MAXJAZZ releases new CDs by McKinley, Miller and Proulx

The St. Louis based independent jazz label MAXJAZZ has three new CDs out this week. The new titles, which hit stores on Tuesday, are singer Cassandre McKinley's 'Til Tomorrow (Remembering Marvin Gaye); Moon and Sand, from singer and pianist John Proulx; and Live at the Kennedy Center, Volume 1, the latest from the superb pianist Mulgrew Miller.

You can hear audio samples from all three CDs on MAXJAZZ's Web site. The label also has a special offer that applies to purchases made from their site - specifically, when you buy any MAXJAZZ CD for $16.99, you can purchase up to four additional CDs for $12.99 each, with free shipping in the U.S.

Jazz this week: Diane Schuur, Craig Russo Latin Jazz Project, and more

In a week of transition from summer to fall, Grammy Award winning singer and pianist Diane Schuur (pictured at left) is the biggest name jazz performer appearing in St. Louis, as she returns to Finale Music and Dining for shows on Friday and Saturday night.

Finale also has some other noteworthy acts this week, with Curt Landes and Vince Martin appearing tonight and the Craig Russo Latin Jazz Project on Thursday. Landes and Martin are a versatile duo whose repertoire includes jazz, blues and their own original material, while Russo returns to St. Louis from his home base in Champaign/Urbana IL for the first time after performing at the US Bank St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival this past June.

Elsewhere in town, Brandt's has a trio of singers this week, with Jeanne Trevor tonight, Mae Wheeler on Thursday and Amy Ehrlich on Saturday, and Crossings Taverne and Grille will present Todd Mosby on Friday and the Dave Trancoso Trio on Saturday. Cookie's Jazz and More will have pianist Carolbeth True and her trio on Thursday, but I can't tell you anything more about the rest of the weekend there because they haven't posted their schedule for September yet.

As usual, this is but a fraction of the musical activity for the week, so for more on what's happening in St. Louis jazz, please consult the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar. (While perusing the calendar, note that a couple of clubs are lagging in disseminating their September schedules, and some concert presenters, such as New Music Circle and Jazz at Holmes, have yet to weigh in with their fall slates. However, the StLJN calendar has gotten a major update in the last 24 hours, including all of the Jazz at the Bistro dates for 2006-07 that have been announced so far, plus upcoming shows presented by Finale, the St. Louis Jazz Club, Casa Loma Ballroom and several others.)

(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. No attachments, please.).

KMOX presents "Jazz & Wine Festival" at Faust Park on September 23

KMOX radio is sponsoring a "Jazz and Wine Festival" from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday, September 23 at Faust Park in Chesterfield. Featured performers will include Denise Thimes, Kim Massie, Terry Artis and Natural Jazz, Readus Miller Project and Erin Bode. The event will also offer tasting of wines from local, regional and national wineries as well as food from local restaurants. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 the day of event. For more information, visit KMOX's Web site.

Ferguson tribute concert set for September 20 at the TouPAC

Tickets are now on sale for a concert paying tribute to Maynard Ferguson to be held at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, September 20 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center on the University of Missouri - St. Louis campus.

An AP wire story says Ferguson's Big Bop Nouveau Band and many alumni from previous Ferguson bands will perform, and the event also will include video tributes and speeches from some of the musicians who began their careers in Ferguson's band, About 20 musicians are confirmed so far, including Wayne Bergeron, Denis DiBlasio, Mike Dubaniewicz, Carl Fischer, Chip McNeill, Peter Olstad, Reggie Watkins and Steve Wiest, and up to 35 are expected to participate, according to Steve Schankman, Ferguson's friend and manager and the organizer of the performance. Fans are being directed to Ferguson's official site for the latest information on additions to the show.

Proceeds from the concert will go to a scholarship fund set up at UMSL in Ferguson's name at UMSL. Fans who would like to honor Ferguson's memory are being asked to donate to the scholarship fund. You can send contributions via check or money order to:

"Maynard Ferguson Music Scholarship"
University of Missouri – St. Louis
C/O Dr. Dixie Kohn
8001 Natural Bridge Road
407 Woods Hall
St. Louis, MO. 63121

Donations may also be made online here. Follow the link and click on "Make a Gift". Then, choose "Maynard Ferguson Scholarship" in the Gift Designation drop-down menu.

