Multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native J.D. Parran(pictured) is coming home to team up with poet K. Curtis Lyle and a group of local improvisors for a performance at 8:00 p.m. Saturday, February 8 at Xavier Hall on the campus of St. Louis University.
The concert is part of the "Jazz 'n Tongues" music-and-poetry series sponsored by SLU and the Nu-Art Series. Nu-Art's impresario George Sams will be part of the ensemble on trumpet and flugelhorn, along with bassist Darrell Mixon, violinist Alyssa Avery, and cellist Tracy Andreotti.
This week, StLJN's video spotlight shines on musician, painter, poet, and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake, who's coming to town to perform in a concert sponsored by the Nu-Art Series and St. Louis University next Friday, March 22 at Xavier Hall on the SLU campus.
Lake will joined for the performance by pianist Greg Mills, trumpeter and Nu-Art Series impresario George Sams, and dancers Antonio Douthis-Boyd and Kirven Douthis-Boyd, and, in keeping with the "Jazz 'N Tongues" theme of Nu-Art's current slate of shows, he'll read some of his poetry as well as playing saxophone.
Though born in Arkansas, Lake grew up and spent his formative musical years here in St. Louis, helping co-found the famed Black Artists Group in the late 1960s before moving away to pursue his career. With fellow former BAG members Hamiet Bluiett and Julius Hemphill (plus tenor saxophonist David Murray), he then went on to found the critically acclaimed and influential World Saxophone Quartet, which brought new ideas about arrangements and rhythm sections (or the lack of same) from the avant-garde towards - if not fully into - the mainstream.
In the 1990s, Lake co-founded another significant ensemble, Trio 3, with bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Andrew Cyrille, and they've continued to reunite periodically for new projects to this day. But it is as a solo artist that Lake has been most prolific, releasing more than 40 albums as a leader with various ensembles, many on his own Passin' Thru label.
For many years a resident of Montclair, NJ, Lake also spends a good deal of time these days on his visual art, as described in the first video up above, a feature story about him produced last year for a local PBS affiliate.
After the jump, you can see a couple of videos from 2018 featuring Lake and his big band, recorded during the Vision Festival at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY and at the DC Jazz Festival in Washington.
Next are recently posted clips of Lake with two different trios - the Crash Band Trio, with drummers Bill McClellan and Reggie Nicholson, recorded during the Bang on a Can Marathon in May, 2017 at the Brooklyn Museum; and a set of music from October, 2014 with guitarist Vernon Reid and drummer Marlon Browden, recorded at John Zorn's venue The Stone in NYC.
Those are followed by two samples of Lake reading his poetry, a work called "Do you remember the time?" recorded in 2010 in Pittsburgh, and "Poem for Amiri Baraka" from the 2014 Vision Festival.
Finally, you can see a short video that Lake made last year for Jazz at Lincoln Center's education department, in which he discusses his process for composing and gives some advice to students.
It's another busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with several noteworthy headliners in town, plus a whole bunch of shows from our hometown musicians, including a jam-packed Valentine's Day evening.
Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, February 13
Saxophonist and singer Grace Kelly(pictured, top left) begins a five-night engagement at Jazz St. Louis, continuing through Sunday. Kelly's most recent album Go Time: Brooklyn 2, which came out last October, expands her musical palette a bit, with more pronounced influences from pop, electronic music, and more. For more about that, plus some videos of recent performances by Kelly, check out the video showcase post from last Saturday.
Thursday, February 14
The evening of Valentine's Day offers more than dozen options for live jazz, so you'll probably want to visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes calendar to see the full range of options.
If you're on a budget, the pick show might be the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University's presentation of "My Funny Valentine - Music of Miles Davis," a free concert featuring trumpeter Randy Holmes, saxophonist Paul DeMarinis, bassist/guitarist William Lenihan, pianist Ken Kehner, and drummer Steve Davis. As a bonus, author and scholar Enrico Merlin will give a talk about Davis before the concert, starting at 7:30 p.m.
