Music For Lifelong Achievement conducting musical instrument drive in April

Music For Lifelong Achievement (MFLA), which provides musical instruments to St. Louis area students in need, is conducting a drive during the month of April to collect new and used instruments.

Part of the not-for-profit Sheldon Arts Foundation, MFLA over the past ten years has distributed more than 800 instruments to students in St. Louis City and County school districts and a variety of community music programs.

If you have an instrument to donate, you can bring it to any concert at The Sheldon during the month of April, or stop by and drop it off during normal business hours from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

MFLA also is encouraging businesses and community groups to hold instrument drives this month. If you'd like to collect instruments at your workplace, school, civic organization or place of worship, get in touch with MFLA coordinator Matt Brinkmann by calling 314-533-9900 or via email at mbrinkmann at thesheldon.org.

If you'd like to help but don't have an instrument to donate, MFLA also accepts financial contributions, which pay for necessary repairs of donated instruments as well as accessories such as strings, reeds and sheet music. However you contribute, MFLA will provide a "thank you" letter to serve as a tax deduction receipt for the value of the instruments or the funds donated.

For more information or to make a donation, call The Sheldon at 314-533-9900 or visit www.supportmfla.org.

Jazz this week: Rudresh Mahanthappa, Miles Davis Memorial Project fundraiser, and more

This week brings both the official start of spring and an assortment of jazz and creative music music performances in and around St. Louis, including the local debut of a fast-rising saxophone star; a couple of big band concerts; a benefit to raise money for a statue honoring Miles Davis, and much more. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa (pictured) makes his St. Louis debut, opening a four-night stand with his band Gamak at Jazz at the Bistro.

A prolific collaborator who keeps at least a couple of different projects going at any one time, Mahanthappa has gotten a good amount of media attention - by jazz standards, anyway - for his blend of jazz and Indian classical music, including features in the major jazz magazines, appearances on NPR, and so on.

Gamak is one of his more extroverted ensembles, incorporating electric guitar and near-rock dynamics into a sound that should appeal to fans of fusion, funk and world music. You can find out more about Mahanthappa and check out some video samples of Gamak in this post from a couple of Saturdays ago.

Also tonight, Sarah Jane & The Blue Notes trio will do their monthly gig at The Feasting Fox, and trumpeter Jim Manley will be on tap at Sasha's Wine Bar.

On Thursday night, the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University will present "The Colors of Chloe," a free concert featuring an ensemble led by drummer Steve Davis and guitarist William Lenihan playing music inspired by the ECM label. Also on Thursday, Common Time plays jazz-fusion at The Engine Room, and Wack-A-Doo will perform swing and vintage pop at the Schlafly Tap Room.

On Friday, violinist David McNair will lead a quartet at Robbie's House of Jazz; guitarist Dave Black plays solo at the Tavern of Fine Arts; and the Darrell Mixon Trio performs at Cigar Inn.

Saturday evening is a big night for the Miles Davis Memorial Project, as the organization will present its  "Kind of Blue" Fundraising Dinner at The Commons at Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey, IL. Proceeds from the event will go toward putting up a statue of Davis in downtown Alton.

Elsewhere on Saturday evening, singer Tandra Williams will be backed by guitarist Tom Byrne's trio at Robbie's House of Jazz;  Miss Jubilee plays at Nathalie’s; singer Danita Mumphard and friends return to Jazz On Broadway; and, for those in the mood for some Rat Pack nostalgia, the Viviano Brothers - comprised of singer Tony Viviano and his siblings Jerry and Frank - will open for singer Deana Martin's "Reflections of Dean Martin & Frank Sinatra" show at Lindenwood University's Scheidegger Center for the Arts.

On Sunday, the Dave Dickey Big Band will return for their monthly gig at Kirkwood Station Brewing Company, with the Bishop DuBourg High School Jazz Band performing a set during intermission.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday Dizzy Atmosphere will return to The Shaved Duck, and trumpeter Keith Moyer's quartet will play at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups.

Then on Tuesday, the St. Louis Jazz Orchestra, directed by bassist Jim Widner, will perform at the Sheldon Concert Hall; and singer Erin Bode will be back at Cyrano'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.)

Kurt Elling to perform Friday, June 6 at The Sheldon

Singer Kurt Elling is returning to St. Louis to perform a benefit concert at 8:00 p.m., Friday, June 6 at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Proceeds from the event will go to support the Sheldon Art Galleries.

Elling (pictured) last visited St. Louis in February 2013 to perform at Jazz at the Bistro, a venue he's played numerous times. However, this will be his debut at The Sheldon, and his first trip to St. Louis since parting ways with his longtime musical director and pianist Laurence Hobgood. His most recent recording, made with Hobgood still at the piano bench, is 2012's 1619 Broadway: The Brill Building Project.

