Here's StLJN's weekly wrap-up of assorted links and short news items of local interest:
* Jim Widner may have retired last year as director of jazz studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, but the veteran bassist and educator is continuing his long-running business of running summer jazz camps, setting up this year at St. Charles Community College. Widner's summer 2021 camp will run June 13-17 and is open to high school, middle school and college students as well as adults who "want to hone their skills in the art of jazz."
Instructors will include trumpeter Bijon Watson (Clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra), trombonist Scott Whitfield (Bill Holman and Bob Florence Big Bands), and saxophonists Chip McNeill (Doc Severinsen, Maynard Ferguson) and Mary Fettig (Stan Kenton Orchestra), plus local musician/educators such as Rick Haydon, Kevin Gianino, Brett Stamps, Jim Martin, and Ken Kehner. For more information, visit www.stchas.edu/yatp.
* Dozens of St. Louis musicians have teamed up to release a new compilation album (pictured) paying tribute to poet, promoter and former KDHX DJ Brett Underwood for his work promoting adventurous music in St. Louis as a collaborator, on his radio program "The No Show," and as a presenter of live performances, most recently at the Schlafly Tap Room downtown.
Produced by electronic musician Eric Hall, Horsey Can’t Swim - A Love Letter To Brett Underwood includes 43 tracks encompassing free improv, alt-rock, noise, experimental music, and more. Contributors to the the project include Jaap Blonk & Damon Smith, Syna So Pro, Ghost Ice, Raglani, Michael Williams, NNN Cook, Alex Cunningham, caveofswords, Tory Starbuck, and a number of others.
All the proceeds from the recording's pay-what-you-want sales on Bandcamp will go to Underwood, whose hours as a bartender and show booker at the Tap Room were cut back drastically when the COVID pandemic began.
For the first official week of summer, the calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features some noteworthy free outdoor concerts; shows paying tribute to a jazz guitar giant and some old-school soul/funk favorites; and more. Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, June 21
Though there's no live music at Jazz at the Bistro until the weekend, the weekly Grand Center Jazz Crawlproceeds as usual, with live music at four different venues within the district.
Over on the other of Grand, multi-instrumentalist Lamar Harris(pictured, center left) will be presenting "Ballad of Atlantis: The Music of The Isley Brothers" for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro.
Saturday, June 24
The free, outdoor Chesterfield Wine and Jazz Festival will feature performances from the Wooten Brothers (pictured,top left), Bach to the Future with violinist Tracy Silverman, singer Anita Jackson, Soul Cafe, and singer Kim Fuller-Barnes at the Chesterfield Amphitheater.
For more about the Wooten Brothers - bassist Victor Wooten and drummer Roy "Futureman" Wooten, of Bela Fleck's Flecktones, plus their siblings Regi on guitar and Joseph on keyboards - plus some video of them in action, see this 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.)
Today, let's take a break from previewing upcoming performances here in St. Louis to look at some videos of the late drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw.
Shaw, who died Monday in a St. Louis nursing care facility at age 69, was a founder of the Black Artists Group and played with many well-known jazz and creative musicians of the past 50 years.
He had a varied career in music that was sufficiently important that, in addition to his obituary here on StLJN, his passing has been noted by national publications including the New York Times and DownBeat, which published an obituary written by veteran St. Louis journalist Terry Perkins. (In contrast, Shaw's hometown newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has yet to offer any coverage of his death, nor have any other media outlets here, except for the one you're reading right now.)
In the last years of his life, Shaw may have had a lower profile on the national and international scenes that he did in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, but he did perform here in St. Louis as part of a number of different musical projects, and today's videos offer a glimpse of three of them. (Please note that none of these videos was professionally produced, so the audio and video quality varies widely.)
The first video up above features Shaw and pianist David Parker playing Parker's "Scott Joplin Blues" in 2014 at the Tavern of Fine Arts. After the jump, you can see two more clips from the same gig, featuring Shaw, Parker, and cellist Tracy Andreotti engaged in some free improv.
Next is a series of six clips from two concerts that Shaw and three other St. Louis drummers did for the Nu-Art Series in 2010 and 2011 at the Metropolitan Gallery downtown.
