StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on William Parker

This week we feature some video clips of bassist William Parker, who will be here with his In Order To Survive quintet to perform in a concert presented by New Music Circle next Friday, October 25 at Mad Art Gallery.

A 61-year-old native of the Bronx, NYC, Parker first gained wide attention in the 1980s with pianist Cecil Taylor, and has been a longtime band member for saxophonists David S. Ware and Peter Brötzmann. As organizer of the annual Vision Festival and a frequent collaborator with many different jazz and improvising musicians both in the USA and in Europe, Parker is considered an significant player in the NYC experimental music scene.

As a bandleader, Parker has been involved with many musical projects, and the In Order To Survive quintet is a direct outgrowth of his long-running quartet, adding pianist and multi-instrumentalist Cooper-Moore to that band's existing lineup of Parker, drummer Hamid Drake, alto saxophonist Rob Brown and trumpeter Lewis Barnes.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of footage online of the In Order To Survive quintet, though we did include what seems to be the best clip, an excerpt from their set at the 2012 Vision Festival, here last month in part three of StLJN's fall jazz preview.

So today, as the next best thing, let's check out some videos featuring Parker in some other musical configurations that also include the members of In Order To Survive.

The first clip up top is from a gig in January 2008 in Moscow, Russia, and features the quartet of Parker, Drake, Brown and Barnes performing Parker's composition "Corn Meal Dance."

Down below, they're joined by vocalist and dancer Leena Conquest for a clip recorded in 2004 for the Hungarian public television network Duna, and another made by an audience member in June, 2005 at the Museum Of Art in Norrköping, Sweden.

The fourth and fifth videos take us back to Moscow, and feature excerpts from a duo performance in February 2012 by Parker and Drake. In clip #4, Drake plays frame drum and Parker plays a wood flute; in #5, they're working out on drum kit and bass, respectively.

The sixth and final video is an excerpt from a benefit concert for the NYC venue The Under_Line, recorded last December. It features Parker on bass and Cooper-Moore on drums, plus St. Louis Hamiet Bluiett on baritone sax, Charles Gayle on tenor sax, Jason Kao Hwang on violin, and, somewhat surprisingly, Christian McBride on a second bass.

For more about William Parker, check out this interview he did in 2011 with Capital Bop.com, and this interview with him and Hamid Drake from the May 2010 issue of Jazz Times.

Jazz this week: Kurt Elling, Bobby Watson, Steve Davis with William Lenihan, Erin Bode, and more

The beginnings of winter weather seem to be blowing into St. Louis this week, but as long as you're properly bundled up, there are several jazz and creative music events happening over the next few days that certainly justify braving the elements.

First up is singer Kurt Elling's return to Jazz at the Bistro, where he'll appear through Saturday night. Along with his usual trio headed by the fine pianist Laurence Hobgood, Elling will be accompanied by St. Louis saxophonist Willie Akins. Akins is on board to provide the sax parts for material from Elling's latest CD Dedicated to You, which revisits songs recorded in the 1960s by singer Johnny Hartman and saxophonist John Coltrane.

For more on Elling and Dedicated to You, check out this video post from last Saturday, this interview from Jazz.com, and this blog post from the New York Times' Nate Chinen.

Also in town this weekend will be saxophonist Bobby Watson (pictured), who will perform with a quartet featuring bassist Curtis Lundy on Friday and Saturday nights at Robbie's House of Jazz. The former member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers now lives in Kansax City, where he teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and serves as one of the leading lights and elder statesmen of the local jazz scene.

On Saturday night, Latin/jazz/fusion group Spyro Gyra brings their holiday show "A Night Before Christmas" to the Touhill Performing Arts Center, with signer Jane Monheit also on the bill as speical guest.

Elsewhere around town, tonight drummer Steve Davis and guitarist William Lenihan will team up for a free concert to close out this semester's Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

On Friday, singer Erin Bode and her band will be joined by violinist and Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra concertmaster David Halen for a holiday themed concert at Sheldon Concert Hall, featuring material from Bode's own holiday CD A Cold December Night as well as familiar pop, jazz and classical selections.