Patron tickets for Kurt Elling at The Sheldon are on sale now for $500, $250 and $125, and include preferred seating, a post-concert dessert reception, complimentary parking and a tax deduction. To purchase patron tickets or for more information, call The Sheldon's development department at 314-533-9900. Concert-only tickets will be $45 orchestra, $40 balcony, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. Saturday, April 26 via MetroTix, The Sheldon’s website, and at the Fox Theatre box office.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Mwata Bowden

This week, let's get acquainted with Chicago multi-instrumentalist Mwata Bowden, who's coming to St. Louis to perform with the trio Low End Theory for Washington University's Jazz at Holmes series on Thursday, March 27. Bowden plays a variety of saxophones and clarinets, flute and didgeridoo, and he'll be joined for the performance by bassist and Wash U faculty member Paul Steinbeck and drummer Gary Sykes.

Bowden is associated closely with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, having been a member for nearly 40 years and serving for a time as the organization's chairman, and also teaches jazz and improvisation at the University of Chicago. That's where he connected with Steinbeck, who earned his bachelor's degree at UC.

While he's in St. Louis, Bowden also will present a lecture on "Creating Culture" at 1:00 p.m., Wednesday, March 26 at the Music Classroom Building 102, which is located at 6500 Forsyth Blvd. (at Wallace Dr.) on the Wash U campus. Both the concert and lecture are free and open to the public.

Born in Memphis, the 66-year-old Bowden moved with his family to Chicago when he was ten, and attended DuSable High School, where he studied under the renowned band director Captain Walter Dyett. He earned a degree in music education at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, and after graduating, started gigging as a baritone saxophonist with big bands and R&B groups. After touring with soul vocal group the Chi-Lites in the early 1970s, Bowden wanted to get off the road, so he began teaching and in 1974, got involved with the AACM.

As a bandleader, Bowden has led the jazz groups Sound Spectrum and Tri-tone, as well as the Black Classical Music Ensemble. He also directs a student ensemble, the Chicago Jazz X-Tet, as part of his work at the university. Bowden is a longtime collaborator with saxophonist Ed Wilkerson, playing in Wilkerson's groups 8 Bold Souls and Shadow Vignettes. He also works frequently with bassist Tatsu Aoki in various ensembles, including the Miyumi Project, which blends jazz with Japanese taiko drumming and folk music styles.

Though Bowden may be less well known outside Chicago that some of his fellow AACM members, he's an important part of the organization and the city's music scene, so much so that in 2013 he was recognized by the Jazz Journalists Association as one of 25 "Jazz Heroes" in various cities across the US. And so it was on the night that award was presented that our first video clip, which features Bowden as part of an ensemble jam, was recorded at a venue called Elastic.

Down below, you can see him conducting and playing didgeridoo with the University of Chicago Jazz X-Tet Reunion Band, leading them through his composition "Maze Factor Suite, Two Front Doors" in October 2012 concert at the Logan Arts Center on the UC campus.

Below, Bowden can be seen conducting another of his large ensemble works, "A Well Woven Web," which was commissioned for and recorded at the 2013 Made In Chicago Festival in Poznan, Poland.

The fourth and fifth videos are excerpts from an 8 Bold Souls performance, coincidentally also in Poznan, but recorded in 2009. In the first, you can hear how saxophonist, bandleader and composer Ed Wilkinson uses Bowden's baritone sax to buttress the ensemble, while in the second, Bowden gets a tasty clarinet solo starting at about the 4:40 mark.

In the final clip, you can see Bowden sitting in with the punk-jazz group Slammin' Blue Watusis, adding an extra measure of skronk to "Mchaka Uba."

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short local news items of interest:

* Drummer Kimberly Thompson is keeping busy with her duties with the house band for NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers, even participating in some on-camera comedy bits, like the one pictured here with Michelle Wolf and Alison Agosti of the Late Night writing staff. However, Thompson did manage to find time this week to post on SoundCloud an excerpt from her band's performance last month at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

* Jazz students from Webster Groves High School are in New York City this week, and band director Kevin Cole has a full schedule planned for his young charges. The trip will include visits to NYC venues to hear Ambrose Akinmusire, Maria Schneider, Ulysses Owens, Charles Turner, Walter Smith III, and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; and a clinic at Queens College with Michael Philip Mossman, Antonio Hart, Paul Bollenbeck, and Luis Bonilla.

