St. Louis Jazz Notes: Shabaka Hutchings

As the new year begins, no one is sure exactly when live music will resume on a widespread, regular basis or when touring artists will be able to start traveling again. We can, however, still keep an eye and ear on some of the jazz artists who seem likely to be influential over the next 12 months. So let's take a look at some performances from six musicians who made news in the year just ended and are poised for even bigger things in 2021.

First up is Nubya Garcia, whose most recent album Source showed up on a lot of critics' year-end "best of" lists for 2020. The London-based saxophonist and her band are seen here performing a mini-set for NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts at Soup Studio, a recording facility built on a decommissioned floating lighthouse that's moored on the River Thames in London. It's also where Garcia recorded Source, and this set features three songs from the record.

After the jump, you can see a set by drummer, producer and "beat scientist" Makaya McCraven, performing with his band in August 2019 at the Flow Festival in Helsinki, Finland. McCraven in 2020 released Universal Beings E&F Sides, an extension of his critically-acclaimed 2018 album Universal Beings, which the New York Times said "affirms the drummer and beatsmith's position as a major figure in creative music."

Next up is another Londoner, saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, who is seen here with Sons of Kemet, one of three bands he leads, in a set recorded live in March 2019 at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN.

That's followed by a set by the most-talked about young vibraphonist in jazz, Joel Ross. This clip was recorded in August 2020 at the Arts Center at Duck Creek in upstate New York, with Melissa Aldana on tenor saxophone, Matt Brewer on bass and Craig Weinrib on drums.

The fifth video features another up-and-coming saxophonist, Immanuel Wilkins, who debut album Omega, released in August by Blue Note, earned much positive attention from critics and fans alike. Wilkins and his quartet are seen here in a show recorded in November 2019 at the Millennium Stage of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Today's sixth and final video features trumpeter Theo Croker, who's been around since the mid-2000s, but has enjoyed favorable buzz recently thanks to his 2019 album Star People Nation and the EP Understand Yourself, which came out last year. The video was recorded in June 2019 at Paste Studio in NYC.

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