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Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

Chicago Jazz fest images, echoes

Roscoe Mitchell onscreen, presiding over The Art Ensemble of Chicago,
Pritzker Pavillion Millennium Park Chicago, 8/30/19
photo (c) Marc PoKempner

The 41st annual Chicago Jazz Festival has come and gone, as I reported for DownBeat.com in quick turnaround. I stand by my lead that the music was epic — cf. Marc PoKempner‘s beautiful image of the Art Ensemble of Chicago at Pritzker Pavillion, facing east towards Mecca just before their African percussion-driven orchestral set.

And epochal, yes: the Art Ensemble is 50 years old, as discussed in my radio piece for NPR’s Here and Now). Such longevity is remarkable for any jazz or improvisational unit but the more so as the AEC in its current incarnation is resolutely looking ahead, with younger players (Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid and Christina Wheeler among them) taking the responsibilities of fallen members (co-founders Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors and Joseph Jarman now all deceased).

There was grumbling re the AEC set as having abandoned favorite themes and leaning towards surviving founder Roscoe Mitchell’s involvement with Western classical compositional and vocal traditions. I say hooey.

Of old repertoire “Dreaming of the Masters” ended the performance, and “Chi-Congo” was a charged percussion episode, organized by longtime AEC drummer Famadou Don Moyé. There was little-instrument play, as introduced into jazz by the Art Ensemble, and so a broad dynamic range. Roscoe Mitchell focused on bells as well as his sopranino saxophone, blowing uninterrupted streams of notes. Two excellent trumpeters, Hugh Ragin and Fred Berry, supplanted by trombonist Dick Griffin, stood in for Lester Bowie; three bassists (Junius Paul, Jaribu Shahid and Sylvia Bolognese) were required to fill the pulsating role Malachi Favors originated.

AEC in action: from left, Roscoe Mitchell, Dick Griffin, Dudu Koate, Jaribu Shahid, Baba Attiba, Dee Alexander, Famadou Don Moyé. Photo (c) Lauren Deutsch.

I admit, however, that my DownBeat report underplays the immense contribution of local musicians to the popular and aesthetic value of the Chicago Jazz Fest. It’s understandable the jazz-mag-of-record concentrates on nationally touring acts comprising well-known artists, but in fact this festival has its greatest impact immediately and down-the-road by presenting players from the extraordinarily energized current scene.

Several — including singer Dee Alexander, saxophonists Geoff Bradfield, Ari Brown, Rajiv Halim, Greg Ward and John Wojciechowski, trumpeters Russ Johnson, Rob Mazurek and Pharez Whitted, guitarist Mike Allemana, pianist Miguel de la Cerna, bassists Clark Sommers and Anton Hatwich, drummers Dana Hall, Avreeayl Ra, Mike Reed and Charles Rumback — showed up in more than one group, demonstrating flexibilities and abilities to attend to specific materials.

Reed’s obscurely named Jazz Institute of Chicago 50th Anniversary band actually brought together composers represented in his newly published Chicago “real book,” The City Was Yellow. (I wrote some artists’ bios for this volume, whose profits go to Jazz Institute of Chicago music education activities, but the greater value is the lead sheets of some 50 tunes written between 1980 and 2010). But that was only one of several deliberate celebrations of Chicago’s jazz past folded into its present.

Robert DeNiro as Al Capone, under the Chicago Cultural Center’s Tiffany dome

To walk into the Chicago Cultural Center (setting for key scenes in Brian dePalma’s The Untouchables), for instance, on a Thursday morning to the sound of trumpets is to be swept back 100 years, to the arrival of first generation New Orleans jazzmen eager to expand their audience. To hear the Fat Babies play classic jazz, as they do every Tuesday night at Al Capone’s long ago speakeasy the Green Mill, is to catch an old style imbued with new life. When Ernest Dawkins leads current members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in a tribute to the Art Ensemble’s late Jarman, drummer Alvin Fielder and Saalik Ziyad, who died unexpectedly, very young, the conjunction of time is crystalized.

When guitarist George Freeman, 92, jokes with harmonica master Billy Branch, 67, with an enthusiastic contingent of Southport Records principals behind them, the continuity of distinctly Chicago music is manifest. When players in their 20s such as vibist Joel Ross, the Collier brothers (saxophonist Isaiah, bassist Micah and drummer Jeremiah) and drummer Isaiah Spencer, or a bit older like pianist Richard Johnson, saxophonists Sharel Cassity and Juli Woods, multi-instrumentalist Ben Lamar Gay, trumpeter Jaimie Branch, etc. take over the stage, tomorrow’s arrived.

The fact that a jazz festival happened 10 days ago doesn’t mean it’s over. People are still living with the reverberations. Those fading sounds have something to say about what comes next. In fact, thanks to WDCB-FM and WFMT’s connection to a global radio network, recordings live from the 41st Chicago Jazz Festival of Freddy Cole, bassist Christian McBride’s New Jawn, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago will be heard, in coming months, throughout the world.

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,

Dancing at Englewood Jazz Festival. Photos by Marc PoKempner, unless otherwise credited

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 a terrific little big band (12 pieces, not 18) and jam

Wallace Roney, l; Emilio Modeste, tenor sax

session with singer Carolyn Fitzhugh — the fest also starred Chicago’s down-to-earth diva Dee Alexander with her ace group (pianist Miguel de la Cerna, bassist Junius Paul, drummer Ernie Adams) and East Coast-based trumpeter Wallace Roney, whose three very young sidemen (his 13 year old nephew Kojo on drums; tenor saxophonist Emilio Modeste) proved up to his music’s hard, fast demands.