Also of possible interest on Friday, a group from Madison, WI called The Venice Gas House Trolley will be performing at Mad Art Gallery as part of the kickoff party for the "Big Ass Indie Art and Craft Show" this weekend. The band "hearkens back to the times when hipsters and cool-cats would chill out digging ecstatic poets and musicians and then aggressively explodes through the present and into the future with vocal effects, bass, and twisting rhythms."

Looking beyond the weekend, on Tuesday the Jazz St. Louis CD Listening Club will have its monthly meeting at Borders, 1519 S. Brentwood Blvd. in Brentwood. Jazz historian, photographer, and DJ Dennis Owsley will serve as host and moderator, and the featured CD will be Mingus Ah Um, the classic 1959 recording from bassist Charles Mingus that introduced compositions such as “Fables of Faubus” and "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” and was recently reissued in a special two-disc 50th anniversary edition.

As usually happens at the beginning of the month, band and venue schedule information is still coming in to StLJN headquarters, and updates will be ongoing over the next couple of days. In the meantime, for information on more jazz and creative music events this weekend and beyond, check out the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, available for viewing on the left sidebar, or by clicking here. Also, you can follow St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes and become a "fan" by signing up 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.)

(Updated 11:00 p.m. 12/3/09 to add the Spyro Gyra/Jane Monheit show.)

Jazz this week: A jazz tribute to Woodstock; music at the St. Louis Art Fair; a new book about the St. Louis blues; and more

While this weekend in St. Louis offers no shows featuring big name jazz musicians - think of it as a chance to save up a bit for next weekend's concerts by Sonny Rollins, Trio 3 and/or Chris Botti - there are still some jazz-related events over the next few days that may merit your attention. Here's a look at some highlights:

Tonight, the fall series of free weekly Jazz at Holmes concerts at Washington University begins with guitarist William Lenihan leading "a jazz tribute to Woodstock" outdoors on the Brookings Quadrangle.

Presumably, it's not a concert featuring jazz versions of songs that were played at Woodstock and/or written by musicians who performed there, or they would have just described it as such. (You can read Wash U's rather uninformative blurb on the show, and my initial reaction to it, here. ) Still, with a lineup of very capable musicians including Lenihan, Jason Swagler (who's listed in the show's promotional email as playing guitar, rather than his more usual alto sax), pianist Ptah Williams, drummer Kyle Hunnicutt, percussionist Henry Claude, and bassist Zeb Briskovich, there's certainly plenty of potential for some good music, even if the concept is a bit vague.

On Friday, St. Louis artist and writer Kevin Belford will be at Mad Art Gallery, signing copies of his new book Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues Music of St. Louis and showing his original paintings of St. Louis blues musicians that illustrate the tome. The free event also will include a performance from singer/guitarist Tom Hall, vintage film footage of St. Louis blues legends, and a spin of the book's companion CD. .

Friday night is also the beginning of the official "grand opening" weekend for Robbie's House of Jazz, which is located in the old Cookie's Jazz and More space at 20 Allen Ave. in Webster Groves. The featured performers this weekend will be the 16-piece Robert Edwards Big Band, which delves into a variety of big band jazz styles and includes trombonist Lamar Harris and pianist Adaron "Pops" Jackson among its members. (For more about Robbie's, see this previous post. I've also got a new post about the club scheduled to go online today at the Riverfront Times music blog, A to Z; when it goes live, I'll post a link here.)

The annual St. Louis Art Fair also gets underway on Friday, but there's not much music of interest to jazz fans until Saturday, when the event will feature performances from the Funky Butt Brass Band and the Sheldon Jazz Quintet, comprised of Rick Haydon (guitar), Mardra Thomas (vocals), Reggie Thomas (piano), Miles Vandiver (drums) and Zeb Briskovich (bass).

Jazz St. Louis executive director Gene Dobbs Bradford's band the Blues Inquisition also will perform on Saturday, and Sunday's musicians of interest include pianist Monika Herzig's group, and trumpeter/vocalist Dawn Weber (pictured) and her band Electro Funk Assembly.

