeles, reviewed here, and one in San Francisco that inspired an article about how the jazz now is incorporating musical influences from all over the world, Last but not least, AllAboutJazz.com has an interview about the project with former Davis sideman, guitarist Pete Cosey (pictured).

* The film blog Cinema Styles recently had a nice appreciation of saxophonist and St. Louis native Oliver Nelson's film and TV scoring, with an accompanying .mp3 of his composition "A Typical Day in New York."

* Saxophonist Oliver Lake is featured in Breakin' Glass, a new book in the Photonality Jazz Series

* Saxophonist and composer John Zorn recently designed a sound installation/experiment for a San Francisco museum.

* Composer, sound artist and St. Louis native Ben Manley is taking part in NYC performance space Roulette's annual Mixology Festival, which focuses on new and unusual uses of technology in music.

* Here's a review of No Strangers Here, bassist Ben Wolfe's new CD from the St. Louis-based MAXJAZZ label, and a review of Wolfe's recent gig at NYC's Jazz Standard.

* Check out these two interviews with saxophonist John Ellis, who guests on the new Erin Bode CD The Little Garden - one in print from AllAboutJazz.com, the other on radio with blogger and DJ LeRoy "The Jazzcat" Downs.

* The Return to Forever reunion tour, which came through St. Louis last week for a date at the Fox Theatre, is getting lots of press, starting with news that group's two-CD Anthology has been released; the collection gets an AllAboutJazz.com "extended analysis" here. Also, check out reviews of the band's shows in Denver, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles, and this interview with drummer Lenny White in Drum Magazine

* Since playing at Jazz at the Bistro last October, bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding's star has contined to rise. She recently was interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered, and the New York Times has reviewed her new CD.

* Guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli, who's performed in St. Louis at both the Bistro and the Sheldon Concert Hall , has released a new CD devoted to the songs of Richard Rodgers

* Singer Paula West will perform at the Sheldon next season; here's a review of her recent gig in Charleston, SC.

* Trumpeter Rick Braun and saxophonist Richard Elliot have been added to the lineup of this fall's Dave Koz Cruise, produced by St. Louis-based Jazz Cruises LLC. Braun, Elliot and Koz all will perform at The Pageant this summer.

* Pianist Les McCann and saxophonist Javon Jackson, who will team up for a four-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro in October, were a last-minute replacement for pianist McCoy Tyner at the jazz festival earlier this month in Telluride, CO.

* The National Endowment for the Arts has announced its 2009 Jazz Masters honorees, including guitarist and singer George Benson, drummer Jimmy Cobb, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, guitarist and harmonica player Toots Thielemans and trumpeter Snooky Young. Recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder will receive the 2009 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy.

* Last but not least, composer and blogger Darcy James Argue recently had a couple of insightful and amusing posts about the phenomenon of "fan service," which he defines as "a marker or signifier that serves no legitimate aesthetic purpose, but is there to stroke those in the in-crowd while simultaneously alienating even the most sophisticated and open-minded newbies."