There's lots going on this week with jazz and creative music in St. Louis, so let's get right to the highlights, starting with three touring performers who are playing in the Gateway City over the next few days.

Tonight, Latin-jazz percussionist Poncho Sanchez begins a four-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro. You can see a couple of videos featuring Sanchez and his band in this post from last Saturday, and Jazz St. Louis also has a podcast interview with Sanchez here.

On Saturday, singer Paula West performs at the Sheldon Concert Hall. You can see and hear West in a couple of video clips here; also, note that the Sheldon is offering online buyers a $10 discount on tickets to West's concert.

Also on Saturday, New Music Circle and St. Louis Community College-Forest Park will present pioneering electronic musician and composer Morton Subotnick (pictured) in concert at the college's Mildred E. Bastian Performing Arts Center. Subotnick will perform "Until Spring Revisited," a remaking of an electronic music/video composition originally created for solo synthesizer in 1975.

In addition to these three headliners, there are a number of other noteworthy shows this week. On Thursday, the mysterious FO(U)R PEACE BAND does a free show for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University. I call them "mysterious" because I haven't been able to find out anything about them on the 'Net, nor have Wash U or the Jazz at Holmes series released anything about who they are or what sort of music they play. Still, given the series' deserved reputation for presenting good stuff, the show seemed worth a mention here, but caveat lector.

Also on Thursday, world music fans may want to check out the UMSL University Percussion Ensemble and Afro-Cuban Ensemble and their special guest Adam Rugo, who will perform percussion music from Africa, Cuba, Japan and the United States in a free concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

Moving on to Saturday, the Kemper Museum presents a free concert by guitarist Teddy Presberg and his band the Red Note Revivalists as part of the series of live performances accompanying the museum's current "Birth of the Cool" exhibit.

On Sunday, the Nu Art Series presents the Tayammum Falah Art Orchestra in concert at the Metropolitan Gallery, 2936 Locust St. The group features the leader on drums and percussion, plus bassist Raymond Eldridge, pianist Christopher Evans, and an intriguing front line of veterans Floyd LeFlore on trumpet and Willie Akins on saxophones.

That same afternoon, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra presents its annual "Explosions" percussion concert at the TouPAC. And that evening, BAG II sponsors a free performance at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site featuring poets Marsha Cann, Joyce Blue and Deborah Mashibini and music from bassist/mbira player Zimbabwe Nkenya.

Looking beyond the weekend, the first part of next week offers a couple of shows of particular interest to big band fans. On Monday, the Sessions Big Band continues its ongoing series of gigs at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups, and on Tuesday, the Genesis Jazz Project does one of its semi-annual free concerts at the TouPAC.

You can find more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond by visiting the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

(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.)

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at StLJN, with a lot of breaking news and relatively high traffic (as well as some nagging computer issues that still aren't totally resolved). While there's a momentary lull in the action, I wanted to take the opportunity to convey a couple of bits of site-related news.

First, you may have noticed that the bottom of each StLJN post now features a button labeled "Bookmark." This button launches a little pop-up window with an app called AddThis, which simplifies the process of recommending/posting a story to Digg, Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites. So, if you're a social media user, please feel free to go town and link to and/or recommend StLJN stories to your heart's content.

(Along similar but less trendy lines, it should be noted that you still can share any StLJN post with a friend or friends via email by clicking on the little envelope icon at the bottom of the post.)

The second comparatively recent development is that StLJN headlines now are appearing on the Jazz St. Louis site, and posts also are now available through the "News" section of AllAboutJazz.com. Both JSL and AAJ asked nicely if it was OK to use StLJN's site feed, and I was happy to have the opportunity to reach more people and get StLJN's content more widely distributed. (And in case you're wondering, there's no money changing hands; the idea is simply that they get some additional content - in AAJ's case, really just a small series of drops in a already very large bucket - and, hopefully, StLJN gets some more readers.)

Of course, you can use that same RSS feed to put StLJN into your newsreader or onto a home page at Google, Yahoo, MSN or elsewhere. The sidebar contains links to the basic feed in RSS and XML versions, as well as a series of buttons that simplify the process of adding StLJN to several popular newsreaders and home page providers. Or if you'd like to get StLJN in e-mail form, you can do that, too; see the same section of the sidebar to sign up for that service, which is provided free of charge by Feedblitz.

