Ernest Dawkins

Jazz community upends Englewood’s bad rep

September 20, 2017 by Howard Mandel

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...]

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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ESP Disks — origins of jazz beyond jazz

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