In addition, the WGHS Jazz 1 group will perform Sunday at St. Peters Jazz Vespers with pianist Kenny Werner, and then serve as the opening act that evening at Birdland for Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra.

* Also on the education front, Jazz St. Louis has announced a $35,000 gift from the Arthur & Helen Baer Foundation in support of the 2014-15 season of their JazzU program. Applications to audition for next year's JazzU are due by Friday, May 2, with auditions beginning on Monday, June 2. For more details, see the Jazz St. Louis website.

* Writing for the website NextStL, Kevin Belford has an update on recent wind damage to the historic Palladium Building in Grand Center and the possible effects on efforts to save the structure.

* Via Miles Davis Online, here's a video interview from IRockJazz with Davis' nephew Vince Wilburn, Jr., who helps administer his uncle's estate, in which Wilburn discusses the forthcoming movie about the trumpeter and various other Miles-related topics. MDO blogmaster Jeffrey Hyatt also has created a new site, Kill The Trumpet Player, to track news of the Davis film.

* Singer Connie Fairchild's show last Saturday for the Gaslight Cabaret Festival was reviewed for KDHX by Chuck Lavazzi.

* The late ragtime pianist and historian Trebor Tichenor was the subject of a tribute episode of KWMU's "CityScape" program.

* Galactic's performance last week at The Pageant was reviewed by KDHX's Amy Burger.

* A set from the Funky Butt Brass Band's gig last month at The Gramophone has been posted to archive.org.

* And speaking of The Gramophone, they're celebrating the venue's sixth anniversary this week with the announcement that their Sandwich and Bottle Shop will be open for regular daytime business offering food, drink and free wi-fi to the growing Grove neighborhood starting April 1.

* Also on the culinary tip, the Post-Dispatch's Ian Froeb is the latest to review the Louisiana-style menu at the new Central West End spot Evangeline's.

* HEC-TV last night debuted a new episode of I Love Jazz, featuring previously unseen archived performances by singer Marlena Shaw, trumpeter Dawn Weber, singer Marilyn Maye and pianist Billy Stritch, saxophonist Willie Akins and drummer Montez Coleman, and jazz faculty and students from Webster University. Check your TV provider's program guide for channels, dates and times, or watch online at http://www.hectv.org.

* Jazz radio update: On this Saturday's episode of Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis' "Somethin' Else," host Calvin Wilson spotlights New Orleans trumpeters including Louis Armstrong, Derrick Shezbie, Joe Newman, Terence Blanchard and Wynton Marsalis. You can listen at 8:00 p.m. Saturdays via 107.3 FM, 96.3 HD-2, and online at http://www.rafstl.org/listen.

(Edited after posting to add the KWMU "CityScape" link.)

Jazz this week: Kevin Eubanks; Garfield, Ligertwood & Stevens; Emily Bergl; a tribute to Miles Davis; and more

While some revelers this weekend no doubt will be wearing green in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day, your StLJN staff would like to remind you that one doesn't have be Irish, or indeed of any particular national origin or ethnicity, to enjoy jazz, either.

You just have to know where to go and when, and to help you with that, we've compiled these highlights of upcoming jazz and creative music performances in the St. Louis area...

Tonight, bassist Christian McBride, who was just here last month with his trio at Jazz at the Bistro, drops into the area again for a day to do a master class and concert with pianist Peter Martin down I-55 at Jefferson College in Hillsboro.Tickets for the evening concert are only $5 for the general public, so even figuring in that it's a bit of drive from many parts of the area, that's still a bargain.

Meanwhile back in downtown St. Louis, keyboardist and St. Louis expat David Garfield, former musical director for George Benson, and singer Alex Ligertwood, who's toured and recorded with Santana, Average White Band and Brian Auger, will join forces with saxophonist Jim Stevens and his rhythm section for two sets of funk, soul and jazz at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups.

Also tonight, the Gaslight Cabaret Festival resumes with singer and actress Emily Bergl, who's best known for her work in musical theater and a recurring role on ABC's Desperate Housewives, presenting the first of three performances of her show "Until the Real Thing Comes Along" at the Gaslight Theater.

On Friday, pianist and Jazz St. Louis education director Phil Dunlap brings his new quintet to Jazz at the Bistro for the first of two evenings featuring the music of Miles Davis. Along with Dunlap, the group includes trumpeter Danny Campbell, saxophonist Ben Reece, bassist Nathan Pence, and drummer Montez Coleman.

Also on Friday, Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes play at the Atomic Cowboy; singer Wendy Gordon and pianist Arthur Toney perform at the Tavern of Fine Arts; and guitarist Dave Black, violinist Asako Kuboki and saxophonist Paul DeMarinis will team up for a trio show at the house concert venue KindaBlue, 6101 1/2 Idaho in south St. Louis.