Last but not least, please remember that your comments, e-mails, link suggestions, news items, band and venue schedule information, and any other relevant correspondence are always welcome. Comments are enabled on every StLJN post, or you can send an e-mail to stljazznotes AT yahoo DOT com. (Don't forget to close up the spaces and replace the spam-fooling, all-caps words with their symbolic equivalents.)

Looking for more groovy online music videos like those featured here every Saturday? Check out StLJN's sibling site Heliocentric Worlds, which presents a different music video every day from genres including jazz, blues, soul, funk, classic rock, prog rock and experimental.

Recent clips have featured a typically varied lineup of artists, including Freddie King, Medeski Martin and Wood, the ICP Orchestra, Anthony Braxton, Bootsy Collins, James Brown, Ella Fitzgerald, Chico Hamilton, Grover Washington Jr., The Band, Little Milton, Fats Waller and Ada Brown, War, Sex Mob and DJ Olive, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Thelonious Monk, and Warren Zevon.

You can see them all, plus hundreds more from the archives, by visiting http://heliocentricworlds.blogspot.com/.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch classical music critic Sarah Bryan Miller attended three of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Guitar Festival performances this past week, and wrote a review of the three programs for Sunday's paper. You can find it online here.

Today's video clips feature master Latin/jazz percussionist Poncho Sanchez, who will be in St. Louis next week to perform Wednesday, November 19 through Saturday, November 22 at Jazz at the Bistro. Sanchez' band is considered one of the top Latin/jazz groups working today, and the majority of their gigs are at concerts and festivals. They rarely play clubs, which is why Jazz St. Louis director of operations Bob Bennett tells me that the organization feels they've scored quite a coup by enticing Sanchez to the Gateway City for a four-night stand.

These two clips will provide a brief introduction to Sanchez's energetic, extroverted approach to music. Up top, you can see him and his band working out on "El Conguero," which translates (as if you couldn't guess) as "the conga player." Down below, they're playing a tune called "Baila Mi Gente," which Babelfish tells me means "my people dance." I'm not quite sure about the Spanish syntax there - it could be "dance, my people" - but the music comes through loud and clear.

Jazz St. Louis has the latest in their ongoing series of podcasts online now.

The fifth in the series, the new podcast features an interview with percussionist and bandleader Poncho Sanchez (pictured), who will be in St. Louis next week to perform Wednesday, November 19 through Saturday, November 22 at Jazz at the Bistro.

You can access the podcast here.

The Riverfront Times this week has several pieces related to composer Glenn Branca, whose symphony for 100 electric guitars "Hallucination City" was performed last night at The Pageant as part of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Guitar Festival.

There's a feature story about the event here; an extended interview with Branca by the RFT's Roy Kasten here; and a two-part account by guitarist and RFT scribe Ryan Wasoba of what it was like to prepare and play the Branca piece, found here and here.

St. Louis' National Public Radio affiliate KWMU (90.7 FM) will move from the campus of the University of Missouri - St. Louis to the Grand Center arts and entertainment district in midtown, according to a story in yesterday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The radio station is known to St. Louis jazz fans as the home of Dennis Owsley's weekly program Jazz Unlimited, which is broadcast from 9:00 p.m. to midnight on Sundays. The story says UMSL will build a three-level, 27,000 square foot facility next to the KETC building on Olive at a cost of around $7 million that will contain the new offices and studios for KWMU as well as space for other university programs. Read the whole thing here.

The Sheldon Concert Hall is offering a special online presale for tickets to the Bela Fleck/Africa Project show scheduled for Wednesday, April 1, 2009. Tickets are priced at $45 and $55, and the online presale begins at 10:00 a.m., Thursday November 13. To order, visit www.metrotix.com/promotions and use the promotional code BELA08.

The Sheldon also is offering a $10 discount on online orders for tickets to see singer Paula West, who will perform at the hall on Saturday, November 22. To get the discount, go to www.metrotix.com/promotions and use the promotional code PAULA10. (You can see some video of West performing in this post from last Saturday.)

