Jazz this week: Branford Marsalis, Douglas Ewart, Charles "Bobo" Shaw, Mardra and Reggie Thomas, and more

It looks to be a busy few days for live music in St. Louis, with plenty of events this weekend that will be of interest to fans of jazz and creative music. Let's go to the highlights:

Tonight, saxophonist Dave Stone and trumpeter Randy Holmes play the music of Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry in a free concert for Washington University's Jazz at Holmes series. Also, actress and singer Tyne Daly, accompanied by pianist and St. Louis native John McDaniel, continues her show for Cabaret St. Louis tonight through Saturday night at the Kranzberg Arts Center.

On Friday, saxophonist Branford Marsalis takes the stage at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. It's Marsalis' first trip to St. Louis in several years, and after playing here previously with Buckshot LeFunque and in a trio format, this time he' s bringing his quartet as they celebrate ten years of working together. For some video of the foursome in action, see this post.

That same evening, singer Mardra Thomas and pianist Reggie Thomas will resume their week-of-Valentine's-Day tradition of demonstrating both musical and marital harmony at Jazz at the Bistro. The Thomases will do the customary two sets on both Friday and Saturday, with an additional set at 8:30 p.m. Sunday especially for the holiday.

And speaking of singers performing on Friday night, that's also when the smooth, suave, yet swingin' Ron Wilkinson will perform at Robbie's House of Jazz. Wilkinson was a regular in the room in its previous incarnation as Cookie's Jazz and More, and the intimate scale of the space seems well-suited to his relatively subtle vocal approach.

On Saturday, there's a chance to hear two veterans of creative music who played significant roles in, respectively, St. Louis' Black Artists Group and Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. In the afternoon, drummer and former BAG member Charles "Bobo" Shaw will perform his own music and that of Eric Dolphy downtown at the Metropolitan Gallery as part of the Nu-Art Series' "Re-Arrangements & Nu-Compositions" concert series.

Then Saturday evening, multi-instrumentalist Douglas Ewart will perform at Webster University Community Music School under the auspices of New Music Circle. For more about Ewart, who formerly served as president of the AACM but now is based in Minneapolis, see this video post from a few Saturdays ago.

(At this point, it seems like it also should be mentioned that this is Mardi Gras weekend here in St. Louis. As has been the case in recent years, there will be plenty of partying going on, but not much live music at the official events for fans of jazz or blues. Yes, the Funky Butt Brass Band and Gumbohead will be showing up in several places around town over the weekend, but the music for the two large events on Parade Day will be provided by rock cover bands and a DJ. I've pretty much said all I have to say about the local Mardi Gras music situation in the two posts linked above; if you're looking for more information about this year's Mardi Gras-related events in St. Louis, you'll find it here. )

On Sunday evening, singer, pianist and saxophonist Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum returns to Brandt's for a special Valentine's Day show. Given the room's modest capacity, reservations would seem to be advisable.

Looking past the weekend, on Monday saxophonist Paul DeMarinis and his Sextet will give a concert at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium, performing some new DeMarinis compositions from his forthcoming CD, which reportedly is called The Sun...The Stars. Joining Demarinis for the concert will be singer Debby Lennon and a rhythm section made up of Nick Schlueter (piano), Dave Black (guitar), Ben Wheeler (bass) and Kyle Honeycutt (drums).

For more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond, 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 by becoming a "fan" of 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.)

(Edited after posting to fix a couple of garbled sentences.)

Notes from the Net: Miles in Montreal; the persistence of "audiophoolery"; plus news, reviews, interviews, and more

Here's the latest compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest:

* In this week's Miles Davis-related news, the museum exhibit in Paris devoted to the trumpeter is closing, but will be reborn on this side of the Atlantic in April as "We Want Miles" at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The multimedia retrospective includes musical excerpts; film and documentary clips; paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Mati Klarwein; and photographs by Annie Leibovitz and Irving Penn, plus Davis' own drawings, costumes, musical instruments and scores, on loan from the Davis family, and more. Though the History Museum mounted a Davis exhibit of its own here a few years ago, it sure would be nice to see this new one here in St. Louis, too...

* Here's a review from Jeff Simon of the Philadelphia Inquirer of Only Everything, the new CD saxophonist and former St. Louisan David Sanborn (pictured).

* Jason Crane's The Jazz Session recently featured a new podcast interview with multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis native Marty Ehrlich.

* Moving on to news of recent visitors to our town, here's a review by AllAboutJazz.com's Martin Longley of some recent NYC shows, including The Bad Plus week at the Village Vanguard between Christmas and New Year's. TBP were in St. Louis the following week to kick off 2010 at Jazz at the Bistro.

* The Juilliard School will present the New York premiere of bassist Christian McBride's "The Movement Revisited" on Tuesday, February 2. McBride's musical tribute to the civil rights movement blends spoken texts from Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with music to be performed by the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra and Choir, under the direction of McBride and Brandon Lee. The bassist's group Inside Straight played the Bistro in December.

* Opening the "coming attractions" file, actress and singer Tyne Daly has just opened her new cabaret show in New York, and the Times' Stephen Holden has a favorable review here. Daly and her pianist and music director, St. Louis native John McDaniel, will perform February 10-13 at the Kranzberg Arts Center under the auspices of Cabaret St. Louis.

* Pianist, singer and newlywed Jamie Cullum recently let photographers have a peek inside his London recording studio, and you can see the pix here. Cullum will play St. Louis' Roberts Orpheum Theater on Sunday, March 14.

* Here's a review of Pat Metheny's new CD Orchestrion from AllAboutJazz.com's John Kelman. Metheny's label also has released an "electronic press kit" for the CD, which you can see in the embedded video window at the bottom of this post. The guitarist and the roadie's-worst-nightmare setup that is the Orchestrion are coming to St. Louis on May 8 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

* And last, but not least, from the "general interest" file: Science may have disprovne many of the claims made by manufacturers of high-end audio equipment, but that doesn't stop them from continuing to engage in what one professional audio engineer and writer calls "audiophoolery." Let the buyer beware, indeed.



(Edited after posting to add tags.)

Cabaret St. Louis announces benefit gala, more shows for 2010

Cabaret St. Louis has announced its schedule for the first part of 2010, and will kick off the year with a benefit gala at the Sheldon Concert Hall featuring actress and singer Sutton Foster.

Foster (pictured), who has starred on Broadway in Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Drowsy Chaperone, Little Women, Young Frankenstein and Shrek the Musical, will perform at the Sheldon on Thursday, February 4. VIP tickets are $200 each, and include priority seating, free parking and a post-concert champagne reception with Foster. Regular seats are priced at $50 and $45, and tickets at all price levels are now on sale via Metrotix.

Meanwhile, Cabaret St. Louis' winter/spring 2010 schedule announced this week would seem to downplay jazz influences while emphasizing the theatrical and pop aspects of the form.

The schedule will include performances at the Kranzberg Arts Center by Broadway and television actress Tyne Daly, with St. Louis native John McDaniel on piano (February 10-13); Lennie Watts, another St. Louis native, with a tribute to Barry Manilow (March 3–6); Eric Michael Gillett, doing songs from and about the movies (April 7-10); and Karen Akers in "Anything Goes," a collection of Cole Porter songs (April 28-May 1).

Tickets for all of these shows go on sale next Monday, December 14 via Metrotix.