On Saturday afternoon, the revived Nu-Art Series will present drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw, pianist David Parker and trumpeter George Sams at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site.

Then on Saturday evening, guitarist Kevin Eubanks (pictured) will play two shows at Lumiere Place Casino's Lumiere Theatre. Eubanks just got back from a series of dates in Europe and Russia with bassist Dave Holland, performing in both a trio format and with the quartet Prism. The former bandleader for Jay Leno's Tonight Show also made news recently when he dropped by Arsenio Hall's syndicated late night program for a chat and a bit of jamming.

Elsewhere around town on Saturday evening, the Pennsylvania-based contemporary chamber music group NakedEye Ensemble will make their St. Louis debut at The Chapel; trombonist Doug Burns returns to Robbie's House of Jazz; Miss Jubilee plays for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; and The People's Key and Elastik Soul will present "Bold as Jimi: Love as Jazz," a jazz/funk tribute to Jimi Hendrix, at the Schlafly St. Louis Brewery and Tap Room.

On Sunday, multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman and pianist Carolbeth True will be the featured performers at this month's free "Inner Jazz" concert at Kirkwood United Church of Christ; and Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center continues their “Quiet Concert” series with a performance headlined by Kansas City-based electronic musician and composer Jason Zeh.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday the jazz faculty at Webster University will present their annual concert in Winifred Moore Auditorium to raise funds for the school's Shepard/Davis scholarships.

On Tuesday, the Sheldon Concert Hall is busy day and night, starting with a morning "Coffee Concert" (also repeated on Wednesday) featuring Red Lehr and the St. Louis Rivermen, and continuing with an evening performance by trumpeter and singer Dawn Weber as part of the hall's "Notes From Home" series. Also on Tuesday, the Twin Cities jump-blues and swing band Davina and The Vagabonds will be back in town for a show at The Gramophone.

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: Rudresh Mahanthappa's Gamak

This week, let's look at some videos of alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, who will be making his St. Louis debut with his group Gamak starting Wednesday, March 19 through Saturday, March 22 at Jazz at the Bistro.

The son of Indian emigrants to the United States, the 42-year-old Mahanthappa is known particularly for combining jazz with elements of South Indian classical music. He grew up in Boulder, Colorado; graduated from Berklee College of Music; and earned an MFA in jazz composition from DePaul University in Chicago.

Moving to NYC in 1998, Mahanthappa soon teamed up and released an album with pianist Vijay Iyer, and they've continued to collaborate on many projects. To date, Mahanthappa has released 13 albums as a leader or co-leader, featuring various ensembles including an eponymous quartet and Raw Materials, both including Iyer; as well as the Indo-Pak Coalition, MSG, the Dakshina Ensemble, Dual Identity, and Samdhi.

The 2013 debut album by Gamak featured bassist François Moutin and drummer Dan Weiss, both of whom who have worked with Mahanthappa in other bands, as well as guitarist David "Fuse" Fiuczynski, whose penchant for microtonality complements Mahanthappa's own. Fiuczynski's metal-edged, take-no-prisoners approach became something of a cult favorite among guitarists via his own group, the Screaming Headless Torsos, and he's since gone on to play as a sideman with drummers Jack De Johnette and Stewart Copeland, trumpeter Cuong Vu, pianist Hiromi Uehara, and others.

However, according to the promotional material being disseminated by Jazz St. Louis, Fiuczynski won't be playing with Gamak at the Bistro. Instead, the gigs will feature Moutin, Weiss and guitarist Rez Abbasi, who's worked with Mahanthappa in several bands, including the aforementioned Indo-Pak Coalition.

Though that may be something of a disappointment to anyone who was looking forward to hearing "Fuse" push the decibel levels at the Bistro, Abbasi is a capable player who has a demonstrated rapport with Mahanthappa. Still, it's got to be a different group without Fiuczynski, and thus we now must offer news of the change as a caveat, since he's featured in pretty much all the video of Gamak available online.

Up top, there's a promotional clip for Gamak's first album, in which Mahanthappa discusses the recording and you can hear some brief musical excerpts. Down below, you can see several live performance videos, starting with an excerpt from a show recorded during the 2013 NYC Winter Jazzfest at Le Poisson Rouge with all four musicians who recorded the album.

Below that, there are two videos from a concert in May 2013 in Croatia, featuring Mahanthappa, Fiuczynski, Rich Brown on bass, and St. Louis-born Gene Lake, son of saxophonist Oliver Lake, on drums. The first includes the compositions "Stay I," "Slendro" and "Wrathful Wisdom," while the second is an extended version of "Abhogi."