The afternoon-long program was emceed by WDCB‘s music director/morning show host Paul Abella and station manager Dan Bindert (Dee Alexander has a show now on ‘DCB, too). It drew some 1500 folks skewing late middle-aged, who sat on lawn chairs and blankets and a few rows of low bleachers. We drank bottled water and herb tea, bought barbeque, considered shea butter, t-shirts, costume

Ernest Dawkins conducts Live the Spirit Residency Big Band at 18th Englewood Jazz Festival

jewelry and baked goods from local vendors. About half a dozen uniformed police officers hung around, available and amiable, untroubled and untroubling. Dawkins gave them a shout out from the stage. The biggest problem was the vegan food never arrived. The Englewood Jazz Festival was a lark in the park.

Yet the Live the Spirit Residency Big Band’s soloists took it seriously, their music consistently tight and urgent. Trumpeter Pharez Whitted isn’t to be messed with — he was also playing that night as he had the night before at the Green Mill in pianist Willie Pickens‘ quintet, masterful on ditties like “Salt Peanuts” and “Giant Steps”. Here he was paired with trumpeter John Moore, whose open attack and muted sound, too,

Ernest Dawkins and Howard Mandel

reminded me of late, little-heralded Billy Brimfield, trumpet partner of late, deservedly-heralded saxophonist Fred Anderson. Decades ago, performing at a coffee house in Evanston, they introduced me into jazz’s serious nature.

Pianist Alexis Lombre thickened and detailed the ensemble’s blend (she’s going to appear solo and with her trio at the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s upcoming Gala — she’s emerged from the JIC’s Links program). Baritone saxophonist Dudley Owens called up phrases from the deep, his bandmates answering with contrapuntal riffs which Dawkins brought to focused climaxes. Tenor saxophonist Kenneth Lethridge burst out from the ensemble irrepressibly on a hot, bold arrangement of the evergreen “Summertime.”

A story teller called Shake-A-Leg spoke then, chillingly, of the first atom bomb’s charge — and the players went down front to propound on congas and barrel drums.

Ernest Dawkins and Mark Ruffin

They knew and summoned ancient, timeless rhythms. We could have been in New Orleans, Havana or Lagos — as everywhere, these beats stirred anyone alive to move. (My photojournalist pal Marc PoKempner adds he was quite disturbed that his so-called colleagues mobbed the troupe for shots, oblivious to blocking the audience’s views.)

Next, Maestro Dawkins presented Sirius/XM jazz director and producer Mark Ruffin and me with engraved plaques, hailing our “inspiration and many contributions to jazz in all its forms.” (trumpeter Orbert Davis, on the road, was also so honored). I’ve received Awards before and have helped present many, but was unusually touched.

Howard Mandel and the Spirit of Jazz Award; photo by Dennis McDonough

Mark and I are nearly Englewood home-boys. His parents ran a record store, where he worked as a kid, in an adjacent neighborhood. I grew up about 3 miles due east, absorbing the spirit of our city and nation’s music from the radio, tv, my parents’ records, my friends and sounds of the streets. Ruffin and I have known each other for decades — he credits me with giving him his first paying job in radio, producing a half-hour interview with needle drop of pianist Judy Roberts for Jazz Chicago, a series I co-produced with JoAnn Kawell circa 1979 under Jazz Institute auspices, aired on WBEZ.

He has since then racked up extensive experience in jazz radio, print journalism and presentation — he was an emcee of the Chicago Jazz Festival this year, and he’s produced Grammy-nominated albums. Orbert Davis, you should know, is the co-founder and director of the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, with extensive educational and performance activities including collaborations with musicians in Cuba. I’m doing what I do — writing this blog, liner notes, articles, working on books, stoking the Jazz Journalists Association, hearing music, reading about it, fiddling with it, serving as a board member of the Jazz Institute of Chicago.

As Ernest Dawkins and the rest of the musicians know, and so do such as PoKempner,  Ms. Kawell, Hot House curator Marguerite Horberg,

information technologies innovator Ivan Handler, photogs Dennis McDonough and Kent Richmond, writer Davis Whiteis, among my friends who were attendance, and also the JIC board members there, some of them involved with the Hyde Park Jazz Society and the Hyde Park Jazz Festival Sept 23 & 24, as well as all the other good folk who turned out at Hamilton Park, the spirit of jazz is infectious, demanding and self-renewing. You catch it and it catches you; it carries you along, we’re happily swept away, and here we are: Englewood.

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Great new jazz photography #2: Lauren Deutsch’s Made in Chicago portfolio

Occidental Bros Dance Band International: Nathaniel Braddock, guitar; Makaya McCraven, drums, Joshua Ramos, bass, Greg Ward, alto sax.

“Made in Chicago” is true of the photography of Lauren Deutsch, and also the name of the four-day-long collaborative jazz festival she’s organized in Poznan, Poland for the past 12 years as artistic director (formerly with Wojceich Juszcsak) on behalf of the Jazz Institute of Chicago. The theme of this year’s fest was “Freedom.”

The photos here of Chicago-based musicians (click to enlarge), in which Deutsch tries to capture the sound of the music through camera movement, were taken in May 2017.

Alto saxophonist Greg Ward

Singers Dee Alexander and Grazyna Auguscik, first time working together  as Let Freedom Sing: Love and Freedom to the Ends of the Earth

Ben LaMar Gay, cornetist

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Howard Mandel

I'm a Chicago-born (and after 32 years in NYC, recently repatriated) writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, consultant and nascent videographer -- a veteran freelance journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere, consulting on media, publishing and jazz-related issues. I'm president of the Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit membership organization devoted to using all media to disseminate news and views about all kinds of jazz.
My books are Future Jazz (Oxford U Press, 1999) and Miles Ornette Cecil - Jazz Beyond Jazz (Routledge, 2008). I was general editor of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues (Flame Tree 2005/Billboard Books 2006). Of course I'm working on something new. . . Read More…

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