Dee Dee Bridgewater and Ramsey Lewis

Three-time Grammy winner and NEA Jazz Master with 7 Gold Records, Ramsey Lewis and his Electric Band join forces with Tony Award winner and three-time Grammy-winning vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater for two nights and four sets of “The Soul of Jazz” at the Dakota, June 19-20. This show launches their tour, which next crosses the Atlantic for venues throughout Europe, Turkey and north Africa before retuning to the U.S. in August.

Reid Anderson©Andrea Canter

The concept of “jazz meets classical” is nothing new, not even for the St Paul Chamber Orchestra which has produced its Liquid Music series for the past few years, often bringing in jazz elements and/or jazz musicians to interact with SPCO regulars. Gunther Schuller perhaps most famously melded the genres in what was dubbed Third Stream music.  And even the Bad Plus (TBP) have tackled classical works, including Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” It’s not a far reach, then, for the Bad Plus’ acclaimed bassist, composer and Twin Cities native Reid Anderson to collaborate with the SPCO on the last Liquid Music concert of the delayed season, bringing his new composition, “The Rough Mixes,” to the stage of the SPCO Music Room (408 St Peter Street, St Paul) for two nights, June 18-19. But what might be surprising is the instrumentation: In addition to SPCO violinists Steven Copes and Sunmi Chang, Minnesota Orchestra cellist Anthony Ross, and jazz percussionist Jeff Ballard (Brad Mehldau Trio), Reid Anderson will direct and perform via synthesizers and samplers. His acoustic bass won’t be on stage.  “I will be an instrumentalist like everyone else, just playing the computer,” Anderson said in a recent interview with Pamela Espeland for the Star Tribune. Also appearing with the musicians will be New York-based visual artist/architect Cristina Guadalupe, who will run a video installation with the 65-minute composition.

Jay Young©Andrea Canter

Bassist Jay Young has been widely acknowledged as a virtuosic sideman for such stars as Debbie Duncan, Bruce Henry, Moore by Four and more, but his outings as bandleader have been less frequent if equally compelling. With McNally Smith colleagues masterful saxophonist Pete Whitman, iron-fisted drummed Kevin Washington and savvy vocalist Judi Donaghy Vinar, as well as keyboard dynamo Thom West, rising star bassist Ian Young, and talented vocalists Sarah Greer and Katie Gearty, Young leads a tribute to Earth, Wind and Fire at the Dakota on Friday, June 14th.  This high-energy show will keep you on the edge of your ears.

Atlantis Quartet©Andrea Canter

Four of the area’s most creative musical minds return to the Artists Quarter this weekend, June 14-15. And although our start to summer seems a bit cool (and late!),  the Atlantis Quartet will no doubt put some heat into the season.

Describing themselves as on a mission to “create and explore fresh and original sounds on the modern edges of the jazz idiom,” the Atlantis Quartet came together in 2006. They have since released three savvy recordings (Again Too Soon in 2007, Animal Progress in 2009, and Lines in the Sand in 2011); they will soon release number four. The band has also explored Coltrane’s Love Supreme, Hancock’s Head Hunters and Lead Zepplin’s House of the Holy in a series of Halloween gigs. Despite the musicians’ busy schedules with other projects, the quartet appears regularly at the Artists Quarter, Dakota, Hell’s Kitchen, Studio Z, and other venues throughout the area, as well as on tour.

Hugh Masekela©Andrea Canter

“….a musician of phenomenal grace and power: intricate and fiery on flugelhorn and still blessed with a voice that can strip the leaves from the trees.” -- The Independent

A musician typically regarded as a master of African and global music, rather than jazz, trumpeter Hugh Masekela might surprise his audience at the Dakota on June 11th, when he joins forces with jazz pianist Larry Willis for an evening of post bop magic. Yet Masekela has been a significant member of the New York jazz scene for years, and earlier a student at the Manhattan School of Music where he first encountered pianist Larry Willis. Over the years, they have performed together, appearing at the 2011 Cape Town International Jazz Festival, at Jazz Standard (2012), and releasing a 4-disc recording, Friends (2012).

Barbary Coast

Evolving from the corps of popular traditional jazz bands of the 1960s, the Barbary Coast Dixieland Show Band, as it is now known, came together in 1967. And they haven’t missed a beat since. From area night clubs, theaters, and the State Fair to venues along the Mississippi and as far away as Nagasaki, Japan, Barbary Coast has entertained thousands in person as well as on radio and recordings. Elected to the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame in 2001, the current configuration of seven musicians playing 18 instruments appears on Saturday, June 8th, at the Schneider Theater of the Bloomington Center for the Arts, co-sponsored by the Twin Cities Jazz Society as its final concert of the Jazz From J to Z season.

Devotion

Pianist/composer/educator Dan Musselman has never been one to shy away from challenge. His first recording (Ruminations, 2008) was a solo set of original compositions, followed the next year by a duo project with vocalist Rachel Holder (Save Your Love for Me). Now, Dan has completed a suite of compositions based on five books of the Bible, as well as 4 additional works, to be released as Devotion on Sunday, June 9th (3 pm) at McNally Smith College of Music. Along with his trio (Andrew Foreman on bass, Zach Schmidt on drums), Musselman will feature special guest, trumpeter Hermon Mehari.