Sunday Session: June 20, 2021

Don Cherry

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest:

* Now That You’ve Bought a Multi-Million-Dollar Music Catalog, What Are You Going to Do With It? (Variety)
* The greatest 'lost tapes' ever found? (BBC)
* The 10 Great Record Stores in America (SPIN)
* Don Cherry’s Life-Affirming Organic Music (Bandcamp.com)
* Mystical Discipline: Anthony Braxton Interviewed (TheQuietus.com)
* Jeff Beck: my stories of Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Stevie Ray Vaughan and more (LouderSound.com)
* Elevation Studios Breaks Ground On Massive Production, Rehearsal Campus In Nashville (Pollstar.com)
* Can classical music organizations survive the longest-running disruption in history? Opera Australia has cracked the code. (CultureForHire.com)
* The Sound of Early Sci-Fi: Samuel Hoffman’s Theremin (Reverb.com)
* ‘We could lose it all’: UK jazz tries to get its groove back after Covid (The Guardian)
* U.S. Recorded Music Revenues Are Still 46% Below 1999 Peaks, RIAA Data Shows (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Buddy Guy Documentary Explores the Roots of an American Master (Soulhead.com)
* Jazz Elder Statesman Anthony Braxton Continues To Defy Expectations (NPR)
* The Guitar Playing of Julian Lage (The New Yorker)
* Don And Moki Cherry's Organic Dreams Made Real (NPR)
* Pedal-Steel Guitarist Greg Leisz on His Years With Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, and Daft Punk (Rolling Stone)
* How Boston’s Tom Scholz made their entire debut album in his basement (RockAndRollGarage.com)

Sunday Session: June 13, 2021

Terence Blanchard

Here's this week's roundup of various music-related items of interest:

* Tulsa Race Massacre: How The Gap Band Was a Tribute to the Former ‘Black Wall Street’ (TheWrap.com)
* JazzTimes 10: Essential Horace Silver Recordings (Jazz Times)
* A “Phenomenal Concept,” and A Mega Synth Studio Goes Minimalist (SonicScoop.com)
* Five Months Later, Only 31 of 13,619 Music Venues Have Gotten Their Grants Approved (Rolling Stone)
* ‘This sounds like a human synthesiser’: the evolution of rap, one verse at a time (The Guardian)
* A Guide to the Early Work of Sonny Rollins on Prestige Records (Bandcamp.com)
* The Strange World Of… Don Cherry (TheQuietus.com)
* Floating Along In Uncertainty With Vijay Iyer (NPR)
* The Sound of Joy (SPIN)
* ‘Perry Mason’ composer Terence Blanchard: ‘It was a huge honor’ to remix the iconic theme of the original series (GoldDerby.com)
* U.S. Jazz Venues Announce Reopening (Jazz Times)
* Ray Charles’ ‘True Genius’ Box Set to Feature Previously Unreleased Live Tracks (Rolling Stone via Yahoo News)
* Tone Glow 067: George Lewis (ToneGlow.Substack.com)
* Jazz vs. Classical Funding (AllAboutJazz.com)
* Uncovering the Rich History of Spanish Experimental Music (Bandcamp.com)
* Rolling Stones, Tom Jones and more join campaign for law change on streaming (The Guardian)
* Just a Lego robot strumming a ukulele (AVClub.com)
* Chronology: Freddie Redd Steps Out of the Shadows (Jazz Times)
* Larry Goldings Reaches New Audience as Comedian (Jazz Times)
* Julian Lage: “I bought a stethoscope and taped it to the back of the Telecaster. I could only handle it for about a day and thought, ‘This is abusive!’“ (MusicRadar.com)
* Live music is back, but for roadies and crews, the pandemic’s toll may be irreversible (Los Angeles Times)
* In historic move, Sony Music is disregarding unrecouped balances for heritage catalog artists (MusicBusinessWorldwide.com)
* Overdue Ovation: Steve Slagle Remains Optimistic with New Album (Jazz Times)

Jazz this week: Kuzu, Galactic, Julian Lage & Dave King, Dikeman/ACA Quartet, Soul Message Band, SFJAZZ Collective, and more

It's a busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with a half-dozen noteworthy shows from visiting performers offering funk, free jazz, re-imaginations of music from two iconic artists, and much more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, March 11
Improvising trio Kuzu (pictured, top left), featuring guitarist Tashi Dorji, drummer Tyler Damon and saxophonist Dave Rempis, will perform in a New Music Circle concert at Joe's Cafe.

