So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Drummer Kevin Bowers' band Nova's performance tonight at Winter Jazzfest in New York City was previewed in articles by Kevin Johnson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Cara Wegener of Alive magazine.

* Trumpeter Miles Davis is the subject of a new children's book, Birth of the Cool: How Jazz Great Miles Davis Found His Sound by Kathleen Cornell Berman. Aimed at readers ages 8 to 12, the book (pictured) is scheduled for release on Tuesday, April 16.

* Jazz St. Louis is conducting an online survey of audience members, asking about their experiences of the venue, preferences for show times, and more. Anyone completing the questionnaire will be entered in a drawing for four free tickets to an upcoming performance, with two ticket packages to be awarded. If you'd like to take the survey, go here before end of business next Friday, January 18.

* Though The Dark Room has live music seven nights a week, the blog on their website has been devoted almost exclusively to describing the kitchen's daily/weekly specials - until now. Production manager Kevin Koehler announced this week that he'll be blogging about the various bands and musicians playing the room, starting with a look back at a Mo Egeston performance last September, which you can see here.

* HEC-TV has released online Gateway Sound, a new documentary about changing technology in the music industry that was directed by Justin Fisher, head audio engineer at SmithLee Productions.

* Webster University professor and department of music chair Jeffrey Carter is the new music director for Circus Harmony, the not-for-profit organization based at the City Museum that teaches circus skills to children and teens.

* St. Louisans may be mildly surprised to learn that a recent study named our town "the best city for nightlife in America." As reported by the Riverfront Times' Daniel Hill, the study by the magazine Apartment Guide based its rankings on "how many nightlife options were available per resident while excluding cities with a population of less than 100,000. Using those metrics, St. Louis' abundance of bars, breweries, clubs and music venues, coupled with our smaller population, sees us leading the pack with one nightlife-related business for every 1,143 people."

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 was part of a panel with writer Nate Chinen and musicians Terence Blanchard and Camila Meza discussing the evolution of jazz at the BRIC JazzFest 2018 last month in Brooklyn, NY. You can see the entire discussion on video here.

* A new box set compiling the Art Ensemble of Chicago's recordings for ECM also includes four of trumpeter and St. Louis native Lester Bowie's albums as leader for the label in the 1980s, plus two featuring Bowie (pictured) as part of Jack DeJohnette's New Directions.

* The Riverfront Times' Daniel Hill reports that drummer Kevin Bowers' band Nova will perform next month at the Winter Jazzfest in New York City.

* Singer Storm Large's show "Holiday Ordeal," happening next Tuesday at the Sun Theatre, was previewed in an article for the Post-Dispatch by Daniel Durchholz.

* Also in the Post-Dispatch, saxophonist Dave Koz talked about his holiday show next Tuesday at Family Arena for an article by the Post's Kevin Johnson.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Following the last-minute cancellation of this weekend's LouFest music festival, a number of acts scheduled to play the event have managed to book replacement shows at various venues around town.

Most of the bands and musicians that were scheduled to perform on LouFest's jazz stage, plus some other local performers, now will be playing "The Sound of St. Louis" Showcase, a free event taking place from 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 9 at the Grandel Theatre and The Dark Room.

The event will feature music from Ben Reece's Unity Quartet, Bob DeBoo, Jesse Gannon, Kasimu Taylor (pictured), Kevin Bowers' Nova, Mo Egeston, Owen Ragland, Ptah Williams Trio, and Tonina Saputo, as well as sets from The Burney Sisters, Dracla, Grace Basement, The Knuckles, The River Kittens, and Scrub & Ace Ha.

* Though local media outlets had to scrap many of their LouFest previews, the re-scheduling of many of the fest's jazz acts for the above-mentioned Sunday showcase did allow for the publication as originally planned of Kevin Johnson's Post-Dispatch feature on keyboardist Owen Ragland (link to Google cache).

* Also rescued from the LouFest-preview kill file, a feature story about drummer Kevin Bowers from the Riverfront Times' Christian Schaeffer.

* The late pianist and singer Jean Kittrell was the subject of a remembrance in the Edwardsville Intelligencer.

* Also in the Intelligencer, a brief preview of Saturday's Alton Jazz and Wine Festival, which has been moved indoors to Argosy Casino's music hall due to a forecast of heavy rain for Saturday.

* Trumpeter Keyon Harrold's recent performance for the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, NYC, was recorded for broadcast (and archived online) by radio station WBGO.

