The St. Louis-based label Freedonia Music, which documents the city's experimental and avant-garde music of the past and present, has two new releases out this month.
New Music for Clarinet and Piano features eight tracks of "spontaneous compositions" from clarinetist Eric Mandat and pianist Greg Mills, recorded "live" last year at Jackson Pianos.
The label's other new release Kuvuka teams Greg Mills with percussionist Glenn "Papa" Wright for "a summit conference for piano and drum set."
Recorded in June at Clayton Studios, it features four tracks of "free improvisation showing postmodern jazz and classical influences by two master musicians at the height of their expressive powers."
Both albums are available as downloads or physical CDs, and you can hear samples from both via the Freedonia website. And speaking of downloads, the entire Freedonia catalog is now available in downloadable form from the label's Bandcamp page for $7 per album.
This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features the return of a rising jazz star with local roots, a tribute to an iconic pianist and composer, and more. Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, September 6 The "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" presents guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Jacobs at KDHX's Magnolia Cafe; a jam session with bassist Bob Deboo and friends at the Kranzberg Arts Center; and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor and band at The Dark Room.
Friday, September 8 The annual St. Louis Art Fair opens in downtown Clayton, running through Sunday afternoon with free live music from singer Wendy Gordon, Feyza Eren, and Erin Bode; guitarist Dave Black; the Jazz St. Louis All-Stars, Jim Widner Big Band, and more. (Check the fair's website or the StLJN calendar for days and set times.)
Monday, September 11 Jazz faculty from Webster University will join forces for "The Jazz Legacy of Atlantic Records 1955-1975" at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus. The performance will feature music from the label's roster of jazz artists during that period, which included Ornette Coleman, John Lewis and the Modern Jazz Quartet, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Charles Lloyd, Mose Allison, Chris Connor, Eddie Harris, and Les McCann.
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.)
This week, it's part two of StLJN's Fall 2017 jazz preview, featuring videos of noteworthy performers who will be coming to St. Louis in the next several months. (You can see part one, published last week, here.)
Picking up the chronology in mid-October where part one left off, today's first video features trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, who will be back in St. Louis to perform on Friday, October 13 and Saturday, October 14 at Jazz at the Bistro. The video shows a full set from Sandoval and his band, recorded in February of this year in Moscow, Russia.
After the jump, it's singer Paula West, who will open the fall series of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival on Friday, October 13 and Saturday October 14 at the Gaslight Theater. West is seen here performing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" as part of a tribute to Bowie in February 2016 at Feinstein's in San Francisco.
Next, it's the recently formed "supergroup" Hudson, featuring drummer Jack DeJohnette, guitarist John Scofield, keyboardist John Medeski, and bassist Larry Grenadier. They'll perform here on Saturday, October 14 at the Sheldon Concert Hall, and can be seen in today's third clip vamping for a few minutes on the title track from their eponymous first album, as recorded on June 30 of this year at the Montreal Jazz Festival.
The fourth video features the young Cuban-born pianist Harold Lopez-Nussa, who will make his St. Louis debut here with performances starting Wednesday, October 18 through Saturday, October 21 at Jazz at the Bistro. He's seen here performing music from his most recent album El Viaje in March of this year at the Banlieues Bleues Festival in Seine-Saint-Denis, France.
The fifth video features actor and singer Alice Ripley, the Tony Award-winning Broadway star who will perform as part of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival on Friday, October 20 and Saturday October 21 at the Gaslight Theater. The video shows Ripley singing "As If We Never Said Goodbye" (from the musical Sunset Boulevard) and was recorded on June 5, 2017 at Feinstein's/54 Below in NYC.
Today's final clip spotlights Sammy Miller and the Congregation, a young band from New Orleans who will cap off a week-long educational residency for Jazz St. Louis with shows on Friday, October 27 and Saturday, October 28 at Jazz at the Bistro. Miller and his flock are seen here performing "Ain't Misbehavin'" in April of this year at the studios of radio station KNKX in Tacoma, WA.
Look for part three of StLJN's Fall 2017 jazz preview in this space next week. You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...
Jazz St. Louis has announced nine more events for the 2017-18 season at Jazz at the Bistro, filling in some gaps in the previously-announced schedule for the fall and adding one more headliner in the spring.
Three of the shows are co-productions with Cabaret Project of St. Louis, as the two organizations will team up to present singer and actor Kyle Dean Massey on Wednesday, September 27 and Thursday, September 28; actor, singer and Bellevile native Lea DeLaria(pictured), who will make her debut at the Bistro with shows on Wednesday, December 27 and Thursday, December 28; and Marilyn Maye, the 89-year-old known as the "grand dame of cabaret," on Wednesday, March 7 and Thursday, March 8.
Three other newly-scheduled events will pay tribute to jazz greats.
Drummer Montez Coleman will helm "The Art of Blakey," a celebration of the iconic drummer and his Jazz Messengers, on Friday, September 9 and Saturday, September 10, joined by saxophonist Ben Reece, trumpeter Danny Campbell, bassist Bob DeBoo, and pianist Adam Maness.
Coleman, DeBoo and Maness then will return the following month for a "Thelonious Monk Centennial" tribute on Friday, October 25 and Saturday, October 26.
Then on Wednesday, November 5, a free event titled "Duke Ellington and Film" will examine Ellington's music for film and his onscreen appearances via a talk by John Edward Hasse, curator of American music at the Smithsonian Institute, and a performance from the Jazz St. Louis Big Band.
Also added to the fall schedule are a performance by the JazzU Big Band student ensemble on Sunday, October 29, and return dates for the 1970s jazz-fusion tribute Weather Forever on Friday, November 10 and Saturday, November 11, and trumpeter Jim Manley's holiday show "A Very Manley Christmas" on Friday, December 22 and Saturday, December 23 .
It's the start of a new month, and that mean's it's time once again to check in on StLJN's sibling site Heliocentric Worlds. where each day there's posted a different online music video, drawing on genres including jazz, blues, soul, funk, classic rock, prog rock, experimental, and more.
The five most-watched videos added to the site last month were:
Other recent posts have featured videos of the Ed Palermo Big Band, Sun Ra Arkestra, Blodwyn Pig, Abdullah Ibrahim, Hawkwind, Geri Allen and the Celebration Ensemble, Freddie Hubbard Quintet, Les McCann Quartet, Sam Rivers Quartet, The Who, Big Sam's Funky Nation, Oregon, Maynard Ferguson & Big Bop Nouveau, Dexter Gordon, The Soul Rebels, The Headhunters, Mavis Staples, Roscoe Mitchell, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, McCoy Tyner, Buddy Guy, Anthony Braxton ZIM Sextet, Tommy Flanagan, Mary Halvorson Octet, Ahmad Jamal & Yusef Lateef, and Barbara Dennerlein.
If you've somehow missed out on all this until now, you still can see all of these videos, plus thousands more from archives, by going to http://heliocentricworlds.blogspot.com.
The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University has announced their schedule of free concerts for the Fall 2017 semester.
The series will begin on Thursday, September 14 with British bassist Tony Grey(pictured), who's probably best known as a member of pianist Hiromi's working band.
Grey will be accompanied by Jay Oliver on keyboards; Wash U faculty member and Jazz at Holmes series director William Lenihan on guitar; and Roger Guth on drums.
In addition to Grey and various shows featuring a selection of St. Louis performers, the Fall 2017 series also will include themed programs exploring Italian film music; the intersection of experimental jazz and contemporary classical; and folk and protest songs of the 1960s.
Here's the entire schedule in chronological order:
Thursday, September 14; Tony Grey Thursday, September 21: Freddie Washington Quartet Thursday, September 28: Montez Coleman/Eric Slaughter Quartet
Thursday, October 5: Kim Fuller Thursday, October 19: "From Torino - Music of Italian Film Composers: Morricone, Gaslini, Rota, Umiliani, Giordano" with Filippo Cosentino, William Lenihan, and the Sogni D'Alba String Trio. Thursday, October 26: "Streams of Extremity II" with Ptah Williams, William Lenihan, Steve Davis, Amy Greenhalgh, and Marcia Mann
Thursday, November 2: "Voices of Freedom, Songs of Social Justice" with R. Scott Bryan, Rick Schuler, and band. Thursday, November 9: Joe Mancuso Organ Trio Thursday, November 16: Arc of Light Ensemble with Paul DeMarinis, Randy Holmes, Wayne Coniglio, William Lenihan, and band Thursday, November 30 - Vincent Varvel Quartet
Thursday, December 7: Holiday concert featuring Wash U singers & musicians TBA.
All concerts are free and open to the public. Concerts begin at 8:00 p.m. and are presented in Holmes Lounge, Ridgley Hall, which is located on Washington University�s campus at the west end of the Brookings Quadrangle, near the intersection of Brookings and Hoyt drives.