Also of note, singer Jan Shapiro and pianist Dave Venn, both of whom gig less frequently than many local listeners might like, will be performing along with bassist Ben Wheeler at Bar Italia.
Meanwhile, singer Erin Bode will meet the demand from her fan base with the first of two nights at Cyrano's, and saxophonist Tim Cunningham will be on a similar schedule playing Thursday and Friday at Gauge Cigar Club (the latest re-branding of what originally was Troy's Jazz Gallery.)
Saturday, February 16
Multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native J.D. Parran(pictured, bottom left) will team up up with poet K. Curtis Lyle and trumpeter George Sams for a performance at Xavier Hall on the SLU campus.
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.)
The Nu-Art Series has announced three more concerts in their "Jazz n’ Tongues" series presented in cooperation with St. Louis University's music department.
The series resumes with multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native J.D. Parran, who will perform with poet K. Curtis Lyle and trumpeter and Nu-Art Series head George Sams on Saturday, February 16.
Next up, saxophonist and former St. Louisan Oliver Lake(pictured) will play with Sams, pianist Greg Mills, and dancers Antonio Douthis-Boyd and Kirven Douthis-Boyd on Friday, March 22.
Sams then will complete the spring series by leading a date of his own on Friday, April 5.
All three concerts will start at 8:00 p.m. in the University Theatre in Xavier Hall on the SLU campus. General admission is $10 per person, free for students with a valid student ID, and tickets for all three shows are on sale now via Metrotix.
This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features not one, but two DownBeat poll-winning musicians on their respective instruments - vibes and violin - plus the year's biggest local event for swing dancers, a spoken-word performance from a confidant of Miles Davis, and more.
Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, October 31
Vibraphonist Stefon Harris and his band Blackout return for the first of five nights of performances at Jazz St. Louis.
Winner of this year's DownBeat Critic's Poll as "best vibraphonist," Harris (pictured, top left) is touring in support of his new album Sonic Creed, which his first release as a leader since 2009. For more about that, plus some videos of Harris performing, check out this post from last Saturday.
Thursday, November 1
The eighth annual Nevermore Jazz Ball, a weekend of swing dance events that attracts enthusiasts from all over the country, gets underway with a performance by the Arcadia Dance Orchestra at 2720 Cherokee. Though all-event passes for the weekend are sold out in advance, tickets for the individual events will be sold at the door pending availability.
Also on Friday, poet, author and Miles Davis biographer Quincy Troupe(pictured, center left) will give a spoken-word performance with music from trumpeter George Sams' quartet at St. Louis University's Xavier Hall.
Elsewhere around town, singer and actress Carrie St. Louis performs for the Gaslight Cabaret Festival in the first of two nights at the Gaslight Theater; and keyboardist Jay Oliver's trio and Bach To The Future will share a double-bill at 50/Fifty Kitchen.
Saturday, November 3
Nevermore Jazz Ball continues with three events on Saturday, starting at noon with the "Cherokee Street Jazz Crawl," featuring free live music from more than a dozen bands and solo acts at various locations along Cherokee St. between Jefferson Ave and Nebraska Ave.
Elsewhere around town, the Nevermore Jazz Ball wraps up for 2018 with one final performance from Michael Gamble and the Rhythm Serenaders at the Boo Cat Club.
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.)
Presented in conjunction with SLU as the first production of the revived Nu-Art Series, the concert also will feature poet and author Leah LeFlore (daughter of the late trumpeter and Black Artists Group co-founder Floyd LeFlore), pianist Ptah Williams, and trumpeter George Sams, the founder and head of Nu-Art.
Henderson, who will celebrate his 78th birthday the day of his St. Louis show, recently has enjoyed renewed public attention, performing and recording with the "supergroup" The Cookers and earlier this year releasing a new quintet album, Be Cool, on the Smoke Sessions label.
Probably still best known for his work with Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi band in the early 1970s, Henderson for years pursued dual careers in music and in medicine, working as a practicing psychiatrist in San Francisco when not touring.