* Pianist Dred Scott, born here in St. Louis as Joseph Patrick Scott and now based in NYC, has a new album coming out on September 21. Titled Rides Alone, it features Scott playing solo on eight tracks of original music, and will be available as a CD or download from BandCamp.

* Thurman's in Shaw's new Sunday brunch was the subject of a brief feature by the Riverfront Times' Sarah Penske.

* The Davenport Lounge at the New Orleans Ritz Carlton hotel, which features music four nights a week from trumpeter, singer and U City native Jeremy Davenport, was mentioned in a CNN feature about celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse's list of New Orleans "must-dos."

* Bach to the Future's concert tonight at the Miller Performing Arts Center in Jefferson City was previewed in the Jefferson City News-Tribune.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Bassist Jimmy Blanton, who began his professional career in St. Louis before being hired Dike Ellington, is one of three inductees this year to Jazz at Lincoln Center's Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame. Nina Simone and Nat King Cole are the other 2018 inductees, chosen via an online vote of jazz fans.

* Drummer Dave Weckl (pictured) last week was interviewed (in English) by the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo's video channel.

* Pianist Peter Martin talked about his gigs this weekend at Jazz at the Bistro with the Post-Dispatch's Calvin Wilson.

* Speaking of the Post-Dispatch, the paper has published its annual "Go List" issue, which identifies reader and staff favorites in local attractions and festivals, music and the arts, bars and restaurants, and more.

In the "Readers' picks - Music & clubs" category, the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival took second place in "Best concert series" (which seems odd, considering that there's also a "Best music festival" category, in which the GSLJF did not place); the Sheldon Concert Hall was fourth in "Best concert venue"; and Jazz at the Bistro (Ferring Jazz Bistro) won first place in "Best place to hear jazz," followed by the Sheldon, Thurman's in Shaw, and The Stage at KDHX.

In addition, Erin Bode won first place in "Best singer" and second place in "Best original band," with Joe Mancuso scoring second place in "Best singer."

As for the critic's picks in music and clubs, the winners included New Music Circle, for "Favorite music series that presents jazz but doesn’t have ‘jazz’ in its title"; the Arcadia Dance Orchestra, for "Favorite band playing 1920s music"; and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, for "Favorite potential jazz venue." You can see the entire "Go List" for this year here. 

* Meanwhile, as part of the run-up to this year's ShowcaseSTL festival, the Riverfront Times this week began publishing a series of brief articles about the "STL 77," their "list of 77 acts who did big things in the last twelve months" which so far has included profiles of multi-instrumentalist Lamar "DJ Nune" Harris and keyboardist Mo Egeston.

* Photographer Madison Thorn has posted to Facebook an album of pictures from the recent performances by Kevin Bowers and NOVA at the Bistro

* Saxophonist David Sanborn will be one of the headliners and pianist Lawrence Fields one of the featured performers on the 2019 "Blue Note at Sea" cruise, which will take place from January 26 through February 2 and is presented by St. Louis-based Entertainment Cruise Productions.

* Bassist and U City native Neal Caine recently was interviewed by Bass Player magazine and also gets name-checked in a New Orleans Times-Picayune story about NOLA-based musicians performing in this  year's Jazz and Heritage Festival, aka JazzFest.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake is featured in a new instructional video for Jazz at Lincoln Center's "Jazz Academy."

* Trumpeter/singer and U City native Jeremy Davenport's song "One Way Ticket to New Orleans," written to commemorate the city's tricentennial, was the subject of a feature story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

* Grant Green Jr. will take his father Grant Green's music on the road this summer to help promote Resonance Records' release of two previously unheard albums by the guitarist and St. Louis native (pictured).

In addition to Green Jr, who is Green's eldest son and also a guitarist, the band billed as "Grant Green's Evolution of Funk" will include saxophonist Donald Harrison, keyboardist Marc Cary and drummer Mike Clark, and will make their debut with performances from June 28 to July 1 at NYC's Jazz Standard.

* On a related note, London Jazz News has reviewed Green's two new Resonance albums, Live at Oil Can Harry's and Funk in France, which will be released officially this Saturday, April 21 for Record Store Day.  You can find much more on this year's RSD jazz releases in this article from DownBeat.

* Drummer Kevin Bowers was interviewed about his shows this weekend at Jazz at the Bistro by the Post-Dispatch's Kevin Johnson.