Presented under the name "The Drum Line" by trumpeter and impresario George Sams, a friend of Shaw's since childhood, the concerts were a spotlight for the individual and collective skills of four percussionists - Shaw, Jerome "Scrooge' Harris, Gary Sykes, and Johnny Johnson - as well as a tribute to the local drum and bugle groups American Woodsmen and Tom Powell American Legion Post #77 that offered training and opportunities to many young St. Louis African-American musicians in the mid-20th century.
The next two videos feature Shaw playing with the group Melodies of the Kabbalah in a session recorded in May 2010 at the old studios of radio station KDHX on Magnolia Ave in south St. Louis. In contrast to the sometimes-sprawling free improvisations in today's other clips, the versions of "Hine Ma Tov" and "Latin Moderato 75" feature Shaw in an accompanying role, supporting the ensemble of keyboardist Michael Loveman, bassist Josh Weinstein (of KDHX's "All Soul, No Borders), violinist Brien Seyle, and fellow drummer Brian Sullivan in a couple of concise, melodic performances.
As a lagniappe, at the end of this post you'll find an audio-only YouTube playlist compiling tracks from various projects Shaw did with violinist Billy Bang, the Human Arts Ensemble, and bassist William Parker.
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
This week's calendar of jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes a generous helping of holiday music; the long-awaited return of a popular jam-band performer; a tribute to one of St. Louis' all-time jazz greats; and more.
Also on Wednesday night, the Route 66 Big Band will play a show featuring seasonal music at the Ozark Theatre ; and singer Erin Bode will be incorporating some holiday favorites into her performance at Cyrano's.
Friday, December 9
Trumpeter Jim Manley reassembles his seven-piece band Mad Brass & Rhythm for the first of two nights of "A Very Manley Christmas"at Jazz at the Bistro.
Also on Friday, trumpeter Randy Holmes and his quintet commemorate the birthday of a St. Louis jazz great with the first of two nights of a "Tribute to Clark Terry" at the Ozark Theatre; and singer Feyza Eren leads a a quartet in a performance at the art gallery and event space 1900 Park in Soulard.
Saturday, December 10
Saxophonist and vocalist Karl Denson(pictured, bottom left) returns with his band Tiny Universe for his first St. Louis performance in more than six years at the Old Rock House.
Denson's long absence can be attributed in part to his roles in several other bands besides his own, including most recently The Rolling Stones, for whom he has served as touring saxophonist since 2014.
For more about that, and some video samples of recent Tiny Universe performances, see this post from last Saturday.
Tuesday, December 13
The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University presents their final free concert of the semester, featuring Italian pianist Francesca Tandoi.
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.)
* A new Tumblr called Milestones is compiling photos, videos and other online material about Miles Davis. While much of the content will be familiar to fans who have been online for a while, there are some nice finds, too, including rarely seen photos and musical transcripts.
The movie, produced by the Dutch public broadcasting system Boeddhistische Omroep, offers an intimate look at the Defunkt founder's life both on and off-stage, and includes some footage shot here in St. Louis as well as interviews with St. Louis musicians including Ronnie Burrage, Oliver Lake, Kelvyn Bell, and more.
* Trumpeter, St. Louis native, and former Jazz St. Louis student All-Star Joshua Williams and his band Shades of Jade are prepping a new album, Fingerprinted Memories Part 2, for release in the fall. The Kansas City based ensemble will drop an advance track, a jazz-infused R&B slow jam called "That One" featuring guest singer Derick Cunigan, on Thursday, August 20.
* Jazz radio update: This Saturday on Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis, Calvin Wilson's program “Somethin’ Else,” will focus on jazz versions of soul and R&B songs such as "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" as performed by musicians including Joshua Redman, John Scofield and Marcus Miller. The program can be heard over the air on 107.3 FM, on HD radio at 96.3 HD-2, and online at http://www.rafstl.org/listen.
Then on Sunday night, Dennis Owsley's "Jazz Unlimited" program on KWMU/St. Louis Public Radio will be the second part of a special featuring music from the labels run by the late jazz impresario Norman Granz. You can listen in from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Sundays over the air at 90.7 FM and online at http://www.stlpublicradio.org/listen.php.