Even so, he's managed to release 30 albums as a leader over the course of his career, ranging in style from fusion and funk to straight-ahead, while also accumulating performance and recording credits with Pharoah Sanders, Mike Nock, Norman Connors, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Charles Earland, Azteca, and more.
To give you an idea of Henderson's style and repertoire, we've collected videos of some relatively recent live performances, starting up above with a full set of Henderson leading a quintet in 2016 at the Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis.
After the jump, you can see him playing the Kenny Barron composition "Phantoms," a frequent part of his live shows, with a quartet in March of last year in Zagreb, Croatia,
That's followed by two clips featuring Henderson as a guest performer with a band led by trumpeter Jesse Fischer, performing his own composition "Sunburst" and Hancock's "You'll Know When You Get There" in December 2013 at ShapeShifter Lab in Brooklyn, NY.
Next is a video from one of Henderson's previous appearances in St. Louis, at a concert in March 2012 presented by the Nu-Art Series at the now-closed Metropolitan Gallery downtown. Along with the trumpeter, the band includes Freddie Washington on tenor sax, Ptah Williams on piano, Bob DeBoo on bass, and Gary Sykes on drums.
The sixth and final video is an episode of the web series "The Pace Report" from 2012, which includes some performance footage as well as an interview with Henderson by host Brian Pace.
One last thing: Observant readers will note, for the first time in many years, the presence of titles and various other typographical bric-a-brac superimposed over the YouTube embeds in this post. Unfortunately, this is a result of YouTube permanently changing its embed code so that those items no longer can be hidden, claiming that they are "an integral part of the YouTube experience."
While yr. humble editor will continue to search for another way to remove the superfluous material (which, often as not, contains misspellings and errors), it looks like all sites that embed YouTube videos are stuck with the new formatting limitations for now.
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
The Nu-Art Series, founded and run by trumpeter and impresario George Sams, is returning with a concert featuring trumpeter Eddie Henderson(pictured) and pianist Ptah Williams at 8;00 p.m. Friday, October 26 at Xavier Hall on the campus of St. Louis University.
Poet Lyah LeFlore, the daughter of trumpeter and original Black Arts Group member Floyd LeFlore, also will perform, and Sams will be sitting in for a tune or two as well.
The Nu-Art Series previously presented concerts from 2010 to 2012 at the now-closed Metropolitan Gallery downtown, and in 2014 at the Scott Joplin State Historic Site's Rosebud Cafe.
The October concert with Henderson and Williams is the first event of "Jazz-N-Tongues: The Art of Music and Poetry," a series of co-productions with St. Louis University.
Sams tells StLJN that he's working on two more concerts for early 2019, one to feature multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native J.D. Parran, the other presenting poet, playwright and author Ntozake Shange, with details to come.
He'll perform in a duo with harpist Jacqueline Kerrod, and then is scheduled to give a post-concert talk after the performance.
Though this will be his first gig ever in St. Louis (!), Braxton has been a major figure in creative music for the past half-century, first gaining wide attention for his groundbreaking 1969 solo recording For Alto and subsequent membership in the short-lived band Circle (with Chick Corea, Dave Holland, and Barry Altschul).
From there, he's gone on to create a huge catalog of music - literally hundreds of hours of recordings - ranging from free improvisations to distinctive, sometimes-skewed interpretations of jazz and popular standards, as well as hundreds of original works . Some have titles resembling math equations or cubist drawings (these days, to the relief of music journalists, he mostly just numbers them) and more recently, he's taken to writing music derived from highly specific compositional systems with names like Diamond Curtain Wall, Ghost Trance Music, and ZIM.
Given the range of Braxton's work and the length of his career, it's impossible even to begin to cover it all in a single blog post; indeed, it seems likely that his music will be the subject of considerable academic study in the future.
What we can do, though, is help you at least get acquainted with his music, starting with a couple of clips from early in his career, when he was still leading a band that at least superficially resembled a small jazz combo, followed by some performances from the past decade using some of the ideas he's developed for the 21st century.
