Jazz this week: Jane Monheit, Miles Davis Jazz Festival with Russell Gunn, New Music Circle Showcase, Tammy McCann, and more

This week's menu of jazz and creative music offerings in St. Louis includes a number of special events, most notably the annual Miles Davis Jazz Festival in Alton, plus the long-awaited return of one of the more popular female vocalists in jazz.

That would be singer Jane Monheit, who's back in St. Louis to perform in a four-night engagement beginning this evening and continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro.

It's Monheit's first visit here since 2010 and this time, her show has a theme, "Celebrating the Jazz of Judy Garland." Though Garland wasn't known specifically as a jazz performer, the catalog of songs she recorded, ranging from uptempo numbers like "Get Happy" to ballads like "The Man That Got Away," certainly offers ample opportunities for Monheit and her trio to stretch out and explore emotional and musical nuances.

For more about what else Monheit has been up to since her last visit here, and some video samples from recent performances, see this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Tomorrow, KDHX will present their annual "Midwest Mayhem" event at the City Museum, with music from the Funky Butt Brass Band, Wack-A-Doo, The People's Key, and 16 more bands and DJs representing a variety of musical genres. 

Also on Thursday, guitarist Dave Black, singer Joe Mancuso and band will perform at Nathalie’s; and the World Chess Hall of Fame in the Central West End will celebrate their current exhibit about composer John Cage with a free performance of Cage’s "Reunion" featuring Lemp Neighborhood Art Center's Mark Sarich, Nathan Cook, Greg Farough and, somewhat surprisingly, Good 4 The Soul keyboardist Adaron "Pops" Jackson.

On Friday, Chicago's Tammy McCann, an alumna of Ray Charles' Raelettes who's also been working recently with Kurt Elling's former pianist Laurence Hobgood, will perform at Robbie's House of Jazz. Hobgood won't be on this gig, though, as McCann will be backed by a quartet including Tom Vaitsas (piano), John Sutton (bass), Sam Jewel (drums), and St. Louis' own Eric Slaughter on guitar.

Also on Friday, the Ambassadors of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; singer Feyza Eren and pianist Nathan Jatcko will duet at The Wine Press; and guitarist Vincent Varvel leads a trio at Tavern of Fine Arts.

On Saturday, the 2014 edition of the annual Miles Davis Jazz Festival takes place at the Jacoby Arts Center in Davis' birthplace of Alton, Illinois. This year's headliner is trumpeter Russell Gunn (pictured), the former East St. Louisan whose variegated catalog of recordings includes one explicitly paying tribute to Davis, as well as several albums of electric music that reflect some of the spirit of Davis' later years. Saxophonist Fred Walker and prog-rock band Locrian Manor are the supporting acts.

Also on Saturday, pianist Peter Martin performs in a benefit event for New City School; the WirePilots, featuring guitarist Dan Rubright, bassist Ric Vice, and percussionist Ted Rubright, play at the Kranzberg Arts Center; and smooth jazz/fusion ensemble The Freedom will take the stage at Thurman Grill.

On Sunday, Russell Gunn will cross the Mississippi, serving as the "special guest" for a gig nominally headed by drummer Montez Coleman at the Bistro at Grand Center; while down on Cherokee St., the Sidney Street Shakers will be playing pre-WWII style hot jazz for the monthly "South City Shuffle" event at Van Ella Studios.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday New Music Circle will present a free improv session at Blank Space with saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, drummer Tom Rainey, and an assortment of St. Louis musicians.

Then on Tuesday, Laubrock, Rainey and drummer Tyler Damon will be the visiting performers taking part in NMC's final concert of the season, aka the "New Music Circle Showcase," at the William A Kerr Foundation, 21 O'Fallon St on Laclede's Landing. Also joining in will be St. Louis guitarist Chris Trull and electronic musicians Kevin Harris and NNN Cook. For a look at and listen to the visitors improvising in various situations, check out this video post from last Saturday.