With proceeds benefiting Kennedy's widow and two young daughters, the show will be headlined by singer-guitarist John Pizzarelli, who featured Kennedy as the pianist in his working group for more than a decade, and Pizzarelli's dad Bucky, the veteran jazz guitarist with whom Kennedy also performed and recorded. Also on hand will be Martin Pizzarelli, son of Bucky, brother of John, and longtime bassist in his trio; and Konrad Paszkudzki, the current pianist in John Pizzarelli's group.
Although Ray Kennedy came of musical age during the height of fusion, his playing for the most part eschewed the usual influences on his generation (Hancock, Corea, Tyner, et al) for that of older pianists such as Erroll Garner and Teddy Wilson. Kennedy left behind a fairly extensive discography, recording numerous times with John Pizzarelli and also leading a number of small-group dates, often with his brother, bassist Tom Kennedy. Videos featuring Kennedy are a bit harder to find online, but here are a few clips, drawn from his work with the Pizzarelli clan, that demonstrate his considerable pianistic prowess, albeit in relatively small doses.
Up above, you can see and hear Kennedy's solo on "Oscar Night," an original piece of his that John Pizzarelli incorporated into his performances as a showcase for the pianist. This version was recorded in 2000 at Jazzwoche Burghausen in Germany.
After the jump, you can check out Kennedy's solo on a version of "Just You Just Me" from an appearance by the Pizzarelli trio in 2003 on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and there's another tasty solo on their version of the Beatles' "I've Just Seen a Face" recorded at the Montreal Jazz Festival, probably around the time Pizzarelli released his album Meets the Beatles in 1998.
Rounding out today's offerings are two more John Pizzarelli performances featuring solos from Kennedy, "After You've Gone" and "O, My Heart Beats For You," and a short clip showing Ray Kennedy and Bucky Pizzarelli in the studio recording Harold Arlen's "Let's Fall In Love," made to promote the 2008 album Bucky Pizzarelli & The Kennedy Brothers Play Harold Arlen.
If you'd like to help Ray Kennedy's family but can't attend next Friday's performance, you still can make a contribution via this YouCaring.com page.
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
The St. Louis Big Band and singer Joe Scalzitti will present "Sinatra at 100," a show paying tribute to the centenary of Frank Sinatra's birth, starting Thursday, July 23 and continuing through Sunday, August 9 at the Kranzberg Arts Center.
Incorporating tunes such as "New York, New York," "Come Fly With Me," "Fly Me To The Moon," "Night & Day," "Blue Skies," and more, the show tracks the singer's career chronologically, starting with his early hits and continuing through the performances at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas that helped make Sinatra (pictured) and his "Rat Pack" pals into showbiz icons.
Opening week performances will take place at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, July 23; 8:00 p.m. Friday, July 24; and at 1:00 p.m. Saturday, July 25 and Sunday, July 26. The run continues with shows at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, July 30; 8:00 p.m. Friday, July 31; and at 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Sunday, August 2. The final week's performances will be at 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. Saturday, August 8 and 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Sunday, August 9.
* While in town to perform at Jazz at the Bistro, trumpeter Terence Blanchard on Thursday also visited bassist Jim Widner's jazz camp at UMSL to teach and perform for the students there.
* In Denmark, a 2-CD set issued last year featuring the late saxophonist and former St. Louisan Luther Thomas(pictured) performing with various Danish musicians, was reviewed by AllAboutJazz.com's Jakob Baekgaard.
* Multi-instrumentalist and St. Louis expat J.D. Parran recently played on a new recording with Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson of the Sun Ra Arkestra, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sun Ra's Heliocentric Worlds, Volume 2 using same instrumentation, and even the exact same bass marimba, and recording at the same studio used at Ra's session a half-century ago.
* The latest episode of HEC-TV's I Love Jazz features singer Feyza Eren and her quartet, plus a segment on host Don Wolff's recent "Jazz Hero" award from the Jazz Journalists Association, and more. Unfortunately, the newly redesigned HEC website makes it very difficult to find out when the show airs, so you'll have to consult your TV provider's program guide for airdates and times, or just watch online here.
* Jazz radio update: This Saturday on Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis, Calvin Wilson's program “Somethin’ Else” features the jazz-influenced works of composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, as interpreted by Linda Oh, Jason Moran, Paula West, and more.
