Ch-ch-ch-changes

Some of you know that I have a new gig: writing a twice-weekly column called Artscape for MinnPost, covering all the arts in (mostly) the Twin Cities. I'm not writing previews or reviews, but news--about arts institutions, personalities, performances, money, and politics. In 2011, MinnPost had 3.7 million visits from Minnesotans.

I mentioned in an earlier post that the live jazz calendar would continue, along with this blog and my calendar-related radio bits on KBEM (with Ed Jones and Maryann Sullivan). But I realized almost immediately that I had to find more time in the week and something had to go. So Friday, Feb. 3 will be my last regularly scheduled appearance on KBEM.

It's been a good, long run--more than three years of getting up early (for me) on Friday mornings to talk about jazz with warm and charming Ed, and later (starting in May last year) working closely with delightful Maryann.

I'll continue updating the live jazz calendar, which many of you have said you find useful. It will stay on KBEM's website through Feb. 5, after which it will be available on this blog and its own page. The jazz88calendar@gmail.com email address will stay live for a while, but as of now, bebopified@gmail.com is where you should send information about gigs you want listed on the calendar.

I regularly search FaceBook, the live music calendars on venues' websites, and artists' own websites for information on who's playing when and where, but you make my life easier when you send me emails, so please use bebopified@gmail.com to keep me informed. Meanwhile, I'll do my best to make the live jazz calendar as comprehensive, accurate, and informative as I can.

This blog will also continue. Although I'll never be able to write as regularly (or anywhere near as knowledgeably) as many of the writers in my blogroll, I believe bebopified serves a useful purpose in this community. And it gives me a good excuse to pick up the phone and call someone I want to talk to.

Jazz is my first love. When I began writing for MinnPost in 2007, I was a jazz writer. Now I'm an arts writer who thinks jazz is worth writing about, letting people know about, and going out to see. You won't hear my picks on the radio anymore, but you can still read them here every Friday, along with news, interviews, and whatever else seems worth writing about on a particular day.

This week's jazz picks and news

Tonight (Saturday, Jan. 28)  at the AQ: the Bryan Nichols Quintet. Pianist, composer, arranger, and educator (and new dad) Bryan Nichols is in a major creative music-making phase. Earlier this month, he played the music of Keith Jarrett at a special concert at the AQ. This time he’ll play his own music (and some Jarrett, too) with his excellent quintet: Brandon Wozniak, Michael Lewis, James Buckley, JT Bates. 9 p.m., $12.

On Saturday and Sunday, Century College in White Bear Lake hosts its 23rd annual Jazz Festival. The music starts at 8 p.m. on Saturday and 3 p.m. on Sunday. Trumpeter Roger Ingram is this year’s featured performer. He has played with Woody Herman, Harry Connick Jr., Wynton Marsalis, Ray Charles, and Frank Sinatra. Here he’ll perform with the 17-piece Century Jazz Ensemble. There’s a reception before each show with complimentary wine, cheese, and dessert. The Joel Shapira Quartet will perform during the receptions. $20/$10 students.

On Saturday at Studio Z in St. Paul’s Lowertown: Monk in Motian. This group reinterprets the music of Thelonious Monk through the musical style of late drummer Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band. Motian’s band was pianoless—remember that Monk played the piano—so already we’re hearing the music differently. Monk in Motian is Pete Hennig, JT Bates, and Davu Seru (drums), Brandon Wozniak and Scott Fultz (saxophones), Zacc Harris and Park Evans (guitars), and Matt Peterson (bass). Eight of our finest musicians. 7 p.m., $10.

On Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon at the Bloomington Center for the Arts, Joan Griffith and Sam Miltich will play a program called “Guitarists Extraordinaire,” with guest vocalist Connie Evingson. They promise the Brazilian styles of Samba, Bossa Nova, Choro, and Baiao, standards from Django Reinhardt and Cole Porter, and original compositions. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday in the black box theater. $18 adults, $16 seniors and students, $15 TCJS members.

On Monday, the great blues singer Eric Bibb comes to the Dakota. I’ve seen him twice now, in April 2008 and May 2009, and he’s magical. Just a man in a hat with a guitar, singing songs about hope, loving kindness, and happiness. Excuse me, are we talking about the blues? Bibb calls his music “upside-down blues” because it’s about life’s joys, not life’s problems. BTW, Bibb is the godson of Paul Robeson, nephew of John Lewis (of the MJQ), and son of folk singer Leon Bibb. 7 p.m., $20.

