Jazz this week: Red Baraat, Gateway Jazz Festival, Tom McDermott, and more

This Labor Day weekend in St. Louis offers fans of jazz and creative music an eclectic mix of sounds from traditional to experimental, with numerous gradations in between. Let's go to the highlights...

On Thursday, "bhangra funk" band Red Baraat (pictured) returns to St. Louis to take the stage at The Gramophone. Led by drummer Sunny Jain, the group's instrumentation resembles a New Orleans brass band, but their music blends in a variety of other sounds, including funk, go-go, and elements from Indian popular music. You can see some videos of them in action in this post from last Saturday.

Also Thursday, the Tavern of Fine Arts presents their monthly "Avant-Garde Arts Night" with live improvised music; and pianist and St. Louis native Tom McDermott, who now lives in New Orleans, will be back home to do a show at the house concert venue Joe's Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury in the Central West End. McDermott is wrapping up a 22-city tour, and for more about that and his latest album, check out the preview story from Terry Perkins in the St. Louis Beacon.

On Friday night,  the available choices include three different male vocalists, as singer Nicholas Brooks offers a "Rat Pack"-themed performance at Robbie's House of Jazz; Joe Mancuso is at Chasers Lounge in the Chase Park Plaza Hotel; and Charlie B and his trio with trumpeter Jim Manley are at Thurman Grill.

Meanwhile, over on the east side, saxophonist Kendrick Smith will lead a trio at Cigar Inn in Belleville, while Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes will perform at the Granite City Elks Lodge, 4801 Maryville Rd.

On Saturday, steel guitar players from around the country will be gathering for the annual International Steel Guitar Convention at the Millennium Hotel, where the "Maurice Anderson Jazz Room" will feature free public performances from a half-dozen steel guitarists playing jazz, backed by guitarist Dave Black, bassist Bob DeBoo and drummer Kyle Honeycutt.

Also on Saturday, the annual Big Muddy Blues Festival begins on Laclede's Landing. The event continues on Sunday, with local bands playing on two free stages, plus headliners including Anthony Gomes, Walter Trout, the Rev. Horton Heat, and David Clayton-Thomas on the main stage, which requires a ticket purchase.

On Sunday, in lieu of the end-of-summer picnic they've done in recent years, this Labor Day weekend the St. Louis Jazz Club is presenting the Gateway Jazz Festival at the DoubleTree Hotel - Westport. The event will feature two sessions on Sunday and a daytime session on Monday, with music from Cornet Chop Suey, St. Louis Stompers, Funky Butt Brass Band, St. Louis Ragtimers, Utter Chaos, St. Louis Rivermen, Miss Jubilee, Pat Joyce, and Banjos & Brass.

Also on Sunday, the Friends of Scott Joplin present their monthly "Ragtime Rendezvous" at Dressel's, 419 N Euclid Ave; and the St. Charles Big (Jazz) Band plays a free concert in Frontier Park on the riverfront in St. Charles.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday, in addition to the second day of the Gateway Jazz Festival, guitarists Eric Slaughter and Tom Byrne will lead a quartet at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

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: Spotlight on Red Baraat

This week, let's turn our video spotlight on Red Baraat, who are returning to St. Louis to play this coming Thursday, August 29 at The Gramophone. Based in Brooklyn and led by drummer Sunny Jain, Red Baraat is a nine-piece group with an instrumentation similar to a New Orleans brass band (two reeds, three percussion, four brass). Having already played The Gramophone back in May, this will be their second St. Louis gig this year.

Red Baraat's "dhol & brass" sound is an infectious mix of South Asian bhangra with American styles like funk, hip-hop and go-go. And though they're playing a modest-sized venue here, their appeal is by no means limited to small clubs; they've performed at NYC's Lincoln Center, the Barbican in London, at major jazz festivals in the U.S. and Europe, and on NPR, for which they recorded the first video clip seen up above.

The clip of the group's Tiny Desk Concert for NPR includes three tunes: "Chaal Baby," "Shruggy Ji," and "Dhol 'n' Brass." Down below, you can see them at a Brooklyn venue called Southpaw playing "Private Dancers."

Below that, it's a tune called "Mehndi Laga Ke Rakhna," recorded in 2011 at the Mercury Lounge in NYC, and then "Tunak Tunak Tun," from their performance at at Lincoln Center's "Midsummer Night Swing & Bhangra."

The fifth clip, "Baraat To Nowhere," was recorded in April 2012 at the Bomhard Theater in Louisville, KY. The sixth and final video, recorded as the group took to the streets of the French Quarter during Mardi Gras 2013, help make explicit the connection between New Orleans brass bands and what Red Baraat does.











Edited after posting to fix a typo.

Jazz this week: Red Baraat, Two Times True, St. Louis Big Band, and more

While it's not a very busy week for touring jazz musicians visiting St. Louis, as usual our local musicians and bands stand ready with a plethora of performances of their own. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, alumni of the music programs at Parkway West High School will present a big band jazz concert in tribute to former band director John Baker at Sky Music Lounge in Ballwin.

Also tonight, singer Joe Mancuso leads a quartet at Cafe Eau in the Chase Park Plaza Hotel; pianist Ptah Williams and his trio are at Troy's Jazz Gallery; and it's the monthly Avant Garde Arts Night featuring live improvised music at Tavern of Fine Arts.

Tomorrow night, the Brooklyn, NY based group Red Baraat will be in town to play at The Gramophone. Led by dhol player Sunny Jain - the dhol is a double-headed drum used with variations throughout the Indian subcontinent - Red Baraat come across as sort of a South Asian-flavored variant on the New Orleans brass band concept, with a sound influenced by jazz, funk, go-go and Latin delivered by drumset, percussion, sousaphone and five horns.  

Shruggy Ji, the group’s second full-length studio record, was released in January, and a follow-up album of remixes and concurrently recorded jams, Big Talk, is set to drop next month.You can see and hear Red Baraat in this video of the Tiny Desk Concert they did recently for NPR.

Also on Friday, Two Times True (pictured) plays the first of two nights kicking off the summer season at Jazz at the Bistro. Taking their name from the versatile pianist Carolbeth True and her son, drummer David True, the band also includes bassist Glen Smith and saxophonist Larry Johnson, and plays a mix of modern jazz, standards and original material.

Other noteworthy gigs on Friday include trumpeter Charlie Rose's Jazz Creations, featuring saxophonist Robb Cunningham, bassist Darrell Mixon and drummer Jerome "Scrooge" Harris, at Robbie's House of Jazz; and guitarist Tom Byrne's trio at Cigar Inn.

On Saturday afternoon, singer Wendy Gordon will perform for a jazz brunch at Ace Bar's and Grill, 9600 Natural Bridge Rd., while trumpeter Joe Bozzi plays a matinee at Frontenac Grill. Then on Saturday evening, Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes will do an early set at Thurman Grill for the neighborhood's "Loop Festival"; the Ann Dueren Trio is at Il Bel Lago; and singer-guitarist Tommy Halloran plays the Tavern of Fine Arts.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Tuesday the St. Louis Big Band will return the Sheldon Concert Hall for a "Tribute to the Greatest Generation," featuring music from Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, plus vocal numbers originally made famous by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald and Etta James.

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.)