Immediately following on "The Jazz Collective," host Jason Church will spin tracks from George Benson, Junior Walker and the All Stars, Simply Red, Nathan East, Soul Ballet, John Coltrane, Common Time, the Bosman Twins, Jesse Gannon, Beth Bombara, and more.
"Somethin' Else" airs at 8:00 p.m. Saturdays, followed by "The Jazz Collective" at 9:00 p.m., on 107.3 FM, 96.3 HD-2, and online at http://www.rafstl.org/listen.
Then on Sunday, Dennis Owsley's "Jazz Unlimited" program on St. Louis Public Radio will present the second part of a special devoted to the "cool school" of West Coast jazz. Tune in from 9:00 pm to midnight Sundays on KWMU (90.7 FM) or listen online at http://www.news.stlpublicradio.org.
Today, as funeral services for Clark Terry take place in New York City, StLJN pays tribute to the late, great trumpeter and St. Louis native with a video retrospective of his career. (You can see previous coverage of Terry's passing here and here.)
Over the past decade, StLJN has featured Terry in several previous video showcases, and this post includes some favorites from those posts, as well as some clips previously unseen here. Fortunately, there's a wealth of video of Terry available online, and while it wasn't easy to narrow the field, even to a dozen clips, these examples should provide a good overview.
The first clip up above shows Terry with a small group drawn from the Count Basie Orchestra, performing "Royalty in Rhythm." Although the clip is undated, Terry played with the Count between 1948 and 1951, so it most likely was recorded sometime during that three-year stretch.
After the jump, you'll see a 1958 video of the Duke Ellington Orchestra playing "El Gato," which featured the band's trumpet section, then comprised of Terry, fellow St. Louis native Harold "Shorty" Baker, Ray Nance, and Cat Anderson, for whom the piece was named.
Clip number three was recorded in 1960 in Belgium, and shows Terry as the featured soloist with the Quincy Jones Big Band in an arrangement of pianist Bobby Timmons' hard-bop standard "Moanin."
The fourth video demonstrates Terry's skills as a ballad player, as he performs "Stardust" in a 1964 concert in London, backed by a group including pianist Teddy Wilson, bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Louie Bellson.
Next, you can see Terry performing with pianist Oscar Peterson's trio, with Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums, at a concert recorded March 23, 1965 in Finland. These four musicians had recorded the album Oscar Peterson Trio + One the previous year, which proved to be a fairly big hit by jazz standards and helped introduce Terry's signature tune "Mumbles" to a worldwide audience.
After that, you can see Terry and another of his closest musical associates from the 1960s, valve trombonist and composer Bob Brookmeyer, as they co-lead a quintet in a 1965 broadcast recorded in London for the BBC program Jazz 625.
Terry's steady gig for much of the 1960s was the band for NBC's Tonight Show, which he integrated when he became the orchestra's first African-American member in 1962. In the seventh clip, you can see Terry on the Tonight Show in October 1965 as the featured soloist on a version on Ellington's "In A Mellow Tone." (The show was then based in NYC, but was broadcasting from Los Angeles that week, which is why the set looks unfamiliar and the band except for Terry is comprised of West Coast musicians.)
After leaving the Tonight Show, Terry led his own orchestra, the Big Bad Band, intermittently through the 1970s and early 1980s, and today's eighth clip shows just over 19 minutes of that group in action. The location and date weren't indicated in the YouTube annotations, but judging from the way the musicians are dressed, the late 1970s seems like a good guess for the latter.
Below that, you can see another side of Terry, as he plays "Stormy Monday" with another American musical icon, blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters. This clip was recorded in July, 1977 in Nice, France, with Muddy's band, which included Bob Margolin (guitar), Guitar Junior (guitar), Pinetop Perkins (piano), Calvin Jones (bass), and Willy "Big Eyes" Smith (drums).
Video number ten features another cameo appearance by Terry, as he serves up some flugelhorn and vocals for Quincy Jones' "Soul Bossa Nova" on Late Night with David Letterman with Jones' orchestra and saxophonist Phil Woods, who takes the solo before Terry's. Again, this clip is undated, but logic suggests it was recorded not too long after the tune was featured in the title sequence of the movie Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, which came out in 1997.
