Jazz this week: Martin & Bernstein play Blue Note, the Bosman Twins, Noisefest turns 10, Oleta Adams, and more

As if what happened to the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series this week wasn't scary enough, it's also Halloween - but fortunately, there will be plenty of spirited jazz and creative music on local stages over the next few days to chase away any lingering bad vibes. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, Miss Jubilee will be doing double duty, swinging an early evening gig at the Blues City Deli, then heading down to Thaxton Speakeasy for the late shift.

Tomorrow night, longtime local favorites the Bosman Twins (pictured) open a two-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. For more about the saxophone-playing brothers, check out Terry Perkins' preview story for the St. Louis Beacon. Word is that the early shows are near sellouts, so if you're planning on attending, it'd be best to call ahead for reservations.

Also on Friday, Noisefest, the annual celebration of things that go skronk, boom, hum, and bleep, kicks off its tenth anniversary with the first of three nights of concerts at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center. In addition to the evening concerts, this year's event also includes a program on Sunday afternoon devoted to experimental video. For more on the schedule and the extensive roster of performers, see this post from earlier in the week.

Elsewhere around town on Friday, members of Dizzy Atmosphere, Hot Club Caravan and Swing Set will convene for a "Hot Club Gypsy Jazz Summit" at the Kranzberg Arts Center; and Lindy Hop St. Louis presents their monthly "West End Stomp" swing dance at the Mahler Ballroom with live music from Coco Rico.

On Saturday, pianist Peter Martin resumes his eponymous series at the Sheldon Concert Hall, this time presenting a "Blue Note Records Celebration" featuring guitarist Peter Bernstein. Bernstein has played with Diana Krall, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Sonny Rollins and many others, and, appropriately, toured with the all-star ensemble Blue Note 7 a few years back to promote the label's 70th anniversary. For more about Bernstein and some video samples of his playing, consult this post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, trombonist and singer Doug Burns and band will perform at Robbie's House of Jazz; Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes play at Thurman Grill; singer Feyza Eren fronts a quartet at the house concert venue KindaBlue; and the Funky Butt Brass Band, depraved sugar fiends all*, will be eagerly soliciting leftover Halloween candy at the Broadway Oyster Bar. 

On Sunday, the St. Louis Record Collector and CD Show has their last event of the year at the American Czech Hall, 4690 Lansdowne; and singer Joe Mancuso teams up with pianist Carolbeth True and Two Times True for a concert at First Presbyterian Church, 100 E Adams Ave in Kirkwood.

Also on Sunday, the Community Women Against Hardship will hold a gala event at the Sheldon celebrating their 25th Anniversary, featuring a performance by singer Oleta Adams. Any remaining tickets will be available online until Friday, and then at the Fox Theatre box office until Sunday afternoon.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday Webster University's student jazz combos will present a free performance at the Community Music School, 535 Garden Ave; and guitarist Tom Byrne plays at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

Then on Tuesday, guitarist Dave Black will be at BB's, and vocal group Java Jived and the Midwest Jazz-tette perform in a "Notes From Home" show at the Sheldon.

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 writer has no actual knowledge of specific amounts of sugar, measured either by weight or volume, consumed by members of the Funky Butt Brass Band.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: A Peter Bernstein sampler

Today, we're serving up some video clips showcasing guitarist Peter Bernstein, who will be performing with pianist Peter Martin at 8:00 p.m. next Saturday, November 2 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

The concert, the first this season in Martin's ongoing series at the Sheldon, is billed as a performance of music associated with Blue Note Records, which seems fitting since Bernstein was part of the Blue Note 7, a group formed in 2008 by the label for an album and tour celebrating its 70th anniversary. The Blue Note 7's stop at the Sheldon in February 2009 was Bernstein's last featured appearance in St. Louis, but many jazz fans here nevertheless may be familiar with his work from his frequent appearances on record with other artists.

Now 46 years old, the NYC native studied music at Rutgers University and The New School, where one of his teachers was the legendary guitarist Jim Hall. Bernstein and Hall have gone on to perform together many times as a duo, and Bernstein has become a prolific collaborator with many other musicians as well, forging notable associations with saxophonist Lou Donaldson, organist Dr. Lonnie Smith. pianist Brad Mehldau, and singer and pianist Diana Krall, to name just a few. More recently, Bernstein had been performing with Sonny Rollins' new quintet until health issues sidelined the great tenor man earlier this year.

These six videos, recorded at various times over the past decade, show Bernstein in a featured role in several different groups. The first clip up above, a song called "Dragonfly" recorded in 2004 at Smoke in NYC, features the guitarist in one of his regular formats, a trio with organist Larry Goldings and drummer Bill Stewart.

Down below, you can see Bernstein, tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, bassist Chuck Deardorf, and drummer Matt Jorgensen playing "Bones" in 2006 at the Ballard Jazz Festival in Washington. Below that, it's a version of "Monk's Mood," also from 2006, featuring Bernstein and Brad Mehldau.

The fourth and fifth clips feature Bernstein's own quartet, recorded during a tour of Italy in 2010. "Jive Coffee" is from July at a festival in Scalea, with Bernstein, Sam Yahel on piano, Marco Panascia on bass, and Willie Jones III on drums. "Love Walked In," recorded a couple of months later in Salerno, features the same band except with Doug Weiss on bass instead of Panascia.

Today's final video is another Thelonious Monk tune, a version of "Pannonica" featuring Bernstein and pianist Michael Kanan that was recorded in March 2011 at Smalls in NYC.