A heads up: Kurt Elling comes to Orchestra Hall on February 18, sharing a double bill with singer Lizz Wright. It’s the perfect Valentine’s Day present for your sweetheart.

New e.s.t. studio album to be released at the end of March

Awesome news from B.H. Hopper Management: A new e.s.t. studio album, "301," with all-original, never-before-released compositions, will be in stores on March 30, 2012 worldwide.

The press release:

In January 2007 e.s.t. were on tour in Asia and Australia performing shows in Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama, Jakarta, Perth and Sydney. It was their third tour of Japan and their second time on the fifth continent and the venues and audiences had become noticeably bigger. Only a few weeks before they had finished their triumphant tour of Germany performing their now legendary “Live in Hamburg” concert (awarded ‘Album of the Decade’ by the London TIMES). It was undoubtedly the prime time of the style defining jazz band of the Noughties.

Graydon Peterson on his new band, and his goals

Graydon Peterson by John Whiting

In late April 2011, I went to see Connie Evingson sing at the Artists’ Quarter in St. Paul. In her band was Graydon Peterson, a first-call bassist for many vocalists in the Twin Cities.

Afterward, while waiting to pay our tab, I ended up standing next to him at the bar.

“This is a bands town,” I said. “When are you going to start your own band?”

It was a casual, making-conversation question to which he replied, in all seriousness, “That’s one of my goals for this year.”

When Peterson sets a goal for himself, he follows through. The Graydon Peterson Quartet played their first public gig at the Shanghai Bistro in Hudson, Wisconsin, on October 7. From there, they moved to Jazz Central in Minneapolis on October 25 and The Nicollet Coffee House on November 15.

On Wednesday, January 25, they will make their debut at the Artists’ Quarter, the nationally known jazz club in St. Paul. From zero to 60 in four steps.

This week's jazz picks and news

Tonight (Friday, Jan. 20), Nichola Miller and Katie Gearty share the stage at the Crooked Pint. Both are fine, grown-up, passionate singers who can raise the hair on the back of your neck. With Tanner Taylor on piano, Keith Boyles on bass, Trevor Haining on drums. 9 p.m. No cover.

On Saturday, the MacPhail Center for Music faculty celebrates George Gershwin in a program called "By George!" His music will be arranged for two pianos, accompanied by strings, winds, and voices. The concert takes place in MacPhail's Antonello Hall, one of my favorite venues. 8 p.m. $20 adults/$15 youth and seniors.

Music in a two-acre tropical garden in St. Paul in the dead of winter? Thank you, Como Park Conservatory. Its "Music Under Glass" series continues on Sunday with Rhizosphere, an improvisatory quartet that blends world music with jazz, folk, and the blues. With Bobb Fantauzzo (of JazZen) on Native American and Chinese flutes, Gabriela Sweet on slide guitar and accordion, Mike Bruns on guitar, Sean Egan on clarinet. Coming up: the Café Accordion Orchestra, the Robb Henry Trio, the Daddy Squeeze Trio, and Gnarl. 5 p.m. Free.

On Tuesday, the New York-based vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Raul Midon comes to the Dakota. He’s been here a few times before and I have always missed him. I caught about 10 minutes of his performance at last year’s Monterey Jazz Festival and vowed never to make that mistake again. Silky, soulful tenor. Wonderfully percussive guitar style. And “improvisational mouth horn”—vocal bebop trumpet solos. 7 p.m., $30.

Also on Tuesday, the live jazz continues at the Nicollet coffee house on the corner of Nicollet and Franklin. This time, it’s singer Maryann Sullivan, known to KBEM listeners as the host of "Corner Jazz" and "On the Local Corner," now heard on Monday nights. There’s a big wooden dance floor, lovely floor-to-ceiling windows, and hot coffee to enjoy along with the music. A cozy place to go on a winter’s night. 7 p.m. No cover.

On Wednesday and Thursday, singer/songwriter/pianist/ukelele player Nellie McKay returns to the Dakota with a performance the New Yorker described as "part seedy cabaret, part existential meditation, and all musical exploration ... a brilliant piece of theater." She has taken the 1958 movie I Want to Live!, about the third woman to die in the gas chamber at San Quentin, and turned it into a cabaret show. It sounds deliciously weird, thought-provoking, and puzzling. 7 p.m. $35.

Also on Wednesday, the Graydon Peterson Quartet performs at the Artists’ Quarter. This brand-new band, begun by bassist Peterson (who’s usually seen backing singers), plays all-original music by Peterson. I saw them in October at Jazz Central and liked them a lot. Read an interview here later today. 9 p.m. $5.

