Steve Simon and the Jazz Islanders return Sunday for a free one-time performance at St. John’s Beach Bar. It runs from 4 to 7:30 p.m.
“I’m so excited about coming back to St. John. I feel like a kid at Christmas,” Simon said.
Simon moved off-island more than four years ago and is now living in Charleston, S.C.
For the concert, he’s bringing together the Jazz Islanders who frequently played with him at the Beach Bar and other locations.
“It’s going to be a party, a reunion,” he said.
In addition to Simon on clarinet, the musicians include Joe Ramsay on sax, Vince Wallace Jr. and Les Burnside on bass, Andrew Cameron on drums, Michael Banzhaf on flute, Louis Taylor on keyboard, and Patrick Lockett on harmonica.
“Plus anybody else who shows up. They’ve always been jam sessions,” he said, referring to such folks as surprise guest artists.
As for his popular Blues Festival, held for several years in Coral Bay, Simon said that it’s not feasible to organize an event of that magnitude when he’s no longer living on St. John.
However, he said, he continues to produce blues concerts for members of the U.S. military with a Bluzapalooza scheduled in October at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
“It will be the biggest blues event at a military facility in the United States ever,” he said.
