This is also the location of the “Old Webster Jazz Festival” and it’s one day, not far from Chicago and in a very cool place to hear some cool music.

OLD WEBSTER JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL

When? Saturday September 20, 2008
Start time? Noon
End time? 11:00 p.m.

Who is going to play?

According to the website “St. Louis Jazz Notes” (which is linked above):

“A total of ten bands will be featured on two outdoor stages, with headlining sets from singer Erin Bode (on the Allen Avenue stage) and the New Orleans-style funk/R&B/zydeco band Gumbohead and special guests the Funky Butt Brass Band (on the Gore Avenue stage).

The event also will include jazz performances from guitarist Todd Mosby (pictured), the Pfeffer Trio with Debby Lennon, Anita Rosamond, the Webster University Faculty Jazz Band and the Webster Groves High School Jazz Band, as well as blues from the Soulard Blues Band, the SteamRollers, and Marquise Knox.”

How much does it cost? Like most of your truly cool and hip jazz and blues festivals, this one is totally free to the public.

The Schedule, which you can find on the official Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival website is:

Gore Avenue Stage
12 noon – 2 pm: Todd Mosby
2 pm – 4 pm: Pfeffer Trio + Debby Lennon
4 pm – 6 pm: Marquise Knox Blues Band
6 pm – 8 pm: Webster University Faculty Jazz Band
8 pm – 11 pm: Gumbohead
with Special Guest Funky Butt Brass Band

Allen Avenue Stage
12 noon – 2 pm:: SteamRollers
2 pm – 4 pm: Souldard Blues Band
4 pm – 6 pm: Anita Rosamond
6 pm – 7 pm: Webster Groves High School Jazz Band
7:30 pm – 10 pm: Erin Bode

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St. Louis is also cool for us Chicagoans because it isn’t all that far. It’s a five hour drive or a half-an-hour plane ride to the south and, voila, there you are. It is a baseball heaven, has the Bowling Hall of Fame and it’s a great place to check out some cool jazz and blues.

One of the very cool things that is going on there is taking place at the Missour Botanical Gardens and it is known as the Whitaker Music Festival 2008. The cool thing about this one is that the festival isn’t just a few days in a row and the nothing more. This is every Wednesday night from June 4 – August 13. This is the 14th season for the Whitaker Music Festival and it is great jazz music and blues, folks, along with some other cool forms of music, for all tastes and styles.

Here is the schedule for the rest of the summer, so plan your trip accordingly:

June 25 Tony Simmons Band Jazz, Motown and funk
July 2 Anita Rosamond Jazz and pop newcomer
July 9 Javier Mendoza Contemporary acoustic pop-rock
July 16 Kim Massie Beloved St. Louis blues singer
July 23 Poor People of Paris Vintage French cabaret music
July 30 FolknBluesGrass Just what the name says…
Aug. 6 Laytham and Holmes Las Vegas revue
Aug. 13 Alvin Jett & the Phat noiZ Raucous blues and funk

According to the website:

“Picnicking is allowed on these nights, so concertgoers are invited to bring lawn chairs, blankets, and picnic suppers to enjoy. Food and drink may also be purchased.”

It’s a little like a less-organized Ravinia here in Chicago and it’s not far away for you Midwesterners. So, check it out and tell them you heard about it right here.

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Here in Chicago, the local National Public Radio station used to play classic jazz all night long. Then they went and changed that and got rid of it.  It was rather sad, but the numbers over night were rather grim.  Now, there is WDCB, which I rave about constantly on here.  The only complaint I have about it is that WDCB still doesn’t play jazz 24 hours a day.  They mix it up with other things.

I think this is just the way of jazz radio.  Finding a classic jazz rado station is impossible.  The best you can do is find some cool jazz radio programs.

I am a former resident of St. Louis.  St. Louis also happens to be a great town for blues an jazz.  This is where I went to college and I lived in the city for about three years after college.  Of course, the station where I got my start was the Webster University station KSLH which was all jazz.  Sadly, this station no longer exists.

There is a public radio station and they have a radio show that plays jazz.  In a recent poll run by the local weekly alternative newspaper, the Riverfront Times, the jazz program on KWMU was voted the best jazz on the air.  The show is called “Jazz Unlimited.”

The cool thing about technology is that you can listen to radio shows at any time thanks to the wonders of podcasting.  I checked and, thakfully, you can check out “Jazz Unlimited” shows archived online.  So, I wanted to point you to them

So, to listen, click HERE.

The show runs live every Sunday night from 9 pm to midnight.  The host is Dennis Owsley.  If you happen to be in or around St. Louis,  you may want to check it out.

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There was one this past weekend as well and it was in a great part of town where I went to school.  You see, I attended Webstery University in the St. Louis area.  It is in a very nice suburb of St. Louis known as Webster Groves.

This past weekend, on Saturday, was the Old Webster Jazz and Blues Festival.  There were two stages and the whole thing was a tribute to the late Lonnie Johnson.  They blocked off the streets of Gore and Allen right in downtown Webster Groves, which is also known as “Old Webster.”  At the end of each of those streets was a stage.  The whole event kicked off at noon.

The Gore Avenue stage featured the following:

Noon: Joe Bozzi Band

2pm: Anita Rosamond

4pm: Gumbohead

6pm: Webster University Jazz Band

8:00pm: Johnnie Johnson Band Featuring Kim Massie, Brian Owens and Special Guests

Meanwhile, the Allen Avenue stage featured:

Noon: David’s Guitar Loft Jazz Fusion

2pm: SIUE Faculty Jazz Ensemble

4pm: Marquise Knox Blues Band

6pm: Webster Groves High School Jazz Band

7pm: Jim Manley’s Wild Cool & Swingin’

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Then I got an e-mail forwarded to me from a guy I wrote about when I wrote about the schedule for the Chicago Jazz Festival.  He sent the message indicating his name had been spelled wrong to b5media instead of to me.  This is fine, of course, since b5media is the company that ultimately controls this site, but the fact is, this site is essentially a one-man operation and that one man is me.

So, who the heck am I?  Why am I suddenly supposed to be the expert on the Chicago jazz and blues scene?  How did I end up writing this blog anyway?

Well, first off, my name is Bryan W. Alaspa and I am a full-time freelance writer in the Chicago area.  My  normal area of writing is not music.  I write a lot of website content for various website developers.  I wrote press releases and business writing.  I write movie reviews.  I write novels and have my first non-fiction book coming out by Schiffer Publishing this month.

However, I also have a love of music, particularly jazz.  Of course, this was not always the case.  There was a large portion of my life when I did not listen to jazz and found both jazz and blues painful to listen to.  You may have had the same situation when you were growing up.

I grew up in Chicago.  I had always wanted to be a writer.  However, the parents always said I needed to find a career to get into in case the writing thing didn’t work out.  So, I thought I would take a detour into journalism.  I soon found out, however, that I hated writing for newspapers.  At the same time the school was getting a campus radio station up and running.

The first station Webster Univeristy started was a simple AM, carrier current radio station that, essentially, broadcast to the dorms across the street from the studios.  The format was essentially rock and pop.

By my third year, however, the university had entered into an agreement with the St. Louis Public School.  See, they had an FM radio station at 91.5 FM that covered the entire St. Louis area.  They were thinking of selling the station and the license, but they needed the station to stay on the air while the considered what to do with it.  So, Webster agreed that they would put content on the air while the public school system figured out what to do with the license.

There was one choice to be made:  classical or jazz?

The decision was for the station to broadcast jazz.  Thus, I became the music director and afternoon drive host of a jazz radio station that covered the entire St. Louis area.  It was a music I hated when I started, but I was anxious for the exposure.

Then came the day that not only changed my views about jazz, but my views on music all-together….

…to be continued… 

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