You can find out more, and see and hear performances on video from all three of them, separately and together, in this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Also on Wednesday, cabaret grande dame Marilyn Maye continues with her second of three nights of performances with the Jazz St. Louis Big Band; and Jazz St. Louis' "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series presents a free event with author William Studdart discussing his book The Jazz War: Radio Nazism, and the Struggle for the Airwaves in WW2 at the St. Louis County Library.

Thursday, March 12
New Orleans funk/jazz band Galactic (pictured, center left) returns to perform at Delmar Hall.

You can find out more about what they've been up to since their last appearance here, and see videos of some recent performances in this post from Saturday before last.

UPDATE - 10:00 a.m., 3/12/20: In an announcement made this morning on Twitter,  Galactic has canceled all tour dates, including tonight's show in St. Louis, until Saturday, March 28.

Also on Thursday, guitarist Julian Lage and drummer Dave King bring their "pop-up" tour to Gaslight Studio, and Dutch saxophonist John Dikeman headlines a bill of free improvisors at the Way Out Club.

Elsewhere around town, Chicago-based organ trio Soul Message Band will perform at The Dark Room, and two more Chicago-based musicians, saxophonist Rob Denty and drummer Tim Mulvenna, will team up with guitarist Vincent Varvel to play a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

UPDATE - 7:45 a.m., 3/12/20: In a message published Wednesday night on Facebook, the Jazz at Holmes series announced that the remaining shows for the spring semester, including this week's Denty/Mulvenna/Varvel concert, have been cancelled, in keeping with Wash U's policy regarding current public health concerns over the coronavirus.

Friday, March 13
Keyboardist Dave Grelle's Playadors perform for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis, and singer Erin Bode will present at a concert at Focal Point.

Also on Friday, the Ambassadors of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom, and the Mineral Area College Carol Moore Memorial Jazz Festival, with trombonist Michael Dease as the featured guest, gets underway for the first of two nights at the Mineral Area College Theater in Park Hills, MO.

Saturday, March 14
The all-star SFJAZZ Collective (pictured, bottom left) will perform at the Sheldon Concert Hall, featuring new arrangements of music from Miles Davis' In A Silent Way and Sly and the Family Stone's Stand!.

You can find out more about about the Miles/Sly project and see some brief musical excerpts on video in this post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, bassist and singer Janet Evra leads her quartet at Evangeline's, and saxophonist Tim Cunningham returns to Troy's Listening Room.

Sunday, March 15
The Original Knights Of Swing will play a matinee at the Opera House of Pacific; the Coleman Hughes Project celebrates seven years as a band with a show at HollyLou Entertainment; and the JazzU Big Band student ensemble performs at Jazz St. Louis.

Tuesday, March 17
Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Singers Open Mic" at Sophie's Artist Lounge, and pianist Kim Portnoy teams up with voice faculty members from Webster U and Webster alumna Erin Bode for  "The Poetry Project" at Union Avenue Christian Church.

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: Nels Cline 4 offers guitar times two

this week, let's take a look at some videos of the Nels Cline 4, who are coming to St. Louis to perform on Friday, August 10 at Delmar Hall. They're on the road for a series of dates in August in support of their album Currents, Constellations, which was released in April on the Blue Note label.

Cline probably is best known these days as a member of alt-rock band Wilco, but he started out playing jazz-fusion as a teenager in the late 1970s, recording and performing in bands with his twin brother, drummer Alex Cline. He subsequently has gone on to work with musicians such as Charlie Haden, Gregg Bendian, Wadada Leo Smith, Tim Berne, Vinny Golia, and Julius Hemphill, as well as leading a number of different bands.

In this specific case, the key to the Nels Cline 4 lies in the leader's interactions with fellow guitarist Julian Lage, a headliner in his own right who's often mentioned as one of the top young guitarists in jazz. Lage released nine albums as a leader, and also recorded as a collaborator or sideman with musicians ranging from Gary Burton to John Zorn.