There have been some technical difficulties here today at StLJN HQ, and so we must offer a slightly less-expansive-than-usual guide to the notable jazz and creative music performances in St. Louis over the next few days:

Tonight, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra Guitar Festival continues with a chamber concert at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts featuring Jason Vieuax and Steven Mackey. For more on the Guitar Festival, see StLJN's previous coverage and check out the preview story by Dan Durchholz over at the St. Louis Beacon.

Also tonight, singer Erin Bode and her group play at Jazz at the Bistro to celebrate the release of her new Christmas CD A Cold December Night, and the free jazz/electronic music group Squid Choir Orkestra opens for Skarekrau Radio at the Way Out Club

On Thursday, saxophonist Dave Liebman (pictured) will be on the Washington University campus teach and perform, with a a master class at 3:00 p.m., followed by a lecture at 4:00 p.m.. Both the master class and lecture take place at the music department classroom building at 6500 Forsyth.. That night, Liebman, who's played with Miles Davis, Elvin Jones and many other jazz giants, and his quartet will perform a free concert at 8:00 p.m. in Holmes Lounge, Ridgley Hall, for the Jazz at Holmes series.

Also on Thursday, the Guitar Festival continues with a concert at The Pageant featuring John Patitucci, Mackey, and an ensemble of 100 electric guitarists and bassists performing Glenn Branca's "Hallucination City". The program also includes works by Frank Zappa, Edgard Varese and Jimi Hendrix, and there's more info at the links above.

On Friday and Saturday, guitarist Shaun Robinson of the group Good 4 The Soul leads his own band at Jazz at the Bistro. Much like Good 4 the Soul, Robinson's project is described as incorporating R&B, funk and other genres into the jazz idiom, but beyond that I can't tell you much about what to expect, other than some good musicianship.

On Sunday afternoon, the St. Louis International Film Festival and New Music Circle present a screening of the 1911 Italian silent film L'Inferno with live musical score performed by S.A.N.E. (Semi-Acoustic Noise Ensemble) at the St. Louis Art Museum Auditorium. Sunday is also the day the Festival screens documentary films about banjo player Bela Fleck and guitarist Pat Martino; for more about these ad other music-related movies in the Fest, see this post.

Also on Sunday, the St. Louis Jazz Club presents Ivory and Gold with pianist Jeff Barnhart at Moolah Shrine Center, and the St. Louis Jazz and Blues Vespers series has a free concert by Two Times True, led by pianist Carolbeth True and featuring her son David True on drums, at Second Baptist Church in Clayton

With a little luck, regular posting shouldn't shouldn't be affected for too long. In the meantime, you can find more jazz-related events in St. Louis this weekend and beyond by visiting the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar.

(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.)

The always-genial, always-swinging pop and jazz singer Tony Bennett is returning to St. Louis for a concert on Friday, May 8, 2009 at the Fox Theatre.

Tickets for Bennett's concert will be priced from $55 to $85, and will go on sale at 10:00 a.m., Friday, November 21 via MetroTix and the Fox box office.

The show is being presented by local PBS affiliate KETC (Channel 9), and according to a commenter on this post at Post-Dispatch music critic Kevin Johnson's blog The Blender, tickets for the Bennett concert will be available as premiums for an upcoming pledge drive beginning at 8:00 p.m. this Thursday, November 13, when the station is scheduled to rebroadcast the program "Tony Bennett Duets: The Making of An American Classic."

You read it here first, way back in June, and now it can be confirmed: New Orleans singer/pianist Dr. John and the Crescent City's "first family of funk" the Neville Brothers (pictured) will be returning to St. Louis to perform at The Sheldon on Sunday, February 8, 2009.

As speculated in that post in June, the event will indeed be a Friends of the Sheldon fundraiser for the organization's educational programs. However, note that the actual, confirmed date is four days earlier than what had been posted to Pollstar and cited here. Chris Peimann, director of publicity and marketing for The Sheldon, says details on ticket availability and prices will be released in a couple of weeks.

Via Bob Bennett's blog on the Jazz St. Louis Web site:
"Don't miss Erin Bode on KMOV's "Great Day St. Louis" tomorrow morning, November 12, 2008 at 10:00 A.M. Bode will discuss her new Christmas album prior to her CD release party at the Bistro that evening.""Great Day St. Louis" is a relatively new local morning magazine show hosted by Carol Daniel (who many St. Louisans know from her work on KMOX radio) and Stephanie Simmons. It airs at 10:00 a.m., Monday through Friday on local CBS affiliate KMOV (Channel 4), and looks to have a format similar to KSDK's long-running "Show Me St. Louis," with interviews, light features about local entertainment and attractions, segments on cooking and health, and so on.

