What's really new in improvisational music? Where else can innovation go? Mn'JAM Experiment -- singer Melissa Oliveira and her visual/electronics/turntablist partner JAM -- are daring to mix high-tech audio-with-video media in live performance, and as they say, it's an experiment, in a direction that live performance seems sure to go. Mn'JAM, photo by Charlotte Steunebrink Grounded in jazz fundamentals (call and response, in-the-moment interactions, individualized expression, rhythmic drive, repertoire; she went to Berklee, he to New … [Read more...]
Extraordinary Popular Delusions, Chicago free improv all-stars
Jim Baker, keys& synth; Brian Sandstrom, bass; Steve Hunt, drums; Ed Wilkerson, saxes, didgeridoo, oud, Mars Williams, reeds and toys -- photo by Marc PoKempner Keyboardist and synthesizer specialist Jim Baker has led the collective quartet Extraordinary Popular Delusions playing every Monday night in obscure Chicago venues for the past 13 years. My article on EPD, which features saxophonists Mars Williams and Edward Wilkerson Jr. (they switch off), multi-instrumentalist (bass, guitar, trumpet) Brian Sandstrom and percussionist/drummer … [Read more...]
Luminous PoKempner pix of Sun Ra’s celestial music
Marshall Allen, ageless 94, leads the Sun Ra Arkestra If you liked Black Panther, listen to the music that introduced and embodies Afro-Futurism. Photojournalist Marc PoKempner captured a bit of the celestial magic of the Sun Ra Arkestra (est. circa 1954) during its November touchdown in New Orleans's Music Box Village. This picturesque venue is an assembly of little houses which MPoK says "each has some sound producing capability - bells, chimes, horns, drums." (Above: Marshall Allen, Arkestra leader since 1995. All photos here Marc … [Read more...]
Chicago blues at 90
Guitarist Jimmy Johnson's birthday at Space Jimmy Johnson at Space, Evanston -- all photos thanks to Harvey Tillis Blues have been heard in Chicago for about 100 years -- and blues guitarist Jimmy Johnson has been alive for 90 of them. Johnson, born just four years after Papa Charlie Jackson was reported busking with his guitar on Maxwell Street, celebrated his entry to ninth decade last Wednesday night at Space in Evanston, and proved to be as powerful and thrilling a player/singer as he's been since the 1970s, when he played … [Read more...]
Jazz and beyond projects with 2018 NEA funding support
Given all the noise, the National Endowment for the Arts' $25 mil for arts, literature and education announced Feb. 7 may have been overlooked. But these funds and the projects they support, nationwide, should be noted. From more than $3 million going to initiatives strictly labeled "Music" (exclusive of "Musical Theater" or "Opera") here's my subjective selection of 50 grants referencing "jazz" and beyond. The largest amounts among them go to Carnegie Hall to celebrate Philip Glass's 80th birthday ($85k and there's a second grant on … [Read more...]
Jazz Congress, Winter JazzFest, shape of jazz to come
The first Jazz Congress co-hosted by Jazz at Lincoln Center and JazzTimes magazine Jan 11 and 12, 2018 and the 14th annual Winter JazzFest Marathon produced in downtown Manhattan Jan 12 and 13, offered contrasts and prompted crosstalk. It wasn't like these were conventions of different parties, but different narratives were going down. The Congress's sessions included JALC managing and artistic director Wynton Marsalis speaking on race and jazz, women in jazz announcing "yes, we're here," and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar keynoting about his love of … [Read more...]
Women in jazz journalism on gender issues, in NYC MLK weekend
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weekend '18 was a big one for jazz in NYC with the first Jazz Congress at Jazz at Lincoln Center, a glorious Winter Jazz Fest, artists showcases at the conference of APAP (the Association of Performing Arts Presenters) and diverse independent venues -- but not least of all the first ever (?!?) panel discussion of gender issues by four women who are professional jazz journalists (documented to vlogger Ms Michal Shapiro). Above, Jordannah Elizabeth Michelle Mercer, of NPR and DownBeat's Hotbox reviewing … [Read more...]
International Jazz RIPs, 2017
Photographer-writer-author Ken Franckling has painstakingly compiled a compendium of more than 400 jazz artists and associates from around the world who died in 2017, with links to obituaries of most of them. Posted at JJANews.org. It's a striking document and useful resource, though Franckling says, sadly, "The list seems to get depressingly longer each year." Maybe that's because jazz itself -- at least as so recorded and promoted -- is now more than 100 years old and the post-WWII generations that gave the art form its … [Read more...]
Celebrating Chicago pianist Willie Pickens (1931-2017)
Pianist Willie Pickens, 86, a powerful, lyrical and generous modernist who performed, taught and mentored young musicians from Chicago starting in 1959, died of a heart attack on Dec. 12 while at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, readying himself to play at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola with 29-year-old trumpeter Marquis Hill. Having heard him often in the past three years, I can attest that Pickens was at the height of his creativity, and a warm, engaging presence in every public context. For instance, at the 40th anniversary party of … [Read more...]
Hyde Park Jazz Fest, summer’s last dance (photos)
Chicago's Hyde Park Jazz Festival in the first days of fall (Sept. 23 & 24th) which were unusually hot, is an exceptional event, curated for creative artistry, local and otherwise, drawing a highly diverse crowd to a fair that mixes popular and specialized performances at a range of boutique venues. Produced by an independent 501c3, the 11-year-old Hyde Park Jazz Festival receives some support from the University of Chicago's Office of Civic Engagement, and has co-founders in principals from the Hyde Park Jazz Society but relies … [Read more...]
Jazz community upends Englewood’s bad rep
The 18th annual free Englewood Jazz Festival in south side Hamilton Park last Saturday (9/16) affirmed the best of Chicago's grassroots culture, promoting an opposite image of this challenged neighborhood as a dangerous place -- unless one fears powerful, creative music that speaks as directly as dance rhythms to its family of listeners. Produced on behalf of the Live the Spirit Residency by saxophonist Ernest Dawkins -- current AACM Chicago chairperson, Park District music teacher and every-Sunday star at Norman's Bistro, who led … [Read more...]
My Q&A for Blues@Greece & Spirit of Jazz Award
Jazz, blues, American literature and where I'd go for a day in a time machine are topics I address in an email interview with Michalis Limnios who blogs at Blue@Greece. I post this item out of sheer vanity, reinforced by my being presented with a Spirit of Jazz Award tomorrow (9/16) by the Englewood Jazz Festival, taking place from noon to 6 pm on Chicago's South Side in Hamilton Park, not far from where I grew up. Performers include saxophonist and organizer Ernest Dawkins, singers Dee Alexander and Carolyn Fitzhugh, the Live the Spirit … [Read more...]
Youssou N’Dour on stage & screen, PoKempner photos
Photo-journalist Marc PoKempner's images from the Chicago Jazz Fest, as featured in my previous post, and these from Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour's rousing who two weeks earlier, exhibit how he's dealing straightforwardly and creatively with the screen backing musicians at the Pritzker Pavilion of Millennium Park. Giving us eyefuls to enjoy. Here's what we can see -- as PoKempner proves, without post-production; the double images are the videographers' superimpositions -- when visually-conscious, kinetic performing artists are … [Read more...]