Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey

With its out-there stage banter and song titles like “Thelonious Monk Is My Grandmother,” Tulsa’s Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey has always brought a welcome sense of humor to jazz. But with The Race Riot Suite, the spastic country-jazz foursome gets as serious as your life, enlisting a star-studded horn section to flesh out its meditation on the 1921 Tulsa race riot that claimed an estimated 300 lives. The 12-part suite pinballs among majestic melodies, free improv and ragged New Orleans rhythms; here, the Fred will reunite with three horn players from its album—Steven Bernstein, Peter Apfelbaum and Kansas City tenor man Mark Southerland—to dish out portions of the suite, among other catalog items.