Jazz this week: Ralph Towner, MarchFourth, Oliver Lake, Bonerama, Michael Bublé, Oz Noy, Dave Weckl & Jimmy Haslip, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis is jam-packed with so many noteworthy shows that it defies easy summary, so in the interest of getting to the good stuff as soon as possible, let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, 
March 20
Guitarist Ralph Towner returns to play a solo concert at Graham Chapel on the Washington University campus. (For more about Towner and some video samples of his work, see this post from before his last appearance here in 2017.)

Also on Wednesday, the eclectic mutant-marching-band MarchFourth returns for a performance at the Old Rock House; Cabaret Project St. Louis presents their monthly "Singers Open Mic" at Sophie's Artist Lounge; and pianist Reggie Thomas and the Jazz St. Louis Big Band celebrate the "Nat "King" Cole Centennial" with a free performance as part of the the "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series at Jazz St. Louis.

Thursday, March 21
The 442s play original instrumental music at Joe's Cafe, and guitarist Billy Barnett will perform in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Friday, March 22
The Nu-Art Series and St. Louis University  present saxophonist Oliver Lake (pictured, top left) in concert at Xavier Hall on the SLU campus.

The former St. Louisan and co-founder of the Black Artists Group and the World Saxophone Quartet will be reciting some of his poetry as well as playing music, with some help from pianist Greg Mills, trumpeter and Nu-Art Series impresario George Sams, and dancers Antonio Douthis-Boyd and Kirven Douthis-Boyd.

For more about Lake and his artistic pursuits in music, poetry, and painting, see this post from last Saturday. 

Also on Friday, Bonerama (pictured, center left) presents their Led Zeppelin tribute show at The Bootleg at Atomic Cowboy; pop-jazz crooner Michael Bublé will perform at the Enterprise Center; and the Funky Butt Brass Band plays for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis.

Saturday, March 23
NYC-based band The Bailsmen will play vintage swing and Gypsy jazz at Focal Point, and a series of shows celebrating the release of the new book St. Louis Sound kicks off with "St. Louis Sound: Experience Jazz," featuring sets from Tonina, the Adam Maness Trio, and trumpeter Danny Campbell with guest vocalist Anita Jackson, at the Grandel Theatre.

Also on Saturday, pianist Carolbeth True and Two Times True return to the Parkside Grille, and trumpeter Jim Manley leads a quartet at Evangeline's.

Sunday, March 24
Israeli-born jazz-fusion guitarist Oz Noy wraps up his current tour with drummer and St. Charles native Dave Weckl (pictured, bottom left) and bassist Jimmy Haslip with two shows at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

Monday, March 25
Singer and impressionist Dean Christopher returns with his "Rat Pack and More" show to One 19 North Tapas & Wine Bar; and Webster University's Student Jazz Combos perform at Webster's Community Music School.

Tuesday, March 26
Nashville-based ensemble The Cosmic Collective plays at Evangeline's.

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.)

MarchFourth returning to perform Wednesday, March 20 at Old Rock House

The eclectic band MarchFourth will be returning to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, March 20 at the Old Rock House.

Originally from Portland, OR, the group was formed for a Mardi Gras gig in 2003, and includes stilt-walkers, acrobats and dancers as well as up to five percussionists and six brass and wind players in its lineup of 15 to 20 musicians and performers.

While they obviously draw inspiration from the marching band tradition, MarchFourth's music incorporates influences from jazz, rock, ska, klezmer, hip-hop, swing, Afro-Cuban beats, and more. They've toured extensively in the US and in Germany, The Netherlands, France, Canada, and China, and their music has been featured in TV and film productions including a commercial for Microsoft and the Pixar film Monsters University.

MarchFourth (pictured) last played St. Louis in October 2015, also at the Old Rock House. (You can see some videos of them in a post from before that gig here.) Their most recent studio recording is 2016's Magic Number, recorded in New Orleans with Ben Ellman of Galactic producing and guest appearances from Trombone Shorty, drummer Stanton Moore, and more.

Tickets for MarchFourth at Old Rock House are $18 general admission for all ages, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. this Friday, December 7 via Metrotix.