For more about Peter Bernstein, check out the interview he did earlier this year with the Ottawa Citizen; this 2009 article from Jazz Times; and this 2009 piece from the blog Jazz Profiles.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Fall 2013 jazz preview, part 4

Today, it's part 4 of StLJN's Fall 2013 jazz preview, in which we offer video samples of the various jazz and creative musicians coming to our town before the end of the year. (Here's part one, part two, and part three.)

Our preview resumes at the beginning of November with guitarist Peter Bernstein, who will be appearing with pianist Peter Martin on Saturday, November 2 at the Sheldon Concert Hall as part of Martin's eponymous concert series there. Bernstein, whose notable credits include stints with Diana Krall, Lou Donaldson, the all-star Blue Note 7, and many others, is seen in the first clip up above playing "Penthouse Serenade" in June 2012 at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music.

Down below, the next clip offers a look at trumpeter and pianist Ben Polcer, who will be leading the band providing music for this year's Nevermore Jazz Ball Saturday night dance, also on November 2. Polcer, who lives in New Orleans, will assemble a group specifically for the St. Louis gig; he's seen here with the band known as His Swingin' Six, including vocalist Mischa Lake, performing "24 Robbers."

The following week, singer and pianist Ann Hampton Callaway returns to St. Louis to perform Wednesday, November 6 through Saturday, November 9 at Jazz at the Bistro. Callaway, who last played the Bistro in 2011, is seen here in the studios of KPLU radio in Seattle, improvising song lyrics based on words and phrases suggested by the audience, which on this occasion included "sunshine in Seattle," "home for wayward girls," "basketball" and "snuffleupagus."

A couple of days later, Trombone Shorty and his band Orleans Avenue return to St. Louis to play Monday, November 11 at the Old Rock House. Shorty, aka Troy Andrews, last played here for the Bluesweek festival in May; in this clip, you can see him performing "Big 12."

Next up, it's violinist Regina Carter, who's returning to play Wednesday, November 20 throguh Saturday November 23 at Jazz at the Bistro. When she was here to play the Bistro a couple of years ago, Carter performed with the the band from her album Reverse Thread, with whom she can be seen here playing “Zerapiky,” a folk song from Madagascar. The quartet for this fall tour includes the drummer from that band, Alvester Garnett, as well as pianist Xavier Davis and bassist Jesse Murphy, which, absent Reverse Thread's accordion and kora, suggests at least a partial return to a more straight-ahead sound.

The week after Carter is town, trumpeter, singer and U City native Jeremy Davenport will return home from new Orleans to play his annual post-Thanksgiving dates here on Friday November 29 and Saturday, November 30 at Jazz at the Bistro. In today's sixth clip, shot by an audience member at the French Quarter Festival in April of this year, Davenport offers his version of the standard "Bourbon Street Parade."

The following week, guitarist Pat Martino will play Wednesday, December 4 through Saturday, December 7 at the Bistro. Martino, who's been to St. Louis many times and last played the Bistro in 2010, is seen in the sixth clip performing Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight" earlier this year at a jazz festival in Salerno, Italy.

The next show on the calendar is a bit harder to preview, as pianist Marc Copland, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Joey Baron aren't really a regular working unit and thus there's no video online of them all playing together. So, to give you at least taste of what to expect when they join forces to play Friday, December 6 at 560 Music Center, we've got two clips. The first features Copland and guitarist John Abercrombie dueting on "Speak to Me" at a concert last year in Vienna; the second is a profile of Baron, produced for German television.

Today's final video features two more musicians who should be quite familiar to local audiences, singer/guitarist John Pizzarelli, who's done more gigs here in the last decade than just about any other touring jazz musician, and his dad, the legendary guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli. For this visit to our town, the Pizzarellis will team up for performances on Wednesday, December 18 through Saturday, December 21 at Jazz at the Bistro. The video is a short feature story about them, with musical excerpts, produced by a New Jersey public TV station and filmed at the Shanghai Jazz Club in Madison, NJ.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on the Blue Note 7

We've super-sized this week's video post to bring you a preview of the Blue Note 7, who will be in St. Louis next Sunday, February 22 to perform at the Sheldon Concert Hall under the combined auspices of Jazz St. Louis and the Sheldon.

Because the band is an all-star group assembled specifically for a tribute album and 50-city tour commemorating the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records, there's no video available online of them all playing together. However, someone did make a short clip to promote the album and tour, and you can see that in the embedded video window up above.

Down below, we've got videos of the various Blue Note 7 members in action, with the exception of tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, who previously was the subject of a video post here when he brought his quartet to Jazz at the Bistro last year. You can check out that post for some samples of Coltrane's playing; below, you'll find the other members of the Blue Note 7 in this order:

* Trumpeter Nicholas Payton playing Milt Jackson's bebop standard "Bags' Groove."
* Guitarist Peter Bernstein playing a tune called "Bobblehead" at the NYC club Smoke.
* Alto saxophonist Steve Wilson doing a version of "But Not For Me," apparently with some substitute chord changes, during a show at the Artists' Quarter in St. Paul, MN.
* Pianist Bill Charlap and bassist Peter Washington playing "In The Still Of The Night" in a clip recorded at the Village Vanguard. (That's Kenny Washington, no relation to Peter, on drums.)
* Drummer Lewis Nash, as part of saxophonist Joe Lovano's quartet with bassist George Mraz and the legendary pianist Hank Jones, playing Lovano's "Bird's Eye View" at the Jazz Baltica festival.

The band's repertoire for the tour includes new arrangements of music associated with a number of jazz greats who recorded for Blue Note over the years, including Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver, Joe Henderson and others. The Blue Note 7 have been on the road since the first week of January, so they should definitely have their arrangements together and be firing on all cylinders when they get to St. Louis next week.