Recently on Heliocentric Worlds

StLJN's sibling site Heliocentric Worlds this month has featured a wide variety of music videos, drawn from genres including jazz, blues, soul, funk, classic rock, prog rock, experimental, and more.

Recent posts have included performances - some rare and/or obscure - by Coleman Hawkins and Harry "Sweets" Edison, MC5, Chico Hamilton and Euphoria, Carla Bley Big Band, Elvin Jones Jazz Machine, the Young Rascals, Ray Bryant, Cecil Taylor, If, Sons of Champlin, Supersax, Tony Bennett, Sun Ra Arkestra, Little Feat, Freddie Hubbard, Gil Evans Orchestra, Max Roach, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Gato Barbieri, Buddy Miles, Traffic, Tito Puente, James Cotton, Don Cherry and Nu, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, Archie Shepp's Attica Blues Big Band, Mose Allison, Art Blakey/Tony Williams Group, and Duke Ellington.

It's a veritable college of musical knowledge, with all these videos plus thousands more carefully curated clips available for your viewing and listening pleasure just by visiting http://heliocentricworlds.blogspot.com/.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Joe Lovano and Us Five

This week, let's take a look at some videos of saxophonist Joe Lovano and Us Five, who will be performing Wednesday, April 30 through Saturday, May 3 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Born and raised in Cleveland and educated at Berklee, the 61-year-old Lovano first gained professional experience performing with organists "Brother" Jack McDuff and Dr. Lonnie Smith. He then went on to play with the big bands of Woody Herman and Mel Lewis, and then worked with guitarist John Scofield and drummer Paul Motian, two musical relationships that would continue well beyond Lovano's first album as a leader in 1985.

Since lauching his solo career, Lovano has led bands ranging from a quartet to a nonet, and also has been part of some high-profile collaborations, notably the Saxophone Summit group with Dave Liebman, the late Michael Brecker, and, after Brecker's untimely death in 2007, Ravi Coltrane.

Us Five was formed in 2009, with the group's most obvious distinction being the presence of two trap drummers, Otis Brown and Francisco Mela, whose contrasting approaches yield plenty of rhythmic density while still generally avoiding clutter. Pianist James Weidman also has been part of all three Us Five albums, while bassist Esperanza Spalding, who played on the group's first two recordings, these days has mostly ceded the chair to Peter Slavov as her own career has taken off.

Today's first video shows the current US Five lineup in 2011 playing "Barbados," from their album Bird Songs, live in the Studios of Seattle NPR affiliate KPLU.

After the jump, there are two songs recorded in July, 2009 during the band's gig for the Heinecken Jazzaldia at Plaza de la Trinidad in San Sebastian, Spain. First up is "Folk Art," which is split into two parts, followed by "Us Five," both from their first, self-titled album, and both with Spalding on bass.

Next up are two songs, "Viva Caruso" and "Spiritual," recorded in 2011 at Jazzwoche Burghausen in Germany, again with the current lineup of musicians.

Last but not least, check out an interview Lovano did with video reporter Lee Pace in which the saxophonist talks about Us Five and Bird Songs.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...

Sheldon Concert Hall announces 2014-15 season schedule

The Sheldon Concert Hall today announced the schedules for their various 2014-15 subscription series and special concerts, and as usual, there's some programming that will be of interest to StLJN readers.

With regard to the Sheldon's main jazz series, as tipped here on StLJN back in December 2013, it will get underway this fall with concerts featuring pianist Chick Corea (Saturday, October 11) and guitarists Bucky Pizzarelli, Frank Vignola and Vinny Raniolo (Saturday, November 15).

Also on tap for the jazz series is the Dizzy Gillespie Afro-Cuban Experience (Saturday, March 21, 2015), which is led by the late, legendary trumpeter's former bassist John Lee. The current iteration of the group also includes Mario "Machito Jr." Grillo, son of the famed percussionist, as well as trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, who's played in the Gillespie memorial big band and worked with former St. Louisan Oliver Lake, among others; plus saxophonist Sharel Cassity, guitarist Yotam Silberstein, and drummer Robby Ameen.