The show's Web site offers clips of at least some of each day's segments, so you may be able to catch Bode's appearance online as well.

The 17th annual St. Louis International Film Festival, which begins this Thursday, November 13 and continues through Sunday, November 23, will feature St. Louis premieres of a number of recent music-related movies as well as an historic silent film with live musical accompaniment.

The fest's busiest day for cinema related to jazz and creative music looks to be next Sunday, November 16. At 3:00 p.m. that day at the St. Louis Art Museum Auditorium, the festival will screen The Inferno, a silent Italian film from 1911, with live musical accompaniment by Semi-Acoustic Noise Ensemble (S.A.N.E). It's the first full-length Italian film ever made, and is loosely based on Dante’s epic; this version was restored in 2004.

This event is co-sponsored with New Music Circle and represents the 22nd installment of the organization's Circle/Cinema series of films with live music. Longtime NMC board member and analog synth wizard/guitarist/bassist Mike Murphy is one of the principals in S.A.N.E., along with multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter tory z. starbuck (who, like e.e. cummings, prefers the lower case); starbuck's muse/cohort Venus Slick on synths; plus a couple of musicians I don't know, J. Bruce McLaughlin and Tony Engelhardt. Murphy, starbuck et al have done this sort of thing a number of times before, and I'd expect them to cook up something interesting for this outing, too.

(Full disclosure: While working as administrator for New Music Circle in the 1990s, I co-conceived the Circle/Cinema series, handled production chores for the first several installments, and also played keyboards in a couple of them. I've also worked with Murphy on several projects.)

At 7:00 p.m. that evening, the festival will show Throw Down Your Heart at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium. The movie documents banjo player Bela Fleck's trip through Africa to explore the roots of his instrument and record an album. As mentioned in this previous post, Fleck will be bringing some of the musicians featured in the film to St. Louis in April for a concert at The Sheldon.

Then at 9:30 p.m. at the Tivoli in University City, it's Martino Unstrung, in which "neuropsychologist and author Paul Broks travels America in search of the soul of legendary jazz guitarist Pat Martino, who was brutally silenced by memory-stripping brain surgery to remove a tumor. Through the remarkable story of Martino’s difficult ascent from the depths of amnesia to the peak of artistry, Broks explores the nature of memory, self, creativity and the brain systems underlying personal identity, making some ground-breaking discoveries on the way."

To find out more about Martino Unstrung, you can check out the trailer in the embedded video window below, and a recent package of related stories from AllAboutJazz.com, including interviews with Martino, Broks and director Ian Knox, and a review of the DVD. As noted here, Martino will be in St. Louis February 18-21 to perform at Jazz at the Bistro.

In chronological order, the festival's other music-related films include:

12:00 p.m., Saturday, November 15 at the Tivoli
Song Sung Blue, which tells "the inspiring and ultimately tragic love story of Lightning & Thunder, Mike and Claire Sardina, a Milwaukee husband-and-wife singing duo who pay tribute to the music of Neil Diamond."

4:30 p.m., Sunday, November 16 at the Tivoli
Number One With A Bullet, which "explores the interrelationships between guns,poverty, drugs, hip-hop culture and cultural violence" via interviews with "record-company insiders, gun-shop owners, drug dealers, doctors, urban-community members and rap stars."

4:30 p.m., Tuesday, November 18 at Plaza Frontenac
Opera Jawa, an "all-dancing, all-singing gamelan musical epic" based on the Hindu epic “The Ramayana.” (This film will be shown again at 9:15 p.m. Wednesday, November 19 at Plaza Frontenac.)

5:00 p.m., Tuesday, November 18 at the Tivoli
How it is with Phooie, "an intensely personal portrait" of Phil “Phooie” Steinberg, a 35-year veteran of the music industry who was forced to close his longtime record store, the Disc Connection, due to radical changes in the music business.