* Multi-instrumentalist Adam Maness has composed and produced music for a new video honoring the St. Louis Cardinals' Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson on the 50th anniversary of his historic performance in 1968, aka "The Year of the Pitcher."

With some coaching from Maness and singer Brian Owens, kids from the not-for-profit LIFE Arts, Inc wrote and performed the lyrics for the video, which can be seen on Major League Baseball's site MLB.com.

* Speaking of baseball, the Cardinals' Ernie Hayes was among the MLB ballpark organists featured in a recent post by JazzWax's Marc Myers.

* The Sheldon Concert Hall has posted to Facebook an album of photos from Ramsey Lewis' performance at last Friday night's benefit gala and an album from last Saturday's performance by pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and Ekaya.

* Singer Denise Thimes' Mothers Day show raising money to fight pancreatic cancer, which will be held this year at the Touhill Performing Arts Center, was previewed in an article by Ladue News' Emma Dent.

* Trumpeter Keyon Harrold has been on tour in the UK and Europe, and his show last week at Jazz Cafe in London got a rave review from Jazzwise magazine.

* Miles Davis was the subject this week of a BBC program hosted by Adrian Utley of the British "trip-hop" band Portishead. Also on the Miles beat, the recently released box set Miles Davis & John Coltrane — The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6 was reviewed by the Village Voice's Michael J. Agovino.

* HEC-TV has produced a video featuring testimonials from two local students, Kendall Blumenthal and Brittany O'Reilly, who have benefited from music scholarships awarded by Jazz St. Louis.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Singer Maysa (pictured), who will perform as part of the Gateway Jazz Festival on Saturday at Chesterfield Amphitheater, was interviewed about her new album by the Post-Dispatch's Kevin Johnson.

* Miss Jubilee was profiled for St. Louis magazine by Thomas Crone.

* Drummer Kevin Bowers has posted to Facebook a photo album from his recent performance at Missouri Botanical Garden.

* Electronic musician Walter Whitney's latest project is the subject of a short feature story from the Riverfront Times' Christian Schaeffer.

* Saxquest has announced that they're adding some new services in conjunction with the grand opening on Saturday, August 12 of their new Maryland Heights location at 2614 Metro Blvd, near the I-270/Dorsett Rd interchange.

The new Saxquest Woodwind Teaching Institute will offer lessons for players of all ages and levels, from beginner to advanced, at both the west and Cherokee St locations.

The retailer also is beginning a new rental program this fall, for the first time offering rentals on clarinets and saxophones, including their own Saxquest brand instruments.

Lastly, the store will present the second annual Saxquest Expo on Saturday, November 11, at the Sheraton Westport Chalet in Westport Plaza, featuring representatives from major manufacturers showcasing instruments, mouthpieces, and accessories for all woodwind instruments.

Jazz this week: Samora Pinderhughes, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features the local debut of a much-talked-about young pianist and composer, the return of one of the jam-band circuit's funk-jazz favorites, and more.

Let's go to the highlights....

Wednesday, July 19
Drummer Kevin Bowers will reconvene the large cast of his Brazilian-influenced, imaginary-movie-soundtrack project NOVA in a free concert for the Missouri Botanical Garden's Whitaker Music Festival. 

Elsewhere around town, though the Curtain Call Lounge has withdrawn from the "Grand Center Jazz Crawl," - apparently permanently, according to StLJN's source - the event goes on as usual, with live jazz and no cover charge at three locations in the district. 

This week, you can hear guitarist Tom Byrne and keyboardist Nathan Jatcko this week at KDHX's Magnolia Cafe; the jam session with bassist Bob DeBoo and friends at Kranzberg Arts Center; and two separate shows at The Dark Room at the Grandel Theatre, with saxophonist Lew Winer playing from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor from 9:00 p.m. to midnight.

Thursday July 20
Pianist and composer Samora Pinderhughes (pictured, top left) with special guest trumpeter Christian Scott will perform at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

NPR devoted an episode of "Jazz Night in America" earlier this year to Pinderhughes' debut recording The Transformations Suite, and this will be his first St. Louis gig as a bandleader, playing music "inspired by" the soundtrack he wrote for the documentary film Whose Streets?. For more about Pinderhughes, and his socially-conscious brand of jazz, plus the complete Transformations Suite and some other performances on video, see this post from last Saturday. 

Also in the Grand Center district, Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Broadway Open Mic," temporarily relocated to The Stage at KDHX; and saxophonist Ben Reece’s Unity Quartet will perform at The Dark Room.

