Chicago

Black Chicago music fest producers: The costs of “free”

Chicago offers, surprisingly enough, many opportunities to catch exciting, accomplished and emerging music across genres, with oodles of concerts free of charge, meaning they have to funded by others than attendees. Our extraordinary summer events season launched last weekend with the city-sponsored, all-free 34th Annual Chicago Gospel Festival in Millennium Park and I’m psyched for the 36th Annual Chicago Blues Festival next weekend (planning to somehow dart off to the Printers Row Lit Fest, simultaneously at the opposite end of the Loop) as well as the Jazz Institute’s free three-day Birthday Bash June 28 to 30 (which is the day of the fifth annual Chicago Mariachi Festival) and summer’s end 41st annual Chicago Jazz Festival.

But this article at TheTriibe.com reports on a panel of South Side summer event presenters — specifically the Chosen Few Picnic and Festival and the Silver Room Sound System Block Party — whose successes have led to more financial challenges, without (they say) sufficient support from participating businesses, despite their event-generated profits. (Thanks to my editor Philip Montoro at the Chicago Reader for sending this around.)

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 video’d and magnified in near-real time, presumably so audiences far from the stage can better appreciate their costumes, moves,Â expressions and expression.

Dazzling effects, new visions when those moments are captured in the snap of a photograph, too.

The colors and rhythms of these image seem related, naturally, to those of the elegant, graceful, melliflous singer-composer-bandleader-politician’s lastest album, Africa Rekk.

His songs on it include “Goree” (for the island off Dakar from which slaves embarked to the Americas), “Be Careful,” “Exodus,” “Conquer the World,” “Food for All” and “Money, Money.” One can discern his messages simply from the way Youssou N’Dour and troupe looks, dancing, playing, singing. PoKempner’s photojournalism takes us there.

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Flyover country? Nonsense in jazz, politics, crime fiction

There’s no such thing as “flyover country” — except in the minds ofÂ careless or ignorant people who ought to know better. For instance:

Jazz lives throughout the US and the world, not only in New York City;
Illinois presidential race voters chose Hilary Clinton by a wide margin (due largely to Democratic bastion and jazz hub Chicago) althoughÂ the man who beat her nationally does not seem to have much on-the-groundÂ experience with anywhere except his own properties,
and yes, the capital of the Midwest has crime fiction writers to boast of, too, despite rumors to the contrary.

Eric Beetner – LitReactor

Here’s what stirred me up aboutÂ this: “Chicago has a great heritage of crime, but not much in the way of crime fiction,” Eric Beetner, LA-based author, goofed up big-time in his opening remarks at the first Murder and Mayhem conference on crime fiction held in downtown Roosevelt University on Saturday, March 11. He meant, of course, to be funny, kicking off a day of well attended and much better informed panel discussions. But it culminated, after all, in a discussion between Sara Paretsky, whose pi V.I. Warshawski lives near Wrigley Field, and William Kent Krueger, author of mysteries set in northern Minnesota, often around Native American reservations.

I like Beetner’s Rumrunners, a quick and dirty read and I suspect his comment was based on little thought (“I only had so much time,” he told me when I called him on it). BUT! Chicago has been home of crime writers and site of their works from Theodore Dreiser, W.A. Burnett, Ben Hecht, Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, Meyer Levin, Jonathan Latimer, Chester Gould (the man who inventedÂ Dick Tracy!) and Iceberg Slim to Scott Turow, Erik Larson, author and editor Stuart Kaminsky and of course Ms.Â Paretsky, who co-founded the crime writers’ organization Sisters in Crime.

Chicago-oriented authors who spoke, further confirming that writing in or about this woefully gun-laden city plagued by income inequality and racial tensions, is still vital, included Michael Harvey, Sean Chercover, Danny Gardner, Marcus Sakey and Alverne Ball (full schedule of speakers here).

