Scrooge Harris Quartet to perform benefit concert on July 24

Drummer Jerome "Scrooge" Harris and his quartet will perform a benefit concert for the Institute for the Advancement of Jazz Study and Performance on Sunday, July 24 at Jazz at the Bistro. The event begins with a buffet meal at 2 p.m. and the music starts at 3 p.m.

Harris is an underappreciated treasure of St. Louis' jazz scene, an old-school bebopper whose playing shows the influence of Max Roach, Kenny Clarke and Art Blakey and who can swing smoothly at impossibly high speeds or drop a fusillade of bombs with equal facility. Joining Harris on the bandstand will be saxophonist Freddie Washington, bassist Jeff Anderson, and young piano phenom Lawrence Fields, back in St. Louis for the summer after his first year at Boston's Berklee College of Music. Vocalist Anita Jackson, who often fronts the Jazz Edge big band, also will perform a few numbers with the Quartet.

Tickets are $75 for reserved VIP seating or $50 for regular admission. All proceeds benefit the IAJSP, a program of the Community Women Against Hardship that publicist Dawn DeBlaze calls "a dream in progress that mentors and supports the art of creative jazz music, and gives direction to our youth. The Institute hopes to see and hear underserved musicians grow through its cultural heritage program to become mature and disciplined artists." For more information or to make a reservation, call (314) 289-7523.

Jazz this week: Pat Martino, Rippingtons, Webster U jazz faculty and more

Pat Martino

It's another good week in St. Louis for jazz guitar fans, as Russ Freeman brings the smooth jazz sounds of the Rippingtons to the Pageant tonight, while Pat Martino will continue Jazz at the Bistro's "Summer Jazz Spectacular" with two performances each Friday and Saturday nights. (I wrote a short piece last year about Martino for the Riverfront Times that's still relevant, and you can find it here.)

Elsewhere, Sandy Weltman will put his virtuoso chops on banjo and harmonica to work on a whole bunch of musical styles, including jazz, for an outdoor concert tonight at the Missouri Botanical Garden's Whitaker Music Festival. And there are still two free concerts left (tonight and tomorrow) in the series of performances by faculty members of Webster University's summer jazz camp.

Fans of traditional jazz may enjoy the Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band, which comes to town Sunday for a matinee at the Moolah Shrine Center sponsored by the Saint Louis Jazz Club. And there are plenty of St. Louis based performers in action this week, too - check out the St. Louis Jazz Notes calendar for the details.

As always, if you're a musician, band or venue who would like to have your concert or gig listed in the calendar (and consdered for the weekly highlights post), email your information to me at stljazznotes at yahoo dot com.

Happy birthday, Milt Buckner!

Milt Buckner

Milt Buckner, born in St. Louis on July 10, 1915, had a long and productive career as one of the handful of jazz musicians to enjoy success and demonstrate equal facility as both a pianist and an organist.

Though born in the Gateway City, Buckner was raised in Detroit, and got his first professional job with McKinney's Cotton Pickers before he was out of his teens. Later, he went on to work with famed vibist Lionel Hampton for many years. He also recorded a number of albums as a leader, and later in his career worked as a session musicians and sideman with Illinois Jacquet, Roy Eldridge, Jo Jones, Buddy Tate, Arnett Cobb and many other artists, moving freely between the worlds of jazz, R&B and pop. These brief biographies and this three-part discography provide an overview of Buckner's work, with the latter including some interesting photos of vintage record labels and covers and some pictures of the man himself.

As a pianist, Buckner was one of the early proponents of the "locked hands" style of playing later made famous by George Shearing. As an organist, he built on the work of Fats Waller and "Wild Bill" Davis, often using the organ orchestrally to make a small ensemble sound like a big band, and putting more emphasis on a variety of tonal colors than on fleet-fingered solo runs. Jimmy Smith cited Buckner as an early influence, although at 5'2" tall, Buckner's legs were too short to enable him to even attempt the fast-moving pedal bass lines that became one of Smith's trademarks.

An exuberant performer who connected instinctively with an audience, Buckner contined to record and tour, often in Europe, until shortly before his death in Chicago on July 27, 1977. A good deal of his music is still in print, including compilations of his work from the 40s and 50s and some full length CDs recorded later in his career. Director David Lynch used Buckner's composition "The Beast" (Real Audio file) in the film Mulholland Drive, and several Buckner tracks from the 50s and 60s have appeared on various themed compilations of lounge and "space age pop" music.

