Columbia is ready to swing

You don’t have to wait for the Oct. 5 pub crawl to get your fix of the “We Always Swing” Jazz Series. Though the fund-raising Annual Downtown Columbia “Jazz, Wine and Beer” Pub Crawl marks the official start of the project’s 12th season, organizers have partnered with The Blue Note for a preseason event on Sept. 13, when young St. Louis singer Erin Bode performs.

Her show and a show by pianist Robert Glasper help meet one of the goals executive director Jon Poses identifies for the series.

“One of the pieces of what we try to do is to bring in the real up-and-coming young performers, who have already gained critical recognition and 10 years from now everyone will know them,” he said.

Another component, familiar to local jazz buffs, is the presence of world-renowned, award-winning jazz musicians who have performed in major festivals worldwide and on the stages of Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center and other venues of their ilk. In this area, the 2006-2007 series promises some heavy hitters.

Paquito D’Rivera, a native Cuban jazz saxophonist and clarinet player who has lived in the United States since 1980, is coming to the Missouri Theatre in November. The multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy winner is a 2005 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and a recipient of the 2005 National Medal of the Arts, presented by George and Laura Bush. Javon Jackson, a former member of Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, performs with legendary drummer Jimmy Cobb, the last surviving member of Miles Davis’s seminal “Kind of Blue” sessions.

Honoring the 80th birthdays of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Grammy-nominated trombonist Conrad Herwig and trumpet player/composer Brian Lynch present “The Latin side of Miles and ‘Trane” in a tribute show. And Don Byron, a jazz saxophonist and clarinet player who has served as artistic director of jazz at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and artist-in-residence at New York’s Symphony Space, brings the music of 1970s soul icon Junior Walker to a dance/concert, promoting his album Do the Boomerang, at The Blue Note in February.

“We have a number of performers who are acknowledged and quite well respected around the world,” Poses said. “Our goal is to make Columbia one of the world’s best stages for present-day and modern jazz.”

Tickets to Bode’s show at the Blue Note are now on sale; Pub Crawl tickets go on sale Aug. 15. Meanwhile, 10-concert season tickets and five-concert packages are expected to go on sale around Aug. 25. Single-event tickets will go on sale at TicketMaster outlets beginning Sept. 18.

Though the schedule for the 2006-2007 “We Always Swing” Jazz Series is not quite set (check www.wealwaysswing.org for updates), jazz enthusiasts can expect to visit the usual venues, The Blue Note and Murry’s, as well as the Missouri Theatre.

But while the locations and format remain the same as in previous years, Poses promises that the musicians and their performances will bring us something new.
“It’s always different,” Poses said, “because jazz is always different.”