So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's StLJN's latest wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:

* Guitarist Eddie Roberts (pictured) of The New Mastersounds, who will perform tomorrow night at Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, was interviewed by KDHX's Chris Lawyer.

* Saxophonist David Sanborn was a guest Tuesday morning on KMOX's Charlie Brennan program, and was interviewed about his performance tonight at The Sheldon.

* The collaborative production of "Such Sweet Thunder" staged earlier this month in Grand Center, which featured music from the Jazz St. Louis Big Band, was reviewed on HEC-TV's Two on the Aisle.

* Stanley Nelson, director of the new documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, was interviewed by Arts Today magazine.

* On a related note, the latest reviews of Nelson's film include pieces by Adam Sieff of London Jazz News and Josh Terry for Deseret News.

* Also on the Miles Davis beat, Jazz Times magazine is conducting a reader giveaway, offering a package of Davis-related prizes including a copy of his new album Rubberband, a T-shirt, and more. You can enter the giveaway here.

* Finally, an article on the website Something Else! looks back and asks, "50 Years Ago: Who Tried to Kill Miles Davis on a New York City Street?"

Jazz this week: David Sanborn, Norman Brown's "Summer Storm," The New Mastersounds, Diego Figueiredo, and more

It's a jam-packed week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with notable shows including a homecoming for one of our city's favorite sons, plus sounds from a visiting Broadway star, a British funk band, a Brazilian guitarist, and much more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, October 16
Singer and actress Rachel Bay Jones, known as one of the stars of the Broadway show Dear Evan Hansen, performs for the first of two nights at Jazz St. Louis as part of their series of co-presentations with Cabaret Project of St. Louis.

Nearby in Grand Center, the weekly "Wednesday Night Jazz Crawl" features Sweet & Low (guitarists Adam Wilke and Celia Shacklett) at The Stage at KDHX; the jam session hosted by bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center; and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's quartet at The Dark Room.

Thursday, October 17
Guitarist Bob Lanzetti of Snarky Puppy will perform at Pop's Blue Moon; and the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University presents a free concert of Argentinian and Brazilian music, featuring pianist Ken Kehner, guitarist William Lenihan, bassist Joseph Lepore, and drummer Steve Davis with Amy Greenhalgh (violin), Ranya Iqbal (cello), and Victoria Voumard (viola).

Also on Thursday, saxophonist Andy Ament leads a trio at The Pat Connolly Tavern, and keyboardist Ryan Marquez returns to The Dark Room.

Friday, October 18
Saxophonist David Sanborn (pictured, top left) will be back home again for a performance at The Sheldon, helping to celebrate the completion and official debut of a plaza, walkway and vertical garden on the west side of the hall.

Also on Friday, Brazilian guitarist Diego Figueiredo (pictured, center left) will perform with backing from bassist and singer Janet Evra's quartet at the Grandel Theatre; and Jazz St. Louis will be "Celebrating Ella Fitzgerald" for the first of two nights with singer Anita Jackson, pianist Adaron "Pops" Jackson, bassist Jahmal Nichols, drummer Montez Coleman and saxophonist Ben Reece.

Elsewhere around town, the Original Knights of Swing plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; singer Jan Shapiro returns to the Ozark Theatre; and trumpeter Jim Manley will play a late evening gig at Sophie's Artist Lounge & Cocktail Club.

Saturday, October 19
British funk/jazz group The New Mastersounds (pictured, bottom left) returns for a performance at the Atomic Cowboy Pavilion.

They're celebrating their 20th anniversary as a band with a new album, Shake It, released last month, and a tour featuring guest vocalist Lamar Williams, Jr. For more about Shake It plus some videos of recent performances, take a look at this post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, guitarist Norman Brown and his "Summer Storm" show, featuring saxophonist Euge Groove, singer Lindsay Webster, and the Coleman Hughes Project, will play two shows at the Grandel Theatre; pianist Geoffrey Keezer leads a trio in a concert at Open Studio in Grand Center's Centene Center for the Arts; and the New Orleans Suspects are back in town to play at the Broadway Oyster Bar.

Sunday, October 20
Miss Jubilee performs for jazz brunch at Evangeline's, while guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran returns to The Dark Room.