The Nels Cline 4 is result of a friendship formed a few years back between the two guitarists, starting with some duo performances, and eventually leading to a full band. Bassist Scott Colley and drummer Tom Rainey perform on the record, but on some live dates the group has substituted other musicians such as bassist Jorge Roeder, who's playing on this tour.

Even with some variations in the lineup, the group is able to maintain a cohesive yet adventurous sound, as demonstrated in today's collection of videos, starting up above with a session they did earlier this year in Paste magazine's NYC studio. It includes three tunes from Currents, Constellations: "Imperfect 10," "Amenette" and "River Mouth (Parts 1 & 2)."

After the jump, you can see two additional recent live-in-the-studio performances, "Swing Ghost '59" and "Temporarily," both of which also are on the album.

Next, there's a live set from 2015 at The Stone in NYC, which provides an interesting baseline for comparison to what they're doing now, and an acoustic duo performance by Cline and Lage of a song called "Calder," also recorded in 2015 at the studios of radio station KEXP in Seattle.

Last but not least, you can see a video interview with Cline recorded earlier this year by Guitar Player magazine.

For more about the Nels Cline 4, listen to Cline being interviewed on the first episode of a new podcast called Pedal Fuzz and read the recent DownBeat feature about Cline.

You also can read reviews of live shows in April at Vortex Jazz Club in London and earlier this month in Portland, ME; and check out the reviews of Currents, Constellations in Vintage Guitar magazine, Glide magazine, and Jazz Times.

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

Sunday Session: July 8, 2018

David Murray

Here's a roundup of various music-related items of interest that have shown up in one of StLJN's various inboxes or feeds over the past week:

* Julian Lage Takes a ‘Page from the Rock ’n’ Roll Book’ (DownBeat)
* 50 Years On, The Band's 'Music From Big Pink' Haunts Us Still (NPR)
* Rain Can’t Wash Out Saratoga Jazz Fest (DownBeat)
* Ry Cooder ‘Spellbound’ by Gospel Music (DownBeat)
* Trump Tariffs Could Kill U.S. Synth Manufacturing, Says Moog (Synthtopia.com)
* Moog Says Chinese Tariffs May Force A Move Overseas (NPR)
* The Counterfeit Queen of Soul (Smithsonian)
* The Band's 'Music From Big Pink' Turns 50: How Upstate New York Informed the Americana Classic (Billboard)
* The End of Owning Music: How CDs and Downloads Died (Rolling Stone)
* Shabaka Hutchings: Britain’s Best Export (DownBeat)
* How Alan Braufman’s “Valley of Search” Brought Shine to New York’s Loft Jazz Scene (Bandcamp.com)
* Pianist Henry Butler Has Passed Away After Cancer Battle (Offbeat)
* In Chicago, the sound of the blues is fading (The Economist)
* Finding The Light with Bass Icon Dave Holland, on The Checkout (WBGO)
* Radical Transparency: A Review of Jason Moran’s The Last Jazz Fest (WalkerArt.org)
* Public Enemy Talks 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back' on Its 30th Anniversary (Billboard)
* Before & After With Nicole Mitchell (Jazz Times)
* Bright Moments with David Murray (Jazz Times)
* Montreal Jazz Festival Cancels Slave Songs Show After Backlash (Hollywood Reporter)
* Trombonist Bill Watrous Dies at 79 (Jazz Times)
* This Artist Reimagined Pop Songs as Beautiful Infographics (Vice.com)
* Pianist Erroll Garner Lights Up Late Night In Amsterdam (WBGO)
* Lalah Hathaway, Questlove, Robert Glasper & More On the Impact of PBS’s ‘Soul!’ (OkayPlayer.com)
* Mickey Hart talks music, Grateful Dead, rhythm 'trancing' and giving Tipper Gore drum lessons (San Diego Union Tribune)
* Buster Williams Still is on the Upswing (DownBeat)
* Protest Voices Enrich Montreal Festival (DownBeat)
* How Innovative Jazz Pianist Vince Guaraldi Became the Composer of Beloved Charlie Brown Music (OpenCulture.com)
* What Is the Most Nostalgic Song of All Time? (Village Voice)
* How a Young Lower East Side Jazz Group Became Cult Favorites (Vulture.com)
* Billboard’s charts used to be our barometer for music success. Are they meaningless in the streaming age? (Washington Post)
* How George Clinton Made Funk a World View (The New Yorker)

Nels Cline 4 set to perform Friday, August 10 at Delmar Hall

The Nels Cline 4, featuring guitarists Nels Cline and Julian Lage, is coming to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m. Friday, August 10 at Delmar Hall.

