Jazz this week: Take 6, Tatsuya Nakatani, Bonerama, Xmas jazz around town, and more

It's going to be a busy few days for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, and though a couple of high-profile shows are sold out (or nearly so), there's still going to be plenty of music - holiday and other - available on local stages. Let's go to the highlights.

Wednesday, December 13
Acappella vocal group Take 6 returns for the first of four nights at Jazz at the Bistro. The run of shows was described by Jazz St. Louis on Tuesday as "nearly sold out," so if you want to hear the multiple Grammy winners in the intimate confines of the Bistro, you'll definitely need to call ahead for advance reservations, and perhaps a bit of luck as well.

As an alternative, you can see a live video stream of Wednesday's shows in the first floor lounge on the west side of Jazz St. Louis HQ, available with no cover charge in conjunction with the free, weekly "Grand Center Jazz Crawl".

This week's crawl also features the Jazz Troubadours at The Stage at KDHX, plus the jam session led by bassist Bob DeBoo at the Kranzberg Arts Center and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor's band at The Dark Room.

Also on Wednesday, the musical show "An Unforgettable Nat King Cole Christmas" resumes its run,  continuing with performances through Sunday afternoon at the Playhouse at Westport Plaza.

Thursday, December 14
Singer Dianne Reeves, who had been scheduled to headline "Gospel Christmas: A Soulful Celebration" with the St. Louis Symphony at Powell Hall, announced on Thursday that she would be unable to perform due to an unspecified health issue. Simultaneously, the SLSO announced that the show would go on as scheduled, with St. Louis' own Brian Owens standing in for Reeves.

Also on Thursday, singer Erin Bode will be in Edwardsville for a holiday concert at the Wildey Theatre; guitarist Dave Black will play at The Pat Connolly Tavern; and trumpeter Keith Moyer and his quintet return to The Dark Room

Friday, December 15
Percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani (pictured, top left) will be back for what has become an annual convening here of his Gong Orchestra, in which he teams up with and trains a group of local musicians in specific techniques for each performance.  This year's edition, presented at the William A Kerr Foundation on the riverfront, will feature a solo percussion set by Nakatani, followed by the Gong Orchestra set with him and 14 collaborators from St. Louis.

Also on Friday, the Funky Butt Brass Band kicks off their annual "Holiday Brasstravaganza" weekend at Off Broadway. As of this writing, a few tickets may remain for Friday, but the Saturday night show and a newly added, family friendly Saturday matinee are already sold out.

Elsewhere around town, the Original Knights of Swing play for dancers at the Casa Loma Ballroom; singer Feyza Eren performs at the house concert venue KindaBlue Club; and Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes will play vintage swing, jump blues and more at the Venice Cafe

Saturday, 
December 16
New Orleans' trombone-centric band Bonerama (pictured, bottom left) returns to perform at The Bootleg at Atomic Cowboy.

Currently touring in support of their new album Hot Like Fire - their first release as part of a new deal with New Orleans' Basin Street Records - Bonerama have been regular visitors to St. Louis for most of this decade, playing at venues including the Old Rock House, Broadway Oyster Bar and The Sheldon. If you've missed out on their brass/funk/rock sound up until now, you can find our more and see some video samples of recent performances in this post from last Saturday. 

Also on Saturday, Wack-A-Doo returns to Evangeline's; saxophonist Dave Stone's trio will play at Thurman's in Shaw; and Miss Jubilee performs at the Casa Loma Ballroom .

Sunday, December 17
There's more holiday jazz in the offing, as the Oikos Ensemble presents "Jazz Noel: A Child is Born" at the First Congregational Church of Webster Groves, while the Dave Dickey Big Band celebrates a "Big Band Christmas" with singer Anita Jackson and guest intermission performers, the North County HS Jazz Ensemble, at .ZACK in Grand Center.

Monday, December 18
Trumpeter Jim Manley plays his weekly Monday night gig at Momo's Greek Restaurant.

Tuesday, December 19
Still more holiday jazz on tap, as the Jazz St. Louis Big Band will play Duke Ellington's "Nutcracker" Suite (plus additional Ellingtonia) for the first of three nights at Jazz at the Bistro, and The 442s present their "Holiday Spectacular" at 560 Music Center

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.)