Within the conference discussion ranged over such issues as levels and degrees of violence, how to work with historical fiction, use and abuse of genre conventions, etc. A business-oriented group, including Chicago agent Danielle Egan-Miller, editorial director of Crooked Lane Books Matt Martz and book/entertainment publicist Dana Kaye (who co-produced Murder and Mayhem with author Lori Rader-Day). Another unusually focused on the value of libraries to authors, for direct sales, publicity platforms and extending books’ lives. The Book Cellar sold works by panelists to the 200-some attendees — readers and writers, clearly.

There’s lots of crime in Chicago — as well as political intrigue, sports action, social change, artistic creativity — and quite a bit of crime writing, too. It’s been historical, literary, theatrical, cinematic, hard-boiled, cozy, procedural, legalistic, written by insiders and outsiders. There’s bound to be more.

Don’t assume nothin’s happening between coasts or beyond where you are and mostly hear about. What goes on in the heart of the heart of the country otherwise may come as a surprise.

howardmandel.com

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Patti Smith’s New Year’s Eve vow: “We must not behave!”

Patti Smith, Dec 31 2016, Park West Chicago. Photo by Lauren Deutsch.

Ushering in 2017 with Patti Smith and band at Chicago’s Park West New Year’s Eve was inspiriting for usÂ of a certain age and artsy disposition.

Grey-haired but loose and limber — funny, fierce, profane and poetically incantatory — Smith celebrated her 70th birthday in the city of her originÂ as if for all boomers and our progeny. At the Riviera Theatre on Dec. 30 she performedÂ the whole of Horses, her winning 1975 debut album; on theÂ 31st, backed by her four-man Nuggets, she offered a mixed bag including Debbie Reynold’s plaintive “Tammy,” the Doobie Brothers’ “Jesus Is Just Alright,” a Prince cover, vague comments that become stories that turned images into phrases conjuring her anthems “Gloria,” “Because the Night” and “People HaveÂ the Power,” Â and for a finaleÂ the Who’s “My Generation” — as a call to arms in the form ofÂ active humanitarianism united inÂ cultural bohemianism, a commitment to folk-rock-soul-art-literary-punk fun.

“2017 is the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love!” Smith exhortedÂ the full houseÂ of hipsters — perhaps a thirdÂ the 900 standing for three hours in a mosh pit, though most lookedÂ as well-aged as Smith and her longtime guitarman, Lenny Kaye. “Our generation had ideals! We were going to change the world with music, love, sex, drugs, understanding! This was our weapon — ” she hoisted a Fender — “and now we’ve got to be strong! We’ve got a voice! We’ve got to teach the young, they’re the future!” She wavedÂ at her daughter playing keyboards, and hugged a Japanese guitarist who’d come from Tokyo to sit in. “We mustÂ not behave!”

Patti Smith and her Nuggets at Park West, Chicago 12/21/17. Photo by Lauren Deutsch.

Extraordinarily for a New Year’s Eve party, in the middle of aÂ show which had the immediacy of something thrown together with and for friends, Smith broke into talking about peopleÂ less fortunate that those of us who’d gathered at some cost just for a good time. It was as if she made it easier to enjoy by acknowledged how fucked up things are, on so many levels.

She complained of not understanding why people who need blankets can’t be given them, people who need food or water aren’t provided for of course, and segued into her sympathiesÂ for Syrian refugees and others displaced by war.

This came off not asÂ aÂ self-righteous didactic political statement but straightforwardÂ personal expression and the crowd responded with a longÂ moment of quiet solemnity. Which Smith broke by mentioningÂ that she and the band were supposed to be revving up to a climactic midnight, soÂ the drummer resumed rocking, guitars chimed in, she sang with a throb and a catch in her voice, bass lines led in a bumptious way to spinning, glinting, swirling disco-ball lights and a cascade from the ceiling of colored balloons — “Happy New Year! Â Stay strong!”

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Chicago’s free summer music cornucopia – Deutsch, PoKempner photos

Latin Jazz dancers in Humboldt Park — photo by Lauren Deutsch.

