Jazz this week: Omaha Diner, Eliane Elias, Stanley Clarke, Susan Werner, and more

It's shaping up to be another busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with a handful of visiting headliners in town at various venues, a couple of homecoming shows featuring former St. Louisans, and a full schedule of performances from local players as well. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, November 18
The quartet Omaha Diner (pictured, top left), featuring guitarist Charlie Hunter, saxophonist Skerik, drummer Bobby Previte, and trumpeter Eric Bloom, makes their St. Louis debut in the first of four nights at Jazz at the Bistro.

As an ensemble, they're both high concept - performing nothing but songs that have reached number one on the Billboard pop charts - and loose-limbed, taking considerable liberties with the material while still maintaining the sort of funky grooves associated with Hunter, who, in his customary fashion, simultaneously provides both bass lines and chords. To get a better idea of what this actually sounds like, you can see and hear Omaha Diner in action in this video post from last Saturday.

Thursday, November 19
Guitarist Vincent Varvel plays a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

Friday, November 20
Singer/songwriter Susan Werner closes out the fall series of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival with the first of two performances at the Gaslight Theater; Dreaming in Colour will play jazz-fusion at the Ozark Theatre; and the contemporary chamber ensemble Alarm Will Sound returns to the Sheldon Concert Hall with a program of music from St. Louis composers including pianist Peter Martin, Wash U music professor Christopher Stark, and multimedia artist and activist Damon Davis.

Also on Friday, Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes will be swinging at Backstreet Jazz & Blues in Westport; the Sentimental Journey Dance Band plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; and the Funky Butt Brass Band will be back for their regular monthly gig at Broadway Oyster Bar.

Saturday, November 21
Pianist and singer Eliane Elias returns to St. Louis for the first time since 2010 for a performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

The Brazilian-born Elias (pictured, center left) first gained wide recognition outside her home country in the 1980s as a member of the fusion band Steps Ahead. She subsequently teamed up with her ex-husband, trumpet player Randy Brecker, for a number of albums mixing straight-ahead, contemporary and Brazilian jazz before going solo with a varied menu of projects that have ranged from a big-band album arranged by Bob Brookmeyer to a tribute to pianist Bill Evans.

Elias has spend a good portion of this year touring in support of her most recent album Made In Brazil, which came out last spring and marked the first time she had gone back to her home country to record since moving to the United States in 1981. You can read more about that in the interview Elias did in August with Keyboard magazine.

Also on Saturday night, bassist Stanley Clarke will be playing at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. Clarke, who was here last year at The Pageant, just wrapped up a two-week run at the Blue Note in NYC that included guest appearances from drummer Lenny White and pianists McCoy Tyner and George Cables.

He also has a new album out this month, a trio recording with violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and guitarist Biréli Lagrène called D-Stringz. For the show at the Touhill, though, Clarke (pictured, lower left) will perform with the current version of his electric band, which includes pianist Beka Gochiashvili, keyboardist Cameron Graves, and drummer Michael Mitchell.

Elsewhere on Saturday night, guitarist Tom Byrne and singer Erika Johnson take the stage at Thurman Grill; singer, actor and St. Louis native Craig Pomranz is back home from NYC to perform his cabaret show "Love Takes Time" at Cyrano's; and singer Danita Mumphard will be interpreting the music of Whitney Houston at the Ozark Theatre.

Sunday November 22
Trumpeter Ally Hany returns home from NYC to celebrate the release of her first album Journeys Ahead with a performance at Ferring Jazz Bistro, and Jay Hutson and Da Wolvez will play at Nathalie's.

Monday November 23
Dizzy Atmosphere plays Gypsy jazz and swing at The Shaved Duck, and trumpeter Keith Moyer and band will perform at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups.

Tuesday November 24
Genesis Jazz Project will play a benefit concert for the Circle of Concern Food Pantry at the Midwest Music Conservatory in Ballwin; and student jazz ensembles from Webster Groves High School will perform in a fundraiser for the school's music programs at Highway 61 Roadhouse.

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.)

Updated after posting to correct info on this week's Jazz at Holmes show. 

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Omaha Diner offers menu of reimagined hits

"You've got to have a gimmick" may be a hoary old show-business cliche, but there's still some truth to the idea. Building an act around a distinctive, easily understood concept can help a performer stand out, and as "gimmicks" go, the band Omaha Diner has a pretty good one.