On Sunday, there will be a benefit performance for singer Elaine Donahue from 4:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at BB’s Jazz, Blues and Soups, 700 S. Broadway. Performers will include Willie Akins, Marty Abdullah and members of the Soulard Blues Band, Denise Thimes, Skeet Rogers, the Bosman Twins, Mae Wheeler, Jeanne Trevor, Roland Johnson, Wendy Gordon, Marsha Evans, Eugene Johnson, Renee Smith and more. All proceeds will go to medical and living expenses for Donahue, who has been fighting cancer and has been unable to work as a singer or at her day job in the treasurer’s office for the city of East St. Louis. In addition to leading her own group, Donahue has worked with Akins, pianist Ed Nicholson’s trio, and many others.

For more jazz and creative music events this weekend and beyond, check the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, available for viewing on the left sidebar or by clicking here.

(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.)

(Edited 9/10/09 to fix problems with tags & add additional tags. Edited again on 9/11/09 to restore a paragraph accidentally dropped during the editing process.)

New book by Kevin Belford chronicles pre-WWII history of St. Louis blues

St. Louis artist and author Kevin Belford, who has made local musicians a frequent subject of his work over the course of his career, has a new book coming out that chronicles St. Louis blues musicians of the 1920s and 1930s.

Issued by St. Louis-based Virginia Publishing, Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues Music of St. Louis is a coffee-table book recounting the stories and songs of legends including Peetie Wheatstraw, Henry Townsend, St. Louis Bessie and many other pre-World War II era performers.

The product of years of research, the book is illustrated with Belford's original paintings, plus vintage photographs and other material he unearthed during his digging. As a bonus, there's also an accompanying CD of rare recordings of St. Louis blues legends, produced by former St. Louisan Bob Koester's label Delmark Records.

Devil at the Confluence is scheduled for official release in September, and Belford will be doing a number of promotional events, the most ambitious of which would seem to be a one-night-only showing of the paintings from the book, to be held from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 on Friday, September 11 at Mad Art Gallery.

Other planned events include a signing at the Big Muddy Blues Festival downtown over Labor Day weekend; another at Webster Records during the Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival on Saturday, September 19; and two more later in the month at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups and the Blues City Deli. For more info, check out the blog Belford has set up in conjunction with the book's release.

Known among local music fans for his posters of St. Louis jazz legends and blues performers, Belford has worked as a freelance illustrator doing advertising, corporate art, and editorial illustration for books and for print media such as The Sporting News, the St Louis Post Dispatch, St Louis magazine, and the Riverfront Times. His previous books include The Ballpark Book (for The Sporting News) and the children's books Amazing Arthur Ashe, Spirit Of A Champion and Twist Of Fate-The Miracle Horse Of Longmeadow Ranch.

Mad Art Gallery to host "BioSonar" this Sunday, November 18

Echolocation Recordings, a new venture from musicians Eric Hall and Jeremy Brantlinger, has organized an event called "BioSonar" that will take place from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. this Sunday, November 18, at Mad Art Gallery.

Billed as both a festival and an "indoor picnic," the event will feature music and sound art from a variety of performers, including Hall and Brantlinger's group Peanuts, Ghost Ice, Mike Pitts, Y Toros, Andrew Hefner, Raglani, Ajay Khanna and Chris Smentkowski, Mark Sarich, Worm Hands, Dave Stone, Joseph Potthoff, Tony Renner, James Weber Jr., Catholic Guilt, and more to be announced.

As for the picnic, it's potluck; the event description encourages audience members to "bring a blanket or pillow to lay out on the floor as you enjoy the various approaches to non-traditional musics, food provided by the organizers and audience, video/film projections, books from local writers and publishers, and a mini-shop set up by Cherokee St.'s Apop Records (offering a hand picked selection of music to compliment the event). The cover will be $7, or totally free if you bring any dish that can serve 10 or more people."