With a 10th annualÂ 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 AdÃ© 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, concededÂ that Chicago’s unparalleled Blues Fest is already over (as is Taste of Chicago, where bands including The Roots prevailed) but note that the classically-oriented Grant Park Music Festival continues whileÂ the very promising 38th annualÂ Chicago Jazz FestÂ looms to cap it all by Labor Day (we’ll also enjoyÂ an early autumnÂ Hyde Park Jazz Festival Sept 24th and 25th), and it’s hard to find a comparable wealth of beautiful sounds available to all comers, at least west of the Hudson River (NYC’s Summerstage highlights jazz this season, withÂ quite a worthy schedule).

John Santos at congas – photo by Lauren Deutsch

Less the Chicago presentations simply seem like wannabeÂ distractions from the localÂ plague of gun violence,Â ourÂ failed mayoralityÂ and (gladly) “lost opportunity” to squander lakefront on a movie director’s museum, I hasten to say the concerts are genuinely positive, citizenry-binding events.

While San Franciscan John Santos’ sextet, conguero Joe Rendon and Friends and Hector Silviera’s orquestra entertained on a stage set up in an open-air boat house, the surrounding, formerly dodgy Humboldt Park was bustling with family picnics and pickup-team games.

Hector Silviera – photo by Lauren Deutsch

Former (future?) mayoral candidate Chuy Garcia satÂ comfortablyÂ amid the crowd (also for Palmieri’s Salsa Orchestra atÂ Millennium Park), listening as a recognized, respected and unhassled member of the community.

That community in all its glorious if too often uneasy diversityÂ (approximately 1/3 African-American, 1/3 Hispanic background, 1/3 “non-Hispanic white”) has been well-represented at the Gehry bandshell of Pritzker Pavillion in Millennium Park.

Why is Chuy (at left) smiling? He digs the beat. Photo by Lauren Deutsch

There were perhaps 500 people at the Latin Jazz Fest at Humboldt on Saturday, July 16, but an estimated 10,000 (capacity crowd) attended the powerhouse Palmieri show on June 27 — people of every demographic dancing to the uncompromisingly dense, percussive and melodically improvised roar alone, in couples and/or fluid groups.

Ugochi at Millennium Park — photo by Marc PoKempner

Two weeks later, Ugochi and A.S.E — herÂ Afro Soul Ensemble — opening for Sunny AdÃ© and his Afro-Beats, aptly emboding Chicago’s breadth of influences and depths of talent. Born in Nigeria, Ugochi was raised on the South Side, and her relaxed yet keening vocalizations were likeÂ a junction of blues wailer Mama Estella Yancey with MalianÂ Oumou SangarÃ©. Cellist Tomeka Reed, an emergent leader of the Chicago branch of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) joined the A.S.E. for two or three songs, adding a subtle creative undercurrent to the band’s mid-tempo renditions of their leader’sÂ original material. Her lyrics were topical and inclusive (she introduced one as “three words my mother taught me thatÂ could save your life: ‘Don’t Mind Them'”). Judging by the crowd reaction, she won a lot of new fans.

Although there is a percentage of attendees at Millennium Park who just come because it’s a nice place to throw down a blanket, break out some refreshments and stare at the skyline as night falls, DCASE’s programming ensures aficionados also have a reason to come to these gigs. King Sunny AdÃ© probably drew on the basis of the fantastic tours he did in the 1980s — I heard him live three times in New York City, and will always (I hope) remember his concert at Roseland, where I discovered my body knew dance moves I’d never had tried before.

In Brooklyn three years ago AdÃ© and company delivered an eagerly anticipated but somewhat disappointing show — the ensemble appeared aged, heavy and weary — but in Chicago July 18 all parties onstage felt regenerated and ebullient. AdÃ© will be 70 in September, but retains the dimples, grace and infectious humor that recalls at moments Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, Cab Calloway, Louis Jordan and Chuck Berry. He sings rather complicated story-songs casually, usually with support from two sidemen who contribute pantomime to the narratives (incomprehensible unless one speaks a West African language). HeÂ strapped on his Fender guitar for only one song, adding an spicyÂ wham! to his figures. He moved from his hips, his knees, his ankles, precisely but self-deprecatingly.