Also on Sunday, the St. Louis Jazz Club presents the Arcadia Dance Orchestra at the Moolah Shrine Center's Oasis Room.

Tuesday, October 21
Pianist and singer Jesse Gannon plays at BB's Jazz, Blues and 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: "Shake It" with The New Mastersounds

This week, we're checking out some videos featuring The New Mastersounds, who will be coming to St. Louis to perform next Saturday, October 19 at the Atomic Cowboy Pavilion.

A funk/jazz quartet with a stripped-down sound that's been compared to the Meters, Booker T and the MGs, and St. Louis' own Grant Green, The New Mastersounds - guitarist and bandleader Eddie Roberts, drummer Simon Allen, bassist Pete Shand, and keyboardist Joe Tatton - last played here in May 2016, also at Atomic Cowboy.

This time around, they're celebrating their 20th year as a band, plus the release of a new album, Shake It, which came out in September on Roberts' new Color Red label. The new album and their current tour also are their first to feature vocalist Lamar Williams Jr. (whose dad played bass with the Allman Brothers Band and Sea Level).

You can see the Mastersounds with Williams in the first video up above, a mini-set recorded in May of this year at Paste Studio in NYC that features the songs "Let's Go Back," "Shake It" and "Love They Deserve."

After the jump, there's a full set of music, recorded in September at Terminal West in Atlanta, that includes all the songs from Shake It.

That's followed by another full set of music, recorded in July at Ardmore Music Hall in Philadelphia.

The last three videos depict live-in-the-studio performances that were part of the Mastersounds' immediately previous album The Nashville Sessions 2, released last November. Like the original Nashville Sessions album, it was recorded live-to-tape in a single session before a small audience at Welcome to 1979 Studios in Nashville, with the results including the tracks seen here, "Yokacoka," "All I Want (Right Now)" and "3 on the B."

For more about The New Mastersounds, check out Eddie Roberts' interview last year with Jambase.com and an interview he did around the same time with "The Sound Podcast with Ira Haberman."

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

Rebirth Brass Band, The New Mastersounds returning this fall to Atomic Cowboy

Atomic Cowboy today announced two bookings of interest of StLJN readers.

New Orleans' Rebirth Brass Band (pictured) will return to St. Louis to perform at 7:00 p.m. Friday, September 6 at the venue's outdoor pavilion.

Their most recent recording, which was boosted considerably by the group's appearances in the HBO series Treme, is 2014's Move Your Body. They last played here in September 2017, also at the Atomic Cowboy.

Tickets for Rebirth Brass Band at the Atomic Cowboy are $20 in advance, $23 day of show, and are on sale now.

The following month, the British instrumental funk/jazz quartet The New Mastersounds will be back in town to play at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, October 19, also at the outdoor pavilion.

The group will be touring in celebration of their 20th year as a band, with singer Lamar Williams Jr., -  son of late Allman Brothers Band bassist Lamar Williams and featured vocalist on their 2018 single "Trouble" - along as a guest performer.

The New Mastersounds put out two albums last year, Renewable Energy and The Nashville Session 2, the latter being a followup to 2016's The Nashville Session using the same live-in-the-studio format. Their last St. Louis appearance was in May 2016 at Atomic Cowboy.

Tickets for The New Mastersounds at Atomic Cowboy are $20 in advance, $25 day of show, and also are on sale now.

Jazz this week: Freddy Cole & Harry Allen, Eric Marienthal, The New Mastersounds, and more

There are a number of notable shows from visiting jazz and creative music performers coming up this week in St. Louis, offering something for fans of genres ranging from straight-ahead swing to fusion to experimental, free improv, and more. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, May 25
Pianist and singer Freddy Cole and his band, teamed once again with tenor saxophonist Harry Allen, return to Jazz at the Bistro for the first evening of a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday.

Cole (pictured top left, with Allen) shares a number of musical virtues with his older brother, the late Nat "King" Cole, including a relaxed vocal style, a sure sense of swing as a pianist, and an appreciation of classic popular songs, but he's managed to chart his own course as a musician, acknowledging his brother's influence without being dominated by it.

Add in the saxophone stylings of Allen, whose playing has been influenced by Swing Era giants like Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, and Paul Gonsalves, and the result should be four nights of satisfying old-school sounds.

Also on Wednesday, pianist Phil Dunlap and his quintet will play for the monthly music series at the World Chess Hall of Fame.

