2016 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival to feature John Pizzarelli, tribute to Maynard Ferguson

The 2016 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival is set for Friday, April 22 and Saturday, April 23 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center, and will feature guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli on Friday and a tribute to the late trumpeter Maynard Ferguson on Saturday.

Pizzarelli (pictured) is a frequent visitor to St. Louis who played here most recently in July at the Sheldon in a fundraiser for the family of pianist Ray Kennedy. His latest album Midnight McCartney, which was released in September, features interpretations of the songs of Paul McCartney. Pizzarelli also was one of the headliners at the 2009 GSLJF.

The Maynard Ferguson tribute will be presented by the the M.F. All-Star Band, which features former Ferguson sidemen including trumpeters Wayne Bergeron and Frank Greene, trombonist Steve Wiest, baritone saxophonist Dennis DiBlasio, and drummer Stockton Helbing.

The UMSL Jazz Ensemble, directed by Jim Widner, will open both shows. The GSLJF also will include three days of adjudicated performances and clinics for high school jazz ensembles from around the area, beginning on Thursday, April 21 and continuing through Saturday.

Tickets for the Friday and Saturday concerts will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. next Tuesday, October 20 via the Touhill box office, online at http://touhill.org/, and by phone at 314-516-4949.

Tickets now on sale for JEN Conference concerts

Single tickets are now on sale for the three evening concerts that will be presented as part of the first-ever Jazz Education Network Conference, which takes place Thursday, May 20 through Saturday, May 22 in St. Louis.

All three concerts, as well various other conference events, will be presented at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. The show on the evening of Thursday, May 20 will feature the Brubeck Institute Quintet; the Caswell Sisters; the JEN All-Stars, hosted by bassist John Clayton; and the Army Blues “Pershing’s Own,” directed by CW5 Charles Vollherbst.

Then on Friday, May 21, it's the acappella vocal sextet Sixth Wave; bassist Rufus Reid (pictured) and his Out Front Trio; and the University of Missouri - St. Louis Big Band, directed by Jim Widner with special guests percussionist Ruben Alvarez, vibraphonist Stefon Harris and trumpeter Wayne Bergeron.

The concert on Saturday, May 22 features the Hannes Sigfridsson Trio, a group of young musicians from Sweden; a duo set from trumpeter Marvin Stamm and pianist Bill Mays; singer Rosana Eckert & Friends, with pianist Shelly Berg, bassist Lou Fischer, drummer Ndugu Chancler and percussionist Gary Eckert; and the Clayton Brothers Quintet, featuring bassist John Clayton, his brother Jeff Clayton on alto sax and his son Gerald Clayton on piano, plus trumpeter Terell Stafford and drummer Obed Calvaire.

Tickets (or in the conference's parlance, "registrations") for each evening concert are $30, and can be purchased online here (Thursday), here (Friday) and here (Saturday). Those who register for the entire conference or purchase a one-day pass get their tickets as part of the package; for more information on conference registrations, go here.

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: Previewing the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival

Today's deluxe super-sized video post features six of the seven guest artists who will be appearing at the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival this week. Alas, footage of trombonist Paul McKee was nowhere to be found online, but I did manage to locate clips featuring the other six musicians who will be taking part in the GStLJF.

From the top down, the featured videos are:

* Pianist Shelly Berg playing at the 2007 International Association of Jazz Educators convention in NYC;

* Saxophonist Tom Scott performing "Say You Love Me";

* Trumpeter Wayne Bergeron playing a blues at the Yamaha booth at the 2007 National Association of Music Merchants convention;

* Drummer Gregg Field performing the Count Basie chart "Whirly Bird" with the 2007 Disneyland All-American College Band, which features musicians from colleges and universities around the country;

* Bassist Chuck Berghofer playing "Zoot's Theme" at Dante's, a Los Angeles club, with saxophonist Zoot Sims, pianist Roger Kellaway and drummer Larry Bunker. (Fun fact: Berghofer, a veteran of LA studios and stages for five decades, is the guy who played the famously funky bass lick that kicks off the theme song for the television sitcom Barney Miller.)

* Clarinetist Buddy DeFranco in a vintage performances of "One O'Clock Jump" with a small group led by Count Basie. DeFranco gets the first solo, followed by St. Louis' own Clark Terry on trumpet and Wardell Gray on tenor sax.

The Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival is presented by the University of Missouri - St. Louis and Jazz St. Louis, with events at Jazz at the Bistro on Wednesday and Thursday and at the Touhill Performing Arts Center on Friday and Saturday. More than 750 students from 30 different St. Louis area schools will take part in the festival's educational programs. Public performances will include a Wednesday night small-group session at Jazz at the Bistro, and big band concerts with the UMSL Jazz Orchestra on Friday and Saturday at the TouPAC. For ticket information, call 800- 516-4949 or 800-239-5949.

Coming attractions include Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Michael Buble, Wayne Bergeron

A recent check of the online touring information service Pollstar revealed some shows coming to the St. Louis area that may be of interest to jazz listeners.

On Friday, January 25 and Saturday, January 26, the Argosy Alton Casino will warm up for Mardi Gras with two concerts by New Orleans' Preservation Hall Jazz Band (pictured). Touring almost non-stop since Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent failure of the levees devastated their hometown, the PHJB has been to the St. Louis area a couple of times recently. I saw them perform at the St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2006, and they put on an entertaining performance, albeit one that included blues, swing and even a rendition of a Thelonious Monk tune in addition to the expected traditional jazz fare.

Also coming to the Gateway City in the near future is singer Michael Buble, who will perform at the Scottrade Center on Wednesday, March 5. While Buble's vocals aren't everyone's cup of tea, I think he deserves at least some credit for introducing a new generation of listeners to some great American songs. That said, the cavernous confines of the Scottrade Center, home to pro hockey, college basketball and other large-scale events, don't exactly provide the sort of intimacy that many of those songs demand. However, Buble's current popularity would seem to preclude him from playing a smaller venue any time soon, so I suppose his fans will have to take what they can get.

Last but not least, Pollstar shows that trumpeter Wayne Bergeron, a veteran of the Maynard Ferguson band who's also a busy session player in Los Angeles, is coming to the area for two engagements this spring. First, he'll be at Mineral Area College in Park Hills on Friday, March 14 and Saturday, March 15, performing as guest soloist with the college's big band at the community center on campus.

The following month, Bergeron will be in St. Louis on Friday, April 18 and Saturday, April 19, playing at the Touhill Performing Arts Center as one of the guest soloists for the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival. While the GSLJF has yet to make an official announcement about their 2008 lineup, Begeron's personal Web site also lists him as one of the event's guests, so Pollstar's information seems fairly credible.

(Also listed on Bergeron's site are the other guests already announced by Jazz St. Louis as performers for the festival's small group show Wednesday, April 16 at Jazz at the Bistro - saxophonist Tom Scott, trombonist Paul McKee, and pianist Shelly Berg - as well as clarinetist Buddy DeFranco, who, like Bergeron, apparently won't be part of Wednesday's show but will take part in the weekend's GSLJF concerts.)