It's a busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with two very different shows featuring special combinations of multiple headliners on one stage, plus headlining performances from a couple of other major jazz stars, and more. Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, February 6
The estimable pianist Chucho Valdés continues with his "Jazz Bata" show, featuring a mix of jazz and Cuban folkloric elements, through Thursday at Jazz St. Louis.
Also on Wednesday, this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features multi-instrumentalist TJ Muller and Friends at The Stage at KDHX, the weekly jam session hosted by bassist Bob DeBoo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor at The Dark Room.
Thursday, February 7
Guitarist Dan Rubright of The Wire Pilots leads a quartet in a free concert of original music for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.
Friday, February 8
Saxophonist Melissa Aldana, pianist Emmet Cohen and trumpeter Marquis Hill(pictured, top left) will wrap up a week-long educational residency by joining forces for the first of two nights of performances at Jazz St. Louis.
At ages 30, 28, and 32 respectively, Aldana, Cohen and Hill all could be considered among the top young players on their respective instruments now working mostly in the mainstream tradition, and all three are bandleaders in their own right.
As is usually the case with one-off ensembles, it's hard to know how sympatico their individual styles may be until they actually hit the stage together, but on paper, these three seem like a good match. And if things are bit looser than they might be with a regular working band, listeners still will be getting three headliners for the price of one.
Also on Friday, the Arcadia Dance Orchestra will be joined by special guest multi-instrumentalist Andy Schumm of the Chicago Cellar Boys for a show at The Stage at KDHX.
Though they're not a regular working band, the three have performed together before, which should provide just enough familiarity to ease them into an evening of freely improvised music.
The concert also marks the St. Louis debut of Branch, a Chicagoan-turned-New Yorker who is one of the more noteworthy young trumpeters to emerge on the improvised music scene in recent years. You can find out more about her and see some performance videos, including one with Lonberg-Holm and Solberg, in this post from last month.
Also on Saturday, singer Dianne Reeves(pictured, bottom left) performs at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Generally acknowledged as one of the most accomplished female jazz vocalists working today, Reeves last year was named an NEA Jazz Master, a significant milestone in a four-decade-long career that fortunately shows no signs of slowing down yet.
Reeves also has some musical connections to the St. Louis area, and you can find more about those and see some videos of recent performances in this post from last Saturday.
Sunday, February 10
Trumpeter Jim Manley plays for brunch at Evangeline's, while bassist/singer Janet Evra performs at The Dark Room.
Then on Sunday evening, singer Will Downing will be in town for a "Valentine's Weekend Kick-Off" performance at Harris-Stowe State University, with St. Louis' Lamont Hadley opening.
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.)
This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features performances from two stellar saxophonists, one of New Orleans' favorite funk bands, and more.
Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, March 14
Saxophonist Melissa Aldana returns with her quartet for the first of four nights of performances at Jazz at the Bistro.
Aldana, who was born in Chile and educated at Berklee, has enjoyed a fast rise in the jazz world since becoming the first female instrumentalist and the first South American to win the annual Thelonious Monk competition in 2013, thanks to her distinctive tone on tenor sax and a musical approach influenced by players such as Sonny Rollins, Don Byas and Mark Turner.
For more about Aldana, you can see and hear some samples of her playing on video in this post, which dates from her St. Louis debut two years ago, and read an interview with her published a few weeks ago by the Chicago Tribune here.
Aldana's sets also will be simulcast on video to the first-floor lounge opposite the Bistro, where they can be viewed for free as part of the"Grand Center Jazz Crawl," which this week also includes Jacob Alspach and Friends at The Stage at KDHX, the jam session led by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet at The Dark Room.
Thursday, March 15
Saxophonist Ben Wendel performs at The Ready Room. Wendel (pictured, top left), best known as a member of the cooperative band Kneebody, currently is touring with music from a project called "The Seasons," which featured 12 original compositions dedicated to musical friends and colleagues that were released as a series of duo performances on video over the course of a year.
You can find out more about Wendel and "The Seasons," and hear some of the compositions that have been expanded to full-band arrangements for the tour, in this post from a week ago Saturday.
Update: 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 14: StLJN has just gotten word from Ben Wendel's publicist that his St. Louis date has been cancelled. If you bought tickets, contact your point of purchase for refund details.
Also on Thursday, New Orleans funk/jazz band Galactic(pictured, bottom left) will be back for another visit to St. Louis, their destination this time being Delmar Hall; Cincinnati "garage jazz" band Animal Mother tops a bill that also includes Animal Children and saxophonist Dave Stone at Foam; and saxophonist Ben Reece's Unity Quartet returns to The Dark Room.