Cline (pictured) has been involved with jazz and creative music since the late 1970s, recording and performing first in bands with his twin brother, drummer Alex Cline, and later with musicians such as Charlie Haden, Gregg Bendian, Wadada Leo Smith, Tim Berne, Vinny Golia, and Julius Hemphill. These days, though, he's probably most famous for his work since 2004 with critical darling alt-rock band Wilco, fronted by Belleville native Jeff Tweedy.

Lage is considered to be one of the top young guitarists in jazz, releasing nine albums as a leader in the last decade while also recording as a collaborator or sideman with musicians ranging from Gary Burton to John Zorn.

Bassist Scott Colley and drummer Tom Rainey round out the group, which will be touring in support of Cline’s second album for Blue Note, Currents, Constellations, released in April.

Tickets for the Nels Cline 4 at Delmar Hall will be $20 in advance, $25 day of show, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. this Friday, June 29 via the Delmar Hall and Pageant box offices and Ticketmaster.

Jazz this week: Julian Lage & Chris Eldridge, Jay Oliver, Jazz St. Louis gala, and more

With a forecast for spring-like weather in the offing, it should be a good weekend to get out and hear some live music in St. Louis.

However, if you're headed down to the annual Mardi Gras parade on Saturday, don't expect to find much jazz or blues among the musical options.

With the notable exception of the Funky Butt Brass Band, who will make appearances at the Mayor's Ball on Friday night, at the parade tent in Soulard on Saturday afternoon, and at the Old Rock House on Saturday, the corporate-dominated event unfortunately continues to rely mostly on DJs and rock cover bands, ignoring the genres most associated with Mardi Gras in the popular imagination.

That said, if you want to find some live jazz around St. Louis this week, you're in the right place. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, February 22
Guitarists Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge (pictured, top left) will play a duo show at Off Broadway (relocated from the originally announced venue, the Old Rock House).

Known individually for their work in jazz (Lage) and bluegrass (Eldridge), the two joined forces a few years back for an album, and have continued the project with intermittent touring between their commitments to other bands.

Now, with a new record, Mount Royal, set for release on Friday, they're doing a series of live dates in support of the release. For more about that, and some video samples of them in action, see this post from last Saturday. 

Also on Wednesday, trumpeter Rob Endicott leads a quintet in the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro.

Thursday, 
February 23
The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University presents a performance by keyboardist and St. Louis native Jay Oliver (pictured, center left), accompanied by bassist/guitarist William Lenihan and drummer Steve Davis.

A childhood friend of Dave Weckl, Oliver was a member of Weckl's band in the 1990s, recording four albums with the drummer, but he's had his greatest commercial successes as a producer, programmer and songwriter for rock acts including Sheryl Crow, Jimmy Buffett and the Eagles.

More recently, Oliver's "world music" project Aomusic has released four albums of original compositions and also created theme music for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Given all the time he spends in the recording studio, this show should give Oliver a good opportunity to cut loose in a live situation, and given his hometown connection, there should be a good turnout. (Note that while most Jazz at Holmes shows are free, this show will have a $10 admission charge at the door.)

Also on Thursday, the Funky Butt Brass Band kicks off Mardi Gras weekend with an early evening show at Blues City Deli; saxophonist Jason Swagler will be giving his faculty recital at Dunham Hall on the SIUE campus in Edwardsville, and saxophonist Dave Stone's trio will play at Thurman's in Shaw.

Friday, February 24
Jazz St. Louis holds their annual fundraising gala at the Sheldon Concert Hall, featuring a cocktail hour, dinner and auction; a concert from teenage piano phenom Joey Alexander's trio; and an after-party with music from singer Denise Thimes. Some tickets for Alexander's concert may still be available via Metrotix; for ticket availability for the gala, check with the Jazz St. Louis box office.