(edited 7/11/05)

Webster U jazz faculty to present free concerts

Pianist Carolbeth True is one of the Webster University
faculty members who will perform in a series of free
concerts July 11 - 14 at the University's Music Annex

It's almost time for the annual summer jazz camp at Webster University, and every evening after the young musicians have completed their daily schedule of classes, workshops and jam sessions, they get to hear their faculty members - all working professional musicians - perform in concert.

Webster U also invites the public to attend these free concerts, which will be held in the University's Music Annex, 8282 Big Bend Blvd (the southeast corner of Edgar Road and Big Bend) in Webster Groves, at 7 p.m. each night Monday through Thursday next week. If you can handle the early start time, it's a great chance to check out a fine sampling of our town's jazz players without paying a cover charge.

The lineup for the week looks like this:

• Monday, July 11: Randy Holmes (trumpet), Paul DeMarinis (saxophones), Carolbeth True (piano), Willem von Hombracht (bass) and Kevin Gianino (drums).
• Tuesday, July 12: Mike Karpowicz (saxophone), Tom Byrne (guitar), Carol Schmidt (piano), Ric Vice (bass), and Gianino.
• Wednesday, July 13: DeMarinis, Mike Parkinson (trumpet), Ben Wheeler (bass), and Kyle Honeycutt (drums).
• Thursday, July 14: Parkinson, Willie Akins (saxophones), Dave Black (guitar), Kim Portnoy (piano), von Hombracht and Gianino.

The students get their turn on Friday night, with a concert at 7 pm in the University's Winifred Moore Auditorium that is also open to the public. For more information, call the Webster Jazz Studies department at 314-968-7039.

(Edited to correct posting time and fix some weird line breaks on 7/7/05)

Jazz this week: Bucky Pizzarelli kicks off the Bistro's summer series

Bucky Pizzarelli

In terms of touring acts, the big story in St. Louis this week is guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, who's opening Jazz at the Bistro's "Summer Jazz Spectacular" series with two sets per night on Friday and Saturday.

Pizzarelli is a master of the postwar, pre-Wes Montgomery style of jazz guitar. He can play it fast, and he can play it pretty, swinging in front of a high-octane rhythm section or reflecting leisurely on a ballad with a full-bodied chord-melody style. If you're a fan of jazz guitar, or great guitar playing in general, and you've never seen Pizzarelli, this is, as the saying goes, a no-brainer. Buy your ticket and check the man out.

But even if you're not a passionate guitar fan, there may be another reason you'd like to be at Jazz at the Bistro this weekend. As noted last week, the summer series is being produced in collaboration with a month-long seminar conducted by Washington University's Center for the Humanities, and it's a bit of an experiment for the Bistro - a way for them to test the market for touring jazz attractions during the summer months. So if you're a jazz fan who'd like to see the Bistro continue to move toward year-round operations, these next three weeks are your chance to vote "Yes" with your dollars and your feet.

That said, if you're just not in the mood for guitar jazz, there are still plenty of gigs featuring some fine St. Louis-based talent this weekend. Check the St. Louis Jazz Notes calendar for the full rundown.

And if you are a musician or venue who would like to have your event listed on the calendar (and possibly mentioned in the weekly preview post as well), email your information to me at stljazznotes at yahoo dot com.

Some jazz MP3s for free

"More of my stuff for free? Now I'm really mad!"

Since Independence Day is supposed to be a holiday about freedom, it seems like an appropriate time to see what's available for free on the Internet in the way of jazz MP3s. After a bit of Googling and poking around various sites, I found this sampling of free, complete tracks and performances available for download:

• DarkFunk.com offers a small but select group of downloads that currently includes a Herbie Hancock performance from 1971, a complete out-of-print album by reedman Bennie Maupin, and - making that all-important St. Louis connection - a 1973 live performance from Paris by the Miles Davis Septet, featuring Miles, Dave Liebman, Pete Cosey, Reggie Lucas, Michael Henderson, Al Foster and Mtume. You'll need a high-speed connection (or a whole lot of patience and free time) to download the 169 MB file, but if you're a fan of Miles' electric stuff, you'll want to have this recording.

