Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey

With 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 Kansas City tenor man Mark Southerland to dish out portions of the suite, among other catalog items.