Jazz this week: Sonny Rollins, Chris Botti, Trio 3, Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival, St. Louis Rivermen, and more

There's lots going on in St. Louis over the next few days, as it's the busiest weekend of the fall so far for jazz and creative music. Let's go to the highlights:

Tonight, local funk/hip-hop band Fresh Heir does a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.

On Friday, trumpeter Chris Botti returns to town to perform at the Fox Theatre, making good on a date that was postponed from last year. (You can read a brief preview of Botti's show that I wrote for the Riverfront Times here.)

Also on Friday, drummer Stan Hale's new group debuts at Robbie's House of Jazz, featuring Hale, bassist David Certain, saxophonist Ben Reece, singer Renee Smith, and yr. humble StLJN editor on keyboards. We'll be playing a mix of straight-ahead and soul/jazz with occasional Latin touches.

Saturday features three major events worthy of your time and attention, starting with the long-anticipated performance by saxophone legend Sonny Rollins (pictured) in a concert sponsored by Jazz St. Louis at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. For more about Rollins, check out StLJN's previous coverage here, and also this short preview piece from this week's Riverfront Times.

Also on Saturday, the Nu-Art Series presents Trio 3 with Oliver Lake, Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille at Luna Bar in the Central West End. For more about Trio 3, see these two posts, as well as this recent interview done with Lake before a solo gig in Sacramento, CA.

As if choosing between those two shows wasn't enough of a dilemma, Saturday is also the day of this year's Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival, a free, all-day event held in the business district near Lockwood and Gore in Webster Groves.

Jazz acts in this year's lineup include Two Times True, with pianist Carolbeth True; Standard Time, with guitarist Rick Haydon, singer Mardra Thomas and pianist Reggie Thomas; the Matthew Von Doran Trio; Webster University Faculty Jazz Band; Webster Groves High School Jazz Band; Wild, Cool & Swingin'; and the Funky Butt Brass Band. There's also the St. Louis Jazz & Blues Revue, a group assembled for the festival that includes Anita Rosamond (vocals, keyboard), Rich McDonough (guitar), Jesse Gannon (keyboard, vocals), Phil Burton (bass, vocals), Joe Meyer (drums), Lew Winer III (saxophones, vocals) and Rob Endicott (trumpet, flugelhorn). The Revue will pay tribute to St. Louis musical legends including Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Fontella Bass, Ike & Tina Turner, Jimmy Forrest and Albert King.

Also note that just down the street from the festival's Allen Avenue stage, the Robert Edwards Big Band will hold forth Saturday evening at Robbie's House of Jazz. For more about the new club and Edwards' big band, see this piece I did for the Riverfront Times "A to Z" music blog.

On Sunday, the St. Louis Jazz Club presents the St. Louis Rivermen in a concert of traditional New Orleans style jazz at at the Panorama Banquet Room of Bel-Air Bowl in Belleville.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Tuesday guitarist Todd Mosby will give a free concert and clinic at the Music Center of Kirkwood. (See this post for details.)

For more jazz and creative music events this weekend and beyond, check the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, available for viewing on the left sidebar or by clicking here.

(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.)

(Edited 9/18/09 to fix a typo and add tags.)

Jazz this week: Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, Sean Jones, John Jorgenson, Medeski Martin and Wood, FLOW, Dixie Daredevils, Stan Hale, and more

It's the busiest week so far this year for jazz and creative music performances in St. Louis, with a number of touring artists in town and a schedule of shows representing a wide variety of styles, from traditional jazz and big band to straight-ahead modern jazz to free improv, intermedia and more.

Let's go the highlights in chronological order, starting with this evening, when the acclaimed young trumpeter Sean Jones opens a four-night stand continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. Jones is considered by many to be a rising star among jazz trumpeters, and this weekend marks his St. Louis debut as a bandleader. For more on Jones and some video samples of his playing, see this post.

On Thursday, singer and pianist Anita Rosamond is doing a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University, backed by a group featuring keyboardist Nathan Jatcko, bassist Bob DeBoo, and drummer Jerry Mazucca. That same evening, the Detroit-based free improv duo of saxophonist Wally Shoup and percussionist Ben Hall will perform at Open Lot, 1310 S. 18th St, with opening sets from Dave Stone & Danny McClain and Brain Transplant.

On Friday, the public performance portion of the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival kicks off with a concert featuring guest artists Peter Erskine on drums and Lou Marini (pictured) on saxophone with the University of Missouri - St. Louis Jazz Ensemble at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. For some background on Erskine and some video samples of his playing, see this post. Also on Friday, the NYC-based saxophonist Kim Bock and his jazz organ trio FLOW will take the stage at The Gramophone.

Saturday brings some free educational opportunities for aspiring musicians during the morning and afternoon, with Erskine and trumpeter Jon Faddis each presenting free master classes at the Touhill while Bock and FLOW will be giving a free workshop and performance at Saxquest.