• A search of the the Internet Archive turns up all sorts of jazz performances and recordings, from an old 78 of "St. Louis Blues" recorded in 1910 by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band to a 2002 live performance by violinist Billy Bang. There's lots more, too, from Ma Rainey to Randy Weston to beat poet Alan Ginsburg performing with musical accompaniment, all available in a variety of formats and audio streams.

• Jazz Times makes you register to get access to their page of free MP3s, but there's usually some stuff worth having in the constantly changing selection. Today's features include tracks from James Blood Ulmer and Charles McPherson, but the offerings seem to change fairly frequently, so it's worth bookmarking.

• In addition to the sample snippets offered for many of the CDs they carry, Amazon.com also has a page of free, full-length jazz MP3s avalable here, with tracks running the stylistic gamut from from Sun Ra to Dave Brubeck.

• The music site Epitonic features full-length tracks from a number of experimental and avant garde jazz performers including Ken Vandermark, Hal Russell, Nels Cline and Joe McPhee. (There's also a page of free downloads of music from 20th century composers such as Lou Harrison, Frederic Rzewski, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Henry Cowell, Harold Budd, Terry Riley, Morton Feldman, plus pianist Margaret Len Tan performing the music John Cage.)


• If you're in the mood to discover some new music by unknowns, you'll find plenty at JazzPromo.com, which requires an email address, but also gives you access to audio interviews with the likes of Charlie Parker and Fats Waller; at JazzConnect.com, which also offers tracks by established saxophonists Carl Grubbs and Gary Smulyan; and at JazzGuitar.be, where you'll find recordings by Jim Hall and Al DiMeola in amongst those by less-familiar guitarists.
  

Have you found other good sources for jazz MP3s? If so, please leave a comment with the URL and relevant information, or email it to me at stljazznotes at yahoo dot com.

Old Webster Jazz Festival announces lineup of performers

Vocalist Erin Bode will be one of the headliners
at this year's Old Webster Jazz Festival.

This year's Old Webster Jazz Festival - apparently, they've dropped the "and Blues" from the name - will be held from noon to 11 p.m. on Saturday, September 17 near the intersection of Lockwood and Gore in the historic Old Webster business district.

Featured performers on the Festival's two stages will include Erin Bode, Corey Christiansen, Jim Manley's Wild, Cool and Swingin' and the Leslie Maclean Trio, as well as Jeanne Trevor in a tribute to Gaslight Square and blues/rock guitarist Billy Peek in what is billed as a tribute to the late Johnnie Johnson. The music is free, and food and drink will be available from local restaurants and bars. For more information, visit the Festival's Web site.

Happy birthday, Fontella Bass!

Fontella Bass

Many people think of Fontella Bass, born in St. Louis on July 3, 1940, as a soul singer. Her hit "Rescue Me" was one of the Sixties' biggest soul records by a female vocalist, and continues to be heard today on oldies radio and in advertising, television and movies. (The song was also featured on the recent PBS special about John Lennon's personal jukebox as the only record by a female artist on the Beatle's portable juke.)

However, Ms. Bass is in fact a multi-talented singer and pianist who was raised singing gospel and got her professional start playing the blues with Oliver Sain and Little Milton. She also has a number of credits as a jazz vocalist, mostly notably three recordings with the Art Ensemble of Chicago during the time she was married to the late Lester Bowie, as well as sessions with David Murray, the World Saxophone Quartet and many others.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Ms. Bass a couple of years ago for the Riverfront Times, and the resulting story gives an broad overview of her career and what she's been up in the new millenium. (Her Wikipedia entry, this brief biography and this account of her gospel comeback fill in much of the rest of the story.)

At the time, she had recently completed some guest vocals for the British dance music group Cinematic Orchestra, and the track "All That You Give" from those sessions is available as a free download here. You might also enjoy hearing this interview Ms. Bass gave earlier this year to the radio program American Routes, available in Real Audio format here.

Though she's already secured a spot on the St. Louis Walk of Fame, Fontella Bass remains active with her group the Voices of St. Louis (which often includes pianist Ptah Williams and the Bosman Twins on saxes and flutes), touring in Europe and occasionally in America. We wish her many more happy, healthy and productive years to come.