Thursday, May 26
Saxophonist Eric Marienthal (pictured, center left) will join St. Louis' own Bach to the Future for a free concert at the Chesterfield Amphitheater.

Also on Thursday, the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound closes out their St. Louis season with a performance at the Sheldon Concert Hall, featuring music from their "Alarm System" collaborations with Medeski, Martin and Wood, composers Tyondai Braxton and Mira Calix, and others.

Elsewhere around town, the Tavern of Fine Arts will host their monthly "Experimental Arts Open Improv Night" with live improvised music; the Saint Boogie Brass Band plays an early evening show at Taze Mediterranean Street Food downtown; and guitarist Vincent Varvel lead a trio at Evangeline's.

Friday, May 27
The annual Glendale Jazz Festival will feature sets from the St. Louis Big Band with singer Joe Scalzitti plus singer and pianist Anita Rosamond and R&B vocalist Coco Soul on an outdoor stage at Glendale City Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Meanwhile, downtown on the riverfront, percussionist and composer Eli Keszler will headline a multi-artist bill of experimental and improvising musicians including Marissa Anderson, 18&Counting with Charles "Bobo" Shaw, Demonlover, Ghost Ice, and more at the William A Kerr Foundation on Laclede's Landing.

Also on Friday, trumpeter Kasimu Taylor leads a quartet at Bossanova Martini Lounge and Restaurant in Alton, and guitarist Tom Byrne and Have U Heard? will play music inspired by Pat Metheny at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Saturday, May 28
In what's being billed as a dual display of "extreme saxophone," the saxophonists PedroSaxo and Derek Brown will show off their extensive repertoires of extended techniques in a free afternoon performance and workshop at Saxquest.

Saturday evening, The New Mastersounds (pictured, bottom left) will perform at The Bootleg at the Atomic Cowboy.

The British funk/jazz quartet is touring in support of The Nashville Sessions, their latest album that was released last month. For more about that, plus some video samples of them in action, see this post from last Saturday.

Also on Saturday, singer Erin Bode will celebrate the release of her new album with a concert at Lindenwood University's J. Scheidegger Center for the Arts; singer Joe Mancuso brings his organ trio to The Dark Room; The Wire Pilots play original fusion music at the Tavern of Fine Arts; and saxophonist Rhoda G and singer Ralph Williams will be the featured performers for "Jazz in Paris" at the Jones Banquet Plaza in Fairview Heights.

Sunday, May 29
As often happens on major holidays, the live music offerings around town thin out quite a bit in the latter half of the Memorial Day weekend, but you can still hear some jazz for Sunday brunch, courtesy of trumpeter Jim Manley at Nathalie's and/or Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes at Evangeline's.

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: Back to basics with The New Mastersounds

This week, let's check out some videos of the British funk/jazz quartet The New Mastersounds, who will be performing in St. Louis next Saturday, May 28 at The Bootleg at the Atomic Cowboy.

Known for stripped-down funk in the vein of the Meters, Booker T and the MGs, and St. Louis' own Grant Green, The New Mastersounds - guitarist and bandleader Eddie Roberts, drummer Simon Allen, bassist Pete Shand, and keyboardist Joe Tatton - have played here a couple of times before at the Old Rock House, most recently in October of 2015.

At that time, they were touring in support of their then-new album Made for Pleasure, and now, surprising many observers, they've already released a follow-up, The Nashville Sessions, which came out in April.

Remaking and rearranging songs from their early catalog, this latest album is was recorded live-to-tape in a single session before a small audience at Welcome to 1979 Studios in Nashville, using only the four core members of the band with no guest musicians or singers.

You can get a taste of the music from that recording in the video up above, which documents the performance of "In The Middle" from The Nashville Sessions.

After the jump, you can check out four live performances recorded during the weekend of February 18 & 19 of this year at The Independent in San Francisco, starting with "Give It Up" and continuing with "Afro Metropolis," "This Ain't Work," and "All Wrapped Up."

The final video is a cover of Phish's "Cars Trucks Buses," a song that originally was recorded last year for the website Live For Live Music, and subsequently has found its way into some of The New Mastersounds' recent live sets.