Tickets for the tribute concert are priced from $25 to $50 and are available at the TouPAC box office, by calling 314-516-4949 or toll free at 866-516-4949, or online here.

UPDATE, 8/29/06, 5:15 p.m. - I've just had a look at the message board on Maynard's site, and it would appear that fans will be coming in from all over the country for this show. If you're seriously interested in attending, you might do well to order your tickets now

Trumpeter's tale included among stories of storm survivors

Now that the anniversary dates of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans are upon us, the media are serving up plenty of "one year later" stories. The Post-Dispatch had a well-written article over the weekend recounting the experiences of a number of New Orleans residents who ended up in the St. Louis area, including jazz trumpeter Jeremy Davenport. Also worth a look is this piece from the Associated Press, which tells "day in the life" stories of more New Orleanians, including one musician who's had a rough time finding work over the past year.

Sunday video bonus: A tribute to Maynard Ferguson, part 2

The second part of our video tribute to Maynard Ferguson features a couple of audience-made clips. While the video and sound quality may not quite be up to the same standards as the professionally produced videos posted earlier, I hope you'll enjoy seeing them anyway.

The video up top dates from 1972, when Ferguson first returned from England to the USA with a band split between British and American musicians, and features the song "Nice and Juicy," a Ferguson concert staple during this time period. The second clip is from 2005, and shows Ferguson and band playing a medley of his best-known songs in a concert in Las Vegas.

Ferguson fans may also wnt to check out a recent clip of one of Ferguson's student workshops, in which he discusses his high-note techniques, and this clip from 1973 of Maynard performing the intro to his arrangement of Chick Corea's "La Fiesta," a performance that demonstrates some of those high note skills. Finally, don't miss writer Doug Ramsey's appreciation of Ferguson on his blog Rifftides.

(You can see part 1 of StLJN's tribute to Ferguson here.)

Poster shows St. Louis jazz legends

St. Louis-based artist and illustrator Kevin Belford, whose work has appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Riverfront Times and Sporting News and has been used by the St. Louis Blues Society, Big Muddy Blues Festival, and the Delmark and Fedora record labels, has created an original poster featuring portraits of important jazz musicians from St. Louis.

Belford says prints of the poster soon will be available for purchase from the Soulard Framery, though their Web site doesn't seem to have it listed yet as of this writing. Until such time as it does show up on their site, I presume you can contact the shop for more information.

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: A tribute to Maynard Ferguson, part 1

In the process of finding the clip of Maynard Ferguson playing "Round Midnight" that was posted here last week, I ran across a number of videos of Ferguson available online via the various video sharing sites. My plan had been to parcel them out over the weeks leading up to his next St. Louis appearance, but with Ferguson's passing this week it seem appropriate and timely to share them now instead as a way of remembering and paying tribute to the talented trumpeter.

The first video is from 1950, and it shows Ferguson at age 22 playing with the Stan Kenton Orchestra, the group that gave him his first big break after his move to the United States. The composition is entitled "Maynard Ferguson," and was written especially for him by Shorty Rogers. The second clip dates from sometime in the mid to late 1970s, and features Ferguson and his group performing "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me," a pop hit for Elton John that serves as a fairly representative example of the way Ferguson treated this sort of material.

Media coverage of Ferguson's passing has been mostly of the usual celebrity-obit variety, with an emphais on his recording of the theme from the movie Rocky, but there are also some more personal tributes popping up in various newspapers. I especially enjoyed this piece from the Washington Post (free registration required, or use BugMeNot), in which staff writer David von Drehle explains what Ferguson meant to several generations of young trumpet players, as well as these short articles from the Saratoga Springs (NY) Saratogan and the Akron (OH) Beacon Journal.

In part 2 of StLJN's tribute, tomorrow we'll take a look at a couple more Ferguson videos, including one taped at a workshop for student musicians in which he discusses his famous high-note technique.