In the eleventh clip, recorded in 2001, Terry converses with the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, in an extended version of "Mumbles," backed by Herbie Hancock on piano, Russell Malone on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, Roy Haynes on drums, and James Carter on saxophone.
We close out our video tribute to Clark Terry with a complete set recorded in 2002 at a jazz festival on the island of St. Lucia, featuring Terry's own quintet with Donald Harrison on alto sax, Anthony Wonsey on piano, Curtis Lundy on bass, and Victor Lewis on drums. It's quite a testament to Terry's skills that even in his 80s, at an age when many brass musicians find their physical abilities greatly diminished, he still was able to lead a band of musicians half his age and play this well.
You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
Today, we remember the great St. Louis trumpeter Lester Bowie, who was born October 11, 1941.
Though Bowie (pictured) actually was born in Maryland, he grew up in St. Louis as part of a family that included two brothers who also became professional musicians: Joseph Bowie, a trombonist and leader of the funk-jazz band Defunkt; and Byron Bowie, a saxophonist and arranger/composer.
After developing his trumpet chops playing blues gigs around St. Louis with singers including Albert King and Little Milton and jazz wherever and whenever he could, Lester Bowie moved to Chicago in 1965, where he became a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the group with whom he is most closely associated.
In addition to the AEC, Bowie was involved in many different musical projects, recording in duo and trio settings with many of the musicians from BAG and Chicago's AACM, and leading a number of his own groups, notably Brass Fantasy and the Lester Bowie Organ Ensemble. His work incorporated many types of music, from free improv and knotty post-bop to gospel and doo-wop, and he stood out among trumpet players of his generation for his combination of deep concepts, a sense of humor, and use of extended techniques. Sadly, Lester Bowie died young, passing away from liver cancer on November 9, 1999 when he was just 58.
In the first video window below, you can see him in 1983 performing with From The Root To The Source, a multi-stylistic group reflecting Bowie's love of popular and church music as well as jazz that also was something of a family band, since it featured his ex-wife Fontella Bass and former in-laws Martha Bass and David Peaston.
In the window below that, you can see him performing "Summertime" in an undated clip with Brass Fantasy, and below that, in two parts, a complete Art Ensemble concert recorded in 1991 in Budapest.
Though both nights have been sold out for weeks, if you don't have tickets already, you still can watch the performances streamed live over the Internet; see this post for details.
Elsewhere around town tonight, guitarist Brian Vaccaro's trio is playing a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; guitarist Dave Black and friends are at Nathalie's; and over on the east side of the Mississippi, saxophonist Jason Swagler will perform his faculty recital at Dunham Hall on the SIU Edwardsville campus.
Those in more of a listening mood on Friday night can catch pianist Brad Ellebrecht's quartet with singer Diane Vaughn at the Ozark Theatre, or guitarist Tom Byrne and singer Erika Johnson dueting at the downtown location of Robust Wine Bar.
On Saturday, famed trumpeter/flugelhornist Hugh Masekela(pictured) and fellow South African, singer-songwriter Vusi Mahlasela, will perform in celebration of "20 Years of Freedom" at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Although the program's historical theme no doubt will guide most of the evening's musical selections, it's hard to imagine that Masekela won't be able work "Grazing In The Grass" in there somewhere.
Also on Saturday night, Big Sam's Funky Nation will be in town from New Orleans for a return visit to the Broadway Oyster Bar, and the Twin Cities-based jump blues and swing band Davina and the Vagabonds, who performed last month at the Monterey Jazz Festival, will take the stage at BB's.
Coming from a bit closer to home, trumpeter/vibraphonist Joe Bozzi and his band will be at Evangeline's, and saxophonist Sam Hargadine's quartet with singer Feyza Eren will play at Bar Italia.
Also on Monday, the trio Moon Hooch, whose groove-based music played by two saxophonists and a drummer has gotten a lot of media attention of late, will be in town for a performance at 2720 Cherokee. You can get a pretty good idea of what they're about by checking out the Tiny Desk Concert they recorded earlier this year for NPR.