On Friday, Jan. 27: the inimitable, the delightful, the totally squeezeboxy Accordion-O-Rama! returns to Crossings at Carnegie in Zumbrota. I loved this when I heard it in 2010 on a balmy autumn night in October. Not so sure about heading down the highway at 90 below, but I'll be there in spirit. Crossings at Carnegie is a former Carnegie library turned gift shop and live music venue. This year's players: Dan Newton, Dee Langley, Gary Powell, and Bob Walser.  7:30 p.m. $18 advance/$20 day of show.

The headliners for this year's Twin Cities Jazz Festival have been announced: Cuban drummer Francisco Mela, the Delfeayo Marsalis Octet, and The Bad Plus with saxophonist Joshua Redman. 

Check the live jazz calendar on KBEM's website for even more jazzy goodness. Got gigs? Send an email to jazz88calendar@gmail.com.

The Bryan Nichols Quintet + 1 at the AQ

Sunday, January 15, 2012, playing the music of Keith Jarrett's American Quartet. It was h-h-h-h-hot.

L to R: Bryan Nichols, James Buckley, Michael Lewis, JT Bates,
Brandon Wozniak, and Jay Epstein by John Whiting

Jon Weber at the AQ: Concert review

Jon Weber by John Whiting

An evening with pianist Jon Weber is not to be missed. Witty, brainy, intimate, and enormously entertaining, it’s part concert, part music history class.

Weber engages the audience from the start, asking “What should I play? In what key?” He knows literally thousands of tunes and quotes liberally, so by the end of one you’ve heard bits and phrases from several. He tells you when each song was written, by whom, whether it came from a movie or a musical, when the composer was born, and what else he wrote, accompanied by musical examples. 

I wonder how he sleeps, with so much knowledge and so many facts crammed into his head, pushing and shoving and clamoring to get out.

While Weber’s performance borders on shtick—that’s the “show-business routine” meaning, not the “gimmick or gag” meaning—it never crosses over because he is so deeply and seriously musical. His playing is impeccable, his technique awe-inspiring, whether dashing through notes at top speed or interpreting “Autumn in New York” so tenderly and expressively that you stop breathing.

Maud Hixson by John Whiting

He’s also very funny. Following his own combination of Jobim’s “Wave” and Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” (strange, but it works), he mentions that he once thought the words to the latter were “Smell Cousin Walter.” He promises to give himself a 15-yard penalty if he uses the same musical quote more than once. He demonstrates the “sneaky fill”—where all the music happens in the right hand—by lifting his left hand high and mugging. He tosses off bon mots, like “Sometimes choosing the key is the hardest choice of all.”

Last night at the Artists’ Quarter, we experienced Weber’s customary romp through jazz, with bonuses. For part of the evening, he played solo; for part, with old pals Billy Peterson on bass and Kenny Horst on drums. Singers Maud Hixson and Alicia Renee were in the house; each was invited up to the stage. Hixson chose Irving Berlin’s “I Love a Piano”—in part, I’m sure, because of this verse and Weber’s signature ponytail:

And with the pedal I love to meddle

When Paderewski comes this way

I’m so delighted if I’m invited

To hear that long-haired genius play.

Alicia Renee by John Whiting

In the second set, she returned for “While We’re Young.” Renee brought her big, beautiful voice to “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”

The best surprise of the night: young pianist Witness Matlou, originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, now on full scholarship at Berklee, who drove up from Iowa (where he spent a year as an exchange student at Drake) to see Weber. Matlou played the standard “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise,” and even the chatty table behind us quieted down as he made it a masterpiece of spacious understatement, playing behind the beat, swinging hard. Peterson and Horst were right there with him. Wish I’d recorded it. (Don Berryman, maybe you did?) Matlou has several videos on YouTube of varying quality; go here for a recent example of his playing. I’ll be disappointed if we don’t see more of him soon.

Related: Jon Weber's "Piano Jazz Rising Stars" radio show, now airing on KBEM at 10 p.m. on Saturday nights.

Jazz comes to the Lex

Arne Fogel by John Whiting

Heavy double doors open to a world of dark wood, beamed ceilings, classic food and cocktails (including ice cream drinks--Pink Cadillac, anyone?).

Founded in 1935, frozen in time, the Lexington Restaurant has had just three owners in its long and storied history. It's a St. Paul tradition, the place to go for important lunches and dinners, family events, meetings, celebrations, receptions, reunions, wakes, to talk politics, to see and be seen. And now, to hear live jazz.