The first clip up above shows Braxton with the first band he put together after the demise of Circle (because Corea had gone off to form Return to Forever). It included trumpeter Kenny Wheeler plus Holland on bass and Altschul on drums. Here, they're playing Braxton's "Composition 40M," as recorded in July 1975 at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
After the jump, you can see Braxton offering his take on Coltrane's "Impressions," recorded in 1981 at the Woodstock Jazz Festival with Miroslav Vitous on bass, Corea on piano and Jack DeJohnette on drums.
Fast-forward to July 2008 for the third video, which features Braxton's Ghost Trance Septet performing his "Composition 348" at the San Sebastian Jazz Festival in Spain. The leader/composer is on various reeds, along with Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet, flugelhorn), Jessica Pavone (viola), Chris Dahlgren (bass, cello), Aaron Siegel (drums, percussion, vibes), Mary Halvorson (guitar), and Jay Rozen (tuba).
Next up is a a recording of the Braxton's 12+1Tet, made on October 13, 2012 at the Festival Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea in Venice, Italy. The piece is called "Composition 355," and it features Braxton, Bynum, Pavone, Halvorson, Rozen and Siegel, plus Ingrid Laubrock (alto sax, tenor sax), Andrew Raffo Dewar (soprano sax, tenor sax, clarinet), James Fei (alto sax, soprano sax, sopranino sax), Sarah Schoenbeck (bassoon, shenai), Reut Regev (trombone), Erica Dicker (violin, baritone violin), and Carl Testa (bass, bass clarinet).
That's followed by a set of just Braxton, Halvorson and Bynum, aka the Diamond Curtain Wall Trio, recorded in January 2015 at Jazzhouse in Copenhagen, Denmark, and one from Braxton's ZIM Sextet, featuring many of the same musicians mentioned above, recorded in 2017 at the Moers Festival in Germany.
The final video is a nearly hour-long interview with Braxton, done in 2013 by percussionist Gerry Hemingway, who toured and recorded with Braxton in the 1980s and 90s.
This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features the much-anticipated local debut of the iconic saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and conceptualist Anthony Braxton, plus some superlative mainstream jazz piano from an NEA Jazz Master, new music from an adventurous, genre-busting guitarist, and more.
Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, October 3
Pianist Kenny Barron(pictured, top left) and his trio will perform for the first of five nights at Jazz St. Louis.
Barron, named an NEA Jazz Master in 2010, has played with many jazz greats over the last 50+ years, and also is known as a premiere interpreter of the music of Thelonious Monk, thanks in large part to his membership in the group Sphere in the 1980s and 90s. You can see some samples of more recent performances by Barron, with his trio and playing solo, in this post from last Saturday.
Thursday, October 4
The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University will present a free concert of "Early Jazz & Blues - Music of the St. Louis Riverboats" as performed by an ensemble including trumpeter Randy Holmes, guitarist William Lenihan, trombonist Wayne Coniglio, saxophonist Paul DeMarinis, drummer Steve Davis, pianist Ken Kehner, and bassist Paul Steinbeck.
Then on Saturday night, guitarist Brandon Seabrook brings his new trio to the Schlafly Tap Room, with locals Pat Sajak Assassins and Apathist opening the show.
Seabrook (pictured, center left) explicitly incorporates metal and punk influences into his improvisations, sounding quite unlike most traditional conceptions of "jazz guitar."
Later on Sunday, drummer Montez Coleman's "Jazz All-Stars" will team up with the Coleman Hughes Project for two performances of the "Music of Grover Washington & Phyllis Hyman" at .ZACK in Grand Center.
Monday, October 8 New Music Circle presents the St. Louis debut of multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton, who will be performing with harpist Jacqueline Kerrod at St. Louis University's Xavier Hall.