(My take is that while Moon Hooch's ensemble cohesion and energy level certainly are impressive, every time I've heard a recording of their music, I get about five minutes in and start wishing fervently that they had a bass player. Your mileage may vary, of course, and based on their background as buskers, they seem to be pretty good at engaging a crowd, so their live show may be a qualitatively different experience.)
Then on Tuesday, Samba Bom will play Brazilian jazz, samba, and more at a "Notes From Home" show at the Sheldon.
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.)
Musical colleagues and friends of Floyd LeFlore will pay tribute to the late trumpeter with a performance at 7:00 p.m. next Monday, October 6 at the Tavern of Fine Arts.
LeFlore, a co-founder of St. Louis' Black Artists Group and a former board member of New Music Circle, died on September 6 at age 74.
The tribute will feature the improvising ensemble Numbers, whose pianist David Parker and drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw both performed and recorded with LeFlore - Parker during the 1980s and 1990s, and Shaw at various times going all the way back to the founding of BAG in the 1960s. Numbers trumpeter George Sams also has history with LeFlore, from occasional gigs to presenting him in concert as part of the Nu-Art Series to serving together on the New Music Circle board.
Also performing will be poet Shirley Bradley LeFlore, percussionist Henry Claude, cellist Tracy Andreotti, and pianist Greg Mills.
Admission to the Floyd LeFlore tribute is free, but donations will be accepted for the performers (who also get a portion of the Tavern's food & drink sales during the show.)
With tensions easing somewhat even as protest demonstrations continue in Ferguson, and hot, steamy weather settling in for a few days, it's starting to seem a bit more like a typical late August in St. Louis. And while the weather forecast has prompted cancellations of a couple of outdoor shows, there's still jazz happening around town during these "dog days." Let's go to the highlights...
On Friday, singer Anita Rosamond will be performing a free outdoor concert at Ferguson CityWalk, which is located in the old downtown area of Ferguson. Though the concert was scheduled long ago as part of a series of monthly shows promoting the downtown district, it should provide a welcome opportunity for people in the community to come together and, we hope, peacefully enjoy some of Rosamond's pop, R&B and jazz stylings.
Outdoors on Sunday, Dizzy Atmosphere will play a set of string-band swing and Gypsy jazz at the Festival of Nations in Tower Grove Park, an event that also features many other musical performances; and Cornet Chop Suey will be playing traditional New Orleans style jazz and swing in a free concert at Carondelet Park.
Indoors that afternoon, ragtime pianists and enthusiasts from all over will gather for an event paying tribute to the late pianist, historian and St. Louis native Trebor Tichenor(pictured) at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Performers will include pianists David Thomas Roberts, Terry Parrish, Rich Egan, Brian Keenan, Dave Majchrzak and John Hancock; Tichenor's long-running band, the St. Louis Ragtimers; his son Andy, a trumpeter, and daughters Virginia, a pianist, and Anna, a violist; and more.
On Tuesday, singer/pianist Jesse Gannon continues his weekly residency at the Engine Room, and jazz-fusion band Common Time will be at BB'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.)
The Miles Davis Memorial Project, which seeks to place a statue of the legendary trumpeter near his birthplace in downtown Alton, IL, will hold a black-tie fundraising dinner at 6:00 p.m., Saturday, March 22 at the Commons at Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey.
The event will include a cocktail hour, silent and oral auctions, sit-down dinner, and a performance by the Third Coast Jazz & Blues Band. Pete Basola, formerly a jazz educator at Alton High School and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, will sit in with the band and give a presentation about Davis (pictured) and his music.
The project was announced in 2012, and so far, organizers say they've raised about $20,000 of the $150,000 needed to complete it, mostly from the sale of commemorative bricks and granite blocks that will be laid into the sidewalk surrounding to the sculpture. The commemorative bricks and blocks still for are sale, at $75 for a 4" x 8" brick and $400 for a 12" x 12" granite block.
Sculptor Preston Jackson, professor emeritus of the sculpture department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, was selected last year to create the statue, which the committee hopes to have completed by year end.
Tickets for the Miles Davis Memorial Project fundraising dinner are $60 per person and $450 for a table of eight, and can be purchased by calling Pride Incorporated at 618-467-2375 or via email to pride at prideincorporated dot org.