Meanwhile, the Afro-Beats tore it up, a terrific though un-announced electric guitarist reeling off skeins of single note lines that suggested he was familiar with Buddy Guy as well as Jerry Garcia and Jeff Beck, an electric keyboards player who didn’tÂ offerÂ predictable runs when he could build surprising improvisations, and a traps drummer pounding rhythms that defined the tunes’ long themes and releases. The entirety was founded on urgent talking drum parts — those seated musicians started hot and never slowed down. Oh, there were two bodacious women dancers, too, shimmying in golden dresses.

In how many American cities does Sunny AdÃ©’sÂ audience, unbidden, sing along in Yoruba? How does an age-and-ethnicity-mixed mob of Chicagoans even know theÂ material of a group that hasn’t visited in decades, and gets scant-to-noÂ radio play? We can’t do muchÂ about intransigent Republican governor Rauner, hapless and unpopular Rahm Emanuel, hand-gun fueled gang wars taking a toll on innocent bystanders, but we can gather to hear music that brings everyone together and makes us happy.

Tomorrow (July 21): The Heritage Blues Orchestra, with my friend Junior Mack singing and playing guitar, and Toshi Reagon, free, starts at 6:30 pm. Thursday and Friday, July 22 and 23: Marin Alsop conducts the Grant Park Orchestra inÂ Dvorak’s New World Symphony, and violinist Regina Carter performs Duke Ellington’s orchestral works; next week (Tuesday, July 26),Â saxophonist Caroline Davis and pianist Rob Clearfields’s quartet at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 5:30 to 8 pm (free only to Illinois residents). More to come!

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Daley bad for Windy City’s music?

Contrary to my paean to Richard M. Daley’s support of Chicago’s music and arts, Chicago Tribune rock-crit Greg Kot writes of the Mayor’s treatment of the local music scene as a “second class citizen.” It’s true the City has messed with club venues — Marguerite Horberg of established the multi-genre Hot House years back and now runs the progressive culture initiative Portoluz regaled me last weekend with tales of fire inspectors evacuating theaters mid-show over petty infractions and other harrassments; Kot reminds us of Chi’s failure to get behind its indigenous rock, blues, pop and jazz as New Orleans, Austin and other U.S. cities have. Jury’s out on whether Daley’s been overall good or bad for music, but the issue deserves careful analysis, and I urge Jazz Beyond Jazz readers to take a look at Kot’s piece as well as this collaborative Trib report.

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You’ve heard live jazz ? Tweet using #jazzlives

Let’s prove jazz lives. Tweet about live performances using hashmark #jazzlives, detailing who and when in 140 characters.

Jazz fests rage across America in the next couple of weeks starting Aug. 29-30 with NYC’s Charlie Parker fest, picking up Sept 4 through 6 Â –Â Tanglewood,Â Chicago, Detroit, the Angel City Jazz Fest, LA’s Sweet & Hot Music Festival, Â theÂ Vail Jazz Party, Philadelphia’sÂ Tony Williams Scholarship Jazz FestivalÂ plus some fests with jazz-influenced acts, rhythms and improv such asÂ Jazz Aspen Snowmass,Â Seattle’sÂ Bumbershoot, the Getdown fest and campout near Chapel Hill NC. Overall, tens of thousands of fans will be in attendance. I suggest we all raise our electronic hands on Twitter (accounts are free) to signal that we are listening, that there is indeedÂ a significantÂ audience including people young enough both age and spirit to send a noticeable wave through social networking,Â National Endowment of the Arts data from ’08 notwithstanding.

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hail Studs Terkel, Jazz Age Chicagoan

A talker and listener, actor-dj-writer-oral historian, good humored realist and pragmatic idealist, Studs Terkel (1912 – 2008) stands as an American cultural patriot, who enjoyed as rich if not untroubled a life as genuinely democratic artist might hope for over the course of the 20th century — earning Roger Ebert’s thumbs up asÂ greatest Chicagoan. Studs was hugely enthusiastic about music, loving blues as well as jazz, gospel, rootsy folk,Â the Great American Songbook,Â the soundtrack of the labor and Civil Rights movement, classical stuff too — taste way above and beyond genre. May we sometime soon see his like again.

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