The quartet - seven-string guitarist Charlie Hunter, single-named saxophonist Skerik, drummer Bobby Previte, and trumpeter Eric Bloom, in for original member Steven Bernstein - plays only songs that have hit number one on the Billboard pop charts, albeit in rearrangements that often bear only a passing resemblance to the originals.

St. Louis audiences will get their first chance to hear those remodeled hits in person next week when Omaha Diner plays next Wednesday, November 18 through Saturday, November 21 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Hunter certainly is no stranger to the Bistro, having played there several times in recent years. Skerik also has performed in St. Louis recently with The Dead Kenny Gs and Garage A Trois; and Bloom was here just a few weeks ago with the funk band Lettuce at the Pageant.

Next week's gigs, however, are the official St. Louis debut for Omaha Diner as a band, and so today we offer a video sampler of some of their decades-spanning songlist, starting up above with a cover of the Beatles' 1964 smash "I Feel Fine," recorded November 9, 2013 at the Aladdin Theater in Portland, OR.

After the jump, they're reaching back to 1972 with a version of the O'Jays' "Love Train," from a show in July, 2013 in Philadelphia.

Below that, there are re-imaginings of two hits from 1987: Terence Trent D'Arby's "Wishing Well," recorded on July 4 of this year at the High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, CA; and "Sweet Child O' Mine," made famous originally by Guns N' Roses and captured in a performance in November 2014 at the studios of KPLU in Seattle.

The same session at KPLU also yielded the last two videos, as Omaha Diner offers their takes on "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)," a hit for Beyoncé in 2008, and "Thrift Shop," a hip-hop-turned-pop smash for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis in 2012.

For more about Omaha Diner, read this review of a 2013 show in NYC, and this feature published last year in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

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

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Fall 2015 jazz preview, part 5

This week, it's the fifth and final installment of StLJN's fall 2015 jazz video preview, offering an advance look at jazz and creative music performers who will be visiting St. Louis between now and year-end.

Parts one, two, three and four covered September, October and the first part of November, so today's post begins with Omaha Diner, who will make their St. Louis debut with performances starting Wednesday, November 17 through Saturday, November 21 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Comprised of guitarist Charlie Hunter, saxophonist Skerik, drummer Bobby Previte, and trumpeter Eric Bloom (in for original member Steven Bernstein), Omaha Diner is premised on the idea of performing only original arrangements of songs that have made it to number one on the Billboard pop charts. And so, in the first clip up above you can see them playing "Thrift Shop," which was a hit for hip-hop duo Macklemore & Lewis.

After the jump, you can see a clip featuring singer Susan Werner, who will close out the fall edition of the Presenters Dolan's Gaslight Cabaret Festival with performances on Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21 at the Gaslight Theater. Werner, who's associated with folk and country as much as cabaret, can be seen here performing "(Why Is Your) Heaven So Small" a a gig in August 2014 in Nashville.

Next up is pianist Eliane Elias, who's playing Saturday, November 21 to kick off the 2015-16 jazz series at  The Sheldon. Elias is seen in the third clip performing "So Danço Samba" at the 2015 International Jazz Day Global Concert in Paris, with some help from trumpeter Claudio Roditi, percussionist Mino Cinélu, and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington.

The same evening as Elias' concert, the Stanley Clarke Band will be in town for a concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. The fourth clip features the bassist and his electric ensemble in a full set at this year's North Sea Jazz Festival.

After that, it's trumpeter Sean Jones, who returns to St. Louis to play Wednesday, December 2 through Saturday, December 5 at Jazz at the Bistro. Jones is seen here performing his deconstructed version of "How High The Moon" last month at the Litchfield Jazz Festival in Connecticut.

Also in town that same weekend will be the duo of pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and violinist Mark Feldman, who will perform in a concert presented by New Music Circle on Friday, December 4 at The Stage at KDHX. They're represented here by a video shot by an audience member in 2014 during their set at NYC's Winter Jazzfest.

Today's final clip features drummer Matt Wilson Christmas Tree-O, who will be spreading holiday cheer from Wednesday, December 16 through Saturday, December 19 at Jazz at the Bistro. The video shows them performing in 2011 for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series.

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