StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Improvising trio Kuzu set for St. Louis debut

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring the musicians in Kuzu, an improvising trio who will be coming to St. Louis to perform in a concert presented by New Music Circle on Wednesday, March 11 at Joe's Cafe.

Saxophonist Dave Rempis, guitarist Tashi Dorji and drummer Tyler Damon all are veterans of the improvised music scene, with Rempis and Damon based in Chicago and Dorji living in Asheville, NC. They formed Kuzu in the fall of 2017, following a Rempis solo tour earlier in the year that included collaborations with both Dorji and Damon individually. The guitarist and drummer already had been working together for several years as a duo, so adding Rempis into the mix to make it a trio seemed like a "logical next step."

Kuzu put out their debut recording Hiljaisuus (which means “silence” in Finnish) in 2018, supporting the release with live dates in the late summer and fall, and since have continued to perform together when their individual schedules permit.

Improvised music performances are inherently difficult to "preview," but it is possible to get some idea of what to expect by listening to the sorts of things the individuals involved have done previously. Toward that end, today's set of videos includes both a complete show by Kuzu in trio form, as well as some duo performances and one solo from its three members.

What would seem to be the best available video document of one of their shows available online, the first video up above is a recording of the first set of a performance from October 2018 at the If Art Gallery in Columbia, South Carolina. After the jump, you can see the second set from the same show.

Next are two excerpts from duo shows by Damon and Dorji, the first recorded in November 2016 at Grunwald Gallery on the campus of Indiana University, and the second from September 2017 at the Cropped Out festival in Louisville, KY.

After that, there's an excerpt from a show by Rempis and Damon in April 2017 at Spot Tavern in Lafayette, IN, and finally, part of a Rempis solo set in October 2019 at Curiosity Coffee Bar in Columbia, SC.

For more about Kuzu and drummer Tyler Damon, read the interview he did in 2018 with the Free Jazz Collective blog. For more about Tashi Dorji, read his chat with St. Louis' own Alex Cunningham, published in 2016 on KDHX's web site. And for more about Dave Rempis, read the feature about him published last year in the Chicago Reader, and his 2017 interview with radio station WNUR.

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

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...

Mars Williams, Darin Gray and Tyler Damon to play free concert on Friday, August 23 at St. Louis Art Museum

Chicago saxophonist Mars Williams will team up with St. Louis bassist Darin Gray and drummer Tyler Damon for an concert of improvised music at 7:00 p.m. Friday, August 23 on Art Hill outside the Saint Louis Art Museum.

The event is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by New Music Circle and the museum's Outdoor Music Series.

Gray is one of the St. Louis area's best-known representatives on the national free-improvised music scene, while Williams (pictured) has bridged the gap from new wave and punk to free jazz in a varied career that has include work with the Waitresses and Psychedelic Furs as well as Liquid Soul, the late Hal Russell's NRG Ensemble, Ken Vandermark, and Peter Brotzmann.

Gray calls Damon, who's from Bloomington, IN, "a great listener...capable of responding in subtle and dynamic ways, while still being being able to play with a tremendous energy that pushes the music forward. For me, he is the up-and-coming young drummer in the Midwest."

In the case of bad weather, updates about the concert will be available on SLAM's website, Facebook and Twitter and by calling 314-655-5345.