Perhaps the most intriguing jazz series offering is the final one, as the much-talked-about singer Cécile McLorin Salvant (pictured) will make her St. Louis debut at the Sheldon on Saturday, May 2, 2015.

Winner of the 2010 Thelonious Monk International Vocals Competition, the 24-year-old Salvant was raised in Miami but went to Paris to study music. After winning the Monk competition, her career gained momentum in the States thanks to her work with pianist Jacky Terrasson and with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and took off in earnest with the release last year of her American debut album WomanChild.

As for the rest of the Sheldon's 2014-15 schedule, pianist Peter Martin will continue his eponymous series with concerts on Friday, November 21 and Friday, February 27, with the specifics of both programs TBA.

Also returning will be the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound*, whose first performance of their third St. Louis season will be as part of "250 Years of St. Louis Music: American Music at its Best!" a special event on Friday, October 17 that also will include jazz, blues, ragtime and more from Denise Thimes, Peter Martin, Kim Massie, Billy Peek, and other St. Louis favorites.

On their own, AWS will perform in concert on Saturday, December 11 - tentatively scheduled to be the North American premiere of Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy's extended work The Hunger - and on Friday, January 23 and Thursday, May 28, 2015.

The Coffee Concerts series will include performances from Cornet Chop Suey (Tuesday, October 7 and Wednesday, October 8) and Swing Set (Tuesday, April 21 and Wednesday, April 22, 2015), and the St. Louis Stompers will play a non-subscription Coffee Concert on Tuesday, February 10, 2015. Miss Jubilee also will put in an appearance, playing an 11 a.m. Saturday matinee on March 7, 2015.

Lastly, a couple of the "special concerts" may be of interest as well. South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela will perform with singer Vusi Mahlasela in a program called "20 Years of Freedom" on Saturday, October 4, and though the evening ostensibly will focus on "South Africa’s Freedom Songs," I'll bet you a nickel that Masekela finds a way to work in a bit of "Grazin' In The Grass" before the night is over.

Also, fans of big band, Latin jazz and/or Brazilian music may want to check out SpokFrevo Orquestra on Sunday, November 2. Led by Brazilian saxophonist Inaldo Cavalcante de Albuquerque, aka Spok, the 18-piece big band mixes jazz with frevo, a carnival rhythm and musical genre popular in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.

Subscription tickets for the jazz series are $150 orchestra, $135 balcony. Subscriptions also are available for the Coffee Concerts and Peter Martin series. New subscriptions will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. Monday, May 12 and continue through the first concert in each series.

Single tickets for the jazz series range from $35 to $50, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. Saturday,August 9 via MetroTix. You can find all the details on subscriptions, single ticket prices, and all the various series at the Sheldon on their website. 

* As mentioned here several times before, yr. humble StLJN editor is employed by a local public relations firm to, among other things, assist Alarm Will Sound with publicity in St. Louis and Columbia, MO. However, given the scope of StLJN's coverage, I'd be mentioning them even if I wasn't working for them. Now that you know this information, I trust that you, the reader, are capable of making your own judgments about any AWS-related hype and/or potential conflicts of interest.

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Yesterday, the New York Times' City Room blog ran a short feature on saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett, who's recovering from two strokes in the last two months, but nevertheless is planning to perform this Saturday.

Bluiett is living in NYC again after spending several years back home in southern Illinois, but according to the NYT article, continues to have financial as well as health difficulties and is getting help from the Jazz Foundation of America.

* The news is considerably better for fellow saxophonist, St. Louis expat, and World Saxophone Quartet co-founder Oliver Lake, who this week was named one of 20 winners of a 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award. The prize is worth a minimum of $225,000 over a three to five year period, with possible additional funding of another $50,000 if certain conditions are met.

* Enjoy The View, saxophonist David Sanborn's new album with Joey DeFrancesco, Bobby Hutcherson, and Billy Hart (pictured above with Sanborn), is now available for pre-order from iTunes, with immediate digital delivery of the preview track "Delia."

Meanwhile, Sanborn is wasting no time getting to work on his next recording, this week launching a PledgeMusic campaign to finance the costs. The album will reunite him with bassist Marcus Miller in the studio for the first time in nearly 15 years.