Jazz this week: Adam Larson, Lettuce, Youngblood Brass Band, March Fourth!, The New Mastersounds, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in and around St. Louis features a couple of different acts purveying instrumental funk, a saxophone phenom working in the modern jazz mainstream, a mutant marching band, and, as the saying goes, much, much more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, October 14
Up-and-coming saxophonist Adam Larson will play the first of two nights with his quartet at Jazz at the Bistro. Originally from Normal, IL, Larson (pictured, top left) graduated from Manhattan School of Music and now is based in NYC. He's recorded three albums as leader, the latest of which, Selective Amnesia, is scheduled for release next month.

Also on Wednesday, Franglais, featuring singer Eve Seltzer, will play Gypsy jazz at Nathalie's

Thursday, October 15
Singer Denise Thimes will present the 10th annual fundraiser for the Mildred Thimes Foundation, which raises money for research to fight pancreatic cancer, at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Standup comic and radio personality Monique Marvez will be Thimes' special guest.

Also on Thursday, the Gaslight Cabaret Festival resumes with Shanara Gabrielle, a graduate of Webster University's theater program and now a working actress who will be making her cabaret debut with the show "Rated SG" at the Gaslight Theater.

Friday, October 16
The funk/jazz/jam band Lettuce (pictured, center left) returns for the first time since last year's LouFest, touring in support of their just-released album Crush, for a performance at The Pageant; and the Coleman Hughes Project, featuring singer Adrienne Felton, will play smooth jazz and R&B in the first of two nights of their debut gig at Jazz at the Bistro.

Elsewhere around town, the Gaslight Cabaret Festival continues with the acapella group One Too Many at the Gaslight Theater; Second Generation Swing plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; and Tim Cunningham continues what's now being billed as a ongoing weekly gig at Troy's Jazz Gallery

Saturday, October 17
The Spiritual Revolution Ensemble will team up with poets Mama Blue and Pacia Anderson to pay tribute to Ornette Coleman in a fundraiser for the Yeyo Arts Collective; Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes return to the Venice Cafe; and singer Chuck Flowers will perform his cabaret show "Songs I Came Up With" at the Gaslight Theater.

Sunday, October 18
Youngblood Brass Band, a Wisconsin-based group that filters the New Orleans brass band tradition through hip-hop and punk, plays at 2720 Cherokee.

Monday, October 19
With between 15 and 20 members at any given time, Portland, OR's MarchFourth! (pictured, lower left) will no doubt fill the stage at the Old Rock House, looking something like a fun-house mirror version of a marching band augmented by dancers and stilt-walkers, with a percussion- and brass-heavy sound that defies easy categorization.

For some video samples of what this looks and sounds like in a live situation, check out this video post from last Saturday.

Tuesday, October 20
The British funk quartet The New Mastersounds bring their Meters-esque funk to the Old Rock House, while new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound begins their fourth St. Louis season at the Sheldon Concert Hall with a program of music from composers under age 40.

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: A most unusual "marching band"

From the looks of things, fitting everyone on stage may be a tight squeeze when MarchFourth! comes to St. Louis to play an all-ages show on Monday, October 19 at the Old Rock House.

Formed in Portland, OR for a Mardi Gras gig in 2003, the group includes stilt-walkers, acrobats and dancers, as well as up to five percussionists and six brass and wind players among its lineup of 15 to 20 musicians and performers.

Their accomplishments to date include touring the summer jam-band and rock festival circuits multiple times here in the US; performing in Germany, The Netherlands, France, Canada and China; and having their music featured in TV and film productions including a commercial for Microsoft and the Pixar film Monsters University.

But while their instrumentation and stage wear may draw inspiration from the marching band tradition, MarchFourth!'s music is far from traditional, incorporating influences from jazz, rock, ska, klezmer, hip-hop, swing, Afro-Cuban beats, and more.

You can get a better idea of how all these elements come together by checking out today's videos, starting with the first clip up top, which shows them playing a tune called "Surfunk" in 2014 at their 11th anniversary Fat Tuesday party at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland.

