Results tagged “Chicago jazz festival” from Jazz Beyond Jazz

Start a Twitter campaign, and see what happens! Do as many people hear live jazz in a week as attended Woodstock, say? Using the hashtag #jazzlives, a rough count is underway, supported by independent jazz activists, musicians, festivals, journalists but most of all the listeners themselves. It's a lesson in how people participate in culture now, with encouraging findings.

All is not dismal in Jazzville: Producer George Wein has found a title sponsor -- CareFusion -- for his jazz festivals in Newport next month and New York City summer 2010. SFJazz has announced a stellar lineup including Ornette Coleman for its fall fest, Oct. 10 - Nov. 21. 

New speculation on the jazz magazine crisis: Having no summer advertorial supplements for JVC Jazz Festivals (which aren't happening) may have hugely hurt JT's seasonal revenues. How could the loss of three consecutive monthly multi-page inserts, all expenses paid for by the client, not shake a publication's income stream?

Complete disclosure: I edited the JVC Jazz Festival program books in the 1990s, when they were inserts into Tower Records' free monthly magazine Pulse!, and for a year when JVC America, responsible for the Japanese owned electronics firms' promotional investment in George Wein's international jazz fests, switched the contract to Jazziz. Ah, those were the days!

An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 listeners of all ages, genders, races, religions -- Americans and visitors from abroad, too -- enjoyed the directly expressive, highly personalized music of Pulitzer Prize-winner Ornette Coleman as the finale of the outdoor Chicago Jazz Festival last Sunday night. The attentive, mellow and celebratory audience response, including a standing ovation throughout the 5000 seats nearest the bandshell in Grant Park, suggested that improvisation created without a priori conventions or artificial constraints, which Coleman throughout his remarkable career has alluded to as "free jazz," "harmolodics" and "sound grammar," upon easy access and unpressured exposure, is as natural as breathing, feeling and talking. As Coleman declared on one of his recordings almost 50 years ago, This is our music.

The best thing about the Chicago Jazz Festival is that it's curated by an independent committee of people (mostly from the Jazz Institute of Chicago) who really love music, rather than being overly influenced by promoters, booking agents and managers representing a few big name artists who are trying to fill blank dates during their big tours. 

Sonny Rollins at 78 is still a saxophone collosus, as he demonstrated leading his touring sextet Thursday night to open the Chicago Jazz Festival. His bent posture, shock of white hair and strong features give him the air of an Old Testament prophet, and his stamina may not be all it was when he was younger, but he brought wisdom, humor and intensity to an upbeat and swinging rendition of Irving Berlin's "Falling In Love Is Wonderful," sweet warmth  to Ellington's "In A Sentimental Mood" (backed only by his rhythm section), and for a finale uproarious energy to a bare-bones Chicago blues. Read Neil Tesser's article in the Chicago Reader for background on how Rollins cleaned up his act in Chicago, circa 1955, which accounts for his affection for the city to this day.  howardmandel.com
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A city's jazz scene is best measured not by an annual festival -- though Sonny Rollins free at the Frank Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavillion in Chicago's Millennium Park on Thursday night was a fine thing. The real signs of Chicago's jazz depth and diversity are evident in the unique "club tour" (aka pub crawl), which the Jazz Institute of Chicago cleverly designs to introduce listeners to local musicians playing small venues way outside the downtown Loop.

Free jazz fests across the U.S. mark summer's glorious end. Manhattan's Charlie Parker festival (held Saturday Aug. 23 and Sunday 24 in Marcus Garvey park uptown and Tompkins Square Park downtown), the Chicago Jazz Festival (which formally starts Thursday Aug 28 with Sonny Rollins at downtown Grant Park's Petrillo bandshell) and the Detroit International Jazz Festival (celebrating Detroit-Philadelphia music connections, Aug 29 - Sept. 1 on multiple stages along the river at Hart Plaza and down the street at Campus Martius Park) and smaller events such as the Fox Jazz Festival in Menasha, Wisconsin have become traditions.