Home for the holidays, Ronnie Burrage set for three performances next week

Drummer and U City native Ronnie Burrage is back home for the holidays, and has scheduled three performances in St. Louis for the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.

Burrage (pictured), who now lives in NYC, has a stellar resume that includes performances and recordings with an impressive number of jazz greats, including McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Archie Shepp, and many more. On his own, he's led small groups of various sizes as well as a big band, and has released more than a dozen albums as a leader or co-leader.

Also a composer and multi-instrumentalist who plays mallet percussion and keyboards, Burrage has taught music courses for the Jazzmobile and The New School in NYC and for Penn State University, and with his wife Chanda currently runs World Rhythm Academy, which provides community-based arts and educational programs in Brooklyn, NY.

He'll start his visit home on Wednesday, December 26, when he'll be joined by bassist Darrell Mixon and pianist Ptah Williams to perform from 9:00 p.m. to midnight at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups, with part of the show devoted to a jam session with various invited horn players and guitarists.

Then on Thursday, December 27, Burrage, Mixon and Williams will play from 8:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at the house concert venue Kinda Blue Club, 6101 1/2 Idaho, 63111.

Burrage will wrap up his visit home on Friday, December 28 with a performance featuring original compositions played by the trio plus special guests at 9:30 p.m. at The Dark Room.

Jazz this week: Christmas jazz in St. Louis

With Christmas Eve and Christmas Day filling the weekend, the calendar of upcoming jazz and creative music events this week in St. Louis is understandably rather modest, though there are a few noteworthy shows in the days leading up to the holiday. Let's take a look...

Wednesday, December 21
The Jazz St. Louis Big Band presents two final performances of Duke Ellington’s re-imagining of Tchaikovsky's “Nutcracker” at Jazz at the Bistro, while nearby, the weekly "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" proceeds with guitarist Tom Byrne and singer Erika Johnson at KDHX's Magnolia Cafe, a jam session at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's trio playing at The Dark Room.

Thursday, December 22
Singer Feyza Eren, who has just released a new album of holiday music, will lead a quartet at Evangeline's, and trumpeter Jim Manley will play his weekly Thursday show at Momo's Greek Restaurant.

Friday, December 23
Miss Jubilee plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom, saxophonist Kendrick Smith leads a trio at Cigar Inn, and the Yule Dig Trio, aka Tom Byrne, Erika Johnson and bassist/saxophonist Jeff Anderson will play at the KindaBlue Club.

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.)