Then on Saturday night, singer Tony Viviano will be doing his thing at Table Three, while keyboardist Mo Egeston offers late night grooves at The Dark Room.
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.)
This week, StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview continues with part four of a series of posts featuring videos of the jazz and creative music performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the first few months of the new year. (If you missed the previous installments, you can see part one here, part two here, and part three here.)
Continuing in chronological order from where part three left off, today's first video features singer Marilyn Maye, the grande dame of cabaret who will perform Wednesday, March 7 and Thursday, March 8 at Jazz at the Bistro. She's seen here singing a medley of "Secret of Life" and "Here’s to Life," recorded June 5, 2017 at the fifth anniversary celebration of Feinstein's/54 Below in New York City.
After the jump, you can see a clip of Melissa Aldana, who will lead her quartet in shows starting Wednesday, March 14 continuing through Saturday, March 17 at the Bistro. The video shows the Chilean-born, Berklee-educated saxophonist with pianist Sam Harris, bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Craig Weinrib playing "Turning & Over There" in November 2017 at the venue musig im pflegidach in Muri, Switzerland.
That week also features two more concerts of interest to StLJN readers on Thursday, March 15, when New Orleans jazz/funk band Galactic will be playing at Delmar Hall while saxophonist Ben Wendel performs at The Ready Room.
Galactic can be seen in the second video after the jump, playing a full set recorded in February 2017 at the Music Box in San Diego, CA, followed by Wendel, a founding member of Kneebody, playing "Song Song" from his album What We Bring in a undated video with Gerald Clayton, Joe Sanders, and Henry Cole.
Next up, it's The Thing, the avant-jazz trio of saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, and drummer Paal Nilssen Love. They'll be in St. Louis on Thursday, March 22 for a concert presented by New Music Circle at Off Broadway, and can be seen here playing a full set recorded November 27, 2017 at Blue Tomato in Vienna, Austria.
the penultimate clip features bassist Victor Wooten's trio with drummer Dennis Chambers and saxophonist Bob Franceschini. They're set to perform on Tuesday, March 27 at the Old Rock House, and are seen here playing "Love is My Favourite Word" in February 2016 at the Blue Note in Milano, Italy.
Last, but certainly not least, it's The Baylor Project, fronted by the husband-and-wife team of drummer and St. Louis native Marcus Baylor and singer Jean Baylor, who are performing Wednesday, March 28 through Saturday, March 31 at the Bistro.
The Baylors, who are nominated in for 2018 Grammy Awards in both the "Best Traditional R&B Performance" and "Best Jazz Vocal Album" categories, can be seen in today's final video performing their Grammy-nominated song "Laugh and Move On," in a version recorded live last year at the studios of radio station WERS in Boston.
Look for part five of StLJN's winter/spring 2018 jazz preview next week in this space. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
Although this week's schedule of jazz and creative music is considerably less jam-packed than last week's, listeners still will have a chance to check out several intriguing young performers visiting St. Louis, plus an assortment of shows from various hometown favorites.
Let's go to this highlights...
Wednesday, April 27
Saxophonist Melissa Aldana(pictured, top left) makes her St. Louis debut with the first of four evenings of performances continuing though Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro
Aldana, a 27-year-old native of Chile who studied at Berklee College of Music, draws significant inspiration from saxophonists a couple of generations her elder - most notably Sonny Rollins, but also Joe Henderson, Cannonball Adderly, and even older players as Don Byas and Lucky Thompson, whom she learned about as a young girl from her father, also a professional sax player.
She first made a big splash here in the US in 2013 when she became the first female instrumentalist ever to win the annual Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. For more about Aldana, and some video samples of her performances - including her award-winning set at the Monk competition - see this post from last Saturday.
Friday, April 29
Chicago-based singer Keri Johnsrud, who made her St. Louis debut a few weeks ago with a concert at The Chapel in Clayton, will be back in our town for a more informal show at Evangeline's.
Johnsrud (pictured, center left) is a third-generation singer who's originally from Iowa. She's played top Chicago venues including the Green Mill and the Jazz Showcase, and has released two albums, the most recent of which, 2015's This Side of Morning, featured all original material.