9:30 p.m., Tuesday, November 18 at the Tivoli
The Wrecking Crew, a documentary about the group of Los Angeles studio musicians who worked on recordings by producer Phil Spector and artists including the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, Frank Sinatra, the Monkees and countless others, performing on more No. 1 singles than the Beatles.

7:15 p.m., Wednesday November 19 at the Tivoli
Agile, Mobile, Hostile: A Year With Andre Williams, which deals with the life and personal troubles of R&B singer/songwriter Andre Williams, who's written and recorded a number of hits but also has struggled with "addiction, poverty, homelessness and the legal system."

1:00 p.m., Saturday, November 22 at the Tivoli
Summer Sun, Winter Moon, which was co-commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and documents the collaboration between composer Rob Kapilow and Darrell Robes Kipp, a Blackfeet Indian poet, on a symphony inspired by the Lewis and Clark expedition.

5:30 p.m., Saturday, November 22 at the Tivoli
As Slow as Possible, the story of a man slowly going blind from a chronic disease who travels from Canada to Halberstadt, Germany to hear the first note change in a 639-year-long automated organ performance of the John Cage composition “As Slow As Possible.”

For a complete festival schedule, see the SLIFF Web site.

Jazz St. Louis has announced additional bookings to fill out the winter/spring 2009 schedule at Jazz at the Bistro:

Friday, January 16 & Saturday, January 17: Lamar Harris
Friday, January 30: Bennett Wood Quartet
Saturday, January 31: Utter Chaos
Friday, March 13 & Saturday, March 14: Funky Butt Brass Band
Friday, March 27 & Saturday, March 28: Legacy Jazz Quintet
Friday, April 24 & Saturday, April 25: Jazz St. Louis All-Stars
Friday, May 8 & Saturday, May 9: Erin Bode
Friday, May 22 & Saturday, May 23: Kim Massie

Three of these ensembles are making their debuts at the Bistro: alto saxophonist Bennett Wood and his quartet; Utter Chaos, which features a front line of trombone and baritone sax modeled on the Bob Brookmeyer/Gerry Mulligan group of the 1950s; and the Funky Butt Brass Band (pictured), a spin-off of the New Orleans-inspired funk/R&B/zydeco group Gumbohead that focuses specifically on the Crescent City's brass band style.

Wood and Utter Chaos have both played at The Gramophone as part of the the Tuesday night series Jazz St. Louis is co-sponsoring there. If they draw sufficient numbers of listeners at the Bistro, it would certainly help validate the notion of those Tuesday shows as another way for JSL to experiment with new talent and programming ideas.

As for the Funky Butt Brass Band, I haven't heard them yet, but I do know the band's tenor saxophonist Ben Reece by virtue of having played a few casual gigs with him. Ben's a good player, and seemed very enthused about the FBBB when I asked him about it a couple of months ago.

Overall, this strikes me as a good, representative mix of new talent and proven attractions (Harris, Bode and Massie), plus the second appearance at the club by the Legacy Jazz Quintet (which includes JSL director of education Phil Dunlap on piano) and the annual gig by the All-Stars, an ensemble of student musicians drawn from JSL's educational programs.

I'd still like to see Jazz St. Louis doing something at the Bistro with both traditional and avant garde/experimental jazz. Executive director Gene Dobbs Bradford and operations director Bob Bennett have indicated to me that they'd consider both if the shows could be made to work from a financial standpoint. So here's a thought: Book a weekend with a traditional jazz band on Friday and something avant garde, experimental and/or free improvisational on Saturday. (Or vice versa.) Booking one night per act instead of a two-night stand would concentrate the turnout, mitigating the financial risks somewhat, and perhaps it could be tied into the organization's educational programs as well.

If nothing else, such a weekend would give young musicians and students a chance to hear, compare and contrast two jazz styles that are currently under-represented at area venues, and who knows, perhaps it could be turned into a genuine teaching moment. There are certainly commonalities between early jazz and the avant garde, such as collective improvisation and the use of vocal-type sounds by brass instruments and extended techniques by reeds, that could be interesting and informative for young players and students (and jazz fans of all ages) to experience and explore.

Tickets for the additional 2009 performances go on sale Tuesday, December 9, 2008 through all Metrotix outlets and the Jazz St. Louis box office.

(Edited slightly after posting to fix a garbled sentence. Edited again to add links.)