To fund the creation, production and installation of the statue, the organizers of the Miles Davis Memorial Project are soliciting contributions from the public, offering donors a chance to purchase inscribed commemorative bricks to be placed near the statue's site, and also are selling t-shirts (pictured, right), posters and other items to raise money.
After a very busy few days of live music in St. Louis last weekend, things are a little slower this week. But if you've checked out parts one and two of StLJN's fall 2013 jazz preview, you know that it's just the calm before the storm, as the last ten days of this month and the first week of October will be filled with touring musicians visiting our town.
And of course, "calm" is a relative term, for as you'll see if you read on, there's still plenty of live jazz and creative music happening right now that is worthy of your attention. Let's go to the highlights...
Tonight, trumpeter Randy Holmes and his quintet will pay tribute to composer, saxophonist and St. Louis native Oliver Nelson by playing a free concert of his music to kick off this semester's Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University.
Nelson (pictured), who died in 1975 at the age of just 43, was a prolific composer who these days is best known for writing the standard "Stolen Moments" and for Blues and the Abstract Truth, the classic album that introduced it.
But he also has considerable historical importance in American popular culture, because, along with Quincy Jones, he was one of the first African-American composers to get steady work writing for film and television beginning in the 1960s. Nelson's themes for shows like "Ironside" and "The Six Million Dollar Man" put his music into millions of homes - many of which may not have contained a single jazz album - and had he not died so young, there's no telling what else he might have accomplished. At a time when tribute shows proliferate to the point of oversaturation, Nelson is both truly deserving and too often overlooked.
Tomorrow night, guitarist Tom Byrne brings his Pat Metheny inspired band Have U Heard to Jazz on Broadway; drummer Montez Coleman plays at Cigar Inn; singer Wendy Gordon performs at DeLeo's Deli & Cafe, 2782 N Lindbergh; and saxophonist Tim Cunningham will be downtown at The Precinct, the restaurant and bar formerly known as Jim Edmonds 15 Steakhouse at 1900 Locust St..
On Saturday afternoon, St. Vincent Greenway, Inc., the City of St. Louis, and Great Rivers Greenway will present "Jazz on the Greenway," a free event that will include live music from Uncensored Band plus a plethora of outdoor and family activities, all taking place at Ruth Porter Park and St. Vincent Greenway in the CWE at Delmar and DeBaliviere.
That evening, singer Michael Buble performs at the Scottrade Center. While his most recent album To Be Loved may reflect more of a pop/rock sensibility than some previous outings, it seems likely that some of the Sinatra-inspired arrangements that previously have been staples for the Canadian crooner will make it into this show as well.
Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday the group Four in One: The Thelonious Monk Project, which includes guitarist Steve Schenkel, saxophonist Paul DeMarinis, drummer Alan Schilling and bassist Ric Vice, will play a concert at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium; and trumpeter Keith Moyer brings his group back 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.)
While the music news in St. Louis this weekend may be dominated by the annual LouFest in Forest Park, and the tribute to the late singer-songwriter Bob Reuter on Sunday at the Casa Loma Ballroom, there's will be plenty for local fans of jazz and creative music to do over the next few days, too. Let's go to the highlights...
Tomorrow night, there are a couple of noteworthy events for swing dancers, as Lindy Hop St. Louis presents their monthly "West End Stomp" dance with music from the Sidemen at Mahler Ballroom, while the Ambassadors of Swing purvey their version of the big-band sound to the terpsichorean habitues of the Casa Loma Ballroom.
On Saturday, the annual St. Louis Art Fair will feature sets from several musicians of interest. Performers will include guitarist Rex Bauer's trio, the Jazz St. Louis All-Stars student ensemble, and the Sheldon Jazz Quintet with pianist Carolbeth True, all on the Forsyth stage at the corner of Forsyth and Central; and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes, on the Fair's main stage.
Also on Saturday, the U City Jazz Festival takes place in Heman Park, 1028 Midland Blvd (at Olive). The free all-day event will feature sets from local bands including the Willie Akins/Montez Coleman group, Bach to the Future, Tom Byrne and Have You Heard?, the Joe Mancuso Quintet, and Clave Sol, plus a tribute to Wes Montgomery featuring guitarist Chris Burchett.