Also on Friday, the saxophone-playing brothers Peter and Will Anderson will perform at the Tavern of Fine Arts. Hailing from Washington DC, the brothers both studied at the Juilliard School and then took up residence there in NYC after graduation. Since then, in addition to fronting their own group on tour and as leaders on a couple of recordings, they've also appeared with the Jimmy Heath Big Band, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
Tuesday, May 3
Pianist Greg Mills and friends will present "Soliloquy IV," a night of solo improvised performances, at the Tavern of Fine Arts.
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.)
This week, let's check out some video performances featuring saxophonist Melissa Aldana, who will making her St. Louis debut starting next Wednesday, April 27 through Saturday, April 30 at Jazz at the Bistro
A 27-year-old native of Santiago, Chile, Aldana began learning saxophone at age 6 from her father Marcos Aldana, a professional saxophonist in Chile. She started playing in local clubs as a teenager, and in 2005 met pianist Danilo Pérez, who was touring in Chile with saxophonist Wayne Shorter. Pérez helped arrange an audition for Aldana at Berklee College of Music, where she was accepted and studied with teachers including Joe Lovano, George Garzone, St. Louis' own Greg Osby, and others.
After graduating from Berklee, Aldana moved to New York, where she was mentored by Osby and veteran tenor saxophonist George Coleman. In 2013, she entered the Thelonius Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition and became the first female instrumentalist to win the prize.
Aldana has released four albums, the most recent being Back Home, which came out earlier this year and features her current trio with bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Jochen Rueckert.
You can see and hear that trio in action in the first video up above, which features Aldana performing her tune "Sonny" (named in honor of Sonny Rollins) in January of this year at the Movitz Jazz Club in Östersund, Sweden.
After the jump, you can see nearly an hour's worth of Aldana's trio, as recorded by Vermont PBS last fall during the Discover Jazz festival at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, VT. That's followed by an outtake from the program, a version of "My Ship".
Below that, you can see Aldana play "M&M" in September 2014 at the Monterey Jazz Festival, followed by another full set recorded by radio station WBGO in October 2013 at Berklee College of Music, featuring Aldana, Menares, and drummer Francisco Mela.
The last clip shows Aldana's award-winning performance at the 2013 Thelonious Monk Institute Jazz Saxophone Competition. And yes, that's former St. Louisan Reggie Thomas backing her up on piano, along with bassist Rodney Whitaker and drummer Carl Allen.
This week, let's wrap up StLJN's winter/spring 2016 jazz preview, with the fifth and final post featuring videos of bands and musicians who will be performing here in the next few months. (If you came in late, or just want revisit the previous installments, here are links to part one, part two, part three, and part four.)
Picking up roughly when part four concluded, today's edition begins with saxophonist Melissa Aldana, who will be making her St. Louis debut with a four-night gig starting Wednesday, April 27 and continuing through Saturday, April 30 at Jazz at the Bistro.
Aldana, who's originally from Chile and now is based in NYC, is a 2009 graduate of Berklee College of Music whose career got a big boost when she won the 2013 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. In the first video up above, you can see Aldana, bassist Pablo Menares, and drummer Francisco Mela performing a full set in 2013 at Berklee.
After the jump, there's a full set from pianist Cyrus Chestnut, who should be familiar to local jazz fans from his numerous previous appearances here over the past decade. Chestnut will be returning to perform on Saturday, May 7 at the Sheldon Concert Hall, and today's video shows him with his trio at a concert in 2014 at Bowdoin College in Maine.
Next, it's guitarist Pat Martino, who will be back in St. Louis to play starting Wednesday, May 11 through Saturday, May 14 at the Bistro. Like Chestnut, Martino has been a fairly regular visitor here in recent years, performing most recently at the Bistro in December 2013. In the third video, you can see and hear his set from February 2014 at the Lotos Jazz Festival in Poland, accompanied by organist Pat Bianchi and drummer Carmen Intorre.
The final two videos feature pianist and singer Freddy Cole and saxophonist Harry Allen, who will revisit their team-up from 2013 and 2015 for a week of performances starting Wednesday, May 25 through Saturday, May 28 at the Bistro.
You can see Cole and his band performing a full set in 2014 at the Jazz San Javier festival in Spain and then, in the final video, Allen's first set from a gig in July 2015 at Dizzy's in Jazz at Lincoln Center, accompanied by pianist Ehud Asherie, bassist/vocalist Nicki Parrott, drummer and vibraphonist Chuck Redd, and percussionist Little Johnny Rivero.
In the coming weeks and months, some of the bands and musicians featured in this preview series will get a more extensive look, and of course, as additional jazz and creative music bookings for this year in St. Louis are announced, StLJN will have the news for you right here. In the meantime, you can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