On Saturday night, the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival continues with a concert featuring Faddis, singer/guitarist John Pizzarelli and the UMSL Jazz Ensemble at the Touhill. For more about Faddis and some video samples of his playing, see this post.

Also on Saturday, guitarist John Jorgenson brings his Django Reinhardt-inspired quintet to the Sheldon Concert Hall. For some background on Jorgenson and a video sample of his playing, check out this post from when he was last in St. Louis in September 2007.

That same evening, New Music Circle will present a program at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium featuring videos created by Van McElwee, Roy Zurick and others with live musical accompaniment by S.A.N.E. (Semi-Acoustic Noise Ensemble), percussionist Rich O'Donnell, and friends

Sunday is another busy day, as the St. Louis Jazz Club presents a performance by the Peoria, IL-based traditional jazz band Dixie Daredevils at Bel Air Bowl in Belleville, and St. Louis Jazz and Blues Vespers ends its spring 2009 series with a free concert featuring guitarist Steve Schenkel and singer Ashley Mason at the Second Baptist Church.

Also on Sunday, veteran drummer Stan Hale is having a CD release event at the Jazz Spot to promote The Stan Hale Experience, his debut jazz recording as a leader. Hale's band for the show will feature Jeff Anderson on tenor sax, Tony Simmons on keyboards, Henry Taylor on guitar, and Jamal Nichols on bass, with vocals by Ralph Butler and Virginia Williams, and the $10 admission price includes a copy of the CD. (Full disclosure: Hale is a musical associate of yr. humble editor, and there's a possibility I may end up playing some intermission piano at this gig.)

Last, but not least, Sunday also is the pick day for jazz fans at this weekend's jam-band-oriented Loyal Earth Festival, with performances scheduled during the evening by the groovalicious organ trio Medeski Martin and Wood and pan-stylistic Chicago guitarist Fareed Haque of Garaj Mahal fame.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday the Sessions Big Band is back at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups, and on Tuesday, the ambient music duo Mountains will perform at Open Lot, while the David Wiatrolik Trio is set to perform at The Gramophone.

With so much going on, these are just some of the noteworthy shows happening around St. Louis over the next few days. To see more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

(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.)

Is jazz coming back to downtown St. Louis?

Though many jazz clubs have come and gone in downtown St. Louis over the decades, in recent years it's been tough to find live jazz in the figurative shadow of the Gateway Arch.

In the nearly four years I've been writing StLJN, jazz bookings at the Adams Mark Hotel's lounges and restaurants, once a staple there, first dwindled, and then were eliminated when the riverfront property was sold and re-flagged as a Hyatt Regency. Elsewhere downtown, BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups has continued to book the Sessions Big Band on Mondays, as well as occasional gigs on Sundays featuring locals such as Good 4 the Soul, Todd Mosby and Anita Rosamond, but it remains primarily a blues club. Also, a bit farther to the west, George Sams' Nu-Art Series has presented occasional jazz and creative music performances at the Metropolitan Gallery. Beyond that, though, live jazz in downtown St. Louis proper has been relatively scarce here in the 21st century.

(UPDATE: A reader emails to point out that the concerts put on by the now-defunct Black Artists Group revival in 2007 and 2008 at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site ought to be included in any accounting of recent jazz activity downtown, and he's right. Although BAG II didn't succeed in building a large audience, the efforts of the group, and particularly those of bassist and event producer Zimbabwe Nkenya, should not be forgotten.)

The deficit has not gone completely unnoticed. A couple of years ago, Jazz St. Louis made an attempt to establish a downtown beachhead of sorts, co-presenting a handful of free, cocktail-hour shows in conjunction with the Hilton at the Ballpark. Having played one of those gigs myself, backing singer Kim Massie, I can say based on first-hand observation that the hotel - how do I put this nicely? - did not seem strongly committed to making the series a success. As it turned out, the idea was abandoned after a few weeks.

More recently, though, there have been a few signs that jazz may be making something of a comeback in downtown St. Louis. Consider the following data points:

1) The St. Louis Jazz Cafe, located at 1500 St. Charles, and previously written about in this space here, here and here, appears to be on track for its grand opening celebration featuring music from Erin Bode this Saturday, March 21.

Someone associated with the cafe apparently has been reaching out to local food writers, as evidenced by these blog posts from the Riverfront Times and Sauce magazine, and Post-Dispatch pop music critic Kevin Johnson also mentioned the grand opening in a blog post here. (Curiously, any press releases intended for St. Louis Jazz Notes, and/or grand opening invitations for yr. humble editor, seem to have been mysteriously lost in the electronic ether and/or mail.)