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

The New Mastersounds to play Saturday, May 28 at The Bootleg

The British funk quartet The New Mastersounds are coming back to St. Louis to play an outdoor concert at 8:00 p.m., Saturday, May 28 at The Bootleg at Atomic Cowboy, 4140 Manchester in the Grove neighborhood. The New Orleans-based band The Nth Power will open the show.

The New Mastersounds (pictured) last played St. Louis in October 2016 at the Old Rock House, touring in support of their most recent album Made for Pleasure, which was released that month.

No prices have been announced yet, but tickets for the May 28 show at The Bootleg will go on sale at 10 a.m. this Friday, April 15 via TicketWeb.

Jazz this week: Adam Larson, Lettuce, Youngblood Brass Band, March Fourth!, The New Mastersounds, and more

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in and around St. Louis features a couple of different acts purveying instrumental funk, a saxophone phenom working in the modern jazz mainstream, a mutant marching band, and, as the saying goes, much, much more.

Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, October 14
Up-and-coming saxophonist Adam Larson will play the first of two nights with his quartet at Jazz at the Bistro. Originally from Normal, IL, Larson (pictured, top left) graduated from Manhattan School of Music and now is based in NYC. He's recorded three albums as leader, the latest of which, Selective Amnesia, is scheduled for release next month.

Also on Wednesday, Franglais, featuring singer Eve Seltzer, will play Gypsy jazz at Nathalie's

Thursday, October 15
Singer Denise Thimes will present the 10th annual fundraiser for the Mildred Thimes Foundation, which raises money for research to fight pancreatic cancer, at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Standup comic and radio personality Monique Marvez will be Thimes' special guest.

Also on Thursday, the Gaslight Cabaret Festival resumes with Shanara Gabrielle, a graduate of Webster University's theater program and now a working actress who will be making her cabaret debut with the show "Rated SG" at the Gaslight Theater.

Friday, October 16
The funk/jazz/jam band Lettuce (pictured, center left) returns for the first time since last year's LouFest, touring in support of their just-released album Crush, for a performance at The Pageant; and the Coleman Hughes Project, featuring singer Adrienne Felton, will play smooth jazz and R&B in the first of two nights of their debut gig at Jazz at the Bistro.

Elsewhere around town, the Gaslight Cabaret Festival continues with the acapella group One Too Many at the Gaslight Theater; Second Generation Swing plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; and Tim Cunningham continues what's now being billed as a ongoing weekly gig at Troy's Jazz Gallery

Saturday, October 17
The Spiritual Revolution Ensemble will team up with poets Mama Blue and Pacia Anderson to pay tribute to Ornette Coleman in a fundraiser for the Yeyo Arts Collective; Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes return to the Venice Cafe; and singer Chuck Flowers will perform his cabaret show "Songs I Came Up With" at the Gaslight Theater.

Sunday, October 18
Youngblood Brass Band, a Wisconsin-based group that filters the New Orleans brass band tradition through hip-hop and punk, plays at 2720 Cherokee.

Monday, October 19
With between 15 and 20 members at any given time, Portland, OR's MarchFourth! (pictured, lower left) will no doubt fill the stage at the Old Rock House, looking something like a fun-house mirror version of a marching band augmented by dancers and stilt-walkers, with a percussion- and brass-heavy sound that defies easy categorization.

For some video samples of what this looks and sounds like in a live situation, check out this video post from last Saturday.

Tuesday, October 20
The British funk quartet The New Mastersounds bring their Meters-esque funk to the Old Rock House, while new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound begins their fourth St. Louis season at the Sheldon Concert Hall with a program of music from composers under age 40.

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: Fall 2015 jazz preview, part 3

Today, it's the third part of StLJN's video preview of jazz and creative music performers coming to St. Louis this fall. (You can see part 1 here, and part 2 here.)

Continuing from last time in chronological order, we resume in mid-October with the New Mastersounds, who will be here Tuesday, October 20 to play at the Old Rock House. You can see them at the top of this post jamming on the tune "Dusty Groove" in a video recorded in June of this year at a gig in Oakland, CA.

After the jump, there's a video featuring guitarist Kevin Eubanks, who will perform with his trio Wednesday, October 21 through Saturday, October 24 at Jazz at the Bistro. It's an episode of the Voice of America's program "Beyond Category" that features footage of Eubanks playing with his trio as well as an interview with former "Tonight Show" bandleader.