Also on Friday, percussionist Henry Claude will perform at the 560 Music Center, joined by the Vernacular String Trio, Perihelion Quartet, and trumpeter George Sams; singer Feyza Eren's quartet will play a free show at the St. Louis Art Museum; and vibraphonist Tom Rickard's trio returns to the Cigar Inn.

Saturday, February 25
Two veteran local musicians whose careers stretch back to the Gaslight Square era, pianist Dave Venn and singer Jeanne Trevor, will take the stage for one night only at Jazz at the Bistro; pianist Greg Mills will present new compositions for solo piano at  Jackson Pianos; and Miss Jubilee will perform at Jacoby Arts Center in Alton.

Sunday, February 26
The Folk School of KDHX presents a traditional jazz jam session; and the Ambassadors of Swing return for an early evening performance at Kirkwood Station Brewing Company.

Monday, February 27
Dizzy Atmosphere plays swing and Gypsy jazz at The Shaved Duck.

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: Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge

With appearances here this week by both Mike Stern and Ralph Towner, it's already been a good month in St. Louis for fans of jazz guitar, and it's not over yet.

Guitarists Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge, who will perform next Wednesday, February 22 at Off Broadway, may operate in a very different stylistic realm than either Stern or Towner, but their skills are equally worthy of attention from serious guitar enthusiasts. .

Lage, 29 years old, was a child phenom who's been in the public eye since he was the subject of the 1997 documentary Jules at Eight. A graduate of Berklee School of Music, he has recorded four albums as a leader, the most recent being Arclight, released last year on Mack Avenue.

In addition to his own group and his duo project with Eldridge, Lage also works with bands led by vibraphonist Gary Burton and drummer Eric Harland, and has been heard on recordings by Burton, Harland, pianist Taylor Eigsti, saxophonist Dayna Stephens, guitarist Nels Cline, and others.

Eldridge, 34, is the son of noted bluegrass guitarist Ben Eldridge, and is best known as a member of the eclectic acoustic band the Punch Brothers, who blend bluegrass with rock, classical and extended forms.

He began his music career working with his dad's band The Seldom Scene, and after attending Oberlin University, helped found the bluegrass band The Infamous Stringdusters. Originally begun in 2006 as a side project for Eldridge and mandolinist Chris Thile, the Punch Brothers eventually turned into a full-time band, and have released six albums on the Nonesuch label.

Lage and Eldridge released their first recording as a duo in 2013 and as their schedules permit have continued to play live dates intermittently since then, blending genres in an all-acoustic presentation that draws on material ranging from honky-tonk country and bluegrass to jazz and pop standards to original compositions.

In the first clip up top, you can see Lage and Eldridge performing "Bone Collector" from their second album Mount Royal, which will be released next Friday, February 24 on Free Dirt Records.

After the jump, there's a video of them playing "Butter and Eggs" and "For Critter" as recorded in September 2016 at Flathead Lake in Montana, followed by a clip of "Whiskey Before Breakfast," which was recorded October 30, 2016 at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY.

The next video features a version of "Mean Mother Blues" recorded in November, 2015 at the first-ever Fretboard Summit in Santa Cruz, California. The final two clips are "Ginseng Sullivan," from August 2013 at the Loveless Cafe in Nashville, and "Someone To Watch Over Me" from January, 2014 at the Sinclair in Cambridge, MA.

For more about the Lage/Eldridge duo, check out their 2013 chat with Fretboard Journal, and the 2014 review of their live show by Alec Wilkinson of The New Yorker. For more about their new album and another sample track, see the recent short feature about them from American Songwriter.

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

Jazz this week: Benny Green, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Julian Lage & Chris Eldridge, Dave Dickey Big Band, and more

As Jazz Appreciation Month winds down and we head into May, it's another busy weekend for live jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with several touring headliners in town and a number of noteworthy events featuring local performers, too.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, April 29
Pianist Benny Green returns with his trio for the first of four nights at Jazz at the Bistro, in what will be his first appearance at the club since a duo gig with guitarist Russell Malone way back in March 2006.