Elsewhere around town, the Funky Butt Brass Band will play a free show outside the St. Louis Public Library downtown, and drummer Maurice Carnes leads a group featuring Dallas pianist Myles Tate in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Friday, July 21
Saxophonist Karl Denson's Tiny Universe returns for an early-evening outdoor show at the Atomic Cowboy Pavilion. Though the heat is expected to be stifling, expect a big audience of young fans ready to party with Denson's crowd-friendly grooves.

For a look at what Denson and Tiny Universe (pictured, bottom left) have been up to since they were in St. Louis a year ago, check out this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Also on Friday, drummer Montez Coleman celebrates his birthday with the first of two nights of shows at Jazz at the Bistro. He'll be joined by a band including Adaron Pops Jackson (organ), Adam Maness (piano), Eric Slaughter (guitar), Jason Swagler (alto sax), and Ben Wheeler (bass), with Anita Jackson singing on Friday night and Brian Owens on Saturday.

Elsewhere around town, guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran will play a free show at Ritz Park on South Grand; singer Joe Mancuso and guitarist Dave Black return to The Wolf in Ballwin; and Wack-A-Doo will play swing, vintage jazz and Americana at Evangeline's.

Saturday, July 22
Dizzy Atmosphere returns to Missouri Botanical Garden for another "Garden of Glass" event; The WirePilots will have multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman as their special guest for a performance at the Webster Groves Concert Hall; and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes return to the Venice Cafe.

Sunday, July 23
The St. Louis Jazz Club presents the St. Louis Stompers in a matinee performance at the Moolah Shrine Center, and Community Women Against Hardship's summer benefit at Ferring Jazz Bistro will feature Detroit-based saxophonist Yancyy with an ensemble including singer Anita Jackson, pianist Tony Suggs, bassist Jeff Anderson, and drummer Montez Coleman.

Monday, July 24
Trumpeter Jim Manley will play for diners and drinkers at Momo's Greek Restaurant.

Tuesday, July 25
Pianist Pat Joyce returns to Evangeline's, and saxophonist "Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective will be back for their monthly gig 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.)

Jazz this week: Ben Reece Unity Quartet, California Guitar Trio, Kevin Bowers' NOVA, "Sculptures in Sound," and more

With performances inspired by pre-historic cave paintings, the upcoming solar eclipse, Bach, Tennessee Williams, French silent film, and more, this week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis draws from a vast variety of influences.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 3
Saxophonist Ben Reece’s Unity Quartet will make their debut in the first of the two nights at Jazz at the Bistro.

The band features Reece (pictured, top left) and fellow saxophonist Austin Cebulskii (who replaced him in the Funky Butt Brass Band) plus drummer Marty Morrison and bassist Bob DeBoo, playing Reece's original music and arrangements of standards.

Also tonight in Grand Center, Bertha in Paradise, a play-with-music featuring singer Anita Jackson and pianist Charles Creath that's part of the Tennessee Williams Festival, opens a run continuing through Sunday, May 14 at the Curtain Call Lounge, while the rest of the Grand Center Jazz Crawl proceeds as usual.

Elsewhere around town, there are just two days left to catch a local screening of I Called Him Morgan, the new documentary about trumpeter Lee Morgan, at the Tivoli Theatre.

Thursday, May 4
The California Guitar Trio (pictured, center left) performs at the Old Rock House. Although none of them are actually from  California, acoustic guitarists Bert Lams (who's from Belgium), Hideyo Moriya (a native of Japan), and Paul Richards (who grew up in Utah) offer a crowd-pleasing variety of instrumental styles, from jazz to classical to surf music, delivered with technical polish.

Friday, May 5
Drummer Kevin Bowers' NOVA will perform for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro. Named after Bowers' recent album - described as an imaginary "soundtrack to a movie starring Fred Astaire and Lena Horne, directed by Federico Fellini" - the ensemble will play Bowers' original music incorporating influences from Africa, Brazilian samba, and psychedelic rock; solo drum pieces; and more.

Also on Friday, the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles will hold a fundraiser with music from the Sentimental Journey Dance Band; and the Mizzou New Music Ensemble will be in from Columbia to perform "Eclipse Symphony," a new multi-part work by student composers, in a free concert at the McDonnell Planetarium in Forest Park.