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: Improvising with Laubrock, Rainey & Damon

Today, we've got a series of videos featuring saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, drummer Tom Rainey and drummer Tyler Damon, who will be the visiting performers at New Music Circle's final concert of the season at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, May 20 at the William S. Kerr Foundation, 21 O'Fallon St. on Laclede's Landing.

Active in the NYC and international improvised music scenes, Laubrock and Rainey played in St. Louis last year as part of pianist Kris Davis' group. This time, they'll do a duo set, while Damon, who hails from Bloomington, Indiana, will team with two St. Louisans, guitarist Chris Trull of Yowie and electronic musician Kevin Harris. A solo performance by St. Louis sound artist Nathan Cook, aka N.N.N. Cook, will round out the event.

Keeping in mind that there's really no way to "preview" an evening of freely improvised music as such, the hope is that today's collected clips at least will convey a sense of each player's sound and some of the strategies and ideas used in their performances.

The first video up above is from a duo gig by Laubrock and Rainey in February of this year at the NYC performance space Barbès, with two more excerpts from the same show after the jump. As often happens with audience-shot clips, the video quality here isn't great, but the audio is more than satisfactory, and the clips certainly provide a ample taste of what they can get up to in this format.

Below that are two trio performances featuring Laubrock and Rainey. The first is a complete set also including Kris Davis on piano, recorded in October, 2011 at the Teatro Comunale in Cormòns, Italy. In the second clip, recorded a year earlier at the Jazz and More festival in Sibiu, Romania, Rainey and Laubrock are joined by guitarist Mary Halvorson.

As for Damon, he's not yet as well-known or well-traveled as Laubrock and Rainey, but his skills have been championed notably by St. Louis' Darin Gray, who, along with saxophonist Mars Williams, performed with the drummer in an NMC-sponsored concert last August at the St. Louis Art Museum.

Gray is featured along with Damon in the sixth clip, recorded in November 2012 at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, and the seventh and final video is an excerpt from a Damon solo performance last month at Dreamland in Louisville, KY.

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

Coming soon: Adam Larson, Chicago Afrobeat Project, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Jazz Festival, and more

The start of the month usually brings a flurry of gig announcements, and in recent days StLJN's inbox has been hit by news of several shows of interest:

* NYC free-jazz saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey, who both will be in town for New Music Circle's season-ending showcase on Tuesday, May 20, also will take part in an event NMC has added to the schedule at 7:00 p.m. Monday, May 19 at Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee.

Laubrock and Rainey will perform separate sets of improvised music and collaborate with local players including Mabel Suen (sax/guitar), Alex Cunningham (violin), Dave Stone (saxophone), and Joshua Weinstein (upright bass). The performance is free and open to the public.

* Steel pan player Jonathan Scales and his band Fourchestra will bring their jazz fusion sound back to the Kranzberg Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 24. Tickets are $10, $5 for students with ID.

* NYC-based sax phenom Adam Larson returns to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m., Saturday, May 24 at Robbie's House of Jazz, with support from Peter Schlamb (vibraphone), Nathan Pence (bass) and Joe Hibbs (drums). Admission is $10, $5 for students with ID, in advance via the club's website or at the door.

* The Chicago Afrobeat Project (pictured) returns to 2720 Cherokee at 9:00 p.m. Friday, May 30. Tickets for the 18+ show are $10, with a $3 surcharge for minors, and are on sale now.

* Singer Sarah Ulrich of Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes has gathered four local "vintage jazz" groups to perform in "A Midsummer Night's Dream Jazz Festival," which will take place starting at 6:00 p.m., Saturday, June 7 on the rooftop of the Deco Fortress, 3622 S. Broadway (across from the Lemp Brewery complex).

In addition to the Blue Notes, the lineup of bands includes Coco Rico, Tommy Halloran's Guerrilla Swing, and Wack-A-Doo. Tickets are $20 and are on sale now, but as of this writing, only 35 spots remain.