In the fifth spot, there's a clip from August 2013 at the Novosadski Jazz Festival in Serbia with Mahanthappa, Fiuczynski, Brown on bass and Jordan Perlson on drums. The sixth and final video is a short interview with Mahanthappa from 2011, in which he discusses some of his teachers and musical influences.

For more about Rudresh Mahanthappa and Gamak, you can listen to this episode of NPR's "Piano Jazz" from May 2013, or check out this interview the saxophonist did last year with pianist George Colligan for Colligan's blog JazzTruth.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

Here's the latest wrap-up of assorted links and short local news items of interest:

* With the wrecking ball poised to swing at the historic Castle Ballroom, site of performances by many important jazz musicians, Nicholas J. C. Pistor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that much of the recent deterioration of the building came while it was owned by groups that included some St. Louis city officials.

* Also on the historic preservation front, Steve Smith, owner of the south side tavern The Royale, has recorded a video in support of the effort to save the Palladium, aka Club Plantation, another building in the Grand Center district with a musically significant history that also is threatened with demolition. The effort to raise awareness and save the building is being led by artist and author Kevin Belford, who created the collage of musicians who played at Club Plantation used to illustrate this post.

* In this week's Miles Davis-related news, Peter Bacon of the UK blog The Jazz Breakfast wonders if the number of Davis CD box sets has reached the saturation point.

* Meanwhile, an article in Audiophile Review critiques the quality of various reissues of Davis' landmark album Kind of Blue.

* The Presenters Dolan have posted to their Facebook page an album of pictures from last weekend's Gaslight Cabaret Festival performances by singer Marissa Mulder.

* Singer Connie Fairchild, whose Gaslight Cabaret Festival performance on Saturday night is sold out, was interviewed by Terry Perkins for the St. Louis Public Radio website.

* Guitarist Pat Metheny was interviewed by Calvin Wilson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a preview story about Metheny's Unity Group concert this Sunday at The Pageant. 

* Trumpeter Roger Ingram has posted to his Facebook page a photo album from his workshops and performances at last week's Mineral Area College Jazz Festival

* The St. Louis Big Band's Ryan Sheehan was profiled by the Webster University Journal.

* Guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran was interviewed by Liz Schranck of KDHX.

* The New Orleans-style cuisine at Evangeline's, the new Central West End spot that features live music several nights a week, was reviewed by the Riverfront Times' Cheryl Baeh.

* St. Louis writers K. Curtis Lyle and Quincy Troupe spoke on the program New Day Jazz about the late author, poet and critic Amiri Baraka.

* Jazz St. Louis reports via this week's email newsletter that their 2014 fundraising gala held last Friday at the Ritz-Carlton raised more than $260,000 for the organization's education programs, making it the second most successful gala in JSL's history. You can see photos from the gala, which featured music from saxophonist Maceo Parker, on Jazz St. Louis' Facebook page.

* Jazz radio update: This Saturday night on Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis' "Somethin' Else," host Calvin Wilson will feature jazz interpretations of the music of composer Stephen Sondheim by clarinetist Don Byron, saxophonist Grover Washington Jr., singer Sarah Vaughan, and others. Listen in at 8:00 p.m. Saturdays via 107.3 FM, 96.3 HD-2, and online at http://www.rafstl.org/listen.

Then, this Sunday evening on KWMU's "Jazz Unlimited," host Dennis Owsley continues his exploration of music recorded live in New York, ranging from vintage tracks featuring Art Tatum, Sarah Vaughan with Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Don Byas with Thelonious Monk, and many others to more recent recordings by Chucho Valdes, the Gil Evans Orchestra, the Dave Holland Quintet, the World Saxophone Quartet, Medeski, Martin & Wood, the Anthony Braxton Quartet with Marty Ehrlich, and Hamiet Bluiett.

The program can be heard at 9:00 p.m. Sundays over the air on KWMU (90.7 FM) or online at http://www.news.stlpublicradio.org. (This is a "pledge week" for KWMU, so if you're so inclined, you can show your support for "Jazz Unlimited" by calling in during the program with a membership contribution.)

Also on Sunday nights: While Josh Weinstein presents avant-jazz, improvised music and more each week on "All Soul, No Borders", airing at 10:30 p.m. KDHX (88.1 FM), he rarely tips his playlists in advance. However, we have been remiss in not noting in this space that once the show has aired, you can see the ASNB playlists, and more importantly, access an audio stream of the previous two weeks' shows, via the KDHX website.

(Edited after posting to add the link to the Pat Metheny interview.)