Now 50 years old, Green (pictured, top left) began his career during the "Young Lions" period of the 1980s, demonstrating his skills as a swinging, hard-bop/mainstream pianist with Betty Carter, Art Blakey and Freddie Hubbard before a long run in the trio of bassist Ray Brown.

Green also has recorded numerous albums leading his own trio, the latest being the forthcoming Live In Santa Cruz, which will be out next month on Sunnyside Records. Last fall, he also formalized his long-standing interest in jazz education by taking a job as an assistant professor teaching jazz and improvisation at the University of Michigan.

Also tonight, you can hear more jazz just a short walk from Bistro in the Grand Center neighborhood, both before and after Green's sets, via the weekly jam session led by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's weekly trio gig, with frequent sit-ins, at The Dark Room.

UPDATE, 4:50 p.m. 4/29/15 - Bob Deboo posted on Facebook and the Kranzberg Arts Center has confirmed via Twitter that tonight's jam is cancelled. No reason was specified, but Taylor's gig at The Dark Room is still on.

Thursday, April 30
While the International Jazz Day festivities in Paris will get underway at 1:00 p.m. for those of us here in the USA's Central time zone, St. Louisans also will have several opportunities to celebrate that evening, starting with the presentation of a 2015 Jazz Journalists Association "Jazz Hero" Award to Don Wolff at Jazz at the Bistro, followed by a brief reception with live music from students in Jazz St. Louis' JazzU program. The event is free and open to the public.

Elsewhere around town, pianist Peter Martin's trio will be providing the musical entertainment  for the "Eleventh Annual Evening of Hope" at the Sheldon Concert Hall; and guitarists Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge, from the Americana band The Punch Brothers, (pictured, center left) will be playing as a duo at Off Broadway

Also on Thursday, trumpeter Jim Manley, guitarist Travis Mattison and pianist Chris "Luppy" Swan will join forces at Thurman Grill, and the Tavern of Fine Arts will present their monthly "Experimental Arts Open Improv Night" with live improvised music.

Friday, May 1
Saxophonist Tim Cunningham returns to Troy's Jazz Gallery, while Miss Jubilee will be jumping, jiving and perhaps even wailing at Casa Loma Ballroom.

Saturday, May 2
Singer Cécile McLorin Salvant, one of the more talked-about new jazz vocalists of the last several years, will make her St. Louis debut at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

For more about Salvant (pictured, lower left) and some video samples of her live performances, see this post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, singer Feyza Eren will lead a quartet in concert at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Sunday, May 3
During the day, the St. Louis Record Collector and CD Show will have their bi-monthly sale/event at the American Czech Hall, 4690 Lansdowne (at Kingshighway), while the Friends of Scott Joplin will present their monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site, 2648 Delmar (at Beaumont).

Then that evening, singer Debby Lennon and pianist Carolbeth True will be performing at Nathalie's, and the Dave Dickey Big Band's monthly show at Jazz at the Bistro will feature a "Tribute to Buddy Rich," along with an intermission performance from the Principia Upper School Jazz Band.

(For the record, trombonist and bandleader Dave Dickey has emphatically denied that the Buddy Rich tribute will include any replaying or live re-enactment of the infamous "bus tapes," so the show should be suitable for all ages.) 

Monday, May 4
The Genesis Jazz Project will play a free concert at Midwest Music, 15977 Clayton Rd in Ballwin.

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.)

Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge playing Thursday, April 30 at Off Broadway

Guitarists Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge (pictured) are coming to St. Louis to perform a duo show at 8:00 p.m., Thursday, April 30 at Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave.

Lage has toured and recorded with vibraphonist Gary Burton, and his 2009 debut album Sounding Point was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

Eldridge is the guitarist for the Americana and bluegrass band the Punch Brothers, and also has worked with well-known musicians including Fiona Apple, Paul Simon, John Paul Jones, Justin Timberlake, T-Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello, Jerry Douglas, Del McCoury and others.

Their duo project, documented on the 2014 album Avalon, is described as "a collaborative effort founded in the roots of acoustic music, exploring the worlds of improvisation and composition."

Tickets for the all-ages show are $10 in advance, $12 at the door, with a $3 surcharge for minors, and are on sale now via Ticketfly.

