Pianist Randy Weston, a magisterial musician at age 90 inspired by jazz traditions and its African basics, and trumpeter Amir ElSaffar, who has devoted himself to incorporating the Middle East's modal, microtonal maqam legacy into compositions for jazz improvisation by members of his Two Rivers Ensemble, were highlights of last weekend's 10th annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival. Both acts brought influences from afar back home. The two-day fest in the neighborhood soon to host Barack Obama's presidential library focused on local performers … [Read more...]
Chi jazz fest 2016, details in photos and words
My DownBeat overview of the 38th annual Chicago Jazz Festival, comprehensive as I could make it, didn't go into depth on any of the couple dozen performances I heard from Sept 1 through 4 in downtown Millennium Park and the Cultural Center. So here, with imagery by my photojournalist colleagues and friends Marc PoKempner and Michael Jackson (whose photo of drummer Dave King of the Bad Plus graced that DownBeat review) are some previously unreported details. Tatsu Aoki's Miyumi Project continues to evolve as the Tsukasa Taiko Legacy … [Read more...]
Thomas Chapin on film, with TromBari in Normal IL
Glenn Wilson, a terrific baritone saxophonist and flutist based in Normal, IL, is also a major mensch. Last Saturday, at the end of Normal's Sweet Corn and Blues festival, he organized a free concert and screening of Thomas Chapin: Night Bird Song, a comprehensive documentary about his friend, the usually exuberant alto saxophonist, flutist and composer who died of leukemia at age 40 in 1998. I was invited to lead a post-screening discussion with director Stephanie J. Castillo, who Skyped in from Brooklyn to The Normal Theater. Hear our … [Read more...]
A Great Migration suite from trumpeter Orbert Davis: Audio interview
Orbert Davis -- trumpeter, composer and leader of the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, has been commissioned by the Jazz Institute of Chicago to write and perform a suite about the Great Migration for the 38th annual free Chicago Jazz Festival. "Soul Migration," for octet, will be heard Sept 1 at 8 pm in Millennium Park's Pritzker Pavillion. With the composition in progress, Orbert spoke about it with me at his home studio, demonstrating with some synthesized samples and even improvising a theme. Thanks to Collin Ashmead-Bobbit for recording the … [Read more...]
MCA-Chicago’s Terrace concerts, acing outdoor presentation
Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art has aced outdoor music presentations with its Tuesdays on the Terrace series, most recently featuring the string trio Hear In Now performing strong yet sensitive chamber jazz. Drawing a thoroughly diversified crowd to enjoy fresh, creative music in open space on a summer afternoon for free (food and beverages extra) shouldn't be difficult, but it's the kind of programming New York's Museum of Modern Art tried off and on for decades, seldom conquering the format's challenges. Cellist Tomeka Reid, violinist … [Read more...]
Gospel (not my usual bag) keyboards revelations
I'll never be an avid fan, much less an aficionado, of gospel music -- but Lift Me Up, Chicago Gospel Keyboard Masters, new from The Sirens, a local independent label, is clearly full of joy and inspiration. It also is notable for documenting a seldom spot-lit but obviously thriving American roots music scene. Art arising from or meant to beget religious transcendence makes me uncomfortable, but many others aren't so biased, and all kudos go to Steven Dolins, The Sirens producer and my co-religionist, who says, "[G]oing back to Thomas Dorsey … [Read more...]
Chicago’s free summer music cornucopia – Deutsch, PoKempner photos
With a 10th annual Latin Jazz festival produced in the neighborhood Humboldt Park by the Jazz Institute of Chicago and dynamite downtown concerts with headliners such as Nigerian juju star King Sunny Adé and Afro-Cuban progressive Eddie Palmieri put on by DCASE, the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Chicago's free summer music programs are well underway. Add the Museum of Contemporary Arts' weekly Tuesdays on the Terrace shows, conceded that Chicago's unparalleled Blues Fest is already over (as is Taste of Chicago, … [Read more...]
Arhoolie Records (a dozen faves) to Smithsonian
Excellent news on the archival recordings front: Arhoolie Records, the 55-year old treasury of American folk and vernacular musics, has been acquired by Smithsonian Folkways, the non-profit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. So a broad, odd, historic, incomparable cultural catalog, founded and run since 1960 by producer Chris Strachwitz (now 84) enters the public trust. Smithsonian Folkways guarantees "in print" status and teaching tools to its 3000-plus titles (also accessible by streaming), Arhoolie's to be included. The best way … [Read more...]
Pulitzer winner Threadgill: “What is harmony?”
My profile of Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Threadgill, commissioned by and published in DownBeat in 2010: Henry Threadgill exuded confidence and impatience when facing four video cameras and a standing-room-only gallery of serious listeners at the Manhattan new music performance space Roulette last October. With his flute, bass flute, alto saxophone and bass clarinet at hand and the members of his ensemble Zooid -- guitarist Liberty Ellman, tuba-and-trombonist Jose Davilla, fretless bass Roulette TV: HENRY THREADGILL // ZOOID from … [Read more...]
Threadgill wins Pulitzer for Zooid and cheers for his career
The Pulitzer Prize for Music has been earned by Henry Threadgill, composer, bandleader and reedist, for his expansive and in-depth explorations of polyphonic improvisation with his quintet Zooid, the suite stretching over two cds In for a Penny, In for a Pound. Big time congratulations! And encouragement listening to all and any of Henry's works, as he is a visionary, exciting American composer. For instance, Threadgill's even newer Ensemble Double Up has recently issued its premier recording, Old Locks and Irregular Verbs, a triumphant … [Read more...]
Kudos Wayne Shorter, sole “jazz” Guggenheim fellow
Though the Guggenheim Foundation has in recent practice conferred several of its prestigious annual fellowships on musicians of jazz or beyond, only Wayne Shorter, the great 83 year old saxophonist-composer -- an NEA Jazz Master, co-founder of Weather Report, veteran of Miles Davis' great 1960's quintet and before that Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers -- represents music creativity from that legacy in this year's slate of 178 honorees and beneficiaries named April 6, drawn from U.S. and Canadian citizens in humanities, sciences and the arts. The … [Read more...]
At the NEA’s Jazz Masters Ball
The Kennedy Center was filled Monday night with VIPs, devotees and artists across disciplines for the 34th annual celebration of Jazz Masters by the National Endowment of the Arts. Here's my coverage for DownBeat magazine on the tribute to the 2016 honorees: Fierce and soulful saxophonists Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, cool yet lyrically expressive vibist Gary Burton, and Wendy Oxenhorn, the genuinely devoted-to-music-and-people exec director of the Jazz Foundation of America, if not exactly jazz's cross between … [Read more...]
Local DC jazz apart from NEA Jazz Masters events
In Washington DC for events surrounding the investiture of vibist Gary Burton, saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp and Jazz Foundation of America's executive director Wendy Oxenhorn as National Endowment of the Arts' Jazz Masters, I visited a new grassroots venue that shows where the deep heart of jazz support lies. The Jazz and Cultural Society is an 11-month old community center in a largely African-American neighborhood now presenting music twice a week (Wednesdays and Sundays, 6-9 pm). It's the love-child of Dr. Alice Jamison, … [Read more...]