Next up is singer Banu Gibson, who will perform a program of Randy Newman songs in a matinee on Sunday, October 25 at the Sheldon Concert Hall. The video shows Gibson singing "It's A Jungle Out There" - written by Newman as the theme for the TV show "Monk" - earlier this year at The Mint, in New Orleans, accompanied by former St. Louisan Tom McDermott on piano and Matt Perrine on sousaphone.

The next two clips feature performers from the Gaslight Cabaret Festival, starting with singer Lina Koutrakos and singer/pianist Rick Jensen, who will return to St. Louis to perform Sunday, October 25 at the Gaslight Theater. The first clip features Koutrakos singing "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" with Jensen on piano, and was recorded in 2013 at the Metropolitan Room in NYC.

Then it's singer Kat Edmonson, who's booked to appear on Thursday, October 29 and Friday, October 30 at the Gaslight Theater. This version of her singing "Rainy Day Woman" was recorded in March 2015 for radio station WNRN in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Last but certainly not least, it's the veteran tenor saxophonist Houston Person, who will be coming back to town for gigs on Friday, October 30 and Saturday, October 31 at Jazz at the Bistro. In this clip, Person and pianist Joe Alterman's trio, with James Cammack on bass and Gregory Hutchinson on drums, work out on "Kelly's Blues" at a gig back in August 2012 at Jazz At Lincoln Center's Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.

Look for part 4 of StLJN's Fall 2015 jazz preview here next week. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

The New Mastersounds returning to Old Rock House on Tuesday, October 20

The British funk/jazz quartet The New Mastersounds will return to St. Louis to perform on Tuesday, October 20 at the Old Rock House.

The group (pictured) will be touring in support of a new album, Made For Pleasure, that's set for release on Friday, October 2.

According to the press release, "The New Mastersounds core four—guitarist Eddie Roberts, drummer Simon Allen, bassist Pete Shand and organist Joe Tatton—are joined on the 11-track effort by guests including soul chanteuse Charly Lowry, revered percussionist/vibraphonist Mike Dillon and the North Cali-based West Coast Horns, featuring tenor saxophonist Joe Cohen and trumpeter Mike Olmos." You can hear the title track from the album here.

Drawing inspiration from the Meters, Booker T and the MGs, and 1970s funk, the New Mastersounds have been playing clubs and festivals on the jam-band circuit here in the US for several years, but this will be just their second St. Louis gig ever after making their debut here last June, also at the ORH.

Tickets for the all-ages show will be $20 in advance, $23 day of show, and will go on sale at 9:00 a.m. this Friday, August 7.

Updated after posting with more info on the new album release.

Jazz this week: Peter Brötzmann Trio, Peter Martin & Vivian Sessoms, Kurt Elling, New Mastersounds, Jamie Cullum, and more

It's the first week of a new month, and a very busy one for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with several noteworthy headliners in town. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, the all-star free jazz trio of saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, drummer Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker (pictured) performs at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center.

If you have any interest at all in free jazz, this concert is an absolute must-see, as all three of the players are adventurous, uncompromising improvisors with international reputations, and this is their first tour together in more than a decade. You can find out more and hear all three musicians, together and apart, via this recent Saturday video showcase post.

Also tonight, Chicago's Lowdown Brass Band will be at the Broadway Oyster Bar with the Funky Butt Brass Band as opening act; and pianist Peter Martin leads a quartet plus special guest singer Vivian Sessoms to kick off this year's Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

For more about that show and what else Martin has coming up in the near future, check out this article by Terry Perkins for St. Louis Public Radio.

On Thursday, Sessoms and Martin's trio will team up for another performance, this time spotlighting Sessoms in the intimate confines of the Kranzberg Arts Center.

Also on Thursday, the New Orleans Suspects, featuring musicians associated with the Neville Brothers, the Radiators, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and James Brown, will be back in town to play at the Broadway Oyster Bar; and Good 4 The Soul returns for their monthly gig at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

On Friday, singer Kurt Elling, who's become a local favorite thanks to numerous appearances over the years at Jazz at the Bistro, will make his debut at the Sheldon Concert Hall, performing in a benefit for the Sheldon Art Galleries. Some concert-only tickets may still be available; call the Sheldon directly at 314-533-9900 for details.