In addition to the usual premiums like downloads of the album, signed CDs, and VIP concert tickets, Sanborn is offering plenty of high-end options, too, including private concerts (which, for locations in the USA, start at $25K plus expenses) and the chance to have him play a solo on your recording ($7,500 when done from Sanborn's home studio).

* Trumpeter Clark Terry was the subject of a feature story in the New York Observer.

* Pianist and former St. Louisan Tom McDermott's collaboration with producer, songwriter and musician Van Dyke Parks was featured on New Orleans community radio station WWNO's "American Routes" program.

* Saxophonist Eric Person will take part in a tribute to the late drummer Chico Hamilton next Tuesday, April 29 at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in NYC. Person worked with Hamilton for eight years and made several albums with him.

* The Route 66 Jazz Orchestra has posted on Facebook an album of photos from their recent performance at the Kirkwood Station Brewing Company.

* Speaking of photo albums on Facebook, The Gramophone has posted one with shots from Davina and the Vagabonds' performance there last weekend.

* Singer Joe Mancuso is profiled in the new issue of Uptown magazine.

* The late St. Louis pianist and ragtime historian Trebor Tichenor is the subject of a tribute on the website West Coast Ragtime (incorporating StLJN's item on Tichenor's passing, with our permission according to Creative Commons licensing.)

* Jazz radio update: This Saturday's episode of Calvin Wilson's program "Somethin' Else" on Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis will put the bass in the place with performances from Ron Carter, Gary Peacock, Esperanza Spalding, and more.

Then on "The Jazz Collective," Jason Church is offering tunes from Richard Smith, Les Sabler, Jeff Lorber Fusion, Stan Sargeant, John Klemmer, Fourplay, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Richard Elliot, and Tommy Halloran's Guerrilla Swing.

Wilson's program airs at 8:00 p.m. Saturdays, followed by Church at 9:00 p.m., on 107.3 FM, 96.3 HD-2, and online at http://www.rafstl.org/listen.

The Sheldon, Metrotix offering online presale of tickets for Kurt Elling concert

The Sheldon Concert Hall and Metrotix are offering a special one-day-only online pre-sale of tickets for the performance by Kurt Elling on Friday, June 6 at the Sheldon.

Elling (pictured), acclaimed as one of the top male singers in jazz today, definitely has a strong St. Louis fan base, thanks to several previous performances at Jazz at the Bistro, but will be making his Sheldon debut with this show. The concert is the centerpiece of a benefit for the Sheldon Art Galleries, and patron tickets have been on sale for several weeks, so the supply of seats will be limited.

Single tickets for the Kurt Elling concert at The Sheldon go on sale to the general public at 10:00 a.m. this Saturday, April 26, but online buyers can purchase tickets a day early, starting at 10:00 a.m. Friday, April 25 by going to the Metrotix site and using promo code KURT14.

(Edited after posting to fix a garbled sentence.)

Jazz this week: Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival, Chicago Underground Duo, Tommy Halloran's Guerrilla Swing, and more

As the final weekend of Jazz Appreciation Month comes into view, there's still plenty to celebrate, with a variety of jazz and creative music performances happening in and around St. Louis over the next few days. Let's go to the highlights...

Tonight, the 2014 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival gets underway with a quartet performance led by pianist and ex-St. Louisan Reggie Thomas and his Michigan State University colleague, bassist Rodney Whitaker, at Jazz at the Bistro. Drummer Montez Coleman and saxophonist Willie Akins will round out the group.

Also tonight, the St. Louis Low Brass Collective presents a free showcase at the Sheldon Concert Hall; and the Tavern of Fine Arts will present their monthly "Experimental Arts Open Improv Night" with live improvised music.

Tomorrow, the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival shifts to the Touhill Performing Arts Center, where Cuban-born trumpeter Arturo Sandoval will headline Friday's show, with the UMSL jazz band, directed by Jim Widner, as opening act. For more about this GSLJF, read this interview  that Widner did with Terry Perkins for St. Louis Public Radio.