The St. Louis Jazz Cafe also has updated parts of its Web site, particularly the music calendar, which now reveals who's booked for the first couple of weeks after the grand opening. 3 Central, a smooth jazz band seen in semi-regular rotation at the now-closed Cookie's Jazz and More, will play for the cafe's soft-opening "Friends and Family" night on Thursday, with the Usual Suspects taking over on subsequent Thursdays. (I'm reasonably certain that would be these Usual Suspects, fronted by keyboardist Charlie Brown and singer/saxophonist Jessica Butler, and not these Usual Suspects, who, save for a few videos on YouTube, seem to have evaporated without a trace in the two years since winning the RFT's "Best Cover Band" award.)

Other musical offerings now on the St. Louis Jazz Cafe calendar include the Neal Connors Trio, for the cafe's first Sunday brunch on March 22; Trio Tres Bien (pictured), who are set to appear on Saturday, March 28 and Friday, April 10; and Lamar Harris, who's booked on Saturday, April 4 and Friday, April 17. That's about as far as the calendar goes right now, though there is an RSS feed for those who'd like direct access to any updates.

2) St. Louis City Jazz, the fledgling not-for-profit organization whose mission statement, as their name suggests, involves "bringing live jazz back to the city of St. Louis," is presenting smooth jazz saxophonist Tim Cunningham at the Schlafly Brewery and Tap Room this Sunday, March 22. Cunningham plays from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., and tickets are $20 at the door.

3) Then there's the Jazz Spot, housed in the space at 400 N. Washington Ave. that once contained the Mandarin Bay restaurant, back when the surrounding hotel first opened a few years ago. The Jazz Spot came into being in 2008, when local real estate and media moguls the Roberts Brothers took over the hotel. However, to date, I haven't written anything about the place here on StLJN, because they haven't featured much in the way of actual jazz music.

Instead, the half-dozen groups listed on the club's Web site's "live music" page would seem to fall mostly into what might loosely be termed the "variety band" category, mixing jazz, R&B, pop, blues and other genres. Only one group listed there has its own Web site, the On Call Band, led by drummer Marty Spikener and saxophonist David Spruill. They're an entertaining band, featuring some good musicians, but not a jazz group per se; indeed, their own Web site emphasizes not their jazz chops, but their versatility, pitching them as able to play everything from blues to reggae.

That said, the Jazz Spot did present a show last October featuring singer and East St. Louis native Phil Perry, who works the boundary of smooth jazz and R&B, and the club will serve as the site for the upcoming CD release event for drummer Stan Hale, so perhaps they will yet begin booking live music on a regular basis that lives up to the implications of their name. For now, I'll be adding a link to the Jazz Spot's site, and to the site of the St. Louis Jazz Cafe, over on the StLJN sidebar, and keeping on eye on developments at both places.

Granted, these are but a handful of semi-random data points, there's a major recession happening, and a handful of shows do not a full-fledged resurgence make. But one would think jazz fans in St. Louis will be hoping for these new downtown presenters to meet with some success. It certainly would be good for local listeners, as well as tourists, left for for some time without adequate musical options in the heart of a city supposedly famous for its jazz heritage. And it would, of course, be good for St. Louis' jazz musicians, who can always use more work. For now, all we can do is wait and see what happens next.

Stan Hale CD release event set for Sunday, April 19

Drummer and St. Louis native Stan Hale will perform at a CD release party celebrating The Stan Hale Experience, his debut recording as a leader, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 19 at the Jazz Spot, 400 N. Washington Ave. in downtown St. Louis. Admission to the show is $10, and includes a copy of the CD.

Known primarily as a blues drummer, Hale has worked with a number of well-known musicians and singers, including Joe Louis Walker, Maria Muldaur, Son Seals, Charlie Musselwhite, Angela Strehli, Ronnie Baker Brooks, Alvin "Youngblood" Hart, Kenny Wayne, Theo Peoples, and many others.

The CD includes Hale's original jazz compositions "Few and Far Between," "Active Ingredient" and "Red, White and Blue" plus his arrangements of tunes such as Wayne Shorter's "Footprints," and the standards "My One and Only Love," "Lullaby of Birdland," "It Could Happen To You," and "My Heart Belongs To Daddy."

In addition to the leader on drums, the cast of musicians on The Stan Hale Experience CD includes Carolyn Day (piano), Henry Taylor (guitar) and Jeff Anderson (bass, tenor sax), plus vocalists Erika Johnson and Ben Garrett and rapper Zaire Imani. As for the CD release party, Hale says he's still putting together the band, but has already secured the services of singer Ralph Butler to handle vocals.

Hale added that the CD also will be available for purchase at local retailers, such as Vintage Vinyl and Webster Records, soon after the release event.

(Full disclosure: Yr. humble editor has played a number of gigs with Stan Hale over the past couple of years, both as part of Hale's own group and backing up singers such as Uvee Hayes and Renee Smith.)