Also on Friday, the British funk/jazz quartet The New Mastersounds will play at the Old Rock House, with Dopapod as opening act. For more about them, plus some performance videos, see this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Elsewhere around town on Friday, percussionist Craig Russo's Latin Jazz Project, based up the road in the Champaign/Urbana area, will be back in St. Louis to play at Robbie's House of Jazz; and guitarist Brian Vaccaro's trio will serve as the nucleus for the first in a prospective series of jam sessions at The Wolf in West County.

On Saturday, Carolbeth True and Two Times True are at Robbie's House of Jazz, and Miss Jubilee plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom.

Then on Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis Jazz Club will present pianist Pat Joyce and his "All-Stars" at the DoubleTree Hotel at Westport. Joyce will be aided and abetted by Jerry Epperson (reeds), Bob Ceccarini (trumpet), Jay Hungerford (bass), Joe Berger (drums) and Cody Henry (trombone).

Sunday evening, singer and pianist Jamie Cullum will be back in St. Louis for the first time in four years to perform at The Pageant. For more about Cullum and his latest album Momentum, plus recent performance videos and interviews, see this post from last Saturday.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday Dean Christopher brings his "Rat Pack & More" show back to One 19 North Tapas & Wine Bar, and percussionist Joe Pastor returns to 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: Meet The New Mastersounds

Today, let's get acquainted with the British funk/jazz group The New Mastersounds, who are coming to St. Louis to play on Friday, June 6 at the Old Rock House.

Drawing inspiration from the Meters, Booker T and the MGs, 1960s soul-jazz, and James Brown's various rhythm sections, The New Mastersounds were formed in 1999 in Leeds by guitarist/bandleader Eddie Roberts, drummer Simon Allen and bassist Pete Shand, with Joe Totten replacing the original keyboardist in 2007.

With more than a dozen albums out - their latest, Therapy, was released earlier this year - The New Mastersounds also keep up a busy touring schedule at home and abroad. Here in the USA, they've played clubs and small theaters, opened for bigger acts such as the Headhunters and the Greyboy All-Stars, and seem to have found steady work at various festivals associated with the jam band scene. (Given how long they've been around, it seems like they ought to have played St. Louis at some point before now, but confirmation of that has proved elusive so far.)

At any rate, today's collection of clips should provide an ample sampling of sounds for both current fans and the curious, starting with the first video "Monday Meters," a live-in-the-studio version of one of the songs from their new album.

Down below the jump, you'll find versions of "Freckles" and "Burnt Back" recorded in November 2012 at a gig in Denver. Below that, there's a five-song excerpt from their set in November 2013 at the Bear Creek Festival, featuring versions of "Run The Gauntlet," "On The Border," "Stop This Game," "Morning Fly" and "Soulshine."

And if after that you're in the mood to hear more, you can check out full sets from The New Mastersounds in the last two videos, recorded in June 2013 at the LOHI Music Festival in Denver and in June 2012 at the Barkley Ballroom in Frisco, CO.

For more about The New Mastersounds and Therapy, check out this feature published in March by the blog Roots and Beats.

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

The New Mastersounds to perform Friday, June 6 at Old Rock House

The British funk/jazz group The New Mastersounds are coming to St. Louis to perform at 9:30 p.m., Friday, June 6 at the Old Rock House.

Doors for the 18+ show will open at 8:30 p.m., with the genre-hopping quartet Dopapod serving as the supporting act.

Led by guitarist Eddie Roberts, The New Mastersounds (pictured) were formed in 1999 in Leeds, and currently include Roberts and fellow founding members Simon Allen (drums) and Pete Shand (bass), plus keyboardist Joe Totten, who joined in 2007. While their sound owes an obvious debt to the Meters, they incorporate a number of other influences as well, with some tracks evoking vibes similar to fellow UK funksters Brian Auger or the Average White Band.

The New Mastersounds have released a dozen albums on their own, and also have collaborated with other artists in the UK and USA on various singles and one-offs. They've toured extensively in Europe and Asia and here in the USA, playing clubs, small theaters, and festivals and opening larger gigs for the likes of the Headhunters and the Greyboy All-Stars. 

Tickets for The New Mastersounds at Old Rock House are $17 in advance, $20 day of show, and are on sale now.