Jazz this week: Shawn Maxwell's New Tomorrow, The People's Key, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features a couple of multi-artist performances of experimental music, an up-and-coming new contemporary jazz quintet from Chicago, plus some local favorites. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, August 2
This week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" has trumpeter T.J Müller at KDHX's Magnolia Cafe; the jam session with bassist Bob Deboo and friends at Kranzberg Arts Center; and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor at The Dark Room.

Also on Wednesday, The Luminary has a quadruple bill of experimental music, with the sampler/turntable duo Colin Andrew Sheffield & James Eck Rippie; Alex Keller & Sean O’Neill, who combine modified field recordings with vintage electronics; and St. Louis' own electronic musicians Raglani and NNN Cook.

Thursday, August 3
Drummer Marty Morrison leads a trio at The Dark Room, and there's another interesting experimental music bill, this time at the combination live music venue/recording studio Gaslight, featuring the Andrew Weathers Ensemble, Tree branch Twig, Eric Hall, and NNN Cook.

Friday, August 4
The "sleeper" show of the week involves Chicago-based saxophonist, flutist and composer Shawn Maxwell's quintet New Tomorrow (pictured, top left), who will be in town Friday to perform at the Webster Groves Concert Hall.

In a review last year, the Chicago Tribune's Howard Reich praised Maxwell's "intricately detailed scores bristling with surprises" and called him "a composer not content to settle into predictable musical patterns," and based on a sampling of the group's performances on YouTube, they're definitely worth checking out.

Elsewhere around town, The People's Key (pictured, bottom left) will bring their contemporary spin on the jazz organ combo sound to Jazz at the Bistro for the first of two nights; and the St. Louis Philharmonic Orchestra pays tribute to the big band era with a program called "Swing, Swing, Swing" at Queeny Park.

Saturday, August 5
If you're looking for some live jazz during the day on Saturday, the Liberation Organ Trio is playing for brunch at Evangeline's.

Then on Saturday evening, keyboardist Marvin Cockrell is promoting a new music video release called St. Louis Bounce with a show at the Grandel Theatre; singer Danita Mumphard will interpret songs associated with the late Whitney Houston at the Jacoby Arts Center; and singer Joe Mancuso and guitarist Dave Black will head to West County to perform at Benedetto's On Main.

Sunday, August 6
Jazz brunch opportunities proliferate on Sunday, as the Jazz Troubadours play at The Dark Room, Miss Jubilee performs at Evangeline's, and trumpeter Jim Manley and pianist Dave Venn return to Scarlett's Wine Bar.

Later that afternoon, the Friends of Scott Joplin will present their monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site's Rosebud Cafe.

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

* The Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden has announced its schedule for 2017, with ten free concerts in total, including performances from the trad jazz band Gaslight Squares on Wednesday, June 14 and pianist Ptah Williams on Wednesday, July 12.

* Kneebody keyboardist Adam Benjamin was interviewed for a brief article by St. Louis magazine's Erin Williams. The group continues their run at Jazz at the Bistro through Saturday night.

* Riverbend Restaurant and Bar, the Richmond Heights spot that featured live jazz from trumpeter Jim Manley every Tuesday night alongside its creole and Cajun cuisine, has closed permanently.

* An album of pictures from percussionist Poncho Sanchez' shows last week at Jazz at the Bistro has been posted to Facebook by St. Louis trombonist Dave Dickey, who's friends with Sanchez and several members of his group and sat in with them at the Bistro.

* Electronic musician Nathan Cook (aka NNN Cook) was interviewed about his Rhizomatic series of recordings featuring St. Louis experimental musicians by Willis Ryder Arnold of St. Louis Public Radio.

* The website St. Louis Musicians Unite has a short feature about this weekend's events celebrating composer Scott Joplin, and also has put together a Spotify playlist collecting recordings by St. Louis jazz musicians.

* Trumpeter and St. Louis native Ally Hany has won second place in the jazz division of the 2017 National Trumpet Competition, held earlier this month at Metropolitan State University in Denver, CO. Hany, a graduate of Webster Groves High School and University of North Texas, currently is living in NYC, working on a master's degree at Manhattan School of Music and performing with ensembles including the MSM Jazz Orchestra and Sherrie Maricle and the DIVA Jazz Orchestra.

* Pianist Makini Morrison, a senior at University City High School, is one of 17 finalists in the Fox Performing Arts Charitable Foundation's 2017 St. Louis Teen Talent Competition. Morrison (pictured) has been part of Jazz St. Louis' JazzU program and also has played with the North County Big Band. The competition finals will take place Saturday, April 8 at the Fox Theatre.

* Jack Snelling, a senior at Webster Groves High School, has won first place in the high school jazz division of the Mizzou New Music Initiative's 2017 Creating Original Music Project (COMP), a statewide competition for Missouri student composers in grades K-12. Snelling's winning work "Lovesick" will be performed along with this year's other winning compositions as part of the COMP Festival on Saturday, April 15 on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia.

* Worship Jazz, the St. Louis-based publisher of jazz arrangements of sacred music, has added a collection of 12 "jazz liturgies" to the five volumes of jazz hymns already in their catalog. The liturgical resources are "intended to help church musicians create their own jazz worship services, with each focused on a specific liturgical theme with a complete worship format."

* The Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville is looking for a new production manager. If you're interested, you can find more information about the job and how to apply at http://www.cityofedwardsville.com/.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: "3 Nights in September"

This week, let's take a look at some of the musicians who will be involved in "3 Nights in September," a mid-week festival of improvised and experimental music organized by cellist Tracy Andreotti that will take place this coming Tuesday, September 22; Wednesday, September 23; and Thursday, September 24 at the Tavern of Fine Arts.

Tuesday's program is scheduled to include performances from Brain Transplant, NNN Cook, Michael Williams, and the Hess/Cunningham Duo, while Wednesday's concert will feature Ghost Ice & Mister Ben; Dave Stone with Henry Claude, Glenn "Papa" Wright & Joe Hess; and the Perhelion Ensemble.

The final performance on Thursday will include sets from the Experimental Arts Ensemble STL; Andreotti's own Vernacular String Trio; the STL Free Jazz Collective; and the duo of trumpeter George Sams and drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw.

Attempting to "preview" shows of improvised music is always fraught with uncertainty, because by definition, every performance is different. But even so, and even though some of the today's featured clips are a bit rough, quality wise, perusing them should give you at least some idea of what to expect next week.

The first clip up above features the Hess/Cunningham Duo, captured in August of this year at the Acid Kat Fest in St. Louis.

After the jump, you can see videos of NNN Cook, also from this year's Acid Kat Fest; Brain Transplant, recorded in October 2014 during the last in-store performance at the now-shuttered Apop Records; and Ghost Ice, from a show in January of this year at the Schlafly Tap Room.

Then, it's saxophonist Dave Stone's trio, recorded in 2010 at Stone's regular Friday night performance at Mangia Italiano (which tends to be as much of a "tunes" gig as free improv); and a promotional trailer produced by the STL Free Jazz Collective.

Finally, there's a recording of Sams and Shaw performing at a tribute to the late trumpeter Floyd LeFlore last October at the Tavern of Fine Arts, with some help from saxophonists Jerome 'Jay Dubz' Williams and Lawrence 'Rahtu' Johnson and pianist David Parker.

Admission to "Three Nights in September" is $5 per night, payable in cash only, at the door. See the event's Facebook page for the latest details.

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