Saturday, May 6
On Saturday morning, the St. Louis Art Museum presents a screening of the 1930 French silent film Au Bonheur Des Dames (Ladies' Paradise) with a live musical score by Elsie Parker and The Poor People of Paris.

Saturday night, the St. Louis Artists' Guild will wrap up their "Sculptures in Sound" series this spring with a performance from saxophonist Christopher Braig's Aboriginal Quartet, featuring trumpeter and Indiana University faculty member Patrick Harbison (pictured, bottom left), bassist Ben Wheeler and drummer Steve Davis.

The event will present a long-form work by Braig, inspired by 30,000-year-old cave paintings discovered in southern France in 1994, that will combine "multiple musical styles, movement, live painting, storytelling, lighting and the natural resonances of the St. Louis Artists’ Guild gallery into a multisensory experience."

Sunday, May 7
Pianist Carolbeth True and Two Times True with singer Kim Fuller will perform in a special service at Second Presbyterian Church in the Central West End, and the Friends of Scott Joplin present their monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site.

Monday, May 8
Saxophonist Jamison Williams and bassist Thomas Milovac, two free improvising players from Florida, will perform at the Grand Center art gallery Duet, with the Vernacular String Trio opening.

Tuesday, May 9
The St. Louis Bach Festival, a month-long celebration of the composer's music, will present "Jazz & Bach" at Jazz at the Bistro. The program features guitarist Steve Schenkel, pianist Kim Portnoy, and singer David Gordon using Bach's music as a springboard for improvisation.

Also on Tuesday, guitarist Tom Byrne and singer Erika Johnson perform at Evangeline's, and the new weekly jam session hosted by drummer Montez Coleman will be happening at Troy's Jazz Gallery.

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.)

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* A new effort aimed at restoring Miles Davis' childhood home in East St. Louis for use as a museum was the subject of feature stories on St. Louis Public Radio and in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch/STLtoday.com.

The restoration is the work of the not-for-profit organization House of Miles East St. Louis (HOME), which also plans to use the building (pictured, in a recent photo and in an artist's rendering of the finished project) for music education activities and as an event space for rent. They've started a crowd-funding campaign with a goal of raising $50,000 toward the costs of the renovations; as of this writing, 21 days in, they've collected $255 in pledges.

* Speaking of Miles Davis, the trumpeter's version of "My Funny Valentine" was among the tracks included on President Barack Obama's personal summer playlist, as released this week by the White House.

* And speaking of fundraising efforts, the Belleville News-Democrat has a feature story about the latest attempts to raise the $150,000 needed to make radio station WSIE self-sustaining within the next 18 months. The station, which broadcasts a mix of jazz, blues and R&B plus university news and sports from the campus of SIU Edwardsville, will lose funding from the state of Illinois after 2017 due to budget cuts.

* Drummer and songwriter Kevin Bowers' new album Nova was the subject of a brief feature story by Christian Schaeffer of the Riverfront Times.

* King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era, a newly revised biography of the famed pianist and composer, was reviewed by the journal The American Interest..

Kevin Bowers celebrating release of Nova on Thursday, August 11 at Off Broadway

Drummer Kevin Bowers will celebrate the release of his latest album Nova with a show at 8:00 p.m. Thursday, August 11 at Off Broadway.

Though Bowers is best known for playing with rock groups such as The Feed, Street Fighting Band, and others, Nova is influenced heavily by Brazilian music, and is described as "a mélange of Brazilian samba, psychedelic rock, romantic compositions, and impressionistic lyrics" in a press release that also name-checks Gilberto Gil, Sergio Mendes, and Gal Costa.

In addition to writing all the songs for the album (pictured) and playing drums and guitar, Bowers also played a variety of percussion instruments, sometimes overdubbing himself into a one-man percussion ensemble. He also got help from more than a dozen St. Louis musicians, including members of the Funky Butt Brass Band, Sleepy Kitty's Paige Brubeck, bassist Zeb Briskovich, keyboardist Dave Grelle, guitarist Jimmy Griffin, and others.

“Brazilian music is something I’ve always had a passion for,” said Bowers in the press release. “I studied Brazilian drumming at Musicians Institute in Hollywood, CA. I even had the privilege of traveling to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil with some close friends to soak up its culture."

You can hear two of the tracks from Nova, "Two Vagabond Lovers" and "Ground Motion" on Bowers' SoundCloud page. The album will be available for download via Bandcamp on Tuesday, August 9.