Jazz this week: The Langston Hughes Project; Julian Lage; Hamiet Bluiett's Big Orchestra Band, Youth Division; Orange CD release; and more

This week's jazz and creative music offerings in St. Louis are a varied lot, from a multimedia project with an historical focus to a concert featuring a 50-piece band of students playing the compositions of one of St. Louis' greatest living jazz musicians, plus lots more. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, trumpeter Ron McCurdy brings his multimedia presentation The Langston Hughes Project to SIUE's Meridian Ballroom. For much more about this musical look at the jazz-influenced poet, author and essayist, check out last Saturday's Video Showcase post.

Also tonight, the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University resumes after spring break with a free concert from guitarist Vince Varvel's trio; and singer Kim Massie performs at the Sheldon Concert Hall to benefit the March of Dimes.

On Friday, the talented young guitarist Julian Lage and his group will be in town for one night only to play at Jazz at the Bistro. Jazz St. Louis is offering a 2-for-1 discount on tickets for Lage's performances; you can find out more about that offer, and hear some samples from his new CD here.

Also on Friday, saxophonist Kendrick Smith and his quartet will take the stage at Robbie's House of Jazz, and songwriter Al Hammerman will present a benefit concert for the Make A Wish Foundation at the Sheldon. Although not a jazz performer in the strict sense, Hammerman clearly has been influenced by the Great American Songbook, and typically deploys a number of local jazz players to help realize his compositions. Friday's concert will include vocals from Debby Lennon and Alan Ox, among others, and a 12-piece band playing arrangements of Hammerman's original songs.

On Saturday afternoon, the great baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett (pictured) will unveil his latest project The Big Orchestra Band, Youth Division in a concert for the Nu-Art Series at Metropolitan Gallery. The 50-piece ensemble is made up of kids participating in school and community center music programs in St. Louis City, St. Louis County and East St. Louis, and they'll perform new arrangements of some of Bluiett's compositions.

That evening, the group Orange will celebrate the release of their first CD at Jazz at the Bistro. Together now for a couple of years, Orange is essentially a busman's holiday for members of singer Erin Bode's band - pianist Adam Maness, bassist Syd Rodway, and drummer Mark Colenburg - plus vibraphonist Peter Schlamb. (Steve Davis will fill in on Saturday for Colenburg, who's on the road with pianist Robert Glasper.)

Their eponymous self-released CD features seven of Maness' original compositions, plus one from Schlamb. You can read more about it in Terry Perkins' article for the St. Louis Beacon here, and check out samples from the CD on Orange's Facebook page.

The busman's holiday will be short-lived, however, as Maness, Rodway & co. will be back at work Sunday evening, accompanying Erin Bode in a concert at Chapel of the Cross Lutheran Church in St. Peters to benefit Peace Lutheran Church and the Ablaze Center in Riverview, MO.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday guitarist Tom Byrne's trio is playing at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups; and guitarist Dave Black and others have put together a homecoming celebration for vibraphonist Lee Roth at Pop's Blue Moon on the Hill. Roth, who worked with a number of local jazz groups from the late 1970s to the 1990s, is back in town for a few days, and musicians, especially those who might have known him back in the day, are encouraged to bring their instruments and take part in a jam session.

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.)

Jazz St. Louis offering 2-for-1 special on tickets for Julian Lage

Jazz St. Louis is offering a 2-for-1 special on tickets for guitarist Julian Lage (pictured), who's playing this Friday, March 25 at Jazz at the Bistro.

The advertised ticket price is $20 each, but with the discount, ticket buyers get two seats for twenty bucks. The discount is available for both the 8:30 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. sets. To get it, call 314-289-4030 and use coupon code JLG2011.

A California native, Lage was mentored early in his career by vibraphonist Gary Burton, and also is a musical associate of the much-hyped young pianist Taylor Eigsti. Lage's 2009 debut CD Sounding Point was nominated for a Grammy Award, and he's just released the follow-up, Gladwell. With influences including modern jazz, chamber music, newgrass, and various world music traditions, Lage is a bit hard to pin down stylistically, but he's clearly a talented player with potential appeal beyond a hardcore jazz audience. You can hear three sample tracks from Gladwell in the embedded audio player below.

Gladwell