On Saturday night, singer Roseanna Vitro comes to town to perform with pianist Kim Portnoy's trio at Robbie's House of Jazz. Vitro, who's originally from Arkansas, broke in to the music business singing with tenor saxophonist Arnett Cobb in Houston. Her career took off after a move to NYC in the late 1970s, as she toured with Lionel Hampton, pianist Kenny Werner and others, and began to establish herself as a solo act. Since then, Vitro has recorded 12 albums as a leader, the most recent of which, 2011's The Music of Randy Newman, was nominated for a 2012 Grammy Award as Best Vocal Jazz Album.
Elsewhere on Saturday night, keyboardist Matt Villinger and his trio will play at Thurman Grill; the Galaxy Jazz Quintet with singer Kim Fuller performs at Bar Italia; and pianist and singer Curt Landes is at the Tavern of Fine Arts.
Sunday's another busy day, as guitarist Brian Vaccaro's trio and Brazilian music group Samba Bom will play at the Art Fair on the Forsyth Stage, and the fall edition of the St. Louis Record Collector and CD Show takes place at the American Czech Hall, 4690 Lansdowne.
Also on Sunday afternoon, relatives and friends of the late DJ Ross Gentile are staging a tribute concert at the Meridian Ballroom in the Morris University Center at SIUE. The free show will feature another performance by Roseanna Vitro, plus music from Denise Thimes, the Route 66 Jazz Orchestra, guitarist Rick Haydon, trumpeter/vibraphonist Joe Bozzi, the Gary Dammer Big Band, and more.
Those seeking a more contemplative experience on Sunday may want to check out the latest "Inner Jazz" multi-faith meditation at Kirkwood United Church of Christ, 1603 Dougherty Ferry Rd, with music from the Oikos Ensemble, led by saxophonist Rev. Cliff Aerie.
Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday the jazz faculty at Webster University kicks off their fall concert series with "A Tribute to Cannonball Adderley" featuring saxophonist Paul DeMarinis, trumpeter Keith Moyer, guitarist Steve Schenkel, pianist Kim Portnoy, bassist Willem von Hombracht, drummer Kevin Gianino and singer Debby Lennon at Winifred Moore Auditorium.
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.)
Jackson, who grew up in Decatur and now lives in Peoria, has taught at the Art Institute of Chicago and created numerous works of public art in Illinois and elsewhere. His statue of Davis will be placed in front of the Lauschke Building at 117 W. Third St. in downtown Alton. (Davis was born in Alton in 1926; the family moved to East St. Louis the following year.)
The Miles Davis Memorial Project plans to share Jackson's renderings of the sculpture at the annual "Alton Block Party" on July 20, with the artist on hand to answer questions. Committee members have said they hope the statue will be completed in time for unveiling on May 26, 2014, in celebration of Davis' birthday.
Fund-raising efforts to pay for the work are ongoing. Donations can be made to the Miles Davis Memorial Project c/o Pride Inc., Alden Hall, 5800 Godfrey Road, Godfrey, IL 62035.
A concert paying tribute to the late Ross Gentile is scheduled for 8:00 p.m., Sunday, September 8 in the Meridian Ballroom, located in the Morris University Center on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Gentile (pictured) hosted the "Standards In Jazz" program on WSIE for 15 years, at one point working on-air for the station seven days a week. He also worked as a DJ for WIBV, KSHE and WZQZ, and was a regular presence as an MC at live jazz events in the St. Louis area. He died in February at age 60 after a heart attack.
Musical performers at the tribute concert will include the Gary Dammer Big Band, Rick Haydon, Denise Thimes, Sherry Drake, Joe Bozzi, and others. Also appearing will be friends and colleagues of Gentile's, including Dr. Ed Wolf, Marvin Cohen, Adam Tracy, Buddy Moreno, and Don Wolff.
Tickets for the Ross Gentile tribute concert are $20. For more information, call 618-409-1389. To purchase in advance, send a cashiers check, money order or check payable to "Dianne Turek" to Box #240, 407 Belt Line Rd., Collinsville, IL, 62234. Tickets also will be sold at the door.
Family members also have set up a "Standards in Jazz" website and Facebook page to promote the concert and Gentile's legacy. Photo of Ross Gentile from standardsinjazz.com.