Jazz St. Louis adds shows to Bistro's winter/spring schedule, including Keyon Harrold, Ken Page, and more

Jazz St. Louis has announced additions to the winter/spring 2018 schedule for the Ferring Jazz Bistro, filling out the previously announced slate of touring acts with more than a dozen shows featuring St. Louis musicians and singers

Most notably, trumpeter Keyon Harrold (pictured, top left) will return home to perform Wednesday, February 7 and Thursday, February 8, and singer and actor Ken Page will make his debut at the Bistro with performances on Wednesday, April 4 and Thursday, April 5.

Harrold, a native of Ferguson now living in NYC, has gained considerable career momentum in the last two years, thanks to his participation in the soundtrack for Don Cheadle's film Miles Ahead and the recent released of The Mugician, his highly anticipated second album as a leader.

Page (pictured, bottom left) is a St. Louis native famed for his Broadway roles in the original casts of Ain't Misbehavin' and Cats (as well as in many other musicals including The Wiz and Guys and Dolls), and for his voice acting in Tim Burton's animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas.

He's been developing a cabaret show for the last several years, and presented a version of it in 2014 at the Gaslight Theatre as part of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival.

Also of note, the "Whitaker Jazz Speaks" series will continue with a program called "Harlem�s Renaissance" on Wednesday, April 18. The free event will begin with a discussion led by Gerald Early of Washington University, followed a performance of music from the period by Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, and Louis Armstrong.

As for the rest of the schedule, keyboardist Nathan Jatcko will make his Bistro debut as a leader with a standalone date on Thursday, April 19, and The Peoples Key and guest multi-instrumentalist Lamar Harris will reprise their "Jazz Memories of Michael Jackson," first staged in 2014 at the Kranzberg Arts Center, on Friday, February 9 and Saturday, February 10.

Other local performers getting return engagements include the Funky Butt Brass Band "and Friends" (Friday, March 9 & Saturday, March 10), singers Brian Owens (Wednesday, March 21 & Thursday, March 22) and Denise Thimes (Friday, March 23 & Saturday, March 24), drummer Kevin Bowers (Friday, April 20 & Saturday, April 21), the JazzU Big Band student ensemble (Sunday, April 29), the Route 66 Jazz Orchestra (Thursday, May 17) and trumpeter/vocalist Dawn Weber and Friends (Friday, May 18 & Saturday, May 19).

Lastly, there's a new program called "Juice Box Jazz" for kids in pre-K through elementary school. It will be presented on three Sunday afternoons - January 21 with members of the Funky Butt Brass Band, March 4 with keyboardist/guitarist Adam Maness, and April 8 with trumpeter Riley Mulherkar - and will include musical performances, snacks, and jazz-themed activities that "will have the whole family learning and loving what jazz music is all about."

Tickets for all these performances will go on sale at !1:00 a.m. this Friday, December 15 via the Jazz St. Louis website or by phone at 314-571-6000.

Brian Culbertson to perform Saturday, May 12 at The Pageant

Multi-instrumentalist Brian Culbertson is returning to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m. Saturday, May 12 at The Pageant.

Culbertson (pictured) will be touring in support of his forthcoming album Colors of Love, which is scheduled for release in early February. He last played in St. Louis in October 2016, also at The Pageant.

Tickets for Brian Culbertson are $39.50 for reserved seating, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. this Friday, December 15 via Ticketmaster and The Pageant box office.

Sunday Session: December 10, 2017

Sunny Murray

Here's the roundup of various music-related items of interest that have appeared in StLJN's inbox over the past week:

