April is Jazz Appreciation Month, so it's time to, well, appreciate some jazz. And there are other kinds of music happening for your appreciation. Despite its more recent reputation as a heavy-metal town, San Antonio has long been a place that has nurtured jazz and jazz musicians.
That's not to say people around here have always supported jazz properly, but it is to say jazz has managed to stay alive, and often thrive, in the Alamo City since the 1920s.
During Jazz Appreciation Month (check out www.smithson ianjazz.
org/jam for cool facts and details), music fans can pay tribute while catching varied music that fits under the jazz umbrella.
The Jazz Market opens Monday and runs from 11:30 a.m.
-1:30 p.m. weekdays through April 20 downtown in Main Plaza.
The Market is set to feature a lot of local jazz: Small World (Monday), The Ernie Salda a Experience (Tuesday), the Robert James Band (Wednesday), Bett Butler (Thursday), David Villanueva D*Groove (April 13), Ron Wilkins 4-Tet (April 16), Arturo Yglesias (April 17), the Mike Brumbaugh Big Band (April 18), Joe Posada (April 19) and Judi DeLeon (April 20). Admission is free. Patrons will hear a bit of everything from bop to swing, from Latin jazz to original compositions.
On April 14, the folks who bring us the Jazz Market will present the Jazz Market Exchange from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.
m. at the Navarro Campus of the Southwest School of Art Craft. Bett Butler and Joel Dilley, Henry Brun the Latin Playerz and George Prado the Regency Jazz Band will stage a tribute to the masters by playing the works of Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Artie Shaw, Tito Puente, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
Admission is free.
San Antonio-bred jazz from the 1930s will rule part of the airwaves this weekend and next. The locally produced Riverwalk Jazz, from the Jim Cullum Jazz Band and its collaborators, airs on KSTX (89.
1 FM) Saturdays at 7 p.m., Sundays at noon.
Saturday and Sunday and April 14 and 15, KSTX will run the two San Antonio jazz-themed shows that an expanded Cullum band recorded at the Carver Community Cultural Center in February. This weekend, it's Peeking Through the Keyhole: A Salute to Don Albert the Jazzmen of the Southwest. Next weekend's Riverwalk Jazz will be East Commerce Street Stomp: The Swinging Sounds of San Antonio's East Side Hot Spots.
Meanwhile, the Cullum band will spend much of April on tour in Russia. The world-class traditional jazz band will return to its home at The Landing on the River Walk on April 24. While the band is jazzing it up in Russia, The Landing All-Stars will work the club Mondays through Saturdays and Small World is in the place for Sunday nights.
Saturday is the birthday of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday. To mark the occasion, Carmens de la Calle will feature a Holiday tribute with The Shelley Murray Quintet: Murray (vocals), George Prado (bass), Aaron Prado (piano), Richard Oppenheim (saxophone) and Chuck Kerr (drums).
Luna, the classy and classic-style nightclub, has jazz on a regular basis.
Friday night, Michelle Garibay-Carey Planet Soul will do jazz and R B. Wednesday, it's Latin jazz and more from Border Palace and Azul. Thursday is doubleheader night with a pair of bands from Texas State University, the Texas State Big Band and Salsa del Rio.
It's a big-band-jazz midweek at The Cove with the Arturo Yglesias Big Band and Latin jazz Tuesday, followed Wednesday by John Magaldi the Primetime Jazz Orchestra.
WOW Caf Wingery is staging jazz three nights a week. Friday night, saxophonist Billy Ray Sheppard steps in.
Saturday, it's jazz vocalist Percy Lewis. Thursday, WOW features Loretta Blue; show time is 6:30 p.m.
At the Cork Bar at Hotel Contessa it's Henry Brun the Latin American Trio Friday night, Brun and the Latin Playerz Trio on Saturday.
It will not be difficult to get your jazz on this month.
Ska, the Jamaica-born, syncopated, brass-powered precursor to reggae, might not fall into the jazz category, but the music has some roots in jazz.
Friday night at Sam's Burger Joint, ska and rock will meet and mingle on a bill that includes 6 Pack Deep, Royal Kustoms, Open Chapter and the Standing Few.
6 Pack Deep, from Baton Rouge, serves up a potent, energetic brand of punk/ska/rock driven by a smoking horn section, stinging guitar and solid rhythm. Listen for songs from the band's This Party Called Life EP.
Open Chapter, founded in 2002 to play a Harlandale High School talent show, has gone through personnel changes but is still cranking out a brand of impassioned alt-rock/hard rock that roars and soars.
If you need to work off those Easter-candy calories, Guy Forsyth, working hard with his new double live CD, Unrepentant Schizophrenic Americana, will bring his band, his energy, his determination and his blues/rock/Americana to Gruene Hall for a free show at 5 p.m.
Sunday.
jbeal@express-news.net This column appears Wednesdays in S.
A. Life and Fridays in Weekender.
San Antonio Express-News publish date April 6, 2007
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