Also tomorrow night, the Chicago Underground Duo (pictured), featuring Rob Mazurek (cornet, electronics) and Chad Taylor (drums, percussion), plays at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center; singer-guitarist Tommy Halloran and his band Guerrilla Swing make their debut in the first of two evenings at Jazz at the Bistro; and the Gaslight Cabaret Festival concludes with the first of two performances this weekend by St. Louis' own Lara Teeter at the Gaslight Theater.

And if all that's not enough, elsewhere around town on Friday Samba Bom will perform a free concert at Ferguson Citywalk; singer Joe Mancuso leads a quartet at Nathalie's; trumpeter Randy Holmes' sextet pays tribute to the music of Duke Ellington at Robbie's House of Jazz; and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes return to CJ Muggs in Webster Groves.

On Saturday, record collectors will want to make time to stop by "The Gigantic St. Louis DJ Album Sale for Charity" being held in midtown at 3137 Locust St. (east of Compton, one block west of The Fountain on Locust). The sale will feature more than 10,000 LPs, CDs and items of music memorabilia donated by local radio personalities past and present; for more details, see this post from last week.  

Also on Saturday afternoon, mouthpiece guru Mike Lomax will give a free workshop and presentation at Saxquest; and Miss Jubilee plays a matinee at Blues City Deli.

Update - 11:00 a.m. 4/25/14: Saxquest has posted on Facebook that the Mike Lomax mouthpiece workshop has been postponed due to illness.   

Then Saturday evening, the 2013 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival concludes with a concert by the Count Basie Orchestra, now directed by trumpeter Scotty Barnhart and featuring Reggie Thomas on piano, at the Touhill. For more about the Basie band and some video samples of performances of their classic repertoire, see this post from last Saturday.

And that's not the only big band show in town on Saturday, as that same evening bassist/trombonist Wayne Coniglio will lead a 35-piece orchestra with guest soloists including Cecil Cope and Elsie Parker in "The Swing of Hearts," a romance-themed program at Florissant Civic Center Theatre.

Also on Saturday night, violinist David McNair and his Gypsy jazz group Tzgane return to Robbie's House of Jazz; and the Ann Dueren Trio performs at Il Bel Lago.

On Sunday, the Dave Dickey Big Band plays their monthly gig at Kirkwood Station Brewing Company, with saxophonist Chip McNeill as guest soloist and the Genesis Jazz Project performing at intermission.

Also on Sunday, guitarists Steve Schenkel, John McClellan, Dave Black and Tom Byrne - aka the guitar faculty of Webster University - team up to perform at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus; and saxophonist Tim Cunningham and singer Jeffery Hardin join forces for a concert at the Forest Park golf course clubhouse.

Looking beyond the weekend, on Monday "Blind" Willie Dineen and the Broadway Collective return to  BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups; and on Tuesday, pianist David Parker and drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw will perform as a duo at Tavern of Fine Arts.

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 turns nine

Nine years ago today, the first post went up on St. Louis Jazz Notes. Nearly 3,500 posts later, StLJN remains one of the longest continuously operating outposts of the jazz blogosphere and one of the longest running music blogs in St. Louis, as well as the city's most regularly updated source devoted to news about jazz.

Thanks once again to all the readers, commenters, musicians, music students and educators, presenters, club owners, publicists, tipsters, media people, record label employees, and others who have taken an interest in the site over the years. Your time and continued attention are much appreciated.

As usual, if you have any anniversary wishes, congratulations, questions, suggestions, or complaints, the comments are open.

James Hegarty releases new solo piano album Drop Plunk

Pianist James Hegarty has released a new solo piano album, representing his first foray into solo playing since his 2008 release Antithesis Reflex. The new album Drop Plunk was recorded by Hegarty in his home studio in a week last month, and now is available as a free digital download via CD Baby

Described as "spontaneous explorations of the vast potential of piano sounds - including realtime prepared piano and electronics," the album (pictured) features solo performances on a Yamaha G3 piano that are "sometimes captured by a Korg Kaoss Pad and looped in the background." In addition, rather than setting up prepared piano sounds in advance, Hegarty's "preparations are made and changed, altered, and replaced throughout the course of the performance." 

You can hear previews from Drop Plunk and download the entire album or individual tracks for free here.