Phillip Wilson, the drummer and St. Louis native who was an early member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, broke into the musical big time with the Butterfield Blues Band, and went on to play with many of the important free jazz musicians of the 1970s and 1980s, is remembered fondly in a recent post by Brian Olewnick at his blog Just Outside.

To interject a personal note, I've had an interest in Wilson and his music since my teens, when I played in a teenage garage/basement band with two of his nephews, who told many awe-tinged stories about their famous "Uncle Phillip" and his adventures in the music biz. Given the relative paucity of information about him on the 'Net, it's nice to see someone else remembering Wilson, who was murdered near NYC's Central Park in 1992, when he was just 50 years old.

There's also a page about Wilson at Discogs.org that offers a sampling of his discography, albeit with some notable omissions, including his work with Butterfield and with Full Moon, a sort of jazz/funk/pop spin-off of the Butterfield band that included keyboardist Neil Larson, guitarist Buzz Feiten and saxophonist Gene Dinwiddie. Despite those gaps, the page is worth a look if you'd like to know more about this great but under-remembered musician.

The Sunday edition of the Post-Dispatch has an article by classical music critic Sarah Bryan Miller previewing the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Guitar Festival, which will take place this week at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, The Pageant, and Powell Symphony Hall. The five concerts will include performances of music by Pat Metheny, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix and Edgard Varese, as well as "Hallucination City," a Glenn Branca piece scored for 100 electric guitars, and orchestral fare including two American premieres of new symphonic works and Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring."

Guest performers will include guitarist Jason Vieaux, who will perform the Metheny pieces and other works at the Pulitzer; composer/guitarist Steven Mackey, whose composition "Beautiful Passing" will be performed by the SLSO at Powell Hall; and famed jazz bassist John Patitiucci (pictured), who, for some odd reason, isn't mentioned at all in Miller's article despite being probably the best known (to the non-classical-music-listening public, anyway) of the guest performers. You can read Miller's piece online here.

Although work on the new outdoor amphitheater in Riverfront Park in Alton, Illinois is almost complete, a proposal to name it after legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis apparently has stalled, according to an article in Saturday's Alton Telegraph:
"In recent months, there was a drive by some people to have the city name the amphitheater after the late jazz musician (Miles) Davis, who was born in Alton. Publicity about that idea spawned other people to suggest other names, from tying it in to the Mississippi River to various Alton office-holders of the past. Corporate representatives from a grocery store chain also inquired about buying rights, so the facility could carry its name." The story also quotes Phil Roggio, Alton director of development and housing, as saying, "I don't care what they call it; I just want to get it built." Work is expected to be completed in December, the article said.

Even if the new facility ends up not being named after Davis, the story notes that he could end up being recognized at the site in another way, as the "steering committee for the annual Miles Davis Jazz Celebration also has talked to city officials about holding their event at the amphitheater next May."

St. Louis' Jazz at the Bistro and the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site are among the music venues cited in "Nine Great Jazz Joints," an article appearing in the current issue of Budget Travel magazine and online at CNN.com. The magazine asked six musicians to name some of their favorite spots to hear jazz, and St. Louis native and multi-reedman J.D. Parran nominated the Bistro and the Joplin house.

The article also offers the recommendations of baritone saxophonist Claire Daly for NYC, bassist Ben Jaffe for New Orleans, and Chicago trombonist Steve Swell, as well as violinist Jason Huo Kwang's take on Amsterdam, Netherlands and German pianist Ursel Schlict on Cologne, Germany. Read the whole thing here.

This week, we spotlight some videos from singer Paula West, who will be in St. Louis on Saturday, November 22 to perform at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Some local listeners have had the chance to hear West before, as she came to town earlier this year for a four-night engagement at the now-closed Cabaret at Savor. For those who haven't yet heard her, this review from Backstage magazine of a performance last month at the Oak Room in NYC's Algonquin Hotel conveys some idea of her approach to interpretative singing.

To hear for yourself, though, check out these two clips of West performing two very different songs, the Latin-jazz standard "Nature Boy" (above) and Bob Dylan's verbose rock classic "Like a Rolling Stone" (below) with her regular accompanists the George Mesterhazy Quartet at the Jazz Standard in NYC.