Jazz this week: Rickey Woodard, Craig Russo Latin Jazz Project, Trio Trés Bien, Chamber Project St. Louis, and more

It's shaping up to be a fine weekend in St. Louis to get out and hear some live sounds, and fortunately, our local presenters of jazz and creative music would seem to have a variety of potentially worthy attractions in the offing. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight through Saturday, Cabaret St. Louis continues its season at the Kranzberg Arts Center with "A Salute to the Rat Pack" from the group Three Men and A Baby...Grand, aka singers Brian Lane Green, Lee Lessack and John Boswell.

On Friday, percussionist Craig Russo's Latin Jazz Project returns to Jazz at the Bistro to begin a two-night stand. Hailing from just up the road in the Champaign/Urbana area, the group includes several members of the jazz faculty at the University of Illinois, including saxophonist Chip McNeill, who spent time on the road with trumpeters Maynard Ferguson and Arturo Sandoval.

Also on Friday, guitarist Matthew Von Doran and his trio will play at Broadway Bean Coffee on the south side; and Robbie's House of Jazz will present pianist Heather Bosshardt's trio with bassist Nick Jost and drummer Marty Morrison.

On Saturday, saxophonist Rickey Woodard (pictured) will take the stage at Robbie's, backed by pianist Reggie Thomas, Jost and Morrison. Woodard, a Nashville native, has worked with Ray Charles, the Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra and drummer Frank Capp's Juggernaut, and also is a veteran studio musician with session credits ranging from Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra to the Temptations and the O'Jays. Woodard also has recorded nine CDs as a leader, the most recent being 2009's Pineapple Delight.

Also on Saturday, New Music Circle begins their 2010-11 season with a concert by Chamber Project St. Louis at Christ Church Cathedral. The group will celebrate contemporary American female composers with a program including works by Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdon and Grammy Award winner Libby Larsen. For this performance, CPStL members Adrianne Honnold (saxophone), Jennifer Gartley (flute), Dana Hotle (clarinet) and Laura Reycraft (viola) will be joined by pianist Amanda Kirkpatrick and cellist Valentina Takova.

On Sunday, Trio Trés Bien opens the 2010-11 St. Louis Jazz and Blues Vespers series with a free concert at Second Baptist Church, 9030 Clayton Rd. (at McKnight).

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday night the Sessions Big Band returns to BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups; and on Tuesday morning, the Sheldon Concert Hall begins its 2010-11 series of Coffee Concerts with an 11:00 a.m. performance by Cornet Chop Suey, which will be repeated at the same time on Wednesday morning

For more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, 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.)

Jazz this week: Pat Metheny, Jazz St. Louis All-Stars, Denise Thimes with Rickey Woodard, and more

Though fall-to-spring academic and not-for-profit presenting schedules are winding down, and summer won't be here for a few weeks yet, there are still some noteworthy shows coming up over the next few days in St. Louis for fans of jazz and creative music.

The big news of the week is guitarist Pat Metheny's Orchestrion tour, which finally reaches St. Louis on Saturday night at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

If you're a regular reader, you know that StLJN has been somewhat fascinated with the whole "world-class-guitarist-ditches-real-musicians-for-robots" aspect of the project, and has been following Orchestrion-related developments for several months now; to catch up, you can review that previous coverage here.

For more about the tech behind the Orchestrion project, see this video post from last Saturday. As for what it sounds like, suffice it to say that Metheny (pictured) and his backup band of computer-controlled, robotically-actuated musical instruments provide a truly singular musical experience, yet one that's still recognizably Methenyesque.

On Friday and Saturday night, the Jazz St. Louis All-Stars will perform at Jazz at the Bistro. The All-Stars are a select group of young musicians of high school age, drawn from Jazz St. Louis' various education programs. They're taught by keyboardist Reggie Thomas, guitarist Rick Haydon, and other visiting jazz players and clinicians, and get a variety of performance opportunities throughout the year, including an annual weekend at the Bistro.

Though the individual musicians change year-to-year as graduates are replaced by new players, every edition of the group I've heard was quite accomplished for their relatively tender years. So, if you're the sort of person who likes to check out the possible "stars of tomorrow, today," as the saying goes, you can proceed with confidence that it definitely should be a listenable musical experience, and possibly even something more.

On Sunday, singer Denise Thimes will do her annual Mothers Day show at the Sheldon Concert Hall. In recent years, Thimes has featured a guest star or two from out of town along with her band of St. Louis musicians; this year, it's tenor saxophonist Rickey Woodard, a Nashville native known for his work with Ray Charles and the Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra.

UPDATE: The Post-Dispatch's Kevin Johnson has an interview with Thimes about the Mother's Day show here.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday night bassist David Certain, who's played with trumpeter Eddie Henderson, saxophonist Gary Bartz and other name-brand jazz performers, leads his CertainBeat WorldBop quartet at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups. This time out, Certain will be joined by drummer Stan Hale, trumpeter Rob Endicott and saxophonist James Warfield Jr.

(Full disclosure: Yr. humble StLJN editor knows, and, at one time or another, has played music with, all four of these guys. Please don't hold it against them, they're actually all quite good.)

For more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, 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.)