It's a little hard to believe that Braxton (pictured, bottom left), who's traveled around the world playing music many times over the last 50 years, has never done a gig here before, even in the late-1960s heyday of the Black Artists Group. But according to NMC, StLJN's own research, and a consultation with St. Louis jazz historian Dennis Owsley, that seems to be the case.
Still, better late than never, and on Monday, the St. Louis audience finally will get a chance to hear in person one of the most talked-about (and often, argued-about) composers, improvisors and thinkers in contemporary music. StLJN will have more on Braxton in this week's Saturday video post...
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 week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features a concert of music written for the movies by one of the greatest composers and bandleaders in jazz; a tribute to two of the most successful bands in jazz/fusion; a brand-new work created by a St. Louis expat for more than 20 local musicians, and more. Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, November 8
Jazz St Louis presents "Duke Ellington and Film," a free event at Jazz at the Bistro featuring Dr. John Hasse, who's the curator of American music at the Smithsonian Institute, and the Jazz St. Louis Big Band.
Hasse will give a presentation about Ellington's involvement with movies, and then the band will play some of the music the maestro wrote for films such as Anatomy of a Murder, the musical short Black and Tan Fantasy, Check and Double Check, Paris Blues, and Assault on a Queen.
Also in Grand Center, the weekly "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features cornetist TJ Muller at The Stage at KDHX, a jam session at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor at The Dark Room.
Also on Thursday, bassist and educator Jim Widner's big band will play at the Bistro; and the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University presents a free concert from singer Joe Mancuso's trio plus guest saxophonist Freddie Washington.
Saturday, November 11
Wrapping up his New Music Circle residency, John Wiese will lead a cast of more than 20 local musicians in a new, site-specific work created for this performance at University Theatre in St. Louis University's Xavier Hall. You can find out more about Wiese and see video of some of his solo performances in this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.
Also on Saturday, singer Tony Viviano will offer a tribute to military veterans at Candicci's; and the Gaslight Cabaret Festival wraps up their fall series with a sold-out show featuring singer and Tony Award-nominated actress Emily Skinner doing "Broadway Her Way" at the Gaslight Theater. (Though the show is sold out, you can get on the wait list for notifications of any last-minute ticket availability by sending an email to sales@licketytix.com.)
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.)
Wiese, who was born in Kansas, grew up in St. Louis, and now lives in Los Angeles, is an "artist, composer, publisher of books and records, graphic designer, typographer, and various other things" who has been called "one of the last decade’s most sophisticated and accomplished sound artists" by Vice.com.
According to the descriptive copy on New Music Circle's website, Wiese "doesn’t really think of himself as a musician in the traditional sense, and instead of writing purely notated music he works with manipulating, cutting and arranging sounds electronically. The end product is more like a meticulous collage, built upon dense, nuanced sounds ranging from the minimal to the frenetic."
Since graduating from the California Institute of the Arts in 2001, Wiese has performed at venues and festivals all over the United States, Europe and Japan, and has released hundreds of recordings as a solo artist, collaborator, and under pseudonyms and/or project names including Sissy Spacek and Bastard Noise.
For his St. Louis performance, he has created a new site-specific work that will include more than 20 local musicians. And in addition to his concert, Wiese also will take part in several other events while he's in town, including a public presentation on Wednesday, November 8 at Washington University and a screening of some of his short films on Thursday, December 9 at the Moolah Theatre. (You can see the complete list of collaborating players and associated events here.)
Since it's impossible to show videos of a piece that hasn't premiered yet, today's collection of clips instead offers a chance to check out Wiese's general aesthetic via several of his solo performances, starting up above with an excerpt from a show in April 2015 at Pariah in Dallas, TX.
After the jump you can see two more excerpts from performances in 2014 and 2013 at the Los Angeles art gallery 356 S. Mission Rd, and excerpts from shows at the Debacle Fest 2013 in Seattle and a performance in March 2012 in Cork, Ireland.
Finally, you can see a short video interview with Wiese (complete with French subtitles) from 2016, and a 2014 clip in which he goes shopping at Amoeba Music in Hollywood as part of their "What's In My Bag?" web series.