After the jump, you can see and hear them performing "Space Hole," recorded in 2012 at the same venue; "Delhi Belly," from October 2014 at The Funky Biscuit in Boca Raton, FL; and "Gospel," their tune that was featured in Monsters University, recorded in October 2013 at the Fairfield Theatre in Fairfield, CT.

If you'd like to delve a little deeper, after that there are videos of two full sets, from March 2014 at The Wild Buffalo in Bellingham, WA, and October 2014 at Magnoliafest in Live Oak, FL.

For more about MarchFourth!, check out the interview they did in 2013 with Salt Lake City Weekly and this one from 2011 with MetroSpective in Boulder, CO. 

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

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Fall 2015 jazz preview, part 2

Today, it's part two of StLJN's fall 2015 video preview of touring jazz and creative music performers coming to town over the next several months. Part one last week covered the month of September, so today's installment picks up in the first week of October with a video featuring saxophonist Evan Parker and trumpeter Peter Evans.

Parker and Evans will kick off New Music Circle's 2015-16 season with a concert on Friday, October 2 at Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave. The clip up above, recorded in September 2013 at the Stone in NYC, shows a full set of improvised music from the two of them, plus cellist Okkyung Lee, who did a solo concert here for NMC last year.

After the jump, you can see Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, who will be back in St. Louis to headline the "Friends of the Sheldon" benefit gala on Saturday, October 3 at the Sheldon Concert Hall. The video shows a full set of Marsalis and JaLCO playing arrangements of material from the Blue Note catalog in a gig earlier this year at the Harrogate International Festival in England.

Next, there's a clip of the band Yellowjackets, who will be returning to St. Louis to play Wednesday, October 7 through Saturday October 10 at Jazz at the Bistro. For this visit, the group once again will have a new bass player, Dane Alderson, who hails originally from Australia.

Alderson replaces Felix Pastorius, who had a relatively short tenure in the band, having replaced founding member Jimmy Haislip back in 2012. In this clip, recorded in July at the North Sea Jazz Club in, you can hear Alderson's bass solo on "Dreamland." (For more Yellowjackets, see this video showcase post that ran before their appearance here last year.)

Today's fourth video clip features is Wendee Glick, the New Hampshire-based singer who will kick off the fall edition of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival on Thursday, October 8 at the Gaslight Theater. Unfortunately, there aren't many videos online of Glick performing, but this excerpt from her version of "No Moon At All," recorded at the Colonial Inn in Concord, MA, provides at least a small sample of her work.

Glick will be followed at the festival the next evening by singer Maxine Linehan, who will perform on Friday, October 9, also at the Gaslight Theater. Linehan is seen here singing "What'll I Do?" in 2014 at Metropolitan Room in NYC.

The sixth video is the electronic press kit for saxophonist Adam Larson's upcoming album "Selective Amnesia", which should be out by the time he arrives in St. Louis to perform Wednesday, October 14 and Thursday, October 15 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Today's final clip features MarchFourth!, who will perform on Monday, March 19 at the Old Rock House. They're seen here in an audience-shot video playing "The Limit" in a gig in April 2015 at The Funky Biscuit in Boca Raton, FL.

Look for part three of StLJN's fall 2015 jazz preview here next week. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

MarchFourth! to play Monday, October 19 at Old Rock House

MarchFourth!, a "musical and performance group" from Portland, OR that supplements their lineup of horns, percussion, bass and guitar with stilt-walkers, acrobats and dancers, is coming to St. Louis to play an all-ages show at 8:00 p.m. Monday, October 19 at the Old Rock House.

Sporting mutated, mismatched marching band uniforms and playing mostly original, instrumental music, the group (pictured) incorporates "influences from rock, ska, jazz, klezmer, Hip Hop, and swing styles of music, among others."

They've toured Germany, The Netherlands, France, British Columbia, China and the United States, turning up with some frequency on the summer festival circuit here, as well as taking on all sorts of other gigs, from opening for No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani to playing in a Microsoft commercial. You can see a video of them performing "Dynomite" back in 2012 in the embedded window below.

Tickets for MarchFourth! at the Old Rock House are $15 in advance, $18 day of show and will go on sale at 5:00 p.m. this Friday, August 21.