* Who can fill the role of Tom Lehrer today? (The Economist)
* Pete Escovedo: Rhythms of Life (Jazz Times)
* Paul McCartney�s Lost Experimental Christmas Album That He Made For The Beatles Has Surfaced Online (Uproxx.com)
* Spotify Attorney Estimates the Service Infringed 300,000 Songs in Settlement Hearing (SPIN)
* Why Sun Ra Matters (Philadephia Jazz Project)
* The Problem with Muzak - Spotify�s bid to remodel an industry (The Baffler)
* The Chief of Entertainers - Trumpet virtuoso Dizzy Gillespie was a jazz prophet, a musical genius, and a scatterbrained whirlwind (TheAmericanScholar.org)
* Electrifying Photos of Cuba's Thriving Music Scene (Vice.com)
* Louis Armstrong�s home in Queens is now a museum (Curbed.com)
* Historic Austin Music Venue Is Being Sold on eBay (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Lloyd Price's Personality: Long Live The Real King! (JazzWeekly.com)
* David Bowie Sang For Devo, and Mark Mothersbaugh Might Have the Tapes (BedfordAndBowery.com)
* How I Got 10,000 Spotify Plays For a Totally Fake Song (DigitalMusicNews.com)
* Last.fm Was the Only Music Social Network That Made Sense (Vice.com)
* Jazz Legend Sonny Rollins on Retiring His Sax, His Legacy, and the Secret to Life (Vulture.com)
* Quincy Jones is about to launch the 'Netflix of jazz' (Mashable.com)
* Next Wave Forever: John Cale at Seventy-Five (The New Yorker)
* New Jimi Hendrix LP Unearths 10 Previously Unheard Recordings (Rolling Stone)
* Inside the Shady World of the Musical Hologram (Vice.com)
* The Legacy of Buddy Rich (Jazz Times)
* This Kenyan drummer is fighting to make more space for women in percussion (TED.com)
* Eric Clapton Talks Addiction, Cream's Brilliance, the Future of the Guitar (Rolling Stone)
* RIP: Sunny Murray, pioneering free jazz drummer (TinyMixTapes.com)
* Drummer Sunny Murray Dies at 81 (Jazz Times)
* Enacting Change in the Performing Arts World Begins with Changing the Conservatory Culture (AmericansForTheArts.org)
* David Sedaris: Songs for My Father - A conversation with the best-selling author and humorist on his lifelong love of jazz (Jazz Times)

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Bonerama puts low brass on top

This week, StLJN's video spotlight shines on Bonerama, who will be back in St. Louis to perform on Saturday, December 16 at The Bootleg at Atomic Cowboy.

The New Orleans-based band puts the low brass on top, thanks to a three-trombone front line plus a sousaphone standing in for electric bass. Formed in 1998 by trombonists Mark Mullins and Craig Klein, both veterans of Harry Connick Jr.'s big band, they've forged a distinctive sound that incorporates their hometown musical traditions into funky yet hard-rocking covers of songs by the likes of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, using trombones to deliver the heavy riffs originally played by fuzzed-out guitars.

Bonerama tours frequently outside their hometown, and have been coming to St. Louis at least once a year since the late 2000s, playing several different venues including the Broadway Oyster Bar and the Old Rock House. Most recently, since their last visit here in early 2016, they signed with the New Orleans-based Basin Street Records and in October released Hot Like Fire, their first album for the label.

If you haven't been able to catch one of their previous shows here, you can sample their sound and get an idea of what to expect from their live show via today's collection of videos, starting up above with "Swamped In," recorded in May 2016 at Generations Hall in New Orleans for the local TV program New Orleans Live.

After the jump, you can see a video of "Mr. Okra," Bonerama's tribute to a beloved local New Orleans character/vegetable vendor, that was recorded for the same program.

That's followed by two clips shot in April 2016 at the CrawDebauchery Food & Music Festival in Pompano Beach, FL, namely Bonerama's storied "Led Zeppelin Medley: In My Time Of Dying~Black Dog~Good Times Bad Times" and a cover of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android."

Lastly, if you're ready for more after that, you can see videos of two complete Bonerama shows, recorded in February of this year at Ardmore Music Hall in Ardmore, PA (near Philadelphia) and in September at the Blues, Views and BBQ Festival in Westport, CT.

For more about Bonerama and Hot Like Fire, check out the two short interview features about them published in October by Offbeat magazine and CEGPresents.com.

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

So What: Local News, Notes & Links

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

* Drummer Emanuel Harrold's new EP Look Forward is the subject of a brief feature on the website Sounds So Beautiful. In other news, Harrold also recently signed an endorsement deal with BAY Custom Drums.

* Guitarist/singer Tim Halpin and drummer Ron Sikes of the Funky Butt Brass Band were guests on the latest episode of Rock Paper Podcast.

* St. Louis native Josephine Baker (pictured) was profiled in an article on OpenCulture.com tracing her path "from homeless street performer to international superstar, French resistance fighter & civil rights hero."

* The Barnes and Noble bookstore in Ladue will host a fundraiser for New Music Circle on Saturday, December 16, with a percent of any in-store purchases made on that date, including books, magazines, coffee and food, going to support NMC.

The event also will include a pop-up concert at 4:00 p.m. in the art section of the shop. Online shoppers can contribute to NMC by using code #12272563 for any purchases made on B&N's website from December 16 through December 21.

* Guitarist and singer Tommy Halloran has posted to YouTube a music video of the song "She Loves Me, Too!" from his forthcoming album.

* Trumpeter and St. Louis native Ally Hany has completed her basic training for the US Air Force, earning the rank of Airman First Class and taking a chair in the trumpet section in the Air Force's Band of the Golden West, which is based at Travis AFB in California.

* Singer Sarah Ulrich of Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes was in the news the past week, but unfortunately, it wasn't for her music. Ulrich was interviewed Monday by local NBC affiliate KSDK's news department about an incident in which a gunshot shattered a historic glass door at her south St. Louis home, a renovated former drug store and medical office known as "The Deco Fortress."

Jazz this week: Freddy Cole & Harry Allen, Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Kirk Whalum, Chris Corsano & Darin Gray, and more

This week's calendar of jazz and creative music in St. Louis features lots more holiday-themed programming, with Christmas shows from two touring headliners and several local performers, plus at least a few shows that may not contain any seasonal music. Let's go to the highlights...

Wednesday, December 6
Singer and pianist Freddy Cole and his frequent collaborator/guest star, tenor saxophonist Harry Allen, (pictured, top left) make their return for the first of four nights at Jazz at the Bistro.

The brother of the late Nat "King" Cole, Freddy Cole shares his famous sibling's suave demeanor, relaxed vocal delivery, and appreciation for the Great American Songbook, yet has managed to carve out his own niche as an entertainer and interpreter of classic material. With Allen alongside in recent years, Cole has developed a good following here in multiple appearances over time - most recently in May 2016 at the Bistro - so advance reservations are strongly suggested.

Elsewhere around town, the Route 66 Jazz Orchestra will present what they're calling "1/2 a Holiday Concert" at the Webster Groves Concert Hall, and singer Erin Bode returns to Cyrano's.

Also on Wednesday, the students in the Washington University Jazz Band will play a free concert at 560 Music Center; and this week's "Grand Center Jazz Crawl" features multi-instrumentalist T.J M�ller at Squatters Cafe, the jam session with bassist Bob Deboo at the Kranzberg Arts Center, and trumpeter Kasimu Taylor at The Dark Room.

Thursday, December 7
Speaking of Nat "King" Cole, the musical theater production "An Unforgettable Nat King Cole Christmas," starring Chicago-based actor and singer Evan Tyrone Martin as Cole, opens a ten-day run at the Playhouse at Westport Plaza.

Also on Thursday, the Funky Butt Brass Band plays an early evening show at Blues City Deli; the Jazz at Holmes series presents a holiday concert featuring performances from Wash U students and faculty; and the Liberation Organ Trio plays at The Dark Room

Friday, December 8
NYC's Spanish Harlem Orchestra (pictured, center left) makes their St. Louis debut with their holiday show �Salsa Navidad� at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Formed 17 years ago and led by pianist Oscar Hern�ndez, the SOH has taken the sound of New York salsa and Latin jazz to audiences all around the world, earning acclaim as accomplished, energetic and authentic representatives of those genres. You can find out more and see some video samples of them performing in this post from last Saturday.

Also on Friday, singer Anita Jackson will perform for the late-night set at The Dark Room.

Saturday, December 9
Keyboardist, educator and East St. Louis native Reggie Thomas will be back in town to direct a "Reunion Concert" of the SIU-Edwardsville Vocal Jazz Ensemble, presented as a matinee in Monsanto Hall of the Missouri Botanical Garden's Ridgeway Visitor Center.

Then on Saturday night, The Wire Pilots with multi-instrumentalist Sandy Weltman and singer Lydia Ruffin will perform at The Chapel.

Sunday, 
December 10
Saxophonist Kirk Whalum (pictured, bottom left) brings this year's edition of "A Gospel According to Jazz Christmas," with special guests Jonathan Butler, Shel�a, John Stoddart, and Kevin Whalum, to the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church.

And for those in the mood for something completely different, improvising percussionist Chris Corsano and bassist Darin Gray will be teaming up to headline a show of improvised and/or experimental music at El Le�ador Bar & Grill with Larva & Ghost Ice and Complainer opening.

Monday, December 11
Dizzy Atmosphere plays swing and Gypsy jazz for diners at The Shaved Duck, and the Webster University Jazz Singers present their "Holiday Concert" at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster campus.

Tuesday, December 12
Guitarist Vincent Varvel leads a trio at Evangeline'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.)