… or so it seems! While Jan/Feb tends to be quiet for bands, it’s actually hopping with activity making plans for spring/summer/fall public events. The KM4 is talking to wineries, local communities having fun public events, and those planning their festivals. This is all in addition to booking great local bars. Keep your eyes soon as we’ll be announcing some dates for us to play soon!
But it’s reminding me of past great events. One of our first big events was playing the Old Webster Jazz Festival (now it’s the Old Webster Jazz & Blues Festival). That was great, and lead to other events like the St. Charles New Town Jazz Festival. We also played for communities like Clayton and South St. Louis City and it’s always a lot of fun because … well we crank it up to 11.
Kevin, Barb, & Steve playing the New Town Jazz Festival
We played the St. Charles New Town festival four times. The first time we got to open for the wonderful Erin Bode. The second time, the wonderful Ptah Williams. Both have stories … we’re all huge fans of Erin, but just as we finished our set it rained, and hard. The next year, we were half way through our set when the promoter came up in a sweat. “Ptah is horrible lost — so lost I have to go get him!” So we paused, and got his band set up … but still no Ptah. The crowd got restless, so I approached the duo of his trio and said, “let’s play!” With Steve on sax and me on keys, and Ptah’s bass player and drummer, we did some very nice work with standards and classic jazz tunes. Ptah did show up (an hour late) and I sat him down and let him play my keys. He was marvelous! Then we can back on and finished our set … after that, we headlined the next two New Town Festivals.
But for this year we’re cooking up some fun events … we’ll be playing out at Eckert‘s